Surrounded - by Wilfred Lupano (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In 1832, in Canterbury, Connecticut, a " charming and picturesque" little school for young girls opens to accommodate around twenty residents. Educating girls is a bit ridiculous and useless, they think in the area, but harmless enough. Until the day when the " charming school", led by Prudence Crandall, announces that it will now welcome Black girls... . Thirty years before the abolition of slavery, some fifteen young people in the Crandall school are greeted by a wave of hostility of insane proportion. White America is afraid of some of its children. The story of this school and its legal legacy for civil rights cannot be understated. Crandall v. State (of Connecticut) was the first full-throated civil rights case in U.S. history. The arguments by attorneys in the Crandall case played a role in two of the most fateful Supreme Court decisions, Dred Scott v. Sandford, and the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education. It catapulted Ms. Crandall into a Civil Rights pioneer.

Review Quotes

"A harrowing glimpse into the trials and tribulations a school of trailblazing Black students faced in antebellum America...Readers will be inspired by this ultimately hopeful take on a shameful history."--Publishers Weekly

"Surrounded is a moving graphic novel about the first integrated school in the US, its founder, and her students."--Peter Dabbene, Foreword Reviews

"STARRED REVIEW! Stupendously capture[s] American history in gorgeously cinematic, often wordless panels of muted browns, blues, and pinks, supplementing verifiable, recorded facts with could-have-been contemporaneous events."--Terry Hong, Booklist

"Aptly rescues a small piece of African-American history that had a major impact in American law, culture, and society. Informative and fascinating." --James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review

"Surrounded - America's First School for Black Girls, 1832 is a disturbing yet uplifting account every concerned citizen should read and remember. After all, learning is a privilege, not a right... unless we all defend and advance it."--Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

"Fert's art is lively and colorful."--Sarah Boslaugh​, Theartsstl

"Surrounded doesn't shy away from showing the ugliness of the racism and hatred and the cruel acts, but is also shows them in a tactful way that keeps this all-ages appropriate."--Sheena McNeil, Sequential Tart

"A deeply relevant and enthralling book" --Tom Murphy, Broken Frontier

"The visual storytelling plays a crucial role in shaping the narrative, and the artwork enhances the story's emotional weight." --John Craig, International Journal of Comic Art

About the Author

Born in 1985, Stéphane Fert grew up in the southwest of France, near the Pyrenees mountains. He obtained a diploma in animation in Paris but nevertheless defined himself as self-taught. It is notably thanks to his taste for role-playing games that he learns to tell stories. As for images, he was first influenced by modern painting and was passionate about working with colors, but he was also interested in animation and in particular the artist Mary Blair. He made his debut in the world of illustration through the Café salé collective before launching into comics. In "Morgane" (Delcourt, 2016), as in "Peau de mille bêtes" (Delcourt, 2019), for which he received the Imaginales prize, he deconstructs tales and legends by questioning the position of female characters. With screenwriter Wilfrid Lupano, he signed the children's comic strip "When the circus came" (Delcourt, 2017), which received the Tibet Prize, and the highly acclaimed "Blanc Autour"("Surrounded") winner of numerous other prizes. In 2023, he illustrates the new covers of the "Harry Potter" saga for Gallimard. 2-time Eisner Award nominee Wilfrid Lupano was born in Nantes in 1971, but it was in Pau that he would spend the majority of his childhood. His was a childhood spent buried in his parents' comic book collection, even if his wild imagination and interest in writing is due above all to his love for role-playing games. As a young adult, Lupano worked in bars to finance his studies - a combination of philosophy and English. He has since blossomed with a multitude of graphic novels published with many prominent publishers and has been the recipient of a number of awards.