Banned Books Week: Graphic Novels

Last year, the American Library Association, along with the Banned Books Week planning committee, announced that Banned Books Week 2014 would have a thematic focus on comics and graphic novels. Even though we are now in Banned Books Week 2015, it is still important to focus on graphic novels and the censorship that happens to them because they are often clouded in an aura of mystery by those who don’t understand and those that don’t read them.

Some of you may be wondering what the difference is between a comic book and a graphic novel. I encourage you to think of a graphic novel as a format and not a genre, meaning that graphic novels encompass the same thing that the format of a book does, but just in a different format. A very simplified definition of a graphic novel can be found at the Get Graphic website where they say that graphic novels can be of any genre for any audience, but with all to most of the comic being done with pictures. Graphic novels can be fantasy, romance, horror, westerns, superheroes, fiction, non-fiction, and anything else you could possibly think of as a genre. Some people may like to interchange the phrase “comic book” for graphic novels, but that can conjure up the image of superheroes. Let’s just stay simple. Graphic novel = format.


Now that the description has been given, let’s delve into the fun part: figuring out what graphic novels have been banned and for what reasons. Every year, the American Library Association, also known as the ALA, releases a list of the top ten most frequently challenged books for that year. Further down on that page, there are more lists of banned books and the reasons why they are banned. (Check out this list put out by the CBLDF for Banned Books Week 2015 that lists 12 Challenged & Banned YA Graphic Novels.) In these descriptions, you will find references to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the CBLDF, a non-profit organization that posts cases on their website of comic books that have been challenged, censored, banned, etc.


the complete maus

In Maus, Art Spiegelman writes about the struggles of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s regime, and his son, a cartoonist who is struggling to work with the story of his aging father. Going on around the backdrop of guilt and survival are also the things that happen in normal day-to-day life: the stories of unhappiness, routine, and squabbles that we all live through. In one part, the son is interviewing his dad about his experiences. In another part, Spiegelman is interpreting his father’s life as a graphic novel, which each different race being depicted as a different animal. This Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel has been challenged for being “anti-ethnic” and “unsuitable for younger readers”. It has also been removed from shelves in foreign countries for having a Nazi swastika on the cover.


captain underpantsThe Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey is a frequently banned/challenged series(the cover shown being the first in the series), so much so that it is number 13 on the top 100 list of banned/challenged books for 2000-2009. It has even been number 1 on the top 10 lists for many years. It is often challenged and/or banned for offensive language, anti-family content, sexually explicit, violence, or being unsuited for age group. In this book, Harold and George often get into hijinks that include turning their principal, Mr. Krupp, into Captain Underpants, so that he can defeat some kind of nefarious evil-doer that has descended upon the school. In case you are wondering why this book is featured on the graphic novel list, this book is filled with pictures and the boys are also working on their own comic strip, which sometimes takes up chunks of the book.


boneJeff Smith created Bone, a series of graphic novels, which, in the first of the series shown to the left, chronicles the lifes of three Bone cousins, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone after they are run out of Boneville, their home, and are forced to find their way in a desert and then a subsequent valley. Smith spins humor, mystery, and adventure together into this story that people who have left home for the first time, people reminiscing, and especially kids will relate to as the Bones realize that everything now around them is totally different, overwhelming, and, of course, strange. The Bone series found itself on the top 10 list of frequently challenged books in 2013 for the following reasons: “political viewpoint, racism, and violence”.


dramaRaina Telgemeier has written many graphic novels that center around this age, but the one that causes the most issues in terms of banning and challenging is Drama. In this graphic novel, Callie, the main character, loves theater, but to her chagrin, she can’t sing. She is made set designer for this year’s production and has decided that this set for her middle school’s production of Moon over Mississippi is going to look amazing! As she is dealing with everything to do with the play, Callie also finds herself having to deal with the offstage and onstage drama generated by the actors that are chosen for the play. All around her relationships begin and end, while some fail to even start. This award-winning graphic novel was recently on the top ten list for 2014 for being “sexually explicit” and has also been challenged because of the inclusion of two gay characters.


