Today’s post comes to you from Angela Erickson
Drawing the Line on WWII
The History of World War II by Belgian historian Arnaud de la Croix, illustrated by Vicente Cifuentes and translated from the French by Amanda Axsom and Peter Law, stood out to the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative YA Translated Book Prize committee for its high-interest readability and its uncanny timeliness. This sweeping graphic history feels remarkably necessary for adolescent readers!
Covering the origins, escalation, and aftermath of World War II across twenty chapters, the book examines not only the major battles and turning points of the war, but also the political decisions, alliances, rivalries, and failures that allowed the conflict to unfold.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its visual storytelling. Spanish illustrator Vicente Cifuentes, whose previous credits include work for Marvel and DC, uses a visual style that feels like a cross between a documentary and film noir. Much of the action happens in meeting rooms, reminding readers that catastrophic violence often begins in ordinary spaces, through ambition, denial, and the normalization of extremism.
A recurring theme from our discussions of the book was the way the graphic format makes an immense and complex historical subject approachable for teen readers without oversimplifying it.
The visual structure helps readers track shifting alliances, geographic movement, and political escalation in ways that a more traditional prose history might struggle to achieve while maintaining a reader’s attention. Maps, panel transitions and sharply staged political conversations allow readers to follow an enormous cast of historical figures without losing narrative coherence.
The translation work done by Amanda Axsom and Peter Law is noteworthy. It maintains historical precision but still provides readers a sense of narrative urgency, even when addressing complex historic events and dense geopolitical negotiations.
For the GLLI committee, The History of World War II represented exactly the kind of work the prize seeks to recognize. This is a book that expands historical understanding, demonstrates the power of visual storytelling across languages, and invites young readers to think critically about both the past and the present.
TITLE: The History of World War II
AUTHOR: Arnaud de la Croix is a historian, author, and editor with a passion for comics and history. He has written both graphic novels and academic histories of the Middle Ages and World War II, some of which have been translated into English. He has been a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, an editor at Le Cri, Duculot, Castermann, Le Lombard, and an editorial director at Dargaud-Lombard-Dupuis.
ILLUSTRATOR: Vicente Cifuentes is a cartoonist who was born in Albacete, Spain. He has collaborated with renowned comics writers such as Alan Moore and Roy Thomas, and he has worked on Marvel’s X-Men, Hulk, and New Exiles and DC Comics’ Batgirl, Green Lantern, Superman, Justice League Dark, and Aquaman, among others.
TRANSLATORS: Amanda Axsom and Peter Law
PUBLISHER: Abrams Books, 2025. ISBN: 9781419784491. Originally published as La Seconde Guerre mondiale en BD by Le Lombard, 2024.
See this swipe through of pages from the book on their Instagram account.
REVIEW: Publishers Weekly Review — Sep. 9, 2025
Angela Erickson is a former Head of Middle School English and current Head of Libraries at United World College of South East Asia in Singapore. Her work focuses on how curriculum design, research instruction, and library systems can be aligned to support reading, thinking, and writing across a school. Outside of work, she is an aspiring mountaineer and a terrible cellist. She is also the Chair of the GLLI Translated YA Book Prize for 2026.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of GLLI.
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 