Amélie is a 16th century Dutch noblewoman fascinated by science and nature, but forced into an unhappy marriage by her impoverished parents. Her new husband, Hans, is dashingly handsome, loves animals, and is pleasant and outgoing in public. But in private, he belittles her and subjects her to sexual violence and humiliation. Her only respite occurs when Hans takes a business trip to Portugal, leaving her to freely study what fascinates her more than anything: flight.
Thinking of flight as both a glimmer of hope for escape and as a way to be closer to God, she studies the bones of birds, pours through books in her husband’s library, and crafts model flying contraptions. She ponders the way maple seeds spin in the air and is relieved to not hear a word from her husband for many months.
Things get complicated when Hans finally returns, accompanied by a beautiful young slave woman from an unknown place. He claims he saved her from a terrible fate and moves her into the house as his mistress. Amélie is both humiliated and fascinated by this woman, given the name Sahara by Hans after he acquired her. Hans is loving and tender with Sahara in stark contrast to his behavior with Amélie. She is quiet and cheerful, despite a deeply traumatic past, but tension develops between the two women. As they both adapt to life stashed away together in Hans’ house, they start to experience compassion and support for one another. They explore Amélie’s love of flight and begin work on a contraption that will change everything.
I am a complete sucker for historical dramas. I love a sumptuous setting, detailed costumes, and an exploration of life in a time that seems both unknown and absolutely familiar. Raging Clouds by South Korean author and illustrator Yudori ticks all those boxes for me. When I think of the art style, the first word that comes to mind is “exquisite”. I was absolutely captivated by every panel. There is so much attention to detail, particularly in the clothing. Yudori has a mastery over drawing the folds of fabric that really brings life to the art. There is detail everywhere, from the clothes, to furniture, to individual strands of hair. There are some historical inaccuracies here and there, but I can see due diligence was done to be true to the time period.
There is a lot of nudity in this work, but I really appreciate Yudori’s nuanced depictions. At times nudity is used to explore the beauty and desirability of the female form, while other times it’s employed to express dehumanization and subjugation, essentially the two extremes of being a woman under patriarchy. This is a deeply feminist work, and Yudori is not shy about showing the pain and trauma of being a woman under oppression.
The cover art and some errotic tension in the story might lure you into thinking this becomes a sultry queer romance, but as the author explains in an Instagram post, this is a story of failed attempts. As much as I love a queer romance, I also love a story of two women surviving through different aspects of patriarchy, seeing each other, and finding ways to lift each other up as the system tries to knock them down. It feels authentic and I want to see more stories featuring this kind of non-romantic love and compassion.
There are a lot of potential content warnings that librarians and readers might want to know about, some of which have already been mentioned, such as nudity and sexual violence, which includes rape and dubious consent. Several sexual acts are illustrated pretty clearly. There is also physical violence ranging from hitting to murder, although nothing very bloody is shown directly on the page. Amélie also experiences a lot of body image issues, which comes in the form of negative comments from others and negative self-talk.
As you might expect with a period piece, particularly one featuring people of color in Europe, there is casual and overt racism littered throughout the story and there are some historical terms for groups of people that are outdated by today’s standards. Sahara is a non-native speaker and her way of expressing herself could be interpreted as stereotyped. However, according to the author in another Instagram post, the inspiration for how Sahara speaks comes from her own experience as a non-native English speaker when she moved to the United States from Korea as a teenager.
There is also some animal harm at various points. A cat is the subject of a violent game among men and several dead animals are shown. There are no animal deaths, but as someone very sensitive to animal harm, the realism of the animals was slightly unsettling for me. It was balanced somewhat by an adorable pet cat doing very annoying (but still adorable) cat things, so the realism goes both ways.
While there are many challenging issues depicted in Raging Clouds, nothing feels out of place or unwarranted. This is definitely one for the adult collection, although some older teens might connect with it as well. I think it’s a beautiful and honest work exploring the lives of women in the past that is incredibly relatable to women of the present.
