Breadcrumbs: Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Poland

Babis recounts growing up during Poland’s lurching transition into capitalism in this scattershot graphic memoir. Born in 1992, Babis benefits from her family’s economic rise (depicted like a game of Life) but her schooling is taken over by the country’s resurgent Catholicism (her domineering headmistress quotes scripture as she scrubs makeup off girls and censors student writing). Babis becomes close with two girls who are her fellow staffers on the school newspaper, and the trio get in trouble when one of their strict Catholic mother’s finds the blog they created to post pictures of drunken high school parties. Babis goes on to recount her growing political awareness amid crucial moments in the late ’90s and early 2000s, including the death of Pope John Paul II and the 2010 Smolensk air disaster. Against this backdrop, she and her friends enter young adulthood and navigate parental disapproval and other challenges. Babis’s simple character designs are fluidly drawn but can be hard to distinguish as the leads age and the narrative jumps rapidly between scenes and groups. While the individual character arcs are effective, the connective tissue is a bit too loose. The result is an intriguing glimpse into the period that suffers from an uneven balance of political commentary and personal narrative. (June)