Published by Baker Publishing Group, Chosen on April 9, 2024
Genres: Children's, Children's Educational, Non-Fiction, Christian Life, Memoir, Social Justice
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One of the bestselling books of all time-- now a captivating graphic novel!
It's World War II.
Darkness has fallen over the world as the Nazis spread fear and hatred.
No one feels safe.
But on a city corner in Holland one woman fights against injustice and darkness. In a quiet watchmaking shop, Corrie ten Boom and her close-knit family risk their lives to hide hundreds of Jews and others hunted by the Nazis in a secret hiding place they built into the old building.
Until one day when Corrie and her family are betrayed. They're captured and sent in cattle cars to the notorious Nazi concentration camps to die. Yet even in that darkest of places, Corrie still fights.
This is her incredible true story, now a visually stunning graphic novel. With more than 1,500 engaging full-color illustrations, this real-life heroine comes to life--showing how even in the most desperate, loneliest, and darkest of times, faith, hope, and love will ultimately triumph.
"There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."--Corrie ten Boom
"In addition to being unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists, it will prove to be a singular popular addition to family, elementary school, middle school, and community library Graphic Novel collections."--Midwest Book Review
This graphic novel adaptation of the bestselling memoir The Hiding Place is incredibly powerful. It will introduce a new generation to Corrie ten Boom’s powerful testimony of faith, perseverance, and resistance against evil, and the graphic novel medium works very well here. The text boxes and dialogue are based in what Corrie ten Boom originally wrote, and even though I haven’t read the original book in years, I recognized lots of details and can tell how faithfully and carefully Mario DeMatteo adapted the story. The illustrations also greatly enrich the reading experience, since they vividly picture the characters, setting, and time period. Ismael Castro clearly did a lot of research to visualize everything so well.
The publisher is marketing this book for children ages eight to twelve, but I would also recommend this to teens and adults. Even though this story is simplified and told in a different medium to help children engage with it, this book represents the full story of The Hiding Place and does not dumb anything down for younger readers. An adult could read this and never even realize that it’s a children’s book. However, I want to make a few content notes for young, sensitive readers. The illustrations accurately depict violence, Nazi abuse against Jews and their helpers, and moments of terror, and women are forced to disrobe in concentration camps in front of Nazis, although those panels are closely cropped and don’t show nudity. Nothing about this book is explicit, but it involves many scary moments and heavy themes.
The Hiding Place: A Graphic Novel is an incredibly engaging, faithful adaptation. Readers of all ages can enjoy this immersive, visual, and fully dramatized retelling of Corrie ten Boom’s story, and Christians will appreciate her example and the story’s messages about making costly moral choices to protect others in the midst of oppressive, unjust circumstances. This book powerfully attests to God’s faithfulness in the midst of great darkness, and even though this book may be too intense for some younger, more sensitive readers, I highly recommend it to kids, teens, and adults.
