George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, Illus. by Harmony Becker
PositiveForth & SycamoreSuch an abhorrent event would be difficult enough in the abstract, but it becomes unavoidably distressing in this well-illustrated graphic memoir. We don’t have to imagine the setting, the family, and the oppressive national context. We can see it and we can’t turn away ... Takei moves with fluidity from this unstable environment to his later TED talk about its horrors ... Takei delicately straddles the line between the outrageous treatment remembered by his adult self, and his more benign childhood subjective experience ... When Takei drifts from his own experiences, the emotional volume drops, giving the reader perhaps an unwanted emotional break ... Attempting to chronicle the entire Japanese-American World War II experience is too ambitious for this slim graphic volume and occasionally detracts from its intensity ... at the end, it’s all too messy – too much information in too short a graphic space. We \'hear\' [Takei\'s] commentary, without feeling it. Perhaps there were too many authors and not enough editors ... Despite its shortcomings, the book works effectively as a graphic memoir and is a worthwhile, if heartbreaking, story for readers of all ages. It’s a reminder of what happens when fear and hate consume a nation, misdirected toward a specific minority.
Brian Jay Jones
PositiveFourth & SycamoreThis biography is a long, detailed work, brimming with Geisel’s relentless creativity but, because he also wrote about himself, Geisel-the-man is on display here, too. In fact, until the last two-thirds of the book, he seems to resemble his characters—witty, charming, loyal and principled ... One of the more riveting sections of the book is a jittery description about growing up in a family of German immigrants in a small Midwest community during World War II ... Jones gets swept up in Geisel’s dazzling, indefatigable success, veering away from his more poignant personal story ... Jones’ book about Geisel is well-researched and of interest even to those not enchanted by Dr. Seuss and the hordes of characters Geisel created. Jones explores a vibrant life of aggressive creative striving, and, almost incidentally, a man more comfortable behind his fictional animals than he was dealing with his own psychic pain.
James Geary
PanFourth & Sycamore\"In the many essays that comprise Wit’s End, however, it’s unclear whether Geary wants to entertain or to inform ... The thin veneer of conceit within these pages tends to distract from the vast amount of information [Geary] offers, generating literary whiplash ... At the end, the reader may feel as if she has wandered into a disorganized, but occasionally amusing, bookish buffet. There are a multitude of wit-identified choices but the proportions of the selections seem off. It won’t take many pages to speculate that the underlying agenda may be to demonstrate the irresistible and cultured badinage of the author, himself ... Wit’s End is a cross between a college lecture and a stand-up routine. The reader has to wade through a lot of tall corn for a laugh or two. In this rambling journey from Greek mythology, to the Talmud, to jazz, less might have been better.\