stuck in the middleWhile the following book has yet to crack the top ten frequently challenged book lists, it has been pulled and challenged in libraries across the country. Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age is a collection put together from a wide variety of cartoonists detailing their own times in middle school. The point of this book is to show that while middle school and being thirteen is incredibly awkward and unpleasant, you will survive! The authors in this graphic novel are not afraid to deal with the nitty, gritty, uncomfortable topics that happen throughout middle school. This book has been pulled from two South Dakota middle schools and has been challenged in other towns as well for the following reasons: objectionable sexual, language, drug, and alcohol references. A few libraries allowed the book to be retained, but placed it in the professional collection, which requires students to obtain parental permission before they are allowed to check it out.


this one summerJillian and Mariko Tamiko created this New York times bestseller, Printz award Honor Book for excellence in young adult literature, and Caldecott Honor Book in 2014. This One Summer is about the story of Rose, whose family has vacationed at Awago Beach for as long as she can remember. There she is able to escape all of her troubles and truly slip into her refuge and summer getaway spot. Windy, her friend, is there as well, filling in as the little sister that Rose never had. Everything is perfect until this summer when Rose’s parents keep fighting, Rose notices that Windy is childish, and rose and Windy get things entangled in the drama of the older kids on the island. This graphic novel has been challenged for “age-inappropriate content”, an ultimate misinterpretation of the age requirements for the Caldecott Award, which is for books aimed at kids 14 and under, while This One Summer is aimed at kids 12+.


blanketsCraig Thompson wrote Blankets, a semi-autobiographical journey into his relationship with his brother, Phil, who he had to share a blanket with when he was younger, and his first girlfriend, Raina, who he also shared a blanket with. This graphic novel works to tell two entwined stories by flashing back to early experiences in Craig’s life while also pairing them with things that he is experiencing right now. This book dives into Craig’s upbringing in a religious family, how he handles his first love who he meets at a church camp, and also how he comes to terms with his religious beliefs as his life makes a whole bunch of changes. Raina’s family brings the added complication of Down Syndrome to their relationship while her parents are also dealing with a divorce. This book has been challenged because of allegedly obsence illustrations, depictions of sex and human body parts, inappropriate subject matter, and that the comic artwork would attract children who would then see the “pornographic” images.


the complete persepolisMarjane Satrapi wrote the award-winning graphic memoir, Persepolis, about her struggles growing up in Tehran. Marji spent most of her childhood growing up in a family not short on live during the Islamist Revolution. She quickly had to learn how to manage her private vs. her public life in Tehran. As her family encouraged her to speak her mind, she often landed in trouble, forcing her parents to ship her off to school in Austria. In Vienna, Marji dealt with her adolescence away from her family, only to return home to face both the good and the bad. In the end, she self-imposed an exile upon herself when she became a young adult. This graphic memoir was number 2 on the top ten list of 2014 and has been banned and challenged for many reasons: gambling, offensive language, political viewpoint, graphic depictions, and also politically, racially, and socially offensive.

Here are some news articles that talk about Persepolis being banned. Many more are out there as well.


fun home

Now we’ve arrived at the graphic novel that has been ripping up the headlines recently in terms of people trying to ban it. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is an autobiographical memoir that deals with Bechdel’s everyday life in an unnerving and darkly funny story about her family. Alison’s father, a man of many different talents and jobs, is a distant parent and a closeted homosexual. Alison yearns for her father, but as the stories or her brother and her running rampant through the “fun home,” also known as the funeral home, can attest, their relationship works through their sharing books. This book has been banned/challenged for LGBTQ themes and morality themes.


saga

 

 

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples is a sort of modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Alana, a winged soldier from planet Windfall, and Marko, a horned former prisoner of war from Landfall’s moon, are both on the run from their respective militaries. They escaped to give birth to their daughter, but now everyone wants them dead. Sheer luck seems to be the only way the family has survived and managed to escape into the galaxy. The Saga series is number 6 on the list of top ten most frequently challenged books of 2014 and was banned for the following reasons in 2014: anti-family, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.


 

killing jokeYou may be wondering why there aren’t any superhero graphic novels on this list. Let me introduce to you Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke with Brian Bolland as the illustrator. This graphic novel was released as a a stand-alone by DC Comics in 1988. In this graphic novel, Bolland depicts the Joker’s brutal torture of Jim Gordon and his daughter Barbara. The psychological and physical damage done upon Gordon and Barbara are illustrated perfectly in this graphic novel and prove to forever alter the continuity of DC’s Batman universe as the shooting of Barbara Gordon leaves her paralyzed and ultimately leads her to becoming the Oracle. Alan Moore has had many graphic novels challenged/banned and Batman: The Killing Joke followed for the following reasons: it “advocates rape and violence”.

