Everything is Far from Here by Christina Henríquez
I chose this story because I felt for the characters, especially the protagonist. There were several things that contributed to it, including the knowledge about the reality of the situation. But the things the writer did that contributed were their use of point of view and choice of details. We do get a lot of the character’s inner thoughts and feelings, but they are not told by her. This allows the reader to understand her suffering and still sympathize strongly without being completely pulled in, and it contributes to the idea that she has been cut off from life outside of the compound. The author’s choices in the details they included in the story also impacted me greatly. They included small things that showed what was wrong and bad, rather than just saying “Things are horrible for them.” For example, they narrated the character’s experience trying to get menstrual products, rather than just saying that they weren’t provided and she couldn’t afford them. The author also used sentence structure to their advantage. After explaining something, they made a few short, impactful statements that drove home what was happening.
I chose to make an illustrated book with the images from the story that stood out to me the most. In this process, although I didn’t realize it, I ended up coloring all the images except the first and last in greyscale, which seemed appropriate, because so much of the character’s experience id the grey monotony of waiting. I also didn’t draw any people in the book. I’m not confident in my people drawing ability, but I still considered drawing a silhouette, or a hand on the ring page. However, I ultimately decided not to because the sensation of being cut off and the isolation that comes with having to fend for yourself, as well as the character’s separation from the most important person in her life, were all key to the story and I wanted to reflect that. I also added the dots across every page like the ones the character used to keep track of the days to lead the reader through the book. Most of the pages are fairly similar in format, although on the last two, I used bolder, and then lighter text, to give the effect of the crisis and the sort of fading that happens at the end of the story. I also let the dots go wild because these are the pages that take place after she loses track.
