Title: A Smart & Courageous Child

Volume: 1 (Single Volume Manga)

Mangaka: Miki Yamamoto

Translator: Katie Kimura

US Publisher: TokyoPop

Age Relevance: High School & Up

How Essential Is It?: Essential

Curricular Connections?: Social Studies, Ethics, Philosophy, Feminism

Reader’s Advisory Tags: Short Manga, Realistic Fiction, Pregnancy, Family

Anime: N/A

Content Warnings: Implied Sexual Intimacy, Depression, Contemplations Around Violence Against Children

Publisher Synopsis:

Every young couple has high hopes for their unborn child, and Sara and Kouta Takano are no different. But only days away from giving birth, Sara learns about the tragedy of Malala Yousafzai’s attempted assassination at the hands of the Taliban, and her pure and innocent belief in the future is shaken. If such a smart and courageous child can be hurt so badly by the world, how can she keep her own baby safe? With Sara now in a state of shock, will the young couple be able to bridge the widening gap between them, or will it tear their family apart?

The reality of this world, as seen through the eyes of an author that has spent years illustrating the women and their lives.

Review:

This title has been nominated for Best One-Shot Manga for the American Manga Awards, for which I am a judge. The other judges for this award are Shige (CJ) Suzuki, Katy Castillo (Yatta-Tachi), Lynzee Loveridge (Anime News Network), and Varun Gupta (Manga Mavericks).

This manga hit me somewhere personal, deep in my soul, and as someone who has worked with young children and has friends who have young children, I felt a rare trembling when I read this manga.

Illustrated in a soft style, this manga tells the story of a married couple, Sara and Kouta, as they prepare for the birth of their first child. Brimming with excitement, they lovingly plan for their child’s life with abundance and joy. Sara especially begins reading about exceptional children and begins pouring herself into preparations to help her child to be smart and courageous.

Sara is especially attached to the work of young activist Malala Yousafzai. But when Malala is almost assassinated mere days before the birth of Sara’s child, she’s thrown into an emotional tailspin. Sara realizes that smart and courageous children are not always safe, and the world can often treat these children with cruelty.

Ultimately, A Smart & Courageous Child is a contemplation of what it means to be a parent, and also what it means to care for children. It delves into a core anxiety, particularly for women, in a way that not very many books do. Is bringing a child into the world the right thing, in dark times? How can we protect those children? Is that even possible?

From a teaching standpoint, there are ethical questions in this book that would make for excellent Socratic Seminars. This also would be an excellent paired text with books by and about Malala Yousafzai, as it captures the impact of the attack on her at an international level, and weaves a compelling thread with other similar texts dealing with human rights.

I hope we see more works from Yamamoto and others like her, and I’m very honored to have been able to nominate it for Best One-Shot in the American Manga Awards. I’ll be reviewing every title in the line-up.

By the way, if you’re a librarian who works with manga on a daily basis, you are qualified to vote in the Awards! Please see the Voter Registration for more information.