Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. ( )

This looks to be getting shelved with general adult comics, but it has a lot of crossover appeal for teens. It does some cool things with imagery (particularly found the Jim Crow interpretation interesting), though the generic referral "the tribe" and the use of stereotypical pictographs as spoken language in the Bass Reeves section was a bit of a let down (to Gill's credit, at least there was some acknowledgment in the end notes about why he took this approach). ( )

This is beautifully illustrated and extremely readable. What I like about this is it features more well known stories, like that of Henry Box Brown with less well known stories like The Malaga of Maine. I would say this is appropriate for grade school aged children ( )

Strange Fruit, Volume I from Joel Christian Gill is a fun and easy way to begin to learn about some of the forgotten people in Black History and history in general. I have two issues with the book but they do not prevent me from happily recommending this book.

These stories are not meant to be comprehensive histories or biographies. These are introductions to overlooked and/or forgotten people. By keeping each story short Gill manages to make each one interesting for a wider portion of the readership. Had they been longer then the risk arises that someone who might find sports uninteresting, especially bicycling, might skip or skim that story. As brief stories they serve to highlight the main purpose of the book, which is to introduce to contemporary readers these "uncelebrated" figures. Now that we know them, we can find out more about the ones that most speak to our interests. Or we can search for more forgotten figures.

My first issue was the lack of any women. While I would have liked to see them, and feel an effort should have been made for inclusion, I also am willing to accept that this was titled Volume I, so there is room for improvement. Even without women the book serves its stated purpose, so while an important strike against it, it is one that can be (and indeed was) remedied in Volume II.

My second issue was with the portrayal of the indigenous peoples, namely the types of speech (which isn't actually speech) they were given. When one seeks to both shed light on past insensitivity and curb the still ongoing insensitivity toward one group, it would make sense not to show such insensitivity toward yet another group. The "explanation" offered is weak at best and a rationalization for simply not caring at worst.

I highly recommend this work for those interested in learning about figures from Black history in addition to the usual figures. This would also serve as a wonderful springboard for both classroom and home use to generate discussion and further research. It is written in a way that will engage adults as well as younger readers, and would make very good family reading material.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss. ( )

Joel Gill's Strange Fruit, vol. 1 is both a stunning work of art and a welcome history lesson, detailing the lives of nine forgotten men in African American history, including the first black chess master, the greatest lawman in the Old West, a slave who mailed himself to freedom in a box, and the first American stage magician.

I initially selected this title for an "Overlooked U.S. History" library display, and ended up checking it out to read myself. I also shared it, along with the intertwined, difficult and uncomfortable conversations, with my seven-year-old daughter. While it depicts the accounts of merely a handful of individuals, the graphic novel rendering humanizes each of the stories, giving these remarkable men a more fully fleshed-out life and personality than would the more simple medium of plain text on paper. I look forward to the release of volume 2, and likewise hoping to see some women represented. ( )