Everything Old is New Again

It's always fun to see a classic story play out in a modern setting.  Briar Rose, by Jane Yolen, offers an unconventional interpretation of the Sleeping Beauty myth that combines chilling Holocaust history with a modern search for identity.  After her beloved byt mysterious grandmother's death, Becca, a serene young journalist, is drawn into a seemingly inconclusive hunt for her family history.  To go on, she has only a few documents and the almost-fairy tales her grandmother told her constantly. 

A Deadly Serious Cat and Mouse Comic

Maus, by Art Spiegelman, was the first graphic novel I ever read. I was about twelve, I think, and I snuck it out of my brother's collection of comic books. There was just something different about it that caught my interest: it was a real book, heavy, with binding and a hard cover. Yeah, it was a comic book. But it wasn't like the Spiderman or Superman comics that I'd glanced at and found boring. It was a new way to look at a sad, serious subject: the Holocaust.