Fagin the Jew

Fagin the Jew

Eisner, Will. Fagin the Jew. New York: Doubleday, 2003.

Annotation: Master of graphic novels Will Eisner reinterprets the story of Fagin from Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. This new version of the story is meant to make the caricature of Fagin more realistic and less stereotypical.

Reason for nomination: This book was quite interesting for historical value. Will Eisner takes the time to explain the different Jewish groups that were in London during the setting of Oliver Twist. Particularly he explains how Fagin has been used as a stereotypical character since but got important facial features and other details wrong. Past that Eisner creates a new story from old explaining the background of Fagin and why he did the things that he did. He allows you to have empathy for Fagin's criminal behaviour from a historical/social-economic perspective. I'm not fully sure if all the markers of adolescent lit are intact but graphic novel fans should enjoy this book. My nomination for this book is actually just more of a recommendation. If trying to learn about graphic novels, Will Eisner is a good place to start. In the industry he is was so well respected that there is an award named after him for excellence in comics and graphics novels(Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards). Do you have an award named after you? Here is his wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Eisner

Genre: Graphic novel, fiction and multicultural.