Raging Clouds By Yudori Fantagraphics, 2025 ISBN: 9798875001062
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18) Creator Representation: South Korean, Character Representation: Dutch,
Song of a Blackbird by Maria Van Lieshout is a poetic exploration of family, resistance under oppression, and art. It tells two stories, one is of Annick, a young girl, in 2011, who is desperate to learn more about her family history while grieving the reality of her oma’s terminal illness. The other is of Emma, a resistance fighter in Amsterdam, 1943, under Nazi occupation.
The book opens with the narrator, an omnipresent blackbird who has found Annick in the midst of pain and suffering. Her oma, Johanna, is terminally ill, and without a bone marrow transplant, she will not survive. The most likely donors for a bone marrow transplant would be biological siblings, however, there is no biological connection between Johanna and her siblings. Without knowing her history, Johanna may not be able to find a suitable donor. So Annick uses the few clues they have, prints of buildings in Amsterdam signed by Emma B., to explore her oma’s history, a history that begins in Amsterdam under Nazi rule.
Our narrator, the blackbird, also tells the story of Emma, a young woman living in the Netherlands under Nazi occupation. Horrified by their oppression and violence, Emma becomes involved with the resistance. First helping to smuggle Jewish children into Dutch families, while their Jewish parents are being deported on trains, and eventually working with other resistance fighters in printing houses as they attempt to sabotage Nazi efforts in Amsterdam.
The book alternates between Annick’s investigation and the story of Emma in Amsterdam’s resistance. In each chapter, Annick focuses her investigation on a building from one of her oma’s prints. A building that is integral to Emma’s story as well.
The two stories are connected through the art prints by Emma. Chronicling the story of Johanna and her family. Art is a prominent theme in the story. In her investigation into family history Annick meets a young poet who paints his words on walls for all to see, rather than written on paper. Humanity connects through art and words. Compared to the hate embedded in propaganda, art builds compassion and connections. In the book, art connects past and present, brother and sister, and the resistance fighters to each other.
The story is fictional but based on real people. In the backmatter, Van Lieshout includes brief biographical sketches of the many people who inspired characters in the book, including her grandparents, who themselves were members of the resistance in Amsterdam under the Nazi occupation. Also included in the backmatter, on dark pages filled with black ink, is biographical information on the real life Nazi officers who committed the atrocities in Amsterdam.
It is an emotional story with beautiful illustrations about little known actions taken by members of the resistance in Amsterdam. Most illustrations are line drawings in black and white, with moments of color, such as a red coat or green background, emphasizing emotion and importance to the characters and pages. On some pages Van Lieshout illustrates real photos of buildings in Amsterdam. The art of photography was an act of resistance under the Nazis (as discussed in the backmatter), and use of the photos both anchors the story to the true historical events depicted in the story, but also honors the act of taking photographic evidence.
The blackbird’s narration is primarily in verse, offering commentary and context to the images on the page. The text of this narration is often beautiful and poignant, however, not always. There were moments that were awkward and disjointed. The plot is also disjointed in places. The investigation and clues from the prints at times feels loose and unconnected. It is an imperfect book, but one with many beautiful moments, and as a whole a strong and powerful message.
Song of a Blackbird would be a good fit with older middle school or high school readers. There are other better written graphic novels about World War II and the Holocaust, but there is beauty in this book, it is a unique story. It may be a good purchase if you are looking for books with curricular connections to World War II, the Holocaust, and resistance fighters, or are looking for books that explore the connections between the past and the present.
