Maus I and Maus II

I choose to read both GN, Maus I and Maus II. The author's incorporation of history into a graphic novel was enthralling. His depictions are based off of his father's stories of his experiences in Poland during WWII. Throughout both GN, Spiegelman jumps from his fathers stories of the Holocaust to what his father is gowing through and how the internment camps have effected him. How his father collects garbage off the street because it could come to use. His mother ended up killing herself before he started his GN, so her stories were not incorperated.

Spiegelman used mice to represent the Jews during the Holocaust. The cats are the Nazis and the dogs are the Americans. I think the mice make you feel more sympathetic, and draws you in. He depicts everyday life during the war. Though, everyday life is a lot harder than now. He had to save his rations of food to get clothes or anything else he needed. He also had to know how to do everything, otherwise he'd go to the gast chambers. These GN were moving. Spiegelmen went between the his father's stories of WWII and his last days with his father (present time) in the last Maus. He also told of his hardships in writing the GN, and how it was a struggle to represent the struggles of the Holocaust in a new, yet still moving way.

I felt that though these GN were of a extremely paved road experience, that Spiegelmen, brought a new and interesting light to the holocaust. With his artwork, whiched used cute animals to depict an horrible experience combined with a first person narrative, he brought you to places you could only imagine in a novel. I'd recommend this for anyone interested in history.