This past week I read to my girls, Minh Le’s story, ‘The Blur’ which was illustrated by the Caldecott Medalist, Dan Santat. Granted, it is a children’s book, but this book is for parents.

The story follows the parents of a little girl who watch her grow up and go to college. The title ‘The Blur’ has a twofold meaning.

Frankly, I was very impressed by the quality of the story. I immediately connected with the characters and found the story’s backdrop of Eastern Africa engaging. Beserat is great at instilling some cultural-specific terms and actions that serve as a nod to his Ethiopian audience and as a cross-cultural educational piece for an uninitiated western audience.

The story turned out to be a melancholy post-apocalyptic world where the three protagonists wandered around a destroyed world for food.

For me, it read like an episode of the show instead of a self-contained story.

Nostalgia abound! Much like other branching novel books, this is written in a second-person point of view. How this is different than other books, this is also mainly a solo roleplaying game. The reader first creates the character statistics. I love how this particular branching novel roleplaying adventure makes it extremely portable and accessible anywhere.

The game is part of the original White Wolf ‘World of Darkness’ game line. The players take on the roles of ghosts and try to navigate the horror and hope of finding purpose and peace in the next stage of existence.

It was a great read and highlights the struggles of Chinese immigrants to the United States during the 1800s. it was a powerful story, educational, and inspiring. I am so happy to discover more graphic novels that tell stories that we all should be reading.

Erika Chappell did a fantastic job designing the game and she did a great job putting in the intricacies of aerial combat in the rules-light system. The book is 300 pages long and is an amazing example of a steampunk setting.