A Look at Mendel the Mess-Up, a guest post by Terry LaBan

My new graphic novel, Mendel the Mess-Up, is an adventure story about a boy who struggles with the fact that he can’t seem to do anything right.
In the book, Mendel is convinced he’s been cursed, and it might be true. But I think it’s safe to say we, cursed or not, all have aspects of ourselves we find troublesome. We may have a tendency to talk too much which ends up annoying people, or have difficulty making friends because we’re shy. Certainly, this is a feeling I’ve struggled with. The aspects of my personality that have allowed me to pursue a career as a cartoonist—an intense focus on and obsession with my work, an inability to stick with anything else for very long—have sometimes caused problems in other areas of my life.

One way to deal with our difficult qualities is to try to change them. A shy person might force themself to talk to strangers, a klutz like Mendel may take extra care when they do their chores. But changing core aspects of our personalities is hard, and often impossible. In the end, as a character in my book says, we all have to find a way to live with our limitations. In fact, if we think about them differently, the parts of ourselves we don’t like may, in a lot of ways, actually be assets. It could even turn out, as it does for Mendel, that they’re our superpowers! At least, that’s what I tell myself—I’m still a work in progress.
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Mendel the Mess-Up is set in a Jewish village in old Eastern Europe, a place much like the ones my ancestors came from. But the setting isn’t meant to be historically accurate. As a kid, the books I liked best were set in fantasy worlds based on medieval Europe. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories and CS Lewis’ Narnia books took me to exciting places far away from the ones where I spent my day-to-day life. When I finished them my first thought, after feeling sad that I was done, was to wish I could create something similar myself. That’s a feeling I still have today.

But while I loved reading about warriors, wizards, and dragons when I was young, I feel differently now. I’ve almost never seen Jewish people represented in what’s now called “heroic fantasy,” though we were certainly present in the real medieval Europe that inspired it. And it’s not a period we remember fondly- the middle ages were, generally speaking, a terrible time for Jews. So, in my own book, I wanted to create another kind of fantasy world, one based on my own history.
I was inspired by a number of sources. One, of course, was Fiddler on the Roof, the play and movie that’s become for a lot of American Jews a sort of ersatz memory of what life was like in “the old country.” I also read many of the Sholom Aleichem stories it was based on, as well collections of Jewish folk tales and Hasidic stories. Just as important, this being a graphic novel, were collections of photos taken in Jewish villages, or shtetls, before World War 2. I spent a lot of time looking at them, trying to recognize my friends and family in the black and white faces of the bearded men, women wrapped in shawls and headscarves, and children in patched clothes, gazing back at me from dark wooden houses and muddy streets. I know very little about the pre-immigration experiences of my own ancestors, so I created a sort of archetypal setting from what I found and what already existed in my mind.
I tried to avoid the stereotypes often associated with old-time, Eastern European Jews. My characters speak as people do now, mostly without using Yiddish words or expressions. Mendel, who narrates the book, doesn’t spend much time explaining things readers might find unfamiliar; he just takes them for granted, as he would in real life. I made those choices not because I dislike traditional Jewish culture-I treasure it-but because I wanted the story to seem fresh, immediate, and as free possible from preconceptions. Something that would resonate with Jewish kids while being easily accessible to kids who aren’t Jewish as well.

Mendel the Mess-Up is a funny book– a major plot point involves making a prized beverage out of goat sweat, after all. But there’s also lots of darkness. Mendel confronts a band of Cossacks, historically among the worst enemies Jews ever had. He sees his family’s livelihood destroyed, his village almost so, and his life is constantly in danger. Of course, an adventure story wouldn’t be very adventurous if there wasn’t anything at risk. But it’s also true that, to me, humor isn’t just about making readers feel good. My favorite stories are, like life itself, funny, sad, and scary all at the same time. Stories like that, no matter how fantastic the setting, feel real.
My fondest hope is that readers of Mendel the Mess-Up will experience something like did as a kid when I read my favorite books. If it takes them to a new and unexpected place for awhile, if they’re sad when they finish it, and, especially, if it inspires a few to wish they could create something like it, I’ll feel like I did a good job.
Meet the author
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Terry LaBan is a lifelong comics artist and cartoonist whose work has been published by Fantagraphics, Kitchen Sink, and Dark Horse, and which has appeared in many magazines and comics zines. His syndicated daily comic Edge City ran from 2001 to 2015, appearing in thousands of newspapers nationwide. He is a professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he teaches graphic narrative. He is a member of the National Cartoonists Society.
https://www.instagram.com/breakthroughvisuals
About Mendel the Mess-Up
Cursed from birth, Mendel Schlotz is the unluckiest kid in his village.
He’s also the only one who can save it.
Ask anyone—twelve-year-old Mendel can’t do anything right. When he tries to herd goats, they get out. When he tries to chop wood, he breaks the ax. It’s embarrassing to be called “Mendel the Mess Up,” but it’s worse to be so clumsy that he can’t even stand to read aloud without destroying the classroom. Nobody expects Mendel to keep out of trouble… least of all himself.
But when the Cossacks invade Mendel’s remote Jewish village of Lintvint (famous for Lintvint kvatch, which is made from a very special ingredient), Mendel’s not the only one in trouble. When he slips away from the mountain caves where his fellow villagers are hiding, out of certainty he’ll find a way to make things worse if he’s around them, he discovers an unexpected opportunity to save the day.
Mendel’s always been different because everything he does turns into disaster. Now, he’s the only one who can help the people who doubt him.
Could Mendel’s bad luck be the key to saving Lintvint? Or will his plan to drive the Cossacks off go as badly as everyone—including him—expects?
Sympathetic, funny, and warm, this fast-paced middle-grade graphic novel from a veteran Jewish comics star reminds young readers who feel just a little out of place in their world that sometimes our weaknesses can be our greatest strengths.
ISBN-13: 9780823453566
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 12/17/2024
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years
Filed under: Guest Post

About Amanda MacGregor
Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on Twitter @CiteSomething.
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