CHERNOBYL, LIFE, AND OTHER DISASTERS written and illustrated by Yevgenia Nayberg

Ukranian artist-writer Yevgenia Nayberg’s CHERNOBYL, LIFE, AND OTHER DISASTERS has composed a memoir brilliant in words and images. This graphic novel begins in 1986, in Kiev, the year of the Chernobyl accident and then quickly doubles back to Genya’s younger childhood where the big conflicts in her life are her desire to grow her hair long and being given a boy’s name. Then a few years she begins 1986 by hoping to see Halley’s comet and to be in the 1% of Jewish applicants who get into a prestigious art school in 5th grade. Of course, these take a backseat halfway through the book when the meltdown occurs and she learns the word and the meaning of radiation for the first time. Transitions are seamless and characterizations are well- developed and their stylized childlike rendering matches the voice. Double-page spreads as involving. Nayberg captures the confusion of adult nuances and makes this historic event understandable.. You can find a link to the book in the purchase button below.