Sometimes we turn a page and are met with a magnificent double-page panorama of a vast city or the boundless ocean. Huge waves swell up, dolphins make arcs in the water, and the refugees burn and shiver. In the panels depicting this, we can barely make out shapes in the moonlight. Part of the terror of being lost at sea is shown in the darkness that falls at night. The hues perfectly symbolize each stage of Ebo’s journey: golden yellow and amber for the desert sections, midnight blue and azure for the boat journey.

The artwork, by Giovanni Rigano, is wonderful. The latter lifts spirits, allows Ebo to earn enough money to secure his passage to Europe, and serves as a plot device to find his lost brother. The story is leavened by the love the siblings share and by Ebo’s gift as a singer.

They see no future and so escape via the Sahara and Tripoli, heading for Europe. The boys are left in the care of an alcoholic uncle after their mother dies. The story is told in alternating chapters: “Now,” which depicts the terrible present, as Ebo, his older brother, and assorted other refugees struggle for survival on a leaky dinghy lost at sea and “Then,” which relates how they ended up in this predicament. This quotation is the epigram to Illegal, a 2018 graphic novel that documents the journey of a Ghanaian boy, Ebo, to Europe. (Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor) Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?” “You, who are so-called illegal aliens, must know that no human being is illegal.

Illegal by Eoin Colfer