A Wizard of Earthsea recasts a traditional fantasy novel in graphic-novel format.

A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel by Ursula LeGuin, tailored and illustrated by Fred Fordham. Clarion, 2025, 288 pages.

Studying Degree: Teen, ages 12-15

Advisable for: ages 12-up

He was born in an obscure village to unremarkable dad and mom, disadvantaged of his mom at beginning. They named him Duny, however within the archipelago of Earthsea everybody and all the things has a real title that solely the mages know. The boy shows uncommon powers, and a considerably reckless nature, from an early age, however not till he summons a thick fog to protect his village from marauders does it change into clear that he himself has supernatural potential. Ogion, a mage from one other village, adopts him as a trainee and imparts to the boy his actual title: Ged.

 It doesn’t take lengthy for Ged to change into impatient with Ogion’s sluggish strategies, and the grasp provides to launch his pupil to a famend faculty for wizards on the island of Roke. However he cautions in opposition to Ged’s penchant for displaying off: “Phantasm fools the beholder’s senses . . . nevertheless it doesn’t change the factor.” Ignoring the warning, the boy thrives at college however runs afoul of a noble-born apprentice who’s jealous of his personal place as high pupil. In a contest to show who’s the extra highly effective, Ged makes an attempt to summon a legendary lady of the previous however as a substitute raises a malevolent shadow who assaults and scars him and would have killed him had the headmaster not intervened at the price of his personal life.

Self-exiled from Roke, Ged is pursued by the shadow over a few years of wandering. The one treatment, Ogion tells him, is to confront it and name it by its true title: “to not undo what he had finished, however to complete what he’d begun.”

A Wizard of Earthsea was LeGuin’s first novel for the youth market. The story will be understood by an clever 12-year-old, however has a depth that may be appreciated by an grownup. It grapples with the character of actuality, of “true” vs. false names, and particularly of the boundaries of energy. The graphic-novel model retains these main themes and nearly all of the textual content is LeGuin’s. It may be learn in just a few hours however shouldn’t be rushed—the images must be “learn” as fastidiously because the textual content. Pages after web page incorporates no textual content, simply sequential motion. I believe readers will reply in a different way: some will probably be enchanted, others aggravated. The palette tends towards darkish, making some panels onerous to make out and a few characters troublesome to tell apart. Most likely not for everyone, however rewarding to those that persevere.

Backside Line: A faithfully and imaginatively executed, if typically (for me, at the least) exasperating interpretation of a fantasy traditional.

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