"Irena Book One: Wartime Ghetto" by Jean-David Morvan is a poignant graphic novel that brings to life the remarkable true story of Irena Sendlerowa, a social worker during the German occupation of the Warsaw ghetto. Her courage and determination saved the lives of 2500 Jewish children by smuggling them to safety, defying the horrors of the Holocaust.

The book skillfully portrays the harrowing events and Irena's heroic actions, making it an emotional and moving read. It serves as a powerful reminder of the resilience and compassion displayed by ordinary people during one of history's darkest times.

This graphic novel was hilarious and well-drawn, definitely worth the money and the hype, and I hope will be successful!

An amazing story of an unknown heroine. During WWII, Irena Sendlerowa smuggled 2500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto. This is a story that should be remembered and honored. The images and color use in. this graphic novel do a great job of picturing the uncertainty and terror of the time and place. Strongly recommended.

As a Holocaust researcher for Yad Vashem, I fell in love with this book and would highly recommend it to everyone. I work from home, so my children have an idea of what I do, but they are unaware of the details. When I feel they are ready, this book and the one's following it, will be a great starting place.

If you were just to look at the illustrations of this book and not the story, you might think it will be a happy tale. The illustrations are reminiscent of Charles Schultz and Ziggy. That soft rounded style of cartoon characters, but inside the pages it holds a sad and heartfelt story about a woman who helped rescue kids from the Ghettos of Poland during the war. While Irena was a real person, the tale is told as fiction because the authors admit that there are conflicting “facts” of her story. Either way this is an excellent read. It can fit in with books like Maux, The Diary of Anne Frank, and the Devil’s Arithmetic. It is approachable for any age of reader, and extremely well done.

Irena is the story of a Polish social worker in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. After seeing the abhorrent conditions the Jews were living in, she creates a network to smuggle children out, ultimately saving over 2,500 children. The book is full of tension filled scenes as the children are smuggled across Nazi checkpoints in various ways. The Peanuts style artwork was a bit odd at first but it worked as a sharp contrast to some of the brutal scenes portrayed. All in all, this was very good.

'Irena Book One: Wartime Ghetto' by Jean-David Morvan and Severine Trefouel with art by David Evrard is story based on truth about Irena Sedlerowa, a social worker in the Warsaw Ghetto in the early 1940s.

Irena Sendlerowa was a social worker in one of the worst possible places. She tried to battle disease and hunger. When a dying mother gives Irena her son, Irena is not sure what to do. When the child dies, she knows she must do something. She joins a network of people dedicated to smuggling children out of the Warsaw Ghetto. They use ingenious methods, like giving the children doses of alcohol to keep them quiet and smuggling them out in trucks full of bricks. Irena gives them new names, but keeps track of their old ones to give back to them some day. Because of her actions, she was imprisoned and tortured, but managed to save around 2500 Jewish children.

I really liked this story of someone who decides they can't just sit by, and how that ripples into the kind of numbers that were achieved. The art is really good too, but it's a bit cartoonish looking. It makes it a bit odd to see this character being tortured pretty brutally, but I like the art and the color scheme used.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Lion Forge, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was really moving, I felt in love so hard for the protagonist, I wish I could be her friend...
though the theme is really hard to read about, it is really important...

I have heard a lot about this book and was interested in reading it because of the subject matter and the use of a graphic novel format. I wasn't disappointed. I found that the author and artist did a very good job of presenting the story of a woman who did what she felt she needed to do to help children and families during the war, despite all of the risks. She was a brave, strong woman. This book doesn't shy away from the moments when she was worried about her decision and the brutality she witnessed and experienced. I did find a few parts a bit disjointed in the way they were presented in the book, but overall, the story moved well and the flash forward and back integrated without too much jarring.

The panels used colour well to convey the bleakness around Irena, contrasting it with her dreams and escapism which were full colour and often introduced colours the absent from the rest of the book.

I'm not sure what age I would recommend this book to. Definitely not younger children because the subject matter is pretty mature and some of the panels do show the brutalities of the time. Maybe a pre-teen and up audience.

I will definitely be buying this for my children and following the series.

”Irena“ was an interesting graphic novel with great illustrations and I can only recommend reading it.

<i>Irena </i>by Jean-David Morvan and Severine Trefouel was definitely a rough book to read through, though the hardest parts were definitely more toward the end. A graphic novel detailing one woman's determined and exemplary efforts to get children out of concentration camps and to safety during the time of WWII, <i>Irena </i>is one of the most amazing stories from the history of this world. More amazing than all those generals we always hear about and the acts of war that were fought, often because one side didn't agree with the other, this is the story of a woman who saw something that was wrong and immoral and did everything she could to stop it.

