Drawing the Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Voting in America

Jenkins, Tommy.  Drawing the Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Voting in America.  Abrams Comic Arts, 2020.

Pages: 208 

Age Range: 13+  

Genre: nonfiction; graphic novel

Setting: Mostly North Carolina, but the book discusses voting throughout the US

Themes: racism; manipulation of people; political advantage; segregation; sexism     

Merits: The book has a conversational tone which makes it approachable.  The artwork is well done.

Unique Quality: A graphic novel with the history of voting may seem to make the subject more light-hearted, yet, the comic-like nature does not at all diminish the value of voting.  In fact, the message throughout is how important it is to be knowledgeable and cast your vote.

Detractors: A few derogatory terms appear, yet, they are true to history.  A few images could be considered disturbing since they contain lynching and people beaten for trying to vote; however, the images are not graphic.  They represent what happened in history and for the most part do not show faces; one exception would be a battered face of Fanny Hamer, but it is not overly graphic either.

Main Characters:

The author - He’s telling his story in first person.  He’s a professor of literature.

Various presidents, congressmen, historically oppressed African-Americans and protestors, judges, and other members of the political machine that had any impact on how voting occurs in America.

Plot:

The author begins his book in his college classroom, where he asks his students how many intend to vote.  This scenario is repeated several times in the book to show the trends in American voting from the apathetic “Why bother?  What can one vote do?” question to the motivated, “Let’s make this country better!” attitude that prevailed at times.  Jenkins uses this first person approach to explain how voting has changed and why in this nation.  He traces historical movements and time periods to explain in simpler terms what has happened throughout American history to affect who can vote and why.  Jenkins does not hide the terrible events that hindered a fair vote for all, but the artwork is not graphic, and Jenkins simply reports what occurred without adding in emotional appeals.  The message throughout the book is positive in showing all votes matter and even concludes with pages of links for each state so that people can find out the voting rules per state.