🌶️ 🥔 Reviewing Andy Warner's Spices and Spuds
A graphic novel history book for kids, via plants
A few years ago I was regularly reviewing comics, and now I’m starting again, here. For the most part, I just want to share books that I think are good or interesting. So many new graphic novels are being released, so let’s look together at some that are fun to talk and think about. FYI: I’m now using affiliate links for Bookshop.org, so if you buy through my links, you’re supporting local bookstores, authors, and me!
Recently I had the chance to read Andy Warner's Oddball Histories: Spices and Spuds, courtesy of his publisher Little, Brown Ink. Andy is a friend of mine, and I would read this anyway, but I genuinely really enjoyed it! It’s aimed at kids, but I also think teens or adults even vaguely interested in plants, history, and comics would also find it fascinating.
Subtitled “How Plants Made Our World”, Spices and Spuds has a really smart structure and a subtly radical or subversive take on history. Somewhat like how The 1619 Project recontextualizes American history through slavery, Andy’s book (in a gentler, friendlier way) shares topics including global trade, colonialism, and empire building through various domesticated plants. And also, there are jokes! Even though the humor is aimed at kids, I found it to be just right — amusing without being annoying. I came to really appreciate the running jokes that would reappear occasionally in different contexts.
It is a bit hard to explain. Is this book… a comic that explains globalization to kids through plants? Well, kinda! But I think Andy’s books for kids — he has another Oddball Histories on Pests and Pets, as well as Brief Histories of Everyday Objects and others for adults — actually fit into a rich tradition of illustrated books for kids. Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History books seem like an important inspiration, as well as books like David Macauley’s rich, illustrated explainers. Though in some ways, Andy’s very much doing his own thing here.
Art-wise, there are many fantastic compositions. Some of the layouts are really complex, with maps woven into the designs in vibrant color and detail. It’s clear that Andy’s years working on Stats for The Nib (where he edited me a number of times!) gave him a facility with infographics and visualizing information. My one gripe is that in a few places, the pages are so complex, with not very much visual hierarchy, that I couldn’t quite tell what order I was supposed to read it all in. Elsewhere, he repeats a trick I really like, showing a sort of three panel time-lapse. It’s a very smart and effective use of the medium.
Spices and Spuds has an encyclopedic structure, where any chapter can be read independently, but the book can also be read in order, which I did. Since multiple chapters touch on aspects of the same history, Andy uses footnotes aggressively, in a way I don’t think I’ve seen before: every chapter has its own color text boxes, and the footnotes connect to the differently colored chapters, sometimes multiple on a page, or even on a single caption.
The result is deeply self-referential, almost like a Rashomon effect, showing history from different angles — sometimes emphasizing biology, economics, or anthropology. There aren’t really too many recurring characters, so it can be a little whiplash-inducing moving through this much history, this fast. But for most part, the stories are highly entertaining and well told.
There’s a lot for kids to grab on to here. With comics, Andy can show some really cool stuff, like the Aztec canals and artificial islands of ancient Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City). And yet, he doesn’t pull punches either, not shying away from the brutality or cruelty of slavery or child labor. Where he has a message, besides the centrality of these plants in human history, it’s that we shouldn’t let our differences guide us, and instead focus on our shared humanity.
In short, I wish I had this book when I was a kid. At this size and price, I think it makes a great stocking stuffer or gift for a single night of Hanukkah. ‘Tis the season!