Amazona

Gr 7 Up–The displacement of Indigenous peoples across the world, in the name of capitalistic progress, is a horrific, well-documented reality. It’s the source of compelling stories of suffering, resistance, and occasional victory in the face of a massive opponent. This is a bold imagining of one such tale.Hard-eyed heroine Andrea, 19, has been displaced from her village in the Colombian rain forest and resides in a miniscule apartment with 37 others. Her husband was killed amid the violence of their removal, and her baby died from their inescapably squalid urban living conditions. Her quest for retribution is fueled by fury borne of this pain—she must return her baby’s body to their native land and bring back evidence of the injustice that has destroyed her world. Canizales’s shadow-filled, jungle-focused, black-and-white art captures the pain of displacement from one’s physical and spiritual world; flashbacks to the horrors of Andrea’s past, set against black backgrounds, are especially effective. Andrea’s plan to deceive the site guards and document her home’s destruction feels less grounded in reality—the moral simplicity of the suggestion that retribution is possible once she uncovers their wrongdoing feels too easy in an otherwise complex story. Scenes of violence, death, and attempted assault may disturb some readers.