‘Ahiahia The Orphan’ by Levi llluitok with art by Nate Wells is a short graphic novel about a young boy whose parents are brutally murdered.

When Ahiahia’s parents are killed, he's raised by his grandmother in a camp surrounded by his enemies. When the camp eventually turns on him he gets his revenge using his grandmother's magic. His life and revenge are brutal.

I like the story but it is pretty graphic. I'm not sure who the intended audience is supposed to be. I'm also not sure what the lesson is supposed to be. Perhaps it's merely supposed to be a folktale. The art is pretty good but the story is very short making this hard to recommend.

The thing about learning about other cultures than your own, is that you can’t take your assumptions in with you. That is the way it is with this adaptation of an Inuit folktale Ahiahia the Orphan.

The Western world is used to folktales that have been massaged to carry a message or to have a neat beginning, middle and end. We probably wouldn’t recognize the stories we are so familiar with, if we heard them as they were originally told. All our fairy tales, collected by the Brother’s Grimm and morazlied by Hans Christian Anderson, are probably just as rough as this story of a boy whose parents are murdered by the people of his camp. His grandmother saves him, and weaves magic into his clothes and weapons. She knows they will strike again.

And when they do, he is ready for them, and survives and they leave the camp, where, when he goes in search of survivors, discovers to young women who he takes to be his wives.

I do like how the illustrations reflect the bleak world that Ahiahia lives in, even if I dont’ understand the point of the story, but perhaps I am not supposed to. The story is not for me, but for the Inuit children who need to know their culture, and for that I commend the author for sticking closely to the original story.

Good to show how different cultures tell their tales


<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

The art style was incredibly effective and evocative and matched the tone, somehow, of the story itself. I did wish the ending didn't hew as closely to what I'm assuming was the traditional ending (with the women confined to Ahiahia's home), but overall it was an intriguing, if at times brutal, work.