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Our Little Secret & Chartwell Manor

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Book Review by Kevin Wolf   Sometimes the best you can hope for is shedding some light in dark places by trying to bring the truth out. The graphic works discussed here are emotionally draining and might trigger very personal reactions related to childhood sexual trauma that the reader might want to avoid. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a tale of childhood sexual abuse that occurred close to home. According to the United States Center for Disease Control, though likely underestimates, about 25% of girls and 8% of boys experience sexual abuse in childhood; and 91% of the abuse… Read More

Fights by Joel Christian Gill

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Book Review by Kevin Wolf Fights: One Boy’s Triumph over Violence by Joel Christian Gill is a book of lessons provided in a memoir. The lessons are there for the reader to find, because they’re the lessons Joel learns along his very difficult youthful path. I use Joel’s first name throughout this review, because the story mainly covers his childhood and supports familiarity and empathy. Joel’s honesty and very hard life bleeds through. Though fighting is a major theme, there are also tales of bullying, racism, domestic violence, overcoming sexual abuse, exploring the outdoors, fresh starts with a new persona… Read More

Grass and Not on My Watch

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Book Reviews by Kevin Wolf Before I delve deeply into the two graphic works under review here, I have three issues to address: whether you should even read this review, whether I should herein use gentle (as in Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim) or more explicit words to explain events, and the elephant in the room. Let me explain. You may not want to read this review because of the subject matter. At the beginning of Not on My Watch: A Bystanders’ Handbook for the Prevention of Sexual Violence, Second Edition by Isabella Rotman there is a warning, so I… Read More