tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19029231278189908352024-03-18T18:13:59.496-04:00LibrisNotesDetailed plot summaries and critiques of books and movies.About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.comBlogger1427125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-60592218442032735262024-03-13T18:04:00.002-04:002024-03-13T18:04:20.626-04:00Amil and the After by Veera Hiranandani<i>Amil And The After</i> is the sequel to The Night Diary, which chronicles the experiences of the fictional Hindu family during the Partition.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3QdUcFgmKic3HGwLuZbRQHq7ksOFpgHvFLyWAIprPEu2RitLY3Aw5dhSrLIsdfzGjLm6FIWeWKA6vVLH1PbU1IWFZmgYKoTI4ivrF-IIchObDV5IAwQjpL-AfeF1osqx9Q6V7uZBVCx8gsjWqJAP-Qhyphenhyphen_El2_vxKo4GL-Ay3nbI4f5aTg-Pf3-hOr4Ro/s1812/amil-and-the-after.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1812" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3QdUcFgmKic3HGwLuZbRQHq7ksOFpgHvFLyWAIprPEu2RitLY3Aw5dhSrLIsdfzGjLm6FIWeWKA6vVLH1PbU1IWFZmgYKoTI4ivrF-IIchObDV5IAwQjpL-AfeF1osqx9Q6V7uZBVCx8gsjWqJAP-Qhyphenhyphen_El2_vxKo4GL-Ay3nbI4f5aTg-Pf3-hOr4Ro/w424-h640/amil-and-the-after.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div><div>Twelve-year-old twins Amil and Nisha, their father, Dadi their grandmother and Kazi the family's Muslim servant, are now living in Bombay, India. It is January 1st, 1948. Last year, India's Prime Minister Nehru had announced that at midnight on August 14th, India would become independent from British rule and be partitioned into two countries, India and Pakistan. When this happened, India was to be for Hindus, Sikhs and non-Muslims, while Pakistan would be the home for Muslims. As a result, Amil's family had to flee their home in Mirpur Khas which was now part of Pakistan as they are Sindh Hindu and travel to Jodhpur, India. The journey was treacherous with Amil almost losing his life. The Partition had resulted in people across India and Pakistan fighting and killing each other. After a short stay in Jodhpur, Amil's family moved to Bombay for Papa's new job at the hospital. He is covering for a doctor who may or may not return. </div><div><br /></div><div>Amil loves to draw but finds reading and school work difficult. The letters of the alphabet all look the same or flipped, making learning difficult for Amil. Nisha suggests that he draw for Mama, as a way of expressing his pent-up feelings. Amil decides to do this.</div><div><br /></div><div>One Saturday on their way to visit Papa's cousin Ashok, they pass a refugee camp in the old military barracks. Amil recognizes the Sindh words being spoken in the camp. Six months ago, these people had been living normal lives in what was now Pakistan. Now they are living in terrible conditions and seeing the camp upsets Amil.</div><div><br /></div><div>School continues to be a struggle for Amil, while his twin sister, Nisha, excels. Amil wishes for a friend, someone who isn't too competitive but who also has a sense of humour. He also wants a bicycle. Amil prays to his mother, asking her to make at least one of these wishes come true. Then at school, Amil encounters a boy during lunch break, as he's taking out his tiffin. Kazi has prepared Amil's lunch of rajma masala, roti, raita, and mango pickle. At first the boy refuses Amil's offer of food. He shows Amil a flip book he's made and this so intrigues Amil that he wants the boy to teach him how to make one. They strike a bargain where the boy will take half of Amil's lunch as payment for teaching him how to make a flip book. Eventually the boy reveals himself to be called Vishal and tells Amil he is from a royal family.</div><div><br /></div><div>Amil and Nisha struggle to settle back into life, amidst continuing fallout from the Partition. Violence, an assassination and uncertainty seem to be everywhere. But when Amil and Nisha discover Vishal sleeping on the street, Amil is determined to help his new friend.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Discussion</b><br /><i><br />Amil And The After</i> is the story of one family's struggle to rebuild their lives after the Partition in 1947 India. Their traumatic and life-changing experiences leave them uncertain about the future and wondering why they survived when so many others did not. In this novel, set in 1948, their story is told from the perspective of twelve-year-old Amil. He almost died from dehydration as they crossed the desert in their journey from Mirpur Khas, Pakistan to Jodhpur, India.</div><div><br /></div><div>The story begins on January 1, 1948, four months after the Partition, but it is not in the past. People are still fleeing over the border between Pakistan and India and communal rioting continues with attacks in Karachi and Delhi.