This is a great presentation of a fascinating era in American history. Both entertaining and engaging.

Even though I live in the Dry Capital of the US, Westerville, Ohio, I would disagree only with the author's assertion that everybody thinks they know about Prohibition. Fifty years ago, certainly. There were people around with active memories of the time, and more representation in books and films. We also need to remember that today's tweens and teens seem to have only the vaguest sense of the past. Westerville sadly started to allow alcohol to be sold again in 2004, and I would imagine that most of my students don't know that it was ever banned.

That being said, this is a fantastic book. It is absolutely packed with a myriad of details, so much so that I'm not even sure where to start. The book itself starts with what alcohol actually does in the body, which I can't say I knew in so much detail. It talks about the history of alcohol in the world and the US, touching on topics like the amount of beer consumed by the average person in Colonial times, and even a bit about Johnny Appleseed and fermented cider. The fact that alcohol was often problematic in families is definitely addressed, as is the political reasons behind Prohibition. We do see famous players during this time, like Carry A. Nation and Al Capone on the cover, and Speakeasies definitely get a thorough exploration, which even manages to tie in the women's movement.

These History Comics are all extremely well done and informative. I, for example, learned that saloons were sort of like settlement houses for me, who could come to get loans, jobs, food, and various kinds of help, but that they were funded by breweries that had political interests, so in exchange for help, the men would vote however they were told to vote. I knew about the political corruption in cities in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but I didn't know about it on this grassroots level.

This is told from the perspective of "John Barleycorn", a concept that is well explained at the beginning of the book, and it's a fun way to personalize and approach the topic for young readers, but I would have been fine with a more straightforward approach. I wasn't all that happy with the way that Carrie Nation was illustrated, but she was portrayed in a fairly sympathetic fashion, when she so easily could have just been the punch line to a joke. My grandmother was in the Women's Christian Temperance Union because she was a very religious Presbyterian, and I've always found it odd that some people don't know that Prohibition was partly a feminist and family safety issue, since men would often drink up the family's earnings and then become abusive. This issue is addressed and treated fairly.

Prohibition has also become associated with racism, and this book even unpacks that information in a fair way, which I appreciated. There is a helpful timeline at the end of the book, but no index. It's understandable-- the index would probably add another 15 pages to the book-- but regrettable, because an index would make this much easier to use for research.

The Prohibition Era: America's War on Alcohol had even more information than the traditional nonfiction book BootlegMurder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition (2011) by the fantastic and sadly missed nonfiction author Karen Blumnenthal. I'm not entirely sure how many of my students will actually make it all the way through the book, but I buy these comics because they are so informative.

In this graphic novel, History Comics looks at the Prohibition time in the US. It follows the way 'regular people' dealt with Prohibition laws - from running secret bars to finding other ways to source alcohol. The story uses clear writing and engaging illustrations to explain this key part of American history. My students told me "Even if you don't know much about it, this makes it easy to understand what life was like back then". Overall, History Comics offers an interesting and entertaining way to learn about Prohibition.

Prohibition is a fascinating time in our history, and this graphic novel does an excellent job of explaining it.

It helps the reader understand the deeper nuances behind prohibition and what led to it in the first place.

I am unsure if I will provide this book to my elementary students. While I know that some are exposed to alcohol at home, I am not sure that this is the most interesting topic for a 5th grader. I do think it is excellent for middle and high school, though!

Thank you to First Second Books and Net Galley for the eARC!

I have a teenager who reads these ARCs for me, and she was obsessed with this book from moment one.

Thorough lessons delivered in a format that appeal to kids and helps them learn something without them fighting you? Yes please.

Will be suggesting our store pick up any and all of these books.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. This book was generally well done and covered a huge amount of information that spanned the Temperance movement’s connections to abolition and women’s suffrage to the rise of political machines and organized crime. It explained the neuroscience of alcohol and the brain as well as withdrawal and discussed cultural implications of alcohol use. It was a nice blend of history and science and generally explained what happened realistically and methodically. Some of the discussion is likely to go over the heads of some readers - particularly lower middle grade, but overall, it’s an interesting and pragmatic read. There is a bit of blood and murder depicted (mobsters, gangsters, etc.), but it’s not graphic. I found it to be an entertaining overview of a complex era.