Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2009
336 pages
Genre: Graphic Novels
Publication Information
Graphic Novel.
One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had throat cancer and was expected to die. Small, a prize-winning children's author, re-creates a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. Readers will be riveted by his journey from speechless victim, subjected to X-rays by his radiologist father and scolded by his withholding and tormented mother, to his decision to flee his home at sixteen with nothing more than dreams of becoming an artist. Recalling Running with Scissors with its ability to evoke the trauma of a childhood lost, Stitches will transform adolescent and adult readers alike with its deeply liberating vision. .
"Stitches is compelling, disturbing, yet surprisingly easy to read and more than meets the high standard set by the widely praised Fun Home." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. Emotionally raw, artistically compelling and psychologically devastating graphic memoir of childhood trauma. . . . Graphic narrative at its most cathartic." - Kirkus Reviews
"Starred Review. Small's black and white pen and ink drawings are endlessly perceptive as they portray the layering of dream and imagination onto the real-life experiences of the young boy." - Publishers Weekly
"One word. Phenomenal. . . .This book changed my opinion of the [graphic novel] genre forever. . . . If you haven't read a graphic novel before, let this be your first..... Highly Recommended." - Jeff Rivera, GalleyCat
"David Small's Stitches is aptly named. With surgical precision, the author pierces into the past and, with great artistry, seals the wound inflicted on a small child by cruel and unloving parents. Stitches is as intensely dramatic as a woodcut novel of the silent movie era and as fluid as a contemporary Japanese manga. It breaks new ground for graphic novels." - Françoise Mouly, Art Editor, The New Yorker
This information about Stitches was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Gordon Trice
David Small was born in Detroit on February 12, 1945. After getting his MFA at the Yale Graduate School of Art, David taught art for many years on the college level, ran a film series, and made satirical sketches for campus newspapers. Although tenure at the college did not follow, many more picture books did, as well as extensive work for national magazines and newspapers. His drawings appeared regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Times.
Small is the author of the #1 New York Times best-selling Stitches, and is the recipient of the Caldecott Medal, the Christopher Medal, and the E. B. White Award. He and his wife, the writer Sarah Stewart, live in Michigan.
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