</div><div><br /></div><div>The events around the Partition have left Amil with many questions including why Muslims and Hindus are fighting one another. In Mirpur Khas, Amil's family, who are Sindh Hindus, went to the Sikh temple while some Hindus went to Sufi (Muslim) shrines. His papa tells him, <b>"Our community had Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Jains all going about their business." </b> People were able to live peacefully, despite their differences. The Partition changes all of that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Amil realizes that his experiences have changed him. Instead of focusing on how to have fun or get a treat, he has many complicated questions. He wonders why they survived, why they have a home and food and others do not. When he sees a young boy playing in the dirt in the refugee camp in Bombay, Amil recognizes that he could be that boy<b> "If a few things had gone another way..."</b> Was it luck that he hadn't died in the desert, that they have a safe place to live and food?</div><div><br /></div><div>Eventually Amil discovers that his new friend, Vishal is living on the street. In Vishal, Amil sees <b>"...a boy exactly like he was, just unlucky instead of lucky." </b>When Amil offers to help him, Vishal seems indifferent because he believes he is worthless and that no one cares. While Amil believes the difference between him and Vishal is simply a matter of luck, Nisha believes they shouldn't waste that "luck" and should act to help Vishal. As a result they end up taking Vishal home, feeding him and helping him to clean up and get into clean clothes. This restores Vishal's belief in his own dignity. </div><div><br /></div><div>When Vishal doesn't return to school, Amil is not content to simply let things go. He and Kazi discover he is seriously ill in the refugee camp and learn that his real name is Vasim Qureshi, meaning he is likely a Muslim boy. Amil is now determined to help his friend, eventually getting him treated at the hospital where his father works. He doesn't care that Vasim is Muslim, only that he is his friend. But Amil also wants to ensure that Vasim remains safe and that he doesn't end up back in the refugee camp. His determination pushes his father to find a safe place for Vasim and ultimately leads to his family helping him. The message is that we don't have to do big things, sometimes it is just helping one person that makes a big difference.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Amil And The After</i> encourages young readers to look beyond differences and see the humanity in those who are different. Sometimes all that separates us from being homeless or a refugee is luck and circumstances. This message is an important one for people in all countries. As the Partition continues to have repercussions in India even today, this message is needed more than ever. </div><div><br /></div><div>As mentioned in Hranandani's first book, The Night Diaries, the experiences of the characters in this novel are based on her own family's experiences. She reiterates this in The Author's Note at the back. Also included is a Glossary of terms used in the novel. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details</b><br /><br />Amil And The After by Veera Hiranandani<br />New York: Kokila 2024<br />342 pp.</div><div><br /></div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-7430986205363687592024-02-25T14:43:00.001-05:002024-02-25T14:43:06.776-05:00The Tree of Life by Elisa BoxerIt was winter in the ghetto called Terezin. There were many children in the ghetto, scared and lonely. One woman, Irma Lauscher, was secretly teaching the children to read and write, and also to celebrate Jewish holidays. She asked one of the prisoners who left the ghetto each day on work detail to smuggle in a tree sapling. He agreed even though this meant risking his life if he were caught.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8o4fKQUUv31IfaeyRfzdec6xFVjrKy4i4rtlV4xxc8q1IF9Rs02lm8Rbt4cKnmyZ65LVKPqE-3tSTJGZNq51MkUd3h1RL3kpqCLIj2GEhg_zvOrAq8cl9AXd0ppFPf8fZJmuivO68q4SpYY_MWgtq1wloTmNINRNdIk4gBCZQEofghCjyWqHXfNYHVZY/s314/tree2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="244" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8o4fKQUUv31IfaeyRfzdec6xFVjrKy4i4rtlV4xxc8q1IF9Rs02lm8Rbt4cKnmyZ65LVKPqE-3tSTJGZNq51MkUd3h1RL3kpqCLIj2GEhg_zvOrAq8cl9AXd0ppFPf8fZJmuivO68q4SpYY_MWgtq1wloTmNINRNdIk4gBCZQEofghCjyWqHXfNYHVZY/w497-h640/tree2.png" width="497" /></a></div><div><div>When the sapling arrived, it was a comfort to the children who planted it in a pot. Eventually, the children planted the sapling in the ground within the ghetto. To keep the sapling alive, the children each shared a few drops of their precious water each day. The tree grew taller and was known as Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life.</div><div><div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, many of the children were removed from the ghetto and sent by train somewhere even worse. But those children who remained continued to water the tree. After the war and the prisoners were released, the tree was now five feet tall. Before the children left the ghetto they gave the tree one more drink and placed a sign by it that read, "As the branches of this tree, so the branches of our people." </div><div><br /></div><div>Over the years the tree continued to grow, a mature, silent witness to what had happened in the ghetto. Irma survived the war and send seeds from the tree all over the world. In 2007, after a flood, the tree finally succumbed. But six hundred saplings were now living throughout the world!</div><div><br /></div><div>In 2021, a fifteen foot descendent of the tree of life was planted in New York City. There children will come to care for it and learn more about the past, the ghetto, and the teacher and the children who had hope for a better future.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>The Tree of Life</i> is the touching story of Jewish children creating a memorial of hope in the darkest of times, when most of them would have no future.</div><div><br /></div><div>In January, 1943, Irma Lauscher and a group of Jewish children gathered in Theresienstadt concentration camp to plant a tree. This was to celebrate the Jewish holiday called Tu B'Shvat which is called "The New Year of The Trees".</div><div><br /></div><div>Theresienstadt, also known as Terezin, was a Nazi concentration camp and ghetto located thirty miles north of Prague in the Czech Republic. Theresienstadt was originally a fortress created in the late 18th century by Emperor Joseph II of Austria. Terezin was located within the fortress. However, during World War II, with the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Nazis converted Terezin into a Jewish ghetto and concentration camp. The ghetto held over fifteen thousand Jewish children, of which only one hundred fifty would survive. Most of these children and the Jewish adults as well, were sent to their deaths at the extermination camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unlike many other camps, Terezin prisoners were scholars, philosophers, scientists, musicians and artists. The camp was used as a propaganda tool to prove to the world that the Nazis were treated the Jewish people well. In 1943, the camp was beautified in response to a request by King Christian X of Denmark to inspect it. Named Operation Embellishment by the Nazis, the camp was cleaned, fakes shops and cafes were created and thousands deported to Auschwitz to alleviate overcrowding. When the inspection was done in June of 1944 by Danish officials they saw freshly painted rooms holding no more than three Danish Jews per room. The officials did not ask to see areas of the camp that were not part of the official tour and any questions they asked of residents were not answered. Rafael Schachter, a Czech composer, along with other Jews, was forced by the Nazis to give a repeat performance of Verdi's Requiem. He was deported to Auschwitz in October 1944 and gassed the next day. In September 1944, the Nazi's made a propaganda film titled Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet or, Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement. </div><div><br /></div><div>Despite this, the children of Terezin were educated, even though it was apparent most of them would not survive. This was a ploy by the Nazis to hide the camp's true purpose. Irma Lauscher was one of the teachers. She was born in Hermanuv Mestec in 1904 and went on to earn a teaching degree from Chales University in Prague. In 1932 she married Jiri Lauscher. They had a daughter, Michaela in 1936. Irma continued teaching even after they were deported to Terezin in 1942, helping the Jewish children learn about Jewish history and traditions.</div><div><br /></div><div>The seeds for the tree were smuggled in by an unknown prisoner who worked outside the camp. In the spring of 1943 the tree was planted in one of the Terezin yards. Another version has Irma bribing a Czech guard who smuggled in a sapling of a silver maple. The tree survived the war by being watered by the children of Terezin, most of whom did not survive. Irma and her family also survived. <br /><br />After the war, Irma often visited the tree at Terezin, who grew into a stout sixty foot silver maple. Unfortunately, the tree was destroyed by a flood in 2003. But by that time many saplings of the original tree grew in the United States and Israel.