McFarland, USA

mcfarland, usaHave you ever watched a movie where you instantly find yourself cheering for and hoping that the main characters win? I do. I’m a sucker for underdog movies and especially sports movies with underdogs as the main characters. I checked out McFarland, USA not realizing really what this movie was about, except there was running involved, Kevin Costner was in it, it was based on the 1987 true story, and was also a Disney movie.

In McFarland, USA, Kevin Costner stars as Jim White, coach of a football team in a predominantly white, influential, and affluent neighborhood, until he has a falling out with administration and is forced to move to the only place where he can find a job, at McFarland, a primarily Latino high school in an economically challenged town in the Central Valley of California, where farms can be found everywhere. Here, Jim and his family are forced to live on a teacher’s salary where he makes less than usual when he is forced to get creative to make a cross country team when 1) he loses his job as assistant football couch and 2) he notices that the students in his P.E. class do not have cars, are running from the fields to school to home, and that they don’t actually mind running in class. Running long distances is very easy to them, so he decides to create a cross country team, the first in McFarland’s history.

With a first-time cross country coach and a first-time team, they meet adversity and are forced to band together to show their families and community that they can win and are actually on the same playing level as the rest of the teams they are competing against. This description may sound cheesy and like the classic underdog story, but I encourage you to check this movie out, as the directors make sure to flesh out and give lives to all of the people in Jim’s life, the people in his players’ lives, and in the community all around them, making this movie entertaining no matter what character you find yourself relating to the most.

Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

signal to noise

Love. Friendship. Vinyl records. Music. And of course, magic. Moreno-Garcia has taken the everyday perils of teenage life and added in her own twist: magic found in vinyl records.

In Signal to Noise, readers are introduced to Meche, an awkward fifteen-year-old girl, who is friends with two other awkward fifteen-year-olds, Sebastian and Daniela, in 1988 Mexico City. As they slog and struggle through family and school, Meche soon discovers that in the vinyl records that are scattered throughout her house lies the possibility of magic. Soon the three are off searching record stores and Meche’s house for records that are either hot to the touch or give off a shock when touched. Meche is the one who shows a natural aptitude and ability for magic, something her grandmother both fears and acknowledges will happen as she too was blessed with the gift of magic at a young age, though she was not nearly as strong as her sisters. As Meche and her friends begin casting spells, they realize that this new magic will afford them the chance to become more popular and noticed, fix their broken families, find love, and become more confident with themselves. This use of magic comes with a price though.

Flash forward to Mexico City in 2009: Meche has come alone back to Mexico City for her estranged father’s funeral. Moreno-Garcia accomplishes the switch between 1988 and 2009 by alternating back and forth between the different time periods as the reader progresses. The difference between 1988 and 2009 leaves readers wondering what happened between Meche and her family, as well as what happened between Meche and her friends.

For those of you that are trying to wade your way into the realm of fantasy or those of you who are looking for a break from heavy fantasy, Moreno-Garcia helps these by tempering the amount of practiced magic in her book with stories of magic told by Meche’s grandmother about previous practicing witches and warlocks. The amount of fantasy within the book is also lessened by the fact that the friendships between the three teens dominate the majority of the book with magic being a thread that weaves its way throughout everything. This book worked for me as a good introduction into fantasy since the magic present within did not overwhelm me as I was reading.

The DUFF

duffKids in high school and even young adults in college think the problems they are going through are unique to just them and that the adults in their lives have no idea and can’t understand the problems that younger people are going through. As a result, kids seek solace in music, books, and movies where they find people going through the same problems that they face on a day-to-day basis. Funny story though: those books, movies, and music are written by adults, the very same people they thought were too different and didn’t understand them.

