I am not a big history buff and I must admit I know very little about the Iron Curtain. I found this book very informative and appealing to read. The beautiful black and white drawings (with splashes of red here and there) kept my attention on the subject of the book. The author, Peter Sis, grew up during the the 1940s in Prague. He explains through his drawings and journal entries how his life changed during this time period. I appreciated the definition of terms associated with this era: iron curtain, cold war, communism. To reinforce the story the word compulsory appears in bold repeatedly next to Russian language classes, political indoctrination, youth movement, etc. When Peter was not allowed to express his beliefs in school, for fear of retaliation, he resorted to drawing his feelings. In secret he questioned and painted what he was not allowed to paint. He listened to the banned radio. In 1968, he experienced a little freedom as censorship was temporarily lifted. He hitchhiked and started to see more of what he has been missing. Very quickly, however the Iron Curtain came back down. Military service was compulsory. Censorship started all over again. Things got worse and worse, until…Mikhail Gorbachev restructured. The wall collapsed in 1989. By 1991, the Cold War was over.

I think upper elementary through high school students (as well as adults) will be able to relate to the Cold War better by seeing through the eyes of the author. As I read this, I thought about the Holocaust. Whenever I teach a lesson on The Diary of Anne Frank, students are always stunned and wonder how could anyone do that? Without learning the mistakes of the past, we are doomed to repeat them.