</div><div><br /></div><div>Elisa Boxer tells the story of the Tree of Life in this lovely picture book with digitally created artwork by Alianna Rozentsveig. It is a gentle retelling that focuses on the sacrifice of the Jewish children, to create a symbol of hope and peace, for a future they would never have. This symbol was spread throughout the world, in the form of saplings planted in different cities. Each tree is a reminder to children of all peoples and faiths, of the lives lost and offers a reminder to fight hatred in all its forms.</div><div><br /></div><div>The artwork portraying life in Terezin is dark and conveys a sense of foreboding with shades of beige, brown and black while the children are shown in brighter colours. The train taking the Jewish children to their deaths in Auschwitz, belches black smoke against an ominous dark sky. In the postwar images, the background is light, conveying a sense of hope.</div><div><br /></div><div>There is an Author's Note at the back as well as a Selected Sources section which offers readers the opportunity to explore more in-depth the story told in the book.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />The Tree of Life. How a Holocaust Sapling Inspired the World by Elisa Boxer</div><div>New York: Rocky Pond Books 2024<br /></div></div></div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-50346072611721421482024-02-22T12:53:00.001-05:002024-02-22T12:55:38.134-05:00Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species by Dr. Michael Leach and Dr. Meriel LlandThis oversize nonfiction picture book explores Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and his ideas about the natural world that were published in his book, On The Origin of Species.<br /><br />In this book, evolution is defined as<b> "the way that living things here on Earth have changed and continue to change."</b> It <b>"explains why there are so many different kinds of plants and animals."</b> This explanation comes from Charles Darwin who described his ideas in his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, published in 1859. <div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu55WPCmRdEoH2oCDOfPYl3Kjc47dsQwnnk36cdAuVSLy9IPWpc4J5m-wLbLGpCD1QYYR926wgKvwy1qEqkkoeTgG6lXK22oFHiRHPwZdPmXQXmownb1VYN6UwaytFyaLQQGVqcPWqAg4DVwze57BdYMbMobmJ40O9rPWVHdX8jvU2MEnt-qif_9eyGhU/s1000/darwin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="811" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu55WPCmRdEoH2oCDOfPYl3Kjc47dsQwnnk36cdAuVSLy9IPWpc4J5m-wLbLGpCD1QYYR926wgKvwy1qEqkkoeTgG6lXK22oFHiRHPwZdPmXQXmownb1VYN6UwaytFyaLQQGVqcPWqAg4DVwze57BdYMbMobmJ40O9rPWVHdX8jvU2MEnt-qif_9eyGhU/w520-h640/darwin.jpg" width="520" /></a></div><div><div>This nonfiction picture book sets out to describe how naturalist Charles Darwin came to develop the idea of evolution and natural selection and explain his "big idea".</div><div><br /></div><div>After identifying some of the great scientific thinkers in the late 1700's and early 1800's, the authors describe the early life of Charles Robert Darwin who was born in 1809. His love of studying the natural world led him to leave the study of medicine and enroll in courses to become an Anglican minister. He obtained the position of a naturalist on the HMS Beagle and journeyed to the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of South America.</div><div> </div><div>In 1835, Darwin studied the wildlife on the various islands of the Galapagos, making records and collecting samples. When he returned home to England, Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in January, 1839. They had ten children. Over the next sixteen years, Darwin came to develop a theory as to how species change, by passing on small variations that made them better adapted to their environment. These traits eventually became common to all members of that species. This process was named "natural selection" by Darwin. Another British man, Alfred Russel Wallace also came to have a similar theory and sent his idea to Darwin.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1858, their idea of the theory of natural selection was presented at a scientific meeting in London. Wallace admitted that this idea was first Darwin's. This radical idea was very controversial leading to many public debates. Darwin published his theory in a book titled, On the Origin of Species in 1859. In 1871 he further developed his ideas and published a book on the evolution of humans called The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Because Darwin considered humans as part of the animal kingdom, he believed humans shared a common ancestor with apes.</div><div><br /></div><div>Darwin continued his thinking and research all his life, writing fourteen books and corresponding with many people regarding his ideas. He died in 1882 and is buried in Westminster Abbey, London.