The following unabridged reviews are made available under license from their respective rights holders and publishers. Reviews may be used for educational purposes consistent with the fair use doctrine in your jurisdiction, and may not be reproduced or repurposed without permission from the rights holders.

Note: This section may include reviews for related titles (e.g., same author, series, or related edition).

From School Library Journal

June 14, 2019

Gr 9 Up-Gehrmann's graphic novel adaptation of Sinclair's muckraking classic offers a simplified, character-driven version of the original's horrors. Yearning for a better life, a Lithuanian family arrives in Chicago's meatpacking district via Ellis Island. As naive as they are industrious, the optimistic newcomers soon find themselves swindled and exploited at every turn. Between nonexistent labor protections, rampant disease, a predatory home-buying agreement, and myriad injustices large and small, their path to the American Dream leads directly through the moral and ethical grinder that is the stockyards and terminates with a call for socialist revolution. Light on text and dependent on dialogue, Gehrmann's panels employ a limited palette. Her grayscale pen-and-ink illustrations, with occasional pops of red, burn and fade as characters triumph or suffer. This adaptation's key shift is away from sociological realism and toward psychological storytelling: empathetic individuals now fill roles initially conceived for stock characters, while impromptu speeches have replaced third-person polemics and expositions. The novel isn't so spotless as to seem sanitized, but much of its grit and gristle are scrubbed clean by the streamlined narrative. Key events from the source, including Ona's death in childbirth, Antanas's drowning, and Jurgis's prodigal roaming and crime spree, are among the episodes lost on the cutting room floor. VERDICT This solid introduction to Sinclair's classic text is a humanizing supplement to the at-times tiresome original. Though this work substantially differs from its inspiration, the central message-anticapitalist, pro-socialist, and morally outraged-still rings loud and clear.-Steven Thompson, Sadie Pope Dowdell Library, South Amboy, NJ

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from December 13, 2004
Originally published in 1991 as part of a short-lived revival of the Classics Illustrated
line, this adaptation of Sinclair's muckraking socialist novel succeeds because of its powerful images. When Kuper initially drew it, he was already a well-known left-wing comics artist. His unenviable task is condensing a 400-page novel into a mere 48 pages, and, inevitably, much of the narrative drama is lost. Kuper replaces it, however, with unmatched pictorial drama. The story follows Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkis and his family as they are eaten up and spit out by capitalism (represented by Chicago's packing houses). Kuper uses an innovative full-color stencil technique with the immediacy of graffiti to give Sinclair's story new life. When Jurgis is jailed for beating the rich rapist Connor, a series of panels suffused with a dull, red glow draw readers closer and closer to Jurgis's face, until they see that the glint in his eye is fire. Jurgis, briefly prosperous as a strong-arm man for the Democratic machine, smokes a cigar; the smoke forms an image of his dead son and evicted family. Perhaps most visually dazzling is the cubist riot as strikers battle police amid escaping cattle. Kuper infuses this 1906 novel with the energy of 1980s-era street art and with his own profoundly original graphic innovation, making it a classic in its own right.

From Library Journal

January 1, 2004
Desperate to secure a publisher, Sinclair reluctantly edited down the original manuscript for this book. See Sharp's edition is the first to reinsert five whole chapters and additional missing passages to present the 1906 masterpiece as intended. (LJ 4/15/03)

Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

From Library Journal

April 1, 2003
Sinclair's 1906 masterwork has been read by countless millions-unfortunately, they only got part of the story. The standard edition that has been consumed by adults and assigned to students actually is an abridgment, cut by Sinclair in order to secure a publisher. The complete version was serialized in a Socialist publication, but no mainstream book house would touch it without butchering the manuscript. Sinclair later wanted to reinsert the expurgated material for a full-length book version but that never came to fruition. This See Sharp reprint presents the whole text, including five additional chapters as well as numerous snippets of social commentary and harsh descriptions of the meat industry, none of which has been available in previous incarnations. This title's esteemed place in American letters makes this essential for all libraries, especially at this affordable price.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From AudioFile Magazine

Guidall's passionate rendering of the text makes it possible to visualize the vicious and grotesque conditions inside the slaughterhouses in a way that reading text might not convey. J.K.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine