The Blue Lotus

Hergé made history with this 1934 Tintin adventure by doing something almost no Western cartoonist had done before: portraying China with real accuracy and genuine sympathy. He had help — a friendship with Chinese student Zhang Chongren — and it shows in every page. The political backbone is unusually sharp for a children's comic, confronting the Japanese invasion of Manchuria head-on. The draftsmanship is beautiful and the adventure rattles along. Parents should know there is a hara-kiri scene (not graphic) and the story touches on opium trafficking, handled at a level appropriate for the age. Minor colonial-era attitudes surface in peripheral characters. But as a story about friendship across cultural lines, it remains remarkable.