</div><div><br /></div><div>From this point on, examples of natural selection in action are featured. Other concepts such as "common descent", "survival of the fittest", "the struggle for life", and sexual selection are presented. How island life forms unique organisms, Darwin's tree of life and the interdependence of species are also discussed. The authors also incorporate pages about convergent evolution, the fossil record, the rise of birds, plate tectonics and how this has affected life on Earth, and some of Darwin's ideas that ultimately proved to be wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species</i> offers young readers a short biography of Charles Darwin, the British naturalist who posed the theory of evolution and natural selection. Darwin's ideas on how natural selection works to help species adapt better to their environment and his theory of evolution - how life on Earth may have developed over hundreds of millions of years are also discussed.</div><div><br /></div><div>This book begins by offering some key definitions about evolution, stating that <b>"People and species of plants and animals also change bit by bit over many generations. These processes are gradual and are the basis of evolution - or how living things change over time." </b> This definition is somewhat vague and doesn't explain what Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has come to embody today. The Merriam-Webster definition is probably more accurate: <b>"the scientific theory <i>explaining the appearance of new species and varieties</i> through the action of various biological mechanisms (as natural selection or genetic mutation)"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>It's important for children's science books to strive to be accurate. Darwin brilliantly recognized that living organisms adapt to small changes in their environment so they can better survive. He was able to describe this with his detailed observations of various animals on the Galapagos. Drs Leach and Lland do an excellent job of presenting this evidence by describing Darwin's finches from the Galapagos and the rainforest frogs in Thailand. </div><div><br /></div><div>But Darwin also had another part of his theory which the authors describe as <b>"Evolution also helps us to understand how groups of animals and plants become extinct, and how new groups emerged - including humans."</b> In other words, Darwin believed that evolution could explain how new species come about, a process he believed happened gradually, through small changes over a vast period of time. To prove this many, transitional forms must be found to show the development from one species to a completely new one. As Leach and Lland do mention, transitional fossils are not common, making such proof difficult. They present the evolution of whales from a land ancestor called Indohyus as one example and also the belief today, that birds are the descendants of dinosaurs based on the discovery of dinosaur fossils with feathers, and what is considered an intermediary, Archaeopteryx. <br /><br />Leach and Lland also present some of the problems Darwin considered but was unable to solve during his lifetime. One was how plants and animals passed on their characteristics to their offspring. We now know since the discovery of DNA in 1953, that traits are passed on through segments of DNA called genes which are inherited from the parents of an organism. Genes describe protein chains, amino acid by amino acid. During reproduction DNA is copied but often the duplication is not perfect. These flaws lead to mutations. Most major mutations are fatal, as the work of the German geneticists Christiane Nusslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus demonstrated. When Darwin posed evolution, he knew nothing about DNA, amino acids, proteins and inheritance. Had he known, would he have believed that random mutations that occurred early enough in development to affect the body plan of the organism - could drive macro-evolution? Today, many microbiologists and geneticists understand that minor mutations do not create significant evolutionary change as Darwin proposed. And major mutations are usually fatal to an organism. Leach and Lland describe DNA and confidently state that these mutations which they describe as "faults" are what<b> "...create the variants that drive evolution."</b> They do not explore the question that microbiology presents regarding evolution: since genes contain information that is coded in various combinations of the twenty amino acids, where did that biochemical information initially originate? Did the information come from random mutations? Or from some other source? </div><div><br /></div><div>The second problem Darwin couldn't solve was <b>"how a species could appear in different places around the Earth."