Featured Giveaway: David Small's Stitches

By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 05/21/2009

Librarians know David Small as the deserving recipient of the Caldecott Medal, the Christopher Medal, and the E.B. White Award for children's picture books like Imogene's Antlers—a book I loved reading to my daughter when she was younger. What they don't know is that when Small was a child, his radiologist father experimented on him with X-rays; after what Small thought was supposed to be minor surgery at age 14, he woke up mute, a vocal cord having been removed because of throat cancer. Small left home early and channeled his anguish into his award-winning works.

Now we have this memoir, Stitches (Norton, Booths 3523–3531), in graphic format—clearly not for children—which promises to be the memoir and the graphic novel of the season. (I must leave it up to my colleague Heather McCormack to decide whether this should appear in our newly launched memoir Short Takes series or our Graphic Novels column. Perhaps both.) I'm riveted by the idea of someone brave enough not only to overcome such trauma but then to turn around and relive it for our benefit. This is not a work that will leave you in stitches—it's forthright, wrenching, and not a pretty picture, with moody, eloquent illustrations. Read it if you dare. Click here for our complete BEA galley giveaway guide.