Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima Paperback – September 1, 2004

The book is well made, sturdy and arrived on time.This powerful autobiographical graphic novel is not for the faint of heart. I feel like I am processing the author’s childhood as it is happening.Watching this painful moment in Japan’s history play out in a way that holds nothing back, told from the perspective of a child is so affecting. I carried the weight and pain around with me for days after I finished the book.The author goes into the political tensions and their effects of the poor and seemingly disconnected innocents of this war. This book gave them a face and showed a disconnected westerner a clear understanding of the suffering the war caused the Japanese people.It is a visual and emotional portrayal of a child’s life of struggle caused by war. You follow our protagonist as his childlike focus on the day to day is constantly being confused and upset by things caused by forces beyond his control.Highly recommend. Know it is a very graphic, violent, upsetting, and honest telling of the author’s perspective of Hiroshima in 1945 leading up to the nuclear bombing of the city.

This book is so well done. I read it as a kid and it stuck with me. It is describes the horror of war in general, while focusing on the special horror of nuclear war from the author's first hand account as a child in Hiroshima when the bomb Little Boy was deployed. Vols 2-10 are a little heavy/gory for an upper elementary kid, but a middle schooler should be able to handle those. Vol 1 is ok for mature upper elementary kids.

Came here for more after being moved by the animated film, and the book was incredible. I am so glad I got to read this story. Worth a look.

This is the first volume of the cartoonist who survived the bombing of the Hiroshima bomb. Parts of it is silly but that's the Japanese sense of humor and how they were disciplined. It wasn't called abusive even though in the book it looks like it. He shows that not all Japanese were warmongers during the war. In fact, those who were for peace where imprisoned or "gone." The suffering Gen and his family goes through was real. I can see it in our society in the U.S.

I have not read a graphic novel before. I bought the first 2 Barefoot Gen volumes for my father as a birthday gift because he was interested in Japan during WWII and had relatives in Hiroshima during the war. I read the books quickly before I gave them to my father to see if they were interesting. Since buying these books about a year ago, my father developed Alzheimers yet he still remembers reading these books. I bought him another volume and he has been reading this. My brother saw these books and borrowed them and his son in his late teens also became interested. The depiction of post bomb Japan from a childs point of view relates issues in a way that I've never read about before. As Gen's story tells how his life and relationships change, this is a compelling antiwar piece.

Great book about the very sad real-life experiences of the author who lived through the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima. The only reason I am giving it 4 stars is because I started reading it and the cover became unglued and started to fall off. I tried using normal glue to hold it together and that didn't work so I had to superglue the cover back into place. Other than that I have no issues with the book and it is amazing.

I've previously read the original abridged 4-volume English edition, and I'm looking forward to reading the entire work. It's quite simply... powerful. This first volume primarily follows Gen and his family in Hiroshima for the month preceding the detonation of "Little Boy" above the city. This is part of the brilliance of the work in that you have time to become accustomed to the style, the culture, the war mentality that had been cultivated, and to care for the people involved. Their struggles become personal and the shock one feels as the incomprehensible horror begins is palpable.

Barefoot Gen is a firsthand account of "the singular horror" of the 20th Century. My understanding of history as taught to me by the winners of WWII was shaken to its core by this graphic novel of the United States bombing of Hiroshima, and my country's complicity in the silence about what happened afterward. If we are ever to have a hope of moving forward from our dysfunctional state of denial we would do well to revisit our assessment of the closing of the war in the Pacific. The Barefoot Gen series is a good place to start. The series should be required reading in every secondary school in America.