Song of a Blackbird By Maria Van Lieshout Macmillan First Second, 2025 ISBN: 9781250869814
Age Rating: 14 and Up
NFNT Age Recommendation: Teen (13-16) Creator Representation: Dutch, Character Representation: Dutch,
Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World is a pitch perfect historical graphic novel for anyone who wants to learn about brazen rebel ladies throughout history. Pénélope Bagieu started with a list of 50 women whose stories she wanted to tell and narrowed it down to about 30 for the book. In interviews, Bagieu is quoted as saying that one of the hardest choices was deciding “whose stories I could tell a 200 times without getting bored of.” She especially wanted to showcase that not all brazen rebel ladies are western, white, educated, cisgender, straight women. At the end of the book, Bagieu does include the rest of her list of fabulous women for further reading.
Spanning nearly 2500 years of history, Brazen gives life to women such as Agnodice, one of the first women gynecologists who lived in 350 BCE Athens, to Sonita Alizadeh, an Afghanistan rapper born in 1996. Bagieu covers doctors, scientists, artists, explorers, entertainers: just about anyone from anywhere through time. Some of the women I knew, such as Nellie Bly, Josephine Baker, Hedy Lemarr, and Temple Gradin, are listed but others such as Nzinga, warrior queen of Ndongo and Matamba, Cheryl Bridges, athlete, and Giorgina Reid, lighthouse keeper, are entirely new to me. I found myself especially delighted Bagieu made sure Mae Jamison was included, the first black woman in space who happens to be a sci-fi and comics nerd.
Typically in anthologies or in music, the placement of the stories or songs are arranged by the artist just so, with a theme or an overarching story told via that placement. I could not find such a theme here and this is not to say that the work is haphazard—rather the thoughtfulness of the placement of the brazen rebel’s lives are listed such that you could read about a rebel from 2500 years ago and the next story is of a brazen rebel from the 18th century. The book does not need to be read in chronological order, but I will warn you that when you sit down with the book you’ll likely finish it one sitting, just as I did.
Bagieu wrote, illustrated, and colored the art marking her as a force to reckon with. In another interview, Bagieu selected a “very simple palette of four colors for each story, chosen carefully regarding the era, the country, the global feeling of the story.” In between each story is a two page highly detailed and colored spread of the brazen rebel in action, whether she is warrior queen or Temple Gradin and her cows.
Pénélope Bagieu is known for her attention to detail and the wit of her subjects. Here she gives these ladies all the attention and voice that they deserve. Each brazen rebel is finely drawn and brought to life, their stories may be told over a few pages but each story is in-depth enough to whet a history lover’s appetite. Brazen is listed as age appropriate for older teens, 16+, and up, but it could easily become the favorite of middle grades and up, especially as a reference book for further study. Highly recommended for any collection especially for history lists as well as lists for LGTBQ+ peoples.
Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World By Pénélope Bagieu Art by Pénélope Bagieu ISBN: 978-1626728691 1626728690 First Second, 2018 Publisher Age Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Browse for more like this title Character Traits: Japanese, Chinese, Black, Latinx, Middle Eastern, Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, Pansexual, Trans
impoverished parents. Her new husband, Hans, is dashingly handsome, loves animals, and is pleasant and outgoing in public. But in private, he belittles her and subjects her to sexual violence and humiliation. Her only respite occurs when Hans takes a business trip to Portugal, leaving her to freely study what fascinates her more than anything: flight.
tells two stories, one is of Annick, a young girl, in 2011, who is desperate to learn more about her family history while grieving the reality of her oma’s terminal illness. The other is of Emma, a resistance fighter in Amsterdam, 1943, under Nazi occupation.
Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World is a pitch perfect historical graphic novel for anyone who wants to learn about brazen rebel ladies throughout history. Pénélope Bagieu started with a list of 50 women whose stories she wanted to tell and narrowed it down to about 30 for the book. In interviews, Bagieu is quoted as saying that one of the hardest choices was deciding “whose stories I could tell a 200 times without getting bored of.” She especially wanted to showcase that not all brazen rebel ladies are western, white, educated, cisgender, straight women. At the end of the book, Bagieu does include the rest of her list of fabulous women for further reading.
