Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers as Board Book: From the Matter of Materiality to the Way That Materiality Matters

This essay explores what happens when we foreground the materiality of Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers, examining it first as a board book and second as a graphic memoir, a work of historical non-fiction, or a therapeutic piece of trauma writing. Michelle Ann Abate argues that the thick card stock on which the text is printed forms a key readerly access point as well as a thematic pivot point. Heeding the cue provided by the format of the board book moves children and childhood from the margins to the centre of the narrative. This new perspective reveals that, together with offering a critique about the politicization of 9/11, No Towers contains an illuminating analysis about the politicization of young people in the United States.