2. Uzumaki by Junji Ito

Junji, Ito. (2007). Uzumaki: Spiral into horror. San Francisco, CA: Viz Media. ISBN-13:978-1-4215-1389- 8. p. 202

Genre: Horror/Manga

Interest Age: 13+

Curriculum: NA

Reader’s Annotation

Something strange is happening in the Kirie’s quiet town. The town and its people are becoming possessed by spirals and no one can image the horror which is to follow.

Plot Summary

Uzumaki (spiral in Japanese) tells the story of Kirie Goshima, an average high school student in the small town of Kurozu, Japan. She leads a normal life until she slowly notices her town and its people are becoming possessed by spirals. Kirie first notices her boyfriend’s father develop an increasing obsession with the spiral shape which leads to a bizarre and tragic death. The spiral then begins to “infect” her classmates. One develops a spiral like birthmark that literally consumes her. A young couple, whose parents seek to keep them apart, become both emotionally and physically intertwined. Even Kirie herself falls victim to the spiral as her own hair begins possessing medusa like characteristics. This is the first in a three volume series.

Critical Review

Who could have known something as benign as a spiral could lead to such terror? Uzumaki is a brilliantly paced decent into horror. Ito’s artwork is crisp, clean, and lush with detail. Most impressive is Ito’s sense of pacing, which is very deliberate and brooding. A sense of dread slowly builds throughout these first six chapters which make up volume one of this series. This volume (and most of volume 2 for that matter) focuses on building a sense of terror while keeping explanations to a minimum.

The weakest parts of this series are the characters. There is little in the way of character development. Kirie, her family, and boyfriend Shuichi seem to merely move from one sinister event to another without ever really stopping to ask, “I wonder what could be causing this?” or “I think we should get out of town.” To be far, they do try the latter but by the time they do it is too late. But a deep character study is not Ito’s goal. The goal is to create a sense of dread, terror, and horror. In this respect, Uzumaki is an absolute success. Each episode builds slowly to a shocking conclusion. This is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in horror or the macabre.

Author Info

Junji Ito was born in 1963 in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Originally Ito went to school and worked as a dental technician until his career as an artist and writer began taking off in the 1990s. Inspired by people like horror manga artist Kazuo Umezu as well as American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, Ito has become one Japan’s most well known as successful horror manga artists. Many of his stories focus on young girls and obsessions with beauty. This can be seen in both the Tomie series as well as Uzumaki.

Ito has had several of his works adapted into films including the Tomie series (5 films to date) and Uzumaki (2000). Ito continues to draw and write for numerous magazines in Japan.

Book Talking Ideas

1. What every day, seemingly benign and harmless things creep you out?

2. How does Ito build tension and atmosphere throughout the comic?

Challenges

While I have not read of any challenges to this series, I imagine its due to the fact that it is not as widely read as other manga such as Dragonball, Naruto, or Death Note. There is no offensive language or sexual content but it does contain plenty of violence and macabre imagery.

• · Be aware of the content and the fact that this is a horror comic; the goal is to being horrific and this will inevitably offend some people.

Why I choose this title

I read this entire series in one sitting. It is a brilliant piece of horror fiction and is an excellent gateway into other similar masters of the macabre such as Poe, Lovecraft, and King. As an avid fan of horror literature and film, I’m always looking for ways to introduce people to one of my greatest passions. There is also a film version which is equally as weird.

1. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Sebold, Alice. (2002). The lovely bones. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN#: 978-0-316-04440. p. 372

Genre: Fiction
Interest Age: 15+
Curriculum Ties: NA

Reader's Annotation
When Susie Salmon was murdered it was only the beginning of her journey. As she watches from her own personal Heaven, her friends and family cope with her death and search for her murder who lives right around the corner.

