Are hyper-realistic graphic novels a genre? I don’t think they are, but The Other Side of Tomorrow is a graphic novel that wields a mighty hammer in knocking at the doors of book classification. It’s realistic fiction, but is so realistic, both in the manner in which the illustrations are done, and the taut nature of the story that you’ll pinch yourself in gratitude that it’s not happening to you. This is a graphic novel that entertains via drama, age-appropriate political intrigue, familial love and armchair travel. Moreover, The Other Side of Tomorrow manages to tell its story alongside one of the greatest geographic areas and humanitarian crises that middle school kids never learn about, North Korea.
The goal of The Other Side of Tomorrow finding its middle school audience is challenging. It takes place in modern day North Korea, with aspects of the story happening in China, as well as, Thailand and Laos. The Other Side of Tomorrow is a very serious graphic novel because it’s realistic fiction that follows the escape of Yunho and Myunghee from North Korea. They want to leave for different reasons and discover that a desire to escape will open them up to short-term dangers that are far more perilous than the abject poverty they lived under in their home country.
Let’s frame this in a manner that and high school students can better understand. The 13-year-old version of you has a job, and that work is to scour a field looking for scraps of metal. The leader of your country requires you to find enough metal that you’ll sell to the government. That metal should be enough to make one bullet a day and you do this work because the adults in your country think of that leader as a God. You can also earn money by selling soup on the side of the road from the vegetables that you dug out of the ground. Public executions happen where the guilty pay for their crimes, like making international phone calls or owning foreign DVDs. The only music that you can listen to are militaristic anthems that the leader ordains as appropriate. If you dare even sing foreign songs that can only be done with the curtains closed and the volume down low, lest the police knock on the door to see what’s going on.
As an adult reading The Other Side of Tomorrow I had to stop reading the graphic novel several times. The art in the story is obviously from modern times, yet the dire living conditions, lack of food and totalitarian dictatorship was reminiscent of another time. This reminder helped me reconcile the fact that this is a modern-day story of realistic fiction that’s still happening in parts of the world. My perception of certain things as being antiquated or not happening are still happening, just thousands of miles away from where I live. If it takes a middle aged adult male a moment to process the implications and inferences of The Other Side of Tomorrow then younger readers are certainly forgiven if they can’t deal with the scope of the graphic novel without the proper reference.
Young readers will relate to the fact that several of the main characters are their age. However, the seemingly dystopian elements will be harder to grasp for them. Sharing the only food a person has for the day, which is a bowl of rice, is more in line with some mglit hunger novel than a realistic fiction graphic novel. People might put this graphic novel in a group with immigration or human rights. That’s going to be a tough road to cross because some of those books might just be people relocating for better conditions. Myunghee and Yunho aren’t just wanting to leave North Korea for a different diet and better WI-FI, it’s prison-esque, with the taunting thought of a loved one who has escaped. Can today’s tweens and teens relate to a modern-day story with life or death consequences for kids their age who live on the other side of the world?
The Other Side of Tomorrow is a fabulous graphic novel that uses patient, nuanced storytelling paired with soft art. The art by Deb JJ Lee makes the most out of every shadow, haze and detail to drive home the dangers that the three must navigate. Tomorrow starts out with separate narratives, focusing on each character. We see a glimpse of their life in North Korea, follow along as they make the tough decision to escape and are cautiously optimistic when they all meet up to hopefully find a better tomorrow.
High school audiences and teachers will see The Other Side of Tomorrow as a sibling to Persepolis. That graphic novel is drawn in a much simpler fashion. It also isn’t as concise and powerful as Tomorrow. All things equal, we like The Other Side of Tomorrow more as a graphic novel for those ages to read and study in school because it’s more timely and immersive. Tomorrow’s text is in verse, so when it’s not dialogue that one of the characters is saying, it’s presented in a poetic format.
Kids don’t like poetry, we got that memo. However, The Other Side of Tomorrow is so impossible to resist, they won’t even realize it’s poetic. They’ll see it as incomplete or short sentences and not the stodgy form of literature that they associate with the 1800s. This is raw, dirty, teeming with action and an under belly of hope that’s set against conditions that are akin to wartime. The Other Side of Tomorrow is a graphic novel that makes you appreciate where you are, thankful of the conditions that aren’t there and think about the global political climate in an age-appropriate manner that makes those seemingly callous young readers curious and empathetic to a situation they probably would not have thought about.
The Other Side of Tomorrow is by Tina Cho and illustrated Deb JJ Lee and is available on Harper Alley, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
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