Hidden : Comics Kids Review
Hidden is a graphic novel first published in France, available in here since April thanks to the publisher First Second. This fictional work is the creation of Loïc Dauvillier a French comics writer, Marc Lizano an illustrator, and the colorist Greg Salsedo. This comic won a dozen awards in France, one from the prestigious Angoulême Comic Festival.
One night Elsa wakes up and catches her grandma awake in the living room. Dounia, her grandmother will tell her a story that she even never told to her own son. We are now back in Paris in 1942 and follow Dounia who is the same age as her granddaughter, approximately six. It’s the war, France just lost and is now divided between the Vichy regime and the German occupation. Dounia and her family are Jews and they discover the new rules that apply to them, such as wearing the Star of David.
The whole book is about the horror of being separated. But what’s really impressive and rare in this book is the fluidity, simplicity, and how pleasant and funny the reading is, and at the same time how serious the subject is. I would say it’s not just a war story, it’s also about relationships, humanity, hope and love.
The art is very sweet with beautiful colors and shadows, in coordination with the story, which make a very poetic book. Also with the art you get an historical view of Paris in the forties, in a lot of detail, like the old signs in French on the buildings.
I found an interview of Loïc Dauvillier and Marc Lizano in Coin BD a French website about Comics. To begin with they were explaining how the work and research behind the book is important. All the historical details in the story or art have been checked. Also, they have actually met and exchanged with a person who hid as a child during the war. Moreover, the creators have read a lot, watched documentaries and movies about the subject. For them the image of being separated from parents is a good representation of the horror of the war. All the parts about death or torture can be explained later with the learning of history, and readings such as Primo Levi. Also the creators point out that there exists a lot of graphic novels about war for adults but very few in children’s comics. Which is very curious, we can find all sorts of subjects in children’s literature, but that’s not the case in comics. Finally the author expresses his wish that the reading of Hidden creates interaction between children and adults about it, but this is a reader’s responsibility to make it become intergenerational. The creators believe you can talk about serious and terrible things to kids as long as you show humanity, compassion and heart.
Thus this book is first dedicated to children but will speak a lot to adults too. They will have a totally different reading and see a lot in the intentional blanks left by the author (blank which adults can decide to fill however they want when reading the story with a child). Also the very interesting part of this reading is children can really get an idea of how it was to be a child during World War II. In fact, the story takes a child’s point of view and it makes a real difference.
For me, the most important about Hidden is how it shows hope. It also reminds me that despite the situation and the risks a lot of Jewish children that were hidden and saved thanks to neighbours and regular people as well as members of the resistance.
This is also part of the duty to remember, which is extremely important to teach to future generations. This story is made for thousands of people who never got a chance to tell their own stories. Now we are in this transition time where the “living memories” of World War II are fewer and fewer. I wish I had asked my own grandparents more, and also had the chance to go behind the stories they were willing to relate to me.
“Like Dounia, eighty-four percent of the Jewish children living In France before the Holocaust were saved. They owe their survival to their loved ones and friends, to Jewish organizations, to the Resistance networks, and to all those who rejected racism and hatred of those who are different.
We hope tha Douania’s story will inspire young people to fight against injustice and abuse of power and keep alive a spirit of resistance, so that our world will never again see a holocaust like the one that led to the murder of 11, 400 French children during the Second World War.”
~Hellen Kaufmann, APJN association
- Clémentine Baudet