An appealing way to make sure the past isn’t forgotten, and a reminder of how ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things.
Feature image credit: Allen & Unwin
With more than two decades’ worth of illustration experience behind her, and having illustrated 15 picture books for kids, author Maria van Lieshout has released her first graphic novel, Song of a Blackbird.
Although it’s aimed at teens, I found this book enticing. There are two storylines at play here, 70 years apart. The novel starts in the modern day and is about Annick, whose ill grandmother needs a bone marrow donor, pushing her to delve into her past. That past takes us readers back to 1943, during the war, when student Emma joins the Dutch Resistance in Amsterdam. The two stories are connected through ancestry, lightly touching upon the concept of intergenerational trauma.
While the serious history and the magnitude of the Holocaust are not downplayed, it is written in such a superhero-styled way (well, let’s face it: They were superheroes) that it draws you in with its storyline. In doing so, it asks you to remember the past and shows how resistance was carried out in the pre-technology era. Perhaps this compelling novel can encourage people to reflect on the war and think more deeply about today’s conflicts around the world.
The characters are developed so subtly that you don’t even notice how gently everything unfolds, and it isn’t until the end, when you step back from the story, that you realise how heroic yet also how human they really are. The artwork throughout, along with the section at the end featuring the real people and their photos, deepens that effect.
The use of minimal colours makes it stand out: light red jackets for the past, and gentle tones like mustard yellow and pastel green throughout. (I may have mislabelled the colours, but they are soft and inviting, not flashy). The restrained palette enhances the book’s quiet power.
I remember reading The Diary of Anne Frank in my youth, which spurred me to explore more about the history, and I feel like this book has a similar feel in that it’s completely relatable but also completely not. As the younger generations are less connected to the history and sheer devastation of the past, stories like this matter as we can’t let them fade away with the passing of a generation.
Reviewed by Rebecca Wu
The views expressed in this review belong to the author and not Glam Adelaide, its affiliates, or employees.
Distributed by: Allen & Unwin
Released: March 2025
RRP: $26.99
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