Alia's Mission

"A New York Times Book Review cartoonist recounts the heroic story of Iraqi librarian Alia Muhammad Baker in a swift, 32-page, comic-book format. [Mark Alan] Stamaty's soft gray-and-beige panels realistically capture Baker's tremendous undertaking as she rescues over 30,000 volumes from her library in Basra before it's besieged. The drawings themselves intensify the traumatic story, and the in-your-face, all-caps dialogue bubbles enhance the sense of impending doom about to befall the library and the people. A fast-paced and informative Middle Eastern study [for readers 6 to 10]."?School Library Journal