Reader’s Corner

Danica Novogorodoff’s Slow Storm reads like a poem and flows like a film.

Early in this graphic novel the reader is presented with its main character, a firefighter sculpted on the page out of watercolor brush strokes. The connection of opposing elements is a central theme of this story. As with the elements of water and paint, we see in Novgordoff’s story that we can live in harmony with the world only if we are willing to yield to natural forces.

Ursa, our firefighting heroine, and Rafi, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, meet when Rafi’s home, a horse barn in Kentucky, catches fire. They find friendship in their connections to home: the physical home of Kentucky, a home in the mind, and a home-like familiarity in the experience of struggle against the forces of nature and society. Novgorodoff uses her watercolor brush to illuminate the barriers and borders, both physical and social, that keep us away from home—and the connections that keep us tied to it.

I strongly recommend taking a good, long look at this graphic novel—reading it once for the story, a second time for the art. I look forward to seeing more by this wonderful artist and storyteller.

Slow Storm
by Danica Novgorodoff
Published by First Second, September 2008

Jamie Goldenberg
Orion design associate