Spending a massive amount of time reading fiction for my year-long commitment to the Best Fiction for Young Adults blogging team means that I need a mental break once in a while to read nonfiction, poetry, short stories, and anything graphic to keep me fresh for fiction. And in the words of Frenchman Stendhal, “a good book is an event in my life.” Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide is one such book from this past weekend. It hasn’t left me.

Published in 2018, I saw the cover frequently and wanted to get my hands on it. Focused on the life of Graciela Iturbide, she is the title character and the most memorable. A life that endured a tragedy, the death of a child, which she never talked about, it threw her into a tailspin and she became uber-focused on photography by specifically documenting her native Mexico.

And it’s the likes of illustrator Zeke Peña combined with the words of Isabel Quintero that merge Iturbide’s photography with an illustrated style that brings it to life two-fold. The most memorable panel, the one in which Peña re-works the iconic woman with the iguanas side by side with the photograph courtesy of Getty Images, is striking. And there are other panels that captivate the reader in their presentation and solidifies Peña’s skill both individually and collaboratively working with Quintero’s storytelling. Plus, the font itself worked seamlessly for my eyeballs to move around the pages and panels. Even Peña recognizes the beauty of illustrations by thanking readers “you and your eyeballs for reading this book”. You’re welcome, Peña. Thank you for illustrating it. And it got me thinking about my own life at thirty-something– how would Peña draw mine? What would Quintero write about me? Perhaps the best kind of self-reflective writing prompts could come from this book.

How can we know so little about Iturbide? I am grateful to author and illustrator for starting the conversation with this glorious ode to her life and skill. And nothing says it better than Quintero’s words on Iturbide’s travels in this memorable quote: “Traveling is lonely. Not a desperate loneliness but the kind that asks me to reflect more deeply about the place I’m in. The wings behind my eyes open wide; traveling helps me see my many selves better”.

I advise (that like me) you read this more than once, keep it close by to recommend often, order multiple copies, and encourage budding photographers with this graphic novel biography.