Really powerful and heart wrenching graphic novel, this is a lot shorter than I was expecting and the art just wasn't the style which I really enjoy.

We tend to think of natural disasters as isolated to certain specific places. So it was interesting to see this earthquake story from a different country, to see how recovery efforts for severe disaster are handled. Or mishandled as the case may be. I could see using this alongside an American story on the subject, to compare factual and thematic elements.

This was a really touching sort of graphic novel for me. It seemed very real and very possible, especially as I watched the news about Hurricane Dorian hitting the U.S. I'll be suggesting our local library get a copy of this as well.

Authors: Silvia Vecchini and Sualzo
Year: 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3368-0
Publisher: Amulet Books
Goodreads Rating: 3/5 stars
Content Warnings: Natural Disasters, animal death
Purchased or Received Copy: Received free copy from Netgalley

In a small Italian town, Giulia, Matteo, and Frederico live as three normal children. One night, an enormous earthquake strikes. Their homes collapse, along with most of the town. In the aftermath of the disaster, the community must heal as life keeps moving forward.

Matteo’s father takes their trailer out of storage, and he lives in a small community of people living apart from the rows of tents that the rest of the town moved into. Frederico searches the dangerous “red zone” for his missing dog. Giulia, Matteo’s girlfriend, supports her friends and tries to find a silver lining in their situation.

The Red Zone tells the story of tragedy and healing. As time goes on, the people slowly adjust to their new reality. The children go to a makeshift tent school and continue their education. Frustrated with the Italian government’s lack of action, everybody who can helps rebuild. In the midst of this tragedy, a community comes together to heal together.

While the story is heartwarming and sweet, it’s not without issues. My biggest issue is that the characters seem kind of flat. We don’t know much about their lives before the earthquake, so we have no idea what they lost. The perspective switches pretty often, so we don’t get much time to just sit in the moment. And I’m not entirely sure what Giulia’s arc was supposed to be. Frederico has a clear goal, to find his missing dog. Matteo is trying to keep his family together and support his little sister I guess. It’s difficult to follow the characters’ arcs in what could be a really powerful, human story.

Speaking of hard to follow, I have a bit of a complaint about the art style. It’s hard to tell some of the characters apart, so that made it even harder to follow character arcs. The most frustrating example was the similarity between Matteo and Frederico. Their designs were so similar that I found myself re-reading a page multiple times because I got confused as to who I was looking at.

Still, despite its flaws, The Red Zone was an emotional and heartfelt story. I still had fun reading it and I think it’s worth a look if it sounds interesting to you. It had a lot of potential but ultimately I don’t think I’m going to pick it up again.

This book had a great message about how sudden disasters can change people's lives. This story looks at three children and how their families are effected by a large earthquake in Italy. I really loved the story and the artwork. This is a shorter graphic novel but I still feel that the impact that it makes to the reader is tremendous. I really liked this graphic novel and I think it would be a great read for teens and young adults.

A good story about loss and recovery. I liked the ending and the poetry and metaphors of the scars and pottery. It was hard to follow some of the plot though and I wished some things were more developed.

This is an important story that needs to be told - especially with disasters happening more and more frequently across the globe. People underestimate how it will affect survivors and especially the impact on kids. This is a beautifully told story with a message of resilience and hope

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy.

It took me a while to get into this graphic novel but by the end I was invested in the story. I struggled with artwork a bit and how fuzzy the ARC copy was, and how it jumped around. But I found the story to be well-written and flew through it.

"The Red Zone" is a great graphic novel for children set in an Italian town during the aftermath of a devastating earthquake. Good art and a great story.

I think the book community could use more books about natural disasters. Kids are drawn to them. I do think that this book shows the impact earthquakes can have on a community. The illustrations did a good job capturing the emotion and accuracy of them. I did feel it hard to follow along sometimes because the story jumped from one part to the other. I look forward to reading it again in full color.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.