Novel-Style History Features Death’s Door

Death’s Door: True Tales of Tragedy, Mystery, and Bravery from the Great Lakes’ Most Dangerous Waters.

The Wisconsin Historical Society Press will release its first graphic-novel style history this October: Death’s Door: True Tales of Tragedy, Mystery, and Bravery from the Great Lakes’ Most Dangerous Waters.

Written and illustrated by the award-winning children’s book team of Barbara Joosse and Renèe Graef, this illustrated book for young readers relates five true, maritime stories. These tales span four centuries of Door County history, but they all take place in a stretch of water near Lake Michigan’s notoriously dangerous western shore known as Death’s Door.

The book accounts a 17th-century fur-trading crew, an 18th-century Potawatomi trading party, a mail carrier and a shipbuilding family from the 9th century and an early 20th-century basketball team. 

An informative afterword provides insight into the author’s sources and features archival images and additional historical details about each of the stories.

Death’s Door follows Society Press’s best-selling maritime stories for younger readers, Sport: Ship Dog of the Great Lakes and The Fishermen, the Horse, and the Sea.