The Faithful Spy

July 16, 2018
Hendrix (Miracle Man) captures the powerful and purposeful life of the pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose faith and philosophy eventually led him to take a stand against Hitler when few others in Germany would. Using a variety of art styles, the book highlights Bonhoeffer’s intellectual, spiritual, and personal development alongside the cultural and political shifts behind Hitler’s rise to power. It also shows Bonhoeffer’s struggle to question his country’s leader and his work to become more than mere witness to history—his writings, his work as “chief pastor to the conspiracy”—before his eventual capture and hanging. Hendrix details Bonhoeffer’s life in accessible prose, offering appropriate, meaningful context and in places using Bonhoeffer’s own words. Provocative background imagery enhances the comic’s mood and atmosphere: a noose wrapped around a church shows religious strangulation in Hitler’s Germany; prose shown on the moonlit wall of Bonhoeffer’s prison cell conveys imprisonment’s isolation. These visuals powerfully communicate the dread, despair, and violence inherent in living—and fighting against—Hitler’s Germany. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 10–14.