Blog #6 George Takei’s Book

After reading George Takei’s graphic novel about his experience in the internment camps during WWII, I could say his main messages deal with the is the power of democracy and the personal affects against people affected in situations like this. Takei’s book does a good job of making the reader feel the emotions of what he and his family felt throughout their internment. It’s one thing to read the executive order and see pictures of the camps but Takei’s personal story takes a stronger hold on the reality of the situation about how badly these people were affected by this decision. That is what I consider to be a strength of reading a non-fiction graphic novel is that along with the illustrations it provides an image to the reader to imagine what it must have been like and the emotions behind them. Throughout the graphic novel Takei is telling his story and the feelings he felt as a boy but the story includes his thoughts in the camp and later in life about what his parents’ feelings were. The images that went along with story were a strength to using a graphic novel as it helps the reader picture events. The other message the book tells is about democracy, how it has its faults but it is a great system. Throughout the book Takei mentions democracy and how it related to his time in the camp. In the book Takei mentions talking with his father about he still believed democracy was the best because although people have their faults, the democracy is a peoples’ democracy and people are capable of doing good things. He goes on to add that this is what shaped his thinking about social change and to share his story. So his message about democracy is that if we forget about the experiences and actions of our past we risk hurting groups within our democracy. I thought the book was really interesting as I’ve never read a book of this format for any class before so it was really engaging. The images really do capture your attention which is a form of storytelling on its own. A weakness I do see with a graphic novel is for some instances the reader may need more clarification on certain parts. I think using a graphic non-fiction novel to tell history is a cool and unique way to tell history as there is more than one way to tell history.