Hernán Cortés (Graphic Nonfiction Biographies)

Gr. 4-6. Debuting this spring are two curriculum-connected, full-color comics series aimed at elementary- and middle-graders: Capstone's Graphic Library and Rosen's Graphic Nonfiction. Both series cling to popular social-science topics, with an eye toward multiculturalism (e.g., both offer volumes about Harriet Tubman), and though the individual volumes have been created by diverse authors and illustrators, the series themselves each have a consistent look and feel. Both include glossaries and other appendixes for student use; they also have tight bindings that will help them circulate longer, but may intrude on their appeal to reluctant readers.

Marco Polo is an engaging introduction to the Italian explorer's travels to the court of Kublai Khan, with art that occasionally rises above simple illustration to provide narrative content. A good representative of the series, it uses a broad approach to its subject's life and achievements, and it includes traditional narrative front matter (written at a higher level than the main text) and maps, which are often overly busy.

Cortes, like others in the series, focuses on one aspect of its subject's life, and creators have been careful to include Native American and female viewpoints in their depiction of Cortes' contact with the Aztecs. The illustrations make cunning use of Aztec glyphs, but otherwise add no new information. Francisca Goldsmith
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