There are a lot of dark themes to this book, which isn't surprising given what it is written about. I found myself horrified and dejected at times whilst reading. And then at other times, the amazing work of Irena Sendlerowa and her colleagues was incredibly uplifting. And it really does an amazing job of driving home an important message: while the rest of the world might be sending you into despair and hatred for the human race, people like Irena give you a little bit of that hope you lost back. Those who, despite the odds and risk to themselves, will never stop fighting for what is right.

I do often get sick of how many WWII stories end up getting published. This is not because I have a problem with them or because I think there should be less, but because sometimes you can feel like it's just the same story written by a different author. And honestly, the sheer number can be kind of annoying. But in the case of <i>Irena</i>, this is a story that needs to be told and one that I read gladly. I'd gladly read it again.

I can also see this book being great for younger teen readers, those who aren't quite old enough to read some of the more difficult texts, but who are interested in history and should be made aware of the horrors of this time. This is one of those books that really gets to you, and while you're left feeling heartbroken at points, at least you'll know in the end that there are still good people left in the world even during the worst of times.

<i>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

| <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/SPasciuti_">Twitter</a> | <a href="spasciuti.com">Reader Fox Blog</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/spasciuti/">Instagram</a> |

The illustrations were great! It took me a while to read the story because I wanted to study the graphics. The story itself was inspiring. I think, overall, this book was great. I enjoyed reading it and will recommend this graphic novel to others. The story itself needs to be told to others. I liked the history pages mixed in as well and the excerpt about the main characters background.

Review to come in August on my blog and Goodreads.

I received this graphic novel from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

I have been interested in WWII stories since I was a little kid, so of course I had to request this graphic novel when I spotted it on Netgalley. A story about a woman who helps out in the ghetto and then decides to also help with saving kids. Holy wow, yes.

The story starts at the very beginning. We see Irena go to the ghetto, a terrible and horrible place, see her hand out food, talk to people, and then especially talk to the woman of a little boy. She is dying and she wants her son out of this horrible place. The wheels are now turning and we see Irena try to figure out if she should do this or not. Because believe me this is a decision that could impact not only her and the children... but also her work people. Everyone who read WWII stories know that not just the person doing the deeds is captured, it is often also people surrounding them. I loved that the author/illustrator showed the many emotions that went through Irena, see her try to figure out things.

I have to say I was definitely shocked by that event that happened just a bit after Irena made her decision. Poor kid. :(

I wasn't sure how I felt about the future/torture/capture scenes, or at least how they were placed. While they do provide some information on Irena, at least the first did, I had just expected these parts to come at the ending, not in the middle of the story. It caused a disconnect for me. I am guessing this is meant to be her recollection while in captivity? At least that is how it felt after a couple of these scenes.
Eventually the story gets to the point of her capture and we see her still without wounds on the table. Poor Irena. :( You know what is going to happen, you know she will be in pain for a long time.

We see who are also helping with this mission to save children, because you definitely need more people to trust and who can provide help. One person can only do so much, and I was happy that she found so many people to trust and who were all eager to help out with her mission. I loved how she ended her list of people with her mom (who was standing next to a picture of her husband and daughter which was a nice touch).

Seeing the ways they were saving the kids brought tears to my eyes. These people are truly thinking of any way to bring kids outside of the ghetto. She even hid one in a toolbox!

I was delighted to see Janusz Korczak pop up in the story. Given the date on the name card for the baby in the previous pages this was right before his death. :(

We also read of other gruesome things happening, like the story of Anton the driver whose cousin was forced to dig a mass grave and watch how people got murdered.

The ending, oh my gosh, I was just crying tears. That was absolutely gorgeously drawn, though it did make me feel like she died. But we all know she lived to be very old (or at least that is what the internet is telling me).

The art was pretty great, it reminds me of another comic/graphic novel but I just can't get the name out.

I would recommend this one to everyone. Be warned you will cry your eyes out.

I've been fascinated by Irena Sendlerowa since I first learned about her awhile back. It's hard not to be fascinated by a woman who would risk so much. It's hard not to be fascinated by someone who had the courage to use her role to save thousands of lives. Sendlerowa deserves to have her story told, and the world deserves to know it. The authors here have done an admirable job of ensuring that we are able to learn more about a woman whose legacy is not nearly as in the open as it should be.

