E. Lockhart and Ken Krimstein, Panel

E. Lockhart and Ken Krimstein; panel

Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero and When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers

New Yorker Cartoonist Ken Krimstein joins National Book Award Finalist and author of the stunning #1 New York Times Bestseller We Were Liars, E. Lockhart, for a foray into graphic novels.

Willow Zimmerman, aka “Whistle,” with her loyal Great Dane Lebowitz, is the first Jewish superhero in the DC universe in over 40 years. Struggling to take care of her sick mother and without health insurance, a desperate Willow reconnects with an estranged family friend E. Nigma, who opens the door to an easier life. But when Willow and Lebowitz are attacked by Killer Croc, Willow wakes to find she has powers she never dreamed of, and that Nigma is not who he says he is, forcing her to choose between the man who saved her mother’s life and the good of her community.

When I Grow Up is a collection based on six of hundreds of newly discovered, never-before-published autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish teens on the brink of WWII-found in 2017 hidden in a Lithuanian church cellar. Krimstein shows us the stories of these six young men and women in riveting, almost cinematic narratives, full of humor, yearning, ambition, and all the angst of the teenage years. It's as if half a dozen new Anne Frank stories have suddenly come to light, framed by the dramatic story of the documents' rediscovery.

 

Sponsored by Nancy & Ken Kranzberg

Performing Arts Center, upstairs

10:30 am

This event can be viewed virtually at community.jccstl.org