7 Generations

Up until this year, I had never read a graphic novel in my life.

It only took a few pages for me to realize that 7 Generations: A Plains Cree Saga was quite different from Calvin and Hobbes.

The book, written by David Alexander Robertson, was a fantastic and educational read that touched on many Aboriginal issues in flashback and present day form.

Would I call this book journalism? Yes, I would. The story might be presented in a different form but it tells a story, one full of emotion that is drawn from Robertson's own experiences with the subject matter. When he spoke to us about his book yesterday, he recalled many events in his past that helped shaped who he is; to hiding from being Aboriginal in grade school to encountering racism as a young adult. Some of those issues would be included in the book.

In the third part of the stories, Robertson tells a story about the residential schools. While I had noticed the imagery throughout the book (done tremendously by Scott Henderson), it wasn't until this part that I was completely grabbed by the illustrations.

They were powerful and showed something that words simply couldn't do on their own. You could see the violence, the abuse, the sadness on the characters faces. I've read and seen stuff about residential schools but the imagery in 7 Generations, complimented with Robertson's concise wording, told the story like I have never seen before.

The pace of the stories was also great. Everything flowed, the images and text, from one frame to the next. It was a different pace then I'm used to reading but I found the format very enjoyable.

We've been assigned two other books in our journalism program, Nahlah Ayed's A Thousand Farewalls and Jim Blanchard's Winnipeg's Great War. While each book is different (Ayed's a first-hand account, Blanchard's research heavy), they all tell us stories about events in our past and each, including Robertson's book, does a good job of conveying that story to the audience.