Above the Trenches, a graphic novel that edutains with ease from all angles

Having taught a couple of classes to middle school grades about World War I, I know that the subject can be confusing. The time spent on WWI for most middle school classes is very brief, with more time allowed for the Treaty of Versailles, especially for those lower grades. Those ages know about the mythos of the flying ace, even if they get hazy on who were the Allied Forces and what were the causes that led to it. Above the Trenches is a graphic novel in the Nathan Tale’s Hazardous Tales series. This entry is specifically about the flying aces that took to the skies in WWI and how they came to shape this new form of combat. Ironically, the most famous WWI pilot, the Red Baron doesn’t factor into Above the Trenches that much. Instead, the graphic novel is about the Allied Powers and their build-up of the foreign legion and the men who jumped into this relatively new mode of transportation.

Did I mention that the Hazardous Tales graphic novel series is very smart? If you were able to navigate the twists in that first paragraph you probably figured that out. They’re a very smart graphic novel series that also manages to be very entertaining, very funny and do both of them without watering down the harsh realities of the subject matter. The books are very self-aware and have a quartet of narrators that guide readers through each entry when the story needs levity or clarification.

The first page has one of the narrators warning that Above the Trenches will have widespread instances of smoking and drinking, and that they’re behaviors that kids shouldn’t do. It’s immediately followed by two of the other narrators smoking and drinking. This then leads for the initial narrator to clarify that said behavior is meant to be exhibited by the book’s characters.

As the graphic novel enters the fray into WWI, the story’s main characters are represented by anthropomorphic chickens, eagles, bears, rabbits and cats.  Remember how I said that WWI was potentially confusing and that the Hazardous Tales graphic novels were very smart? Above the Trenches uses various species of animals, but mainly rabbits, eagles, bulldogs and chickens to represent the Americans, Germans, English and French to illustrate the main players from each county.

This is a very smart and intuitive way to get middle school readers and older to follow the story. Had the story of the various flying aces been illustrated using traditional humans the nationalities and people involved would’ve been confusing shortly after their introduction. The cast of characters in Above the Trenches is massive, it’s a huge number of pilots and infantry that add up to a potentially confusing story with a difficult-to-follow narrative.

It could’ve ended up that way, but it didn’t. Instead, readers can follow the plight of aviators like James McConnell, Jimmy Bach or military tricks like flechettes or death balloons. Flechettes were akin to lawn darts except they were dropped from airplanes for impaling troops or horses. Death balloons is what the first zeppelins were called. They were thought to be invincible because they were able to fly so high. It wasn’t until Reginald Warenford shot down a zeppelin that was headed to England from France by successfully dropping a bomb on it. Unfortunately, immediately after that his engine stopped working and he was forced to make an emergency landing far behind enemy lines. Warenford was able to land his plane and temporarily fix it so that he could escape the Germans who were about to kill him. His heroics earned him a Victoria Cross, but days after his narrow escape his plane disintegrated and he was thrown to his death.

This is another reason that the use of animals as a stand-in is a genius way to illustrate the players: most of the characters die shortly after they’re introduced. It doesn’t diminish the importance of them or make them disposable in any way; but it illustrates the scale of danger, as well as the speed at which people died in WWI.

The tension that Hale creates in Above the Trenches even rises above what I normally fault his books for. They do produce an oversized version of some of the Hazardous Tales graphic novels. Above the Trenches is not oversized and you’ll wish that the pages and font were larger; but the story is so engaging, detailed, and tautly presented that you’ll hang on every word and panel.

Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Above the Trenches is by Nathan Hale and available from Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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