#europe comics

Canterbury, Connecticut, 1832: a charming female boarding school has found success among the locals, with two dozen girls enrolled. Some in town question the purpose of educating young girls—but surely there’s no harm in trying? At least not until the Prudence Crandall School announces its plans to start accepting black students. Thirty years before the abolition of slavery in the United States, in the so-called “free” North, these students will be met by a wave of hostility that puts the future of the school in question, and their very lives in peril. Even in the land of the free, not all of America’s children are welcome.

White All Around is a story based on true events, where one woman, Prudence Crandall decides to accept black women into her boarding school, at a time when although they were considered to be ‘free’, black people faced a great deal of hostility. This is a story about the resilience of these women, in the face of great adversity, to get the education they deserve.

Fert’s artwork brought Lupano’s script to life in a beautiful and mesmerising way. I found the story to be incredibly moving and heartbreaking. It can be hard to look back at history and revisit the atrocities committed against black people, but it is incredibly important for us to do so.

White All Around does a great job of showing the importance of standing up for what is right, as well as showing the importance of sisterhood, and supporting and being there for each other when the whole world might be against you.

I do wish that the story had been longer, and we had the chance to spend more time with the characters. They were all stunning and fascinating in their own way, but did not spend enough time on the pages, and interactions with some of the most interesting women were fleeting.

White All Around, although bittersweet, was a beautiful read, and I will give it 3.5 stars.