I found this same not-understanding,-but-understanding in The DUFFa movie about Bianca and her two friends, Jess and Casey. One day when she’s talking to Wesley, a boy that she grew up with, who also just happens to be her hot neighbor AND the captain of the football team, Wes drops the knowledge bomb on her that of the three people in her friend group, she is considered the DUFF, aka the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. To say that Bianca freaks out would be a slight understatement. The distance between Bianca and her mother seems to grow strongest at this point, but ultimately Bianca realizes that her mom can actually help her navigate through life. Bianca soon finds herself going through an altered version of the five stages of grief, which lead her to make some drastic decisions in her life, some of which include ending her friendships with Jess and Casey and enlisting Wes’s help to not be the DUFF anymore while also tutoring him in chemistry because he is on the verge of losing his scholarship, has already been kicked off the football team, and a trade needs to exist for them to help each other out. Add in a jealous ex-girlfriend, Madison, and a dreamy, guitar-playing, potential boyfriend named Toby, and Bianca soon winds up trying to find out who she actually is and eventually comes to the realization that we are all somebody’s DUFF and that is completely and totally alright.

Sounds like the plot to almost every young adult novel/movie out there, doesn’t it? I thought so. (Psstt: this novel is also available as a book, if you’re curious how close the movie follows the book like I am.) I noticed a theme running between this book and the slew of other young adult books that I have been reading recently(see my blog about Girl Online); the theme of be careful what you put online and also be careful what you do because someone out there somewhere is watching you and what you do could end up online and could drastically impact your life. (The younger crowd may be rolling their eyes right now, but all of us older people know that this is true.) In case you can’t tell by that theme, some things that Bianca does in this movie end up getting splashed all over social media, but in the end, she ends up using the ability to go viral to her advantage.

The message in this movie isn’t to not have fun, but instead to be confident and comfortable with yourself in order to find your true self and your true potential. I found this movie to be a sort of Mean Girls and John Tucker Must Die mash-up, but with enough original content that it can stand alone. Watch this movie and let me know what you thought in the comments!

Thor: God of Thunder

thor god of thunderRight around the release of any superhero movie, a lot of other merchandise related to that superhero begins hitting the market. Because I am not a pre-teen or teenager anymore and have decided that I need to start decorating like a proper adult (It’s sad, I know), buying superhero towels, sheets, and posters to decorate are no longer an option. You know what venue that does still leave open? Videogames! Because of this adulthood I have been thrust into, I have become a sucker for superhero videogames.

I recently went on a Thor binge again because of our recently ended superhero summer reading program. Confession: The movies, both Thor  and Thor: The Dark World, are not my favorite superhero movies, primarily because I love a lot of actiony fights in my movies and the first of a superhero’s movie or graphic novel usually always generates around his origin story, which can be tedious, to me. (This girl is not a fan of origin stories.)

What I found lacking in the Thor movies, I found in Thor: God of Thunder. This game is available in both the Xbox 360 and Wii formats. In this game, all of the action I was missing in the movies came alive. Here, I am able to heft Mjolnir, Thor’s massive hammer, and release all of his powers of wind, thunder, lightning, and storms to fight against 25-foot-tall, 12-ton weighing frost giants and trolls that were plaguing the Norse worlds during the Thor movie. Talk about awesome! There are a variety of combinations that you can release upon your enemies from hammer throws to melee combos to all of those storm powers that I mentioned previously. What I found interesting was that you could scale the giants! You could climb them using a grappling system and multiple points to try and find their weaknesses in order to defeat them. The game also allows you to collect runes in order to pick new powers and abilities and even upgrade your weapons.

Yes, this game is repetitious, but there’s really only so much variety you can do with frost giants and trolls. Those Norse worlds didn’t exactly have many different enemies to fight. It’s important to remember that this videogame was made to be a “movie tie-in,” so it was to be released around the time when the movie actually came out. Graphics and controls are not going to be as up-to-par as if they had taken the time and released this a while after the movie came out. I still enjoyed it and I’m hoping that fellow fans of Thor will enjoy this game too.


Want to check out some other cool Thor related items that the library has? Click on the pictures below to be directed to the Thor items(movies, graphic novels, etc.) in our catalog!

thor 1thor 2thor gnlady thorthor mi

Angry Birds Trilogy

angry birds trilogyFor those of you unaware, Angry Birds is a game that was released by Rovio in 2009 as an app downloadable on your smartphone or tablet. In this game, you use your finger as a slingshot to catapult angry different shaped birds at green pigs hiding within flimsy makeshift shelters. The less birds you use to knock down those shelters, and most importantly destroy the pigs, the more points you receive. Once the pigs are gone, you can advance a level, earning yourself achievements and even trophies. Said pigs seem to laugh at you if you fail a level, making defeating the game all the more important in your mind.

