Stitches: Memoir, A (National Book Award Finalist)

Description: David Small, the prize-winning children's author, depicts a childhood from hell in this searing yet redemptive graphic memoir. One day Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had throat cancer and was expected to die. Small re-creates a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. Readers will be riveted by his journey from speechless victim, subjected to X-rays by his radiologist father and scolded by his withholding and tormented mother, to his decision to flee his home at sixteen with nothing more than dreams of becoming an artist. Recalling Running with Scissors with its ability to evoke the trauma of a childhood lost, Stitches will transform adolescent and adult readers alike with its deeply liberating vision.

Review: Stitches abounds with striking visuals and daring panel arrangements..." The Telegraph "A stunning literary autobiography from American award-winning children's illustrator and author David Small..." The Bookseller "Small's retelling of his childhood, in which he lost his voice to throat cancer, is an elevated and heartbreaking addition to the graphic book genre." The Times "A bleak, brutal, unrelentingly honest masterpiece..." Neel Mukherjee, The Times "The tale of [Small's] childhood is terrifying and tragic, but ultimately uplifting." Selected for 50 Best Winter Reads in The Independent "...it [Stitches] is a wonderful thing." The Observer "It's a darkly beautiful and finely crafted book." www.grovel.org.uk "...moving and poignant memoir..." List

Author Biography: National Book Award winner for Octavian Nothing, David Small is the recipient of the Caldecott Medal, a Christopher Medal and the E.B. White Award for his picture books, which include Imogene's Antlers, The Gardener and So, You Want to Be President?