Additional information
by Herve Bouchard (Author), Janice Nadeau (Illustrator), Helen Mixter (Translator)
A sophisticated and original graphic novel, about a young boy's reaction to his father's death.
Harvey and his little brother are playing in the slushy streets of early spring when they learn, out of the blue, that their father has died of a heart attack. Everything changes and Harvey's favorite movie, The Incredible Shrinking Man, suddenly begins to dominate his fantasy life. When relatives try to get him to look at his father in his coffin, Harvey finds himself disappearing.
Brilliantly illustrated, emotionally true and devastatingly sad, this book is an artful and utterly convincing study of one boy's response to great loss.
Key Text Features
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Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.6
Describe how a narrator's or speaker's point of view influences how events are described.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.1
Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3
Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.
Author Biography
Hervé Bouchard is a professor of literature at the Cégep de Chicoutimi and a novelist. His novel Parents et amis sont invités à y assister won the 2006 Grand prix du livre de Montréal. Harvey, won Governor General's awards for text and illustration. He lives in Saguenay, Quebec.
Janice Nadeau is a talented young illustrator who studied graphic design at the Université du Québec à Montréal and illustration at the École supérieure des arts décoratifs in Strasbourg, France. She has won many awards, including Governor General's awards for her illustrations in Nul poisson où aller and Ma meilleure amie as well as for Harvey. She lives in Montreal.
