Lydie

Script by Zidrou, Illustrations by Jordi Lafebre (translated from Spanish)
English publication date Mar 21, 2018

Description:

On a forgotten cul-de-sac in a nameless city, a child is born. It doesn’t take long for the charming little girl to work her way into the hearts of all the residents on this cozy little street. Does it really matter that she’s invisible? The child’s mother delivered a stillborn, fatherless baby. Two months later, she becomes convinced that her child has returned from heaven. The neighbors don’t have the heart to tell her otherwise, and so they play along. After all, “why bring somebody pain when it's so easy to bring joy instead?” ...But is Lydie really a figment?

My Thoughts:

My first question -  Is this graphic novel with the old fashioned sepia toned cover and the disturbing scene with the man killing the litter of kittens for middle level readers? 

Perhaps that is not the right question. Perhaps the question is which middle level reader is this graphic novel for? This is for the reader who embraces magic realism and who can embrace some of the ugliness in the world in order to understand where beauty comes from in communities and in people. This is for the reader that will eventually make their way to other magic realism stories and movies like Big Fish, Amélie, Scott Pilgrim versus the World, Beasts of the Southern World, my favorite, but definitely not for middle school Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate and my sister Becky's favorite Pan's Labyrinth.

So this is for Becky, who by middle school was the only child left at home with older parents. This is for Becky who found that the world in books did not need to be a reflection of the world outside of books, but more of a door and a window to possibilities and alternate universes. 

I am drawn to this story of a ghost baby that is not a ghost baby, not for my own loss, but for the window and door it opens to a way in which a community can let go of logic and create a more magical truth. 

This advanced digital copy was made possible by Europe Comics and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.