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Stitches - David Small
Stitches
by: (author)
4.12 245
Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award and finalist for two 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: the prize-winning children’s author depicts a childhood from hell in this searing yet redemptive graphic memoir.One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he... show more
Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award and finalist for two 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: the prize-winning children’s author depicts a childhood from hell in this searing yet redemptive graphic memoir.One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die. In Stitches, Small, the award-winning children’s illustrator and author, re-creates this terrifying event in a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. As the images painfully tumble out, one by one, we gain a ringside seat at a gothic family drama where David—a highly anxious yet supremely talented child—all too often became the unwitting object of his parents’ buried frustration and rage. Believing that they were trying to do their best, David’s parents did just the reverse. Edward Small, a Detroit physician, who vented his own anger by hitting a punching bag, was convinced that he could cure his young son’s respiratory problems with heavy doses of radiation, possibly causing David’s cancer. Elizabeth, David’s mother, tyrannically stingy and excessively scolding, ran the Small household under a cone of silence where emotions, especially her own, were hidden. Depicting this coming-of-age story with dazzling, kaleidoscopic images that turn nightmare into fairy tale, Small tells us of his journey from sickly child to cancer patient, to the troubled teen whose risky decision to run away from home at sixteen—with nothing more than the dream of becoming an artist—will resonate as the ultimate survival statement. A silent movie masquerading as a book, Stitches renders a broken world suddenly seamless and beautiful again. Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award (Young Adult); finalist for two 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (Best Writer/Artist: Nonfiction; Best Reality-Based Work).
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9780393068573 (0393068579)
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Pages no: 329
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
Reading For The Heck Of It
Reading For The Heck Of It rated it
4.0 There's growing pains and then there's this
I've just read Stitches by David Small in one sitting. I'm not saying this to brag about my reading speed but more to express how engrossing I found his art and writing. Stitches is a memoir which focuses on an event which no one should ever have had to experience. First, there's the disturbing pict...
Momster Bookworm
Momster Bookworm rated it
4.0 Stitches: A Memoir
I was looking for a graphic novel to complete the requirement for a reading challenge. Being that I have never read one before, I took my time in trying to find one whose story I would read (were it in words), and didn't come across as a comic. For the telling of a memoir, this was very well done. T...
Twitchy Witchy Girl
Twitchy Witchy Girl rated it
5.0 Stitches
This is the first time I've read a memoir as a graphic novel and I loved it. David Small did such a beautiful job incorporating the right amount of text/ explanation with the illustrations.
Boston Bibliophile
Boston Bibliophile rated it
4.0 Stitches: A Memoir
http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/2009/10/graphic-novel-monday-stitches-by-david.html
Rabbit Reads
Rabbit Reads rated it
5.0
This is my first memoir, and I really LOVED this one.His mom is a closeted lesbian, that is why this is under glbt for me.
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