The Complete Maus : A Survivor's Tale

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Summary: I actually WANTED to finish this book..it's intersting
Review: Like many other teenagers, I think reading is really boring. When they told me to read Maus and Maus II, I was like man this is gonna be boring. When I first got it, I was suprised that it was a comic book. i was like finally something fun to do. The book was fun to read yet it explained experiences in the holocaust. I read that book like three times in one day, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. i encourage u to read it!!!!!

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Summary: A very creative look at the Holocaust
Review: This is an original look at the Holocaust, by making animals represent the different cultures during World War 2. The Jewish people are mice, the Germans are cats, the Polish are pigs and Americans are dogs.By the illustrations, this also gives you a more realistic look into the death camps. It makes you want to learn more about the Holocaust and World War 2.

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Summary: LOVED it as a family member
Review: This is very historcly acurate. For those who think not I suggest you watch -'Escape from Sobibor'. It's based on a real event and one jew who ecsaped got beatin to death by fellow polish who hated Jews. This book is a memoir of 1 person who did not live everybodies lives. The only people who got tormented since the begining of time were the Jews and Gypsies. They (Jews) were slaves of the Egyptions and tormented for all their exsitince, as with the Gypsies. Maybe you might want to think of the 'American Dogs' or 'French Frogs' if you want to critize, so grow up and get a history text book! If you'd like to read any of the Maus books, I highly suggest it!

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Summary: Excellent and original for the most part
Review: I can't argue with the critics. The Maus books are exteremely accessible. The story line is riveting. The pictures are dramatic, and the black-and-white heightens the intense drama (as with Schindler's List.) My complaint lies in the presentation of the father, Vladek, in New York in the eighties. Art Spiegelman includes scenes of Vladek going about his living and telling Holocaust stories in New York City. Often, Vladek is presented as temperamental, domineering, miserly, and whiny. I can see why Art Spiegelman would like to present the elderly version of his father as a three-dimensional human character, and not as some god. However, Art owes his magnum opus to Vladek; since the presentation of Vladek's flaws adds nothing to the central focus of the book, I believe it to be disgraceful. Hence, I give Maus four stars instead of five.

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Summary: THIS WAS THE BEST, MOST REALISTIC BOOK I'VE EVER READ.
Review: I first found this book in 9th grade and the teacher told me it's college matierial and too advanced. I sat down with it and couldn't put it down. I especially loved the whole comic book look of it, it made it more interesting. I was never really interested in tht Holocaust, but when I read this book, it took the whole thing from a different perspective, and that's what caught my eye. This book is boss, everyone should read it!!!

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Summary: This is one of the most compelling stories I've read to date
Review: Maus is in one word 'marvelous'. It is a work of art that is unieque unto itself. It cannot be compared with anything else because nothing can compare with Mr. Spiegleman's comic masterpiece, and it cannot be compared because there is nothing like it. 'Prisoner on the Hell Planet', the work inside the work, is one of the most powerful, savagely beautiful comics I've had the pleasure to read. All in all, it is a great book and I would recommend it to anyone no matter what their reading preferance is.

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Summary: Presenting the old anew
Review: What a powerful way to tell the same story to new ears. Like the film, Life is Beautiful, we have to tell the story over and over again, and present our history in ways that allow eveyone to take-in. Terrific!

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Summary: Great!!!!!!!
Review: This book puts the life of the Holucast in the view that is easy enough for kids and teens to understand.

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Summary: Brilliant work, and NOT defamatory to "Poles"
Review: MAUS is, to be sure, a brilliant work. My parents survived the Holocaust, read Maus, and affirm that it captures well the times, although every individual experienced the Holocaust in their own way due to their own unique circumstances. One reviewer asserts, essentially, that Maus defames Poles. This is a simplistic, defensive position: Maus simply reports the reality experienced by one family, and their reality is that Poles were complicit in the extermination of jews. My own family witnessed extreme (murderous) Polish antisemitism and collaboration with the Nazis in the destruction of the Jews. The fact that Germans and Poles struggles with each other -- indeed the Germans wanted to enslave the Poles -- is irrelevant to the fact that both hated Jews due to antisemitism, which has its roots in medieval Catholic church doctrine that the "Jews killed Christ." (A Polish housekeeper we had as a child was surprised that I did not have horns, as she thought all Jews had!) To say that 3,000,000 Poles helped Jews is absurd -- get real! And, Poles who in fact have been proven to have saved Jews have been honored by Israel at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial (like Oscar Schindler, etc.) There were good Poles, bad Poles, and indifferent Poles, but no serious scholar disputes ingrained Polish antisemitism and widespread collaboration with the Nazis against Jews.

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Summary: This book represents many other stories
Review: I worked at the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies as a student at Yale University. I reviewed many testimonies, and was at one point assigned a number of videos about survivors from Sosnowiec, Poland, where much of _Maus_ takes place. I can only say of the books that they reproduce both typical experiences of those survivors and the tone of their stories in an extremely effective, real and moving way. The books are not at all implausible, as has been suggested in other reviews at this site; surviving the Holocaust required that level of ingenuity and courage, as I witnessed through many similar personal stories. If you are not able to learn about the Holocaust from someone who experienced it, these books are a very artistic and brave attempt to convey that knowledge. Spiegelman has given an authentic voice to the many, many survivors whose stories would otherwise languish on the shelves of archives around the world.