Harvey
How I Became Invisible
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
A sophisticated and original graphic novel, about a young boy's reaction to his father's death.
Harvey and his little brother are playing in the slushy streets of early spring when they learn, out of the blue, that their father has died of a heart attack. Everything changes and Harvey’s favorite movie, The Incredible Shrinking Man, suddenly begins to dominate his fantasy life. When relatives try to get him to look at his father in his coffin, Harvey finds himself disappearing.
Brilliantly illustrated, emotionally true and devastatingly sad, this book is an artful and utterly convincing study of one boy’s response to great loss.
Key Text Features
speech bubbles
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.6
Describe how a narrator's or speaker's point of view influences how events are described.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.1
Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3
Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this challenging graphic novel, Bouchard's first book for children (which won Governor General's awards for both text and illustration in 2009), narrator Harvey promises to tell readers about "the time when I became invisible." An early spring day is forever changed when Harvey and his brother arrive home, just as their father is being wheeled into an ambulance, dead of a heart attack. In somber shades of mauve, teal, and charcoal, Nadeau's delicate, smudgy spot art and full-bleed scenes create a stark world for Harvey's plainspoken observations. Heartbreaking imagery abounds: after gawkers disperse, the silhouette of the family's home suggests a gemstone, white-hot under pressure; Harvey's mother curls up alone. Because of his small stature, Harvey can't see into his father's coffin, and he mulls conflicting images of his father based on mourners' comments ("aybe the way to see for real is to listen to all of them"). When an uncle lifts him up for a better view, Harvey disappears like many might wish they could in such a situation. Reality becomes concrete, he becomes insubstantial, and the book ends (though Harvey may reappear in a sequel). Ages 10 up.