In 2012, Activision released the Angry Birds Trilogy, a videogame available across multiple platforms, that allowed people without smartphones or tablets to revel in the glory of wiping the smug look off those little pigs’ faces when you knocked down their structure and were finally able to advance a level. Angry Birds Trilogy brings together three different Angry Birds games: the original Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio for a total of 19 different episodes, which, to make each game different than the downloadable app, gives players an exclusive new level within each game.

Don’t have an Xbox 360? Never fear! This game is available on multiple different platforms accessible through the library’s catalog. Angry Birds Trilogy is available on the following platforms: PS3, Wii, WiiU, and 3DS. Be sure to click each link to find out at which library the game is located. As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the reference librarians.

Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg

girl onlineSitting at the reference desk affords me the best opportunities to figure out what the people who visit any of the three Davenport Public Libraries like to read. Reading selection catalogues is good for finding what reviewers think my patrons will like to read, but actually sitting at the desk and talking really gives me a solid idea about what our patrons want to see on the shelves.

My newest reference desk plug comes from a string of junior high and high school girls who, within the span of two to three days, all requested one book: Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg. This book can be found in the young adult section and while that alone might throw some of you off and also send some of you wondering why there is a young adult review on this blog, let me tell you that while there are themes of first love and heartbreak and friendship within this book, there are also adult themes that I found resonated with me, even though I had to venture into teen land to find it. So let me tell you this: Instead of “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” maybe we should switch that handy motto to “Don’t judge a book by its call number”.

Girl Online: the first novel by Zoella by Zoe Sugg chronicles a short bit in the life of Penny, the girl behind the popular blog, GirlOnline, an anonymous blog that she runs online after she finds out that it is easier to share her real life and real feelings online than it is to face ridicule with everyone she knows in real life, or maybe a better way to word what she is doing online is to say that she is unsure whether or not others are feeling the same way as she is, so she posts her feelings and interactions only to be surprised that there are other people out there who feel the same way as she does. Penny, who is suffering from panic attacks after going through an accident with her parents, is supported through her online escapades and real life encounters by her best friend, Elliott, a gay boy struggling to get his parents to understand his homosexuality who lives right next to Penny and is able to knock on her wall with a secret code to let her know that he wants to come over and visit.

Well, Penny’s parents just happen to own a wedding planning business and, more specifically, a wedding dress store where they specialize in designing somewhat off-the-wall and different weddings. As the plot rolls on, Penny and her parents, Elliott included, are invited to New York to help plan a Downton Abbey themed wedding just around Christmas time. Could anything be more perfect?! Of course because this is a young adult novel!!! Once there, Penny meets Noah, a gorgeous, guitar-strumming, tall eighteen-year-old boy who just happens to be the grandson of the chef for the wedding. This. Is. Awesome. They travel around New York together and have picnics together on a roof top and just when you think they are going to be parted, Penny’s mom gets asked to design another party, which means they get to stay together for a whole other week! Sweet!! Penny and Noah fall in deep like, but alarm bells kept going off in my head because it seemed like Noah had a secret too. Can’t spoil everything for you. Read the book and let me know when your alarm bells start going off. Mine were right when they met. (And all the while, Penny is blogging about her encounters in New York, anonymously of course). Anyway, Penny comes home and THINGS BLOW UP! Not actual bombs and stuff, but metaphorical “her life is over because she’s a teenager and no one else will love her”. Sugg’s writing was so good in this part, I actually could not put the book down and read it all the way through breakfast.

The reason why I am blogging about this book is because it shows people just what happens when you put your life all over social media. The consequences, the interactions between your real and online life, and the inevitable collision between the two are what really makes Sugg’s writing shine in this novel. Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella, is a vlogger, someone who, like bloggers, posts videos online to diary and document what is happening in their lives. Sugg does this through her YouTube channel. If you visit the about page on her YouTube channel, there are multiple links to her other various social media platforms. She is a social media QUEEN, winning awards and such for her presence online!

