Jason Furman's Reviews > When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers

A beautifully drawn rendition of the autobiographies of six Yiddish teenagers all written just before the outbreak of World War II. The preface explains that a Jewish organization launched a contest for autobiographies that were supposed to highlight the ordinary, everyday lives of people. The winner was supposed to be announced on September 1, 1939. Instead the hundreds of biographies were hidden first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets, forgotten, and recently rediscovered. Cartoonist Ken Krimstein picked six of them and told their stories with illustrations evocative of the world they lived in. Note that almost all of the autobiographies were anonymous so little is known of the fate of the writers (beyond one who signed her name), but one can only guess.

I appreciated, however, that this was not about how these people died but how they lived. In one case a multi-generational tale of a family with eight daughters, in another someone writing letters to be admitted to the United States, in still another a folk singer. Much of what they recount is ordinary teenage stuff along with some of the clash of modernity vs. tradition. In this way it both recreates a lost world and also shows how similar that world is to our own.

I should also note that (like many graphic novels) this is a very fast read. You get a lot for not a whole lot of time. Strongly recommend reading it.