Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, by Fumiyo Kouno

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, by Fumiyo Kouno, 104 pages

Wow, this is a beautifully told and drawn graphic novel, comprised of interconnected stories.  Life went on after the bombing of Hiroshima, but it was forever affected and altered. The stories within are those of commoners who find their loved ones dying young from radiation, who meet discrimination for being potentially exposed to the bomb, and who have to come to terms with having been spared by the bomb when their families weren’t.  Life and love go on.  It’s far more subtle than the classic Barefoot Gen, but perhaps even more compelling.   

Barefoot Gen, Volume One: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, by Keiji Nakazawa

Barefoot Gen, A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima (Volume One), by Keiji Nakazawa, 288 pages

This is the first volume of 10 in the Barefoot Gen series of manga.  Young Gen lives in Hiroshima in 1945, with his four siblings, father, and pregnant mother.  This first volume concerns the months leading up to the bombing of August 6, and gives an insightful look into what it was like living in Japan during the war.  Gen's family is taunted and ostracized for his father's outspoken opposition to the war and starvation is a daily reality; Nakazawa illustrates such scenes as a fight between Gen and his brother over a single grain of rice.  Fans of Spiegelman's Maus might enjoy this book- it is non-fiction, concerns a grave historical period, and really tugs at the reader's emotions.  Like watching Titanic, you start reading this book knowing that it can't end happily.  The whole read is gripping, all the way through to the very chilling ending.