The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain is autobiographical; it is the story of Peter Sís coming of age in Soviet Czechoslovakia. It is two stories in one; the personal story of Sís as well as the story of Czechoslovakia as a nation. Sís tells his story along the bottom of the pages, while the story of the nation is told around the illustrations. Since Sís has loved to draw as long as he can remember, the illustrations tell a good part of the story. Color plays an important role in The Wall. As long as the picture portray Soviet rule, the colors are black, white and red. The only other colors appear in Peter’s drawings. The spread on pages ten and eleven show an imposing image of thinks that represent the Soviets. These images, including Stalin, Lenin and the Kremlin, are all in shades of red in an imposing cloud chasing Peter, portrayed as a little boy. The image is entitled “This was the time of brainwashing.” The personal elements, especially the journal entries, make the broader history seem real to the reader. Other colors appear later in the book, when discussing the summer of 1968. Color is clearly tied to the West and concepts of freedom.
The appearance of the text of The Wall also sends a message. The text about world events is written in italics except for a few words, such as compulsory and prohibited, which are written in bold and all-caps. The text telling the story of Peter is in a regular typeface. The book is cyclical; it begins and ends with almost the same illustration. The high point is in the middle of the book with a two-page spread done all in color celebrating Western music and culture. This spread represents the hope of the summer of 1968. That spread has the most vibrant color in the book; even more vibrant than the fall of the Berlin Wall alluded to at the end of the book.
The Wall is a great introduction to the Cold War. It provides both a global and a personal perspective on some of the issues involved. I would recommend The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain for readers in middle school or above. It has won many awards including the 2008 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature, the 2007 Cybil Award, the 2007 New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books of the Year, the 2008 Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for
Sís, Peter. The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2007. Print.
