Especially Heroes

Book title: Especially Heroes
Graphic novel
Written by: Virginia Kroll
Illustrated by: Tim Ladwig
Time period of story: 1960’s
Published in: 2003
Publisher: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
Ages 9 and up.
Cost: $ 16.00
Reviewed by: Allen Klingelhoets

I found this hard cover book on library book sale. The book really fit the times that we live in. There was talk of racism. How people even children need to not use racist comments even as child. The story moved very quickly with very positive results of child finding the heroes that helped stop racism like soldiers in Crusade period. Union Army helping stop slavery in Confederate states. George Washington, and many others that helped in cause bringing freedom to others. This was current story told through the eyes of a little grade school girl. If on book shelf would be labeled

Heroes
E
Kro

The summery of book says: After talking about heroes and martyrs, at school, a young girl gets first-hand look at heroism when her father and others protect their neighbor from a group of racists.

The ISBN of book is 0-8028-5221-1 (alk. Paper)

The story is a work of fiction.

The illustrations were created with watercolor, varnish, oil, and pencil on paper.

The text was set in Times

Book design by Matthew Van Zomeren.

The opening of book cover gives description of story.

Especially Heroes

“People fight hard for ideals like freedom.” Said Mrs. Brennan, my fourth-grade teacher. “Sometimes heroes die for things they believe in.”

Later that same day, in my religious class at church, Sister Agnes Marie talked about martyrs and asked us, “Do you love anything so much that you would die for it?”

Author Virginia Kroll wrote Especially Heroes based on a series of incidents all true, that had an enormous impact on her when she was a child and that continues to affect her to this day. In the story, a young girl learns firsthand from her parents and neighbors, that ideals must be lived out, not just talked about, and that living out ideals sometimes involves facing danger.

Set in the early 1960s, Especially Heroes gives an authentic glimpse of some of the challenges of race relations during the era of the civil rights movement in the United States. In Especially Heroes, Virginia Kroll’s powerful childhood memories are brought to life by illustrator Tim Ladwig’s unique perspective on an ordinary neighborhood of that time and the heroism of everyday people who responded with courage and caring when confronted with acts of hatred.


Allen Klingelhoets