I approached Echoes of October with trepidation. A graphic novel about violence and grief isn’t easy terrain. But it succeeds in a haunting, urgent way. The creators have chosen to explore the year leading into the October 7, 2023 massacre through the lives of four children who each lose a parent. The children are from different locales (Gaza City, Toronto, Tel Aviv, and Daliyat al‑Karmel) which enables a textured, multi‑vantage narrative.
What impressed me most is the restraint and care in which the story is told. The voices are calibrated: they carry sorrow, confusion, hope, anger, but rarely descend into melodrama. Because the characters are composite (e.g., everything that happens in the book is true, the characters are not), the authors manage to create space for truths without claiming to own them.
I love graphic novels (scifi and history) and regularly have them in my reading diet. The panels breathe. There are silences, negative space, quiet facial expressions, and moments of violent disruption. The juxtaposition of children’s everyday worlds (school, family, and play) with the encroaching shadows of conflict makes the tragedy more palpable and intense.
This is not an easy read, nor should it be. Echoes of October is demanding: it expects the reader to engage, be uncomfortable, and reckon with stories that hold no clean resolution. But in doing so, it honors the complexity of memory, the weight of loss, and the imperative of bearing witness.
I recommend it to anyone willing to engage deeply with how conflict impacts children and the possibility (however fragile) of empathy.