Plot Summary
In 1973, Susie Salmon, age 14, is brutally raped and murdered by a neighbor. Susie awakes, not in Heaven, but in the In-Between, an ethereal midway point where she creates and controls her new reality. From this vantage point she is able to observe her friends and family yet is unable to directly interact. She watches as her family and friends cope with her death and search for her killer, whose identity is known to Susie but a mystery to everyone else. She watches as her friends grow older, her family slowly unravels, and her killer goes undiscovered. Susie realizes that although she is no longer alive, she is still very much a part of the lives of her family and friends. Even though Susie is eternally 14, she continues maturing psychotically and emotionally. She also becomes more in control of her new reality, the In-Between. Later she even finds that she can influence and make contact with the real world and her still living friends and family. She might just be strong enough to guide them to her killer.

Critical Review

Sebold weaves together a fantastic story which is effective as a “who done it?” mystery, a study of how loss and grief effect a family, as well as a story about a young girl coping with life, death, and love. Although the reader knows the identity of the killer from the very beginning, since the story is told from Susie’s point of view, no one else does. Watching Susie’s father Jack Salmon, her younger sister Lindsey, and the detective in charge of the case, Fenerman, try and point the pieces together would have been captivating enough on its own. The drama surrounding the Salmon family is heartbreaking at times. Susie’s father becomes obsessed with finding her killer. Her mother struggles to move on yet is unable do to her husband’s obsession and the growing distance between them. Susie’s younger sister must deal with the being “the sister of the girl who was murdered” while her family is falling apart. This is the most effective part of the novel. The drama is rarely melodramatic and the characters, even the murdering Mr. Harvey, are never one dimensional stereotypes. The elements of the fantastic are wonderful. Sebold creates a unique vision of the afterlife where one’s reality is made up of memories, feels, and experiences from one’s life. There are no overt religious messages. Only the idea that the afterlife is what we create, what we take with us.

The Lovely Bones wonderfully shows how there can be love, joy and ultimately healing even after an event as horrible as having a friend, daughter, or sister violently taken from you. Be warned, Sebold gives us neither an easy path nor the easy ending. What she gives us is a very real and cathartic experience.

Author Info

Alice Sebold was born in Antigo, Wisconsin in 1963. To date she has written three novels: Lucky (1999), The Lovely Bones (2002), and The Almost Moon (2007). Her first book, Lucky, is personal memoir recounting her brutal rape while attending Syracuse University. She later identified and testified against her assailant in court where he was eventually convicted. Sebold then returned to school and finished her degree. Later, she fell into hard drug use while living in New York. Sebold recounts, “I did a lot of things that I’m not particularly proud of and that I can’t believe I did”. (Cue, 2001)

After kicking her drug habit she moved to California and became the caretaker of an arts colony and lived in a cabin with no electricity and wrote using propane lantern. Later she enrolled in the University of California , Irvine (UCI) MFA program where she met her future husband, writer Glen David Gold. In a 2002 interview, Sebold stated, “I have always felt extremely weird….but I am very happy with my weirdness and I want people to be very happy with theirs”.

Clarson, Jenifer. (July/August 2002). [Interview with Alice Sebold]. Book. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?cid=996944#bio

Cue, Ehzra. (2001). Award winning UCI author Alice Sebold discusses works. New University. Irvine, CA: University of California, Irvine. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from http://web.archive.org/web/20050411022901/http://www.newu.uci.edu/archive/2000- 2001/spring/010430/f-010430-alice.html

Book Talking

1. How does the Salmon family with Susie’s rape/murder? How do their reactions affect the family?

2. What is Susie’s “afterlife”, or In-Between, like? How is it created? What is the author’s perception of the afterlife?

Challenges

There have been challenges to this book in some middle school libraries due to its “graphic content”. The book does deal with the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl. There is a fairly graphic (although nowhere near pornographic) sexual scene. There have also been concerns about the religious content since the main character, Susie, is in a Heaven-like place yet there is no God.

· Be familiar with the parts of the book which involve violence and sexuality

· Be aware of the religious climate of your community

· Precedents: Several middle school libraries have retained this book on the shelves after challenges.

o See: http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2007/january2007/ALA_print_layout_1_333808_333808.cfm

o http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources/free_downloads/2008banned.pdf

Why I choose this book

Originally I picked up this book because the movie looked good and I wanted to read the book first. I could not put it down once I started reading; I finished it in one day. It has numerous themes, grief, loss, revenge, coming of age, what comes after life, etc…, and all of them are handled beautifully.