Maus I and II

I read Maus I for English 110 and I remember not really liking the idea of a graphic novel, but I did like the cleverness in the choices of animals as characters. After re-reading the book and reading the second, I decided they were the only graphic novels I have ever read that I can say I somewhat enjoyed. I've always been interested in WWII and I think these are authentic yet creative and appropriate for younger audiences. These stories are both factual and emotional. Most WWII literature is emotional by default because whether you're reading a textbook or a novel you are still reading about people being killed for who they are, which is an emotional subject. Some novels, however, may not seem as factual because they are fictional stories about survivors or are "based on true stories" about WWII. Art Spiegelman does a great job of including enough facts about the war and showing us how the war not only affected the survivors, but also their families who weren't even around at the time (such as Art).
I would love to have both of these in my classroom library. I think kids who enjoy graphic novels could really learn something from these. If I were to teach a unit on WWII literature I would probably use this as a small group novel. Students would be engaged by the cleverness of the animals and also by the reality and truth of the story. Some might think it is a bit inappropriate to make a graphic novel about the Holocaust, but I think these are also tasteful novels. Spiegelman uses black and white instead of color which I think depicts the dark emotions in the novel. Although all the characters are animals, he keeps it consistent. No race is represented by a person, every race is a different animal. I think this is significant and I would consider asking students to write about why Spiegelman chose the animals he did for the different races and how the book would have been different if he had used people.