Teamwork: In Government and In Explanation
Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens
This graphic novel is an excellent team effort, with Gruber’s technical vocabulary running through Newquist’s simplified rewording, without any loss of accuracy.
Schreiber’s imagery of the four demographic groups of Americans most touched by and concerned about the new national Affordable Care Act enhance the detailed clarifications and explanations that Gruber, the MIT economist who helped to develop the nuts and bolts of the affordable health care plan, provides in this thorough but accessible work.
By setting out the details of the book’s subtitle, the work as a whole not only addresses questions and concerns about this new act, but also gives readers new insight into how different offices of government actually do their work.
By placing the whole in the context of a clearly drawn comic, the creators address readers’ need to slow down, look at each issue in both theory and practice, and build upon whatever understanding of the act – even if none – that they have brought to reading it. Parts of the narrative are realistically presented while others draw on reliable and easy-to-recognize icons, such as a cartoon Uncle Sam, or a maze of twisting and confusing lines.
As a book for discussion, research gathering, and developing a personal understanding of how government, as well as the specific health-care act, works, this is a laudable choice. – Francisca Goldsmith, Infopeople Project, CA
GRUBER, Jonathan & H. P. Newquist. Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary and How It Works. illus. by Nathan Schreiber. 151p. charts. diags. illus. maps. bibliog. Hill & Wang. 2011. Tr $13.95. ISBN 978-0-8090-5397-1. LC 2011020495.