We Sing 80s

we sing 80sI love karaoke, but I’m not fond of the whole “getting up in front of other people and embarrassing yourself” part of karaoke. Let’s be honest: when you go to do karaoke, you’re stuck in front of people in a semi-awkward situation, and unless those people are all your relatives or you are a professional singer in disguise, you’re going to be nervous. Conquering these nerves can be accomplished through practice. A new way to practice, besides spending money on lessons or singing in the car or around the house, is to play a singing videogame. My favorites are the ones similar to Rock Band that show you note length and highlight varying changes in pitch, so you’re essentially learning the songs without having to pay for sheet music.

Some of the most popular songs to play on karaoke nights are songs that almost everyone in the audience is familiar with. I have noticed that songs from the 1980s seem to be picked a lot, so I was excited when I found We Sing 80s, a videogame available for the Wii, that provides players with 30 of the biggest songs of the ’80s (21 worldwide No. 1 hits!) along with their music videos for the ultimate 80s experience. Players will be able to play three different modes, from solo to party to karaoke with up to four people jamming together. If you’re unsure how a song goes, you can even take singing lessons and figure out how to add different effects to your voice. You can also change the level of difficulty to make everyone comfortable. So grab your friends and get ready to rock out to a night of Queen, Culture Club, Tears for Fears, Cyndi Lauper, and many more.

Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now Edited by Ann Imig

listen to your motherAs most children will tell you, the phrase “Listen to your mother” is something that you hear from a young age to even adulthood. After all, mother knows best. But how do all those mothers seem to magically know about all those mothering tricks? Read this book to find out. Ann Imig has brought together a wide variety of essays in her book, Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now that draws opinions and experiences of motherhood and, more widely, from parenthood in general from the point of view of children, parents, and grandparents.

The title of this book may be “Listen to Your Mother,” but the views presented within this collection range from surrogacy to LGBTQ parenting to adoption to first-time moms to being empty nesters to special-needs parenting and many, many others. Some stories are heart-breaking, some are happy, while others still seem to be a mixture of both. Imig and the writers are voicing their tales of motherhood, the ones that they feel are uniquely their own, but have come to realize that the underlying tales of family are relatable across age, race, and family type. One son speaks of how he was raised by two mothers, two men discuss how it is to raise their children without a mother, while another discusses how her mother raised her to be strong and independent and how she hopes to raise her daughter the same way. Check out this book to read the hilarious and intriguing stories presented within.

Some of the essays in this book have come from the Listen to Your Mother movement, a speaker series with a Youtube Channel and a website put together by Imig with the mission to support motherhood by giving voice to motherhood and celebrating the diversity present within motherhood by live, original reading performed onstage.

The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers by Nicholas Irving with Gary Brozek

the reaper

With the release of American Sniper(both as a book and movie), there has been an increase both in requests for military nonfiction and in new releases of books available to the public. We have many available for check out at the library! My newest military nonfiction read was The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers. Just like any specialized nonfiction book, be they medical, military, science, or sports, I approached this one with caution as I was expecting to be hit almost immediately with acronyms and terminology specific to the military that can be overwhelming to civilians. Irving does a fairly decent job of explaining what each acronym means, which I found to be a relief.

In this book, Nicholas Irving details for readers the many operations that he went on as a sniper that allowed him to garner 33 confirmed kills, while also spreading in details about his life and just how he eventually became the 3rd Ranger Battalion’s deadliest sniper. Irving focuses mostly on his deployment to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, where he gathered the majority of the kills that earned him the nickname, the Reaper.

What I found most interesting in this book were the descriptions that Irving laid out about just what the entire unit went through during those specialized combat missions and how he was able to notice changes within himself as he became more comfortable with the job that he had to do. Among the revealing descriptions of their operations, readers gain a behind-the-scenes look into day-to-day life in the military, Irving’s life before he joined the military, and the lives of the many men and women that he interacted with on a day-to-day basis. I found this book to be an informative read that allowed me to catch just a tiny glimpse into the stories of combat and brotherhood that many special operations forces are going through during war.

Irving discusses everything from the decision to take a life to protect another, dealing with the loss of fellow soldiers during battle, and how the bonds of brotherhood within the military as a whole, his specific unit, and with the different people he came into contact with throughout his military career helped form the sniper that he became.


If you’re interested in other military nonfiction, check out the books below. Click on the covers to learn more information about the book and to place a hold on the item. If you are looking to walk the shelves, the Armed Forces fall around the Dewey number of 350, while specific battles or moments in history can be found in the 900s.

navy sealslone survivor bookseal team sixno easy daythe outpostblack hawk down