The writing style is straightforward and crisp, presenting the facts of the time, as well as what the authors were able to learn of Sendlerowa's story. This fictionalised account stays as close to the truth as it can manage, which I deeply appreciated. Sometimes the story was briefer than I hoped or the flashforwards and flashbacks were a bit quick for my brain to process (a cold is slowing me down at the moment), but overall the writing is just what I had hoped for. The art style suited the storytelling, and it managed to be emotional without being... too graphic, I suppose? It would have been easy to fall into the realm of sensationalism, and the artist and writers steered clear of that.

Anyone looking to read more stories about Irena Sendlerowa has definitely come to the right place, and I recommend that everyone learn her story. I will certainly keep this book in mind as a learning tool for friends. I also look forward to reading the second book about her.

*thank you to Netgalley and Diamond Book Distributors for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

4 stars.

Wow. This is such a moving and powerful story of the courage and bravery of one woman during the war. Do not think for a moment that because this is a graphic novel that it's going to be an easy read. Like all War stories, it is just as much a strong read as any other. The illustrations are vivid and don't leave anything out. The truth gets told and shown and it's not a book I would give to a child to read. It can be gut wrenching and heart breaking. There are no boundaries and it's easy to forget that this actually happens, that this is a true story because it's so brutal you don't want to believe it was really that bad.

The courage and bravery of Irena is truly inspiring. She did what alot of people would call the impossible. It is because of people like her that truly allow us to believe that there is good in this world and that impossible things can indeed be accomplished.

Heartbreaking but positively powerful, this story is a hard one to forget and one that never should be forgotten.

There is a startling line spoken by one of the women in the warsaw ghetto, that resonates with what is going on in the States, currently, with our insane president.

<blockquote>A yearago, I would never have considered the way we are living as "normal" But everyone seems to accept it now.
</blockquote>

We have to make sure what happened, during the holocaust, never happens again. But we have to be aware at how easy it was to boil the frog, changing things bit by bit, until the jews found themselves regulated to living in an enclosed ghetto.

This is the story of one of the people who tried to change things, by saving the children from the ghetto, one by one.

There was a real Irene, and this story is based on her life.

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/iraene2.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5256" />

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/irene-book1.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5260" />

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/irene3.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5257" />

This is a very accessible story of her life. There is violence, but it happens just out of view. When a young boy is shot, you don't see him die, so much as see his ghost greeting all those who have left him.

This is only the first book of her story. I look forward to reading the next one.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

I've heard of Irena Sendlerowa's story on multiple occasions throughout the years. Most recently (if over ten years ago can be called "recent") was when she was nominated for a Noble Peace Prize in 2007 and again in 2008. The fact that Al freaking GORE got 2007 year's prize over Irena still makes me very mad.

Irena's story is one of many and many stories of unsung heroes of WWII, regular men and women who risked their lives every minute of the day to save the lives of innocent Jews. They didn't do it for money, they didn't do it for fame, not for political influence. They didn't make tons of useless speeches condemning Nazi's treatment of Jews, they simply got down and dirty and started actually DOING something about it. One child or adult at a time. Their stories should be told over and over and over!

I really enjoyed this tiny graphic novel (it's only 136 pages). The art was beautiful and I absolutely loved how the creators were able to show us the innocence of children among all the horrors of their lives. It was heartbreaking to see the images of children playing ball next to an armed Nazi soldier. I wonder what the Book 2 will be about since it felt like the authors were done with Irena's story.

I recently discovered Irena's story through several nonfiction books and was intrigued to see a children's graphic version. While the graphic story is diluted for kids, I was surprised by how many facts the author does share. Not my preferred style of illustration, but it will appeal to children and I appreciated that, while remaining G-rated, they don't shy away from showing the hardships of the ghetto. Definitely a decent intro to Irena's story for kids, but know it's well worth reading more substantial books about her, as well.

This is a fantastic graphic novel that would be perfect for teens and adults. I hadn't known the story of Irena before this book but I was emotionally connected to her and the people she worked with to get the children out of the ghetto throughout the entire graphic novel. Even though the drawings seem like they'd appeal more to children, the content is very grim and dark and there are quite a few tense and heartbreaking scenes in the book. The reality of both starvation and violence within the Warsaw ghetto is present on every page and I think the author presented the story in a very powerful way. I'm looking forward to reading more about Irena's story in upcoming volumes.

This is a fantastic graphic novel. The art is simple, but it helps to not distract from the powerful story. I'll highly recommend this one.