Maus is a German word that means mouse in English. Maus, a historical nonfiction/historical dramatic nonfiction graphic novel, is written by Swedish born author, Art Spiegelman.

The events in Maus take place in Europe, and a lot of them in Sosnowiec, Poland during World War Two.Vladek Spiegelman is the main character portrayed in the story, who’s life during World War Two, along with his wife Anja, is being made into a graphic novel by Vladek’s son - Artie. Vladek narrates the story to his son, when he is old, and when his son - Artie is an adult. At the beginning of the Maus, Vladek’s love life is explained, and how he meets his future wife - Anja. Yet even though he is dating Anja, his previous girlfriend - Lucia keeps following him and keeps pleading to him for them to get back together, even though Vladek has moved on from her. Throughout Maus, Vladek gets sent to a concentration camp, then gets transferred, his Parshas Truma dream comes true, etc. It is basically shown how Vladek and Anja try to run away, hide, and escape from the Nazis by any means possible. It can also be seen as to what living conditions they have to live through. In the end, Vladek and Anja pay some smugglers and attempt to escape from the Nazis to Hungary.

The word choice used in this book is quite unique compared to some other books. For example, words with Polish/European origins are used, such as kombinator and meshuga are used to describe people. The writer also uses a graphic novel type format to display the story, hence Maus has a lot of illustrations that support the writing. The characters used in the book are also different, seeing that mice are used instead of Jews, cats are used instead of the Nazis, and pigs are used to represent the Polish people.

I think mainly people that prefer to read books of genres such as historical nonfiction or historical dramatic nonfiction would actually enjoy reading this. This is because it doesn’t have very much action or any events/suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat. It is mainly focused on the fight for freedom and how sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the people we love. Hence it is a book that is more suited for calm people, who can enjoy a book even when it is not as eventful as some other books.