Series: Senne & Sanne Title: Cordoba By: Marc Verhaegen Normally a second album in a comic-series is not announced through a press-introduction. Cordoba, the second story of Senne & Sanne, written and drawn by Marc Verhaegen, got almost by accident a very current relevance, it was supposed to end in a different way but the few pointless acts of violence that shook the Belgian society shortly after each other came only just in time to give the author a more differentiated ending for the story. That relevance was underlined by the pupils of two Antwerp schools who were given the opportunity to have a critical review of the book before it was published, and could go into debate with the author during the introduction of it. From the opening speech of Marc Verhaegen, and later from the remarks and questions, clearly came forward that the main theme of the book, respect, was also the motivation the author kept in the back of his mind at every stage during the research and while writing. It was not supposed to become for this or against that, and for that Verhaegen had to consult many resources to bring a complete and balanced story and bring at the same time the required background-information about Islam. He has learned many things from that, most importantly maybe he gained a better understanding for the reasons Muslims have for many things that are important to them - like the reasons for the dislike for the depiction of religieuze figures. He received some good points for that from a few young Muslims who for example found that a correct picture was given of where the division is between culture and religion, and that as a whole it was something that not only taught them something too, but was perceived as respectful and positive. The book itself is clearly aimed at 10-14 year olds, and both the publisher, represented by Erwin Cavens, as Marc Verhaegen hope that the book will not only be a nice entertaining story mixed with some information, but that it can be used as a basis to start a discussion in schools (and elsewhere?) about what we really know about each other, and why we don't understand what exactly about each other. In the story Sanne doesn't know very well how to react when he notices that Saïd, a guy he sometimes plays soccer with, and Sanne seem to like each other quite much. A short while later he witnesses an attack on Saïd, during which a masked man takes a parcel from him. Later in the hospital Sanne can only just prevent that the same man kills Saïd. Senne vollows the fleeing man and finds out that the parcel, a box actually, contains an important secret that could bring peace to the world, and that this box can only be opened with a code. He can take the box away. When he tries to decipher the code together with Fatima and Rachid a djinn appears, he will take the children to a few key-moments in history to help them open teh box... Up to you to find out how it ends. 20,000 copies have been made, it shouldn't be hard to get one :-)   (Text written after the official press introduction, for MediaMonkeys)

 
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Last Update: Sunday, May 3, 2009