</b> We now know that the Earth is a dynamic system in which the crust is made up of tectonic plates that are constantly moving. The continents as we currently know them were arranged very differently in the past, into one supercontinent called Gondwana.</div><div><br /></div><div>One interesting spread in the book is titled The Slow March of Evolution in which Earth's history is presented in the form of a twenty-four hour clock instead of using the geologic time scale such as Cambrian, Ordovician etc . The appearance of different forms of life are assigned a time ( for example, 04.20 First Single Cell Life appears). One issue with Darwin's evolution is how to explain things like the incredible emergence of life at the beginning of the Cambrian Period - known as the "Cambrian explosion." Using the clock instead of the geologic time scale means this "explosion of new life forms" is not as readily apparent.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species </i>offers an overview on the topic of evolution that may encourage young readers to further explore the ideas featured here. This book could have been made much more engaging with the use of photographs of some of the major characters such as Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and Samuel Wilberforce, photographs of the Galapagos Islands and of the unique animals such as the long nosed horn frog mentioned in the book, as well as the use of maps and the geologic time scale. There is a small glossary at the back which could have been expanded. In addition, there is no information offered on the authors or their credentials. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species by Dr. Michael Leach and Dr. Meriel Lland</div><div>London: Arcturus Publishing Ltd. 2024</div><div>64 pp.</div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-23109428574211531462024-02-21T09:55:00.001-05:002024-02-21T09:55:14.355-05:00Four Years Trapped In My Mind Palace by Johan TwissFourteen-year-old Aaron Greenburg has been locked in his mind for the last two years. He and his two friends, Mike and Leon had gone swimming in the "murky waters of Dingleberry Creek in Bradley, California during a scorching July afternoon. It was his last day in Bradley before he and his parents, Robert and Linda moved to a city in the Bay area, Concord. Aaron and his friends spent <b>"the day flying from the rope swing into the old swimming hole at Dingleberry Creek." </b>Three days later, Aaron was in a new city, without his friends and so ill he couldn't move at all. At San Francisco General, Dr. MacPhearson diagnosed Aaron with a rare form of cryptococcal meningitis. Although his parents weren't aware of where Aaron and his friends had been, Aaron knew that he had contracted this bacterial illness from Dingleberry Creek where eucalyptus trees had been planted around the swimming hole.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgydPR0kr5299d_14gfAI7NjOzDMU6LnolBCegeX4xx6zI7_g3gXxXQcspkqhhzbBo5-IpXp1tp2AGuiYm8uz8XylpZ3MDdIVbBvSTY9jcBnw-Y4u4FqtfNnZfnKSmKbIRS19jKnifp0EDWz4lJW76m1XEvheI2C9M3u5cOodMMVgPuA0mOEJ2YB-y6zuQ/s810/mindpalace.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="524" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgydPR0kr5299d_14gfAI7NjOzDMU6LnolBCegeX4xx6zI7_g3gXxXQcspkqhhzbBo5-IpXp1tp2AGuiYm8uz8XylpZ3MDdIVbBvSTY9jcBnw-Y4u4FqtfNnZfnKSmKbIRS19jKnifp0EDWz4lJW76m1XEvheI2C9M3u5cOodMMVgPuA0mOEJ2YB-y6zuQ/w414-h640/mindpalace.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><div><div>Dr. MacPhearson told Aaron's parents that he was <b>"as good as dead. He is completely unresponsive and in a vegetative state. We highly doubt he can hear or even recognize you and that the meningitis has caused severe and irreparable brain damage."</b> This is shocking to Aaron who can hear everything being said about him but is unable to respond in any way. His parents attempted to care for him at home but with both of them being in their sixties, after three months it simply too much. His mother was forty-six when she had Aaron, a surprise baby! Now he lives in Restwood Suites Senior Care Center in Walnut Creek. </div><div><br /></div><div>At Restwood, Aaron is fed through a tube in his stomach. His only form of entertainment at first looking at a painting of a bowl of fruit on a table. Aaron pulls this painting into a magical world he creates, called his mind palace, a sort of castle - where he and the fruit have adventures. Eventually Nurse Penny donated a black and white television with a VHS recorder and two tapes of Sesame Street from 1976. Except it's now 1987!</div><div><br /></div><div>But Aaron's life changes drastically once again, when an elderly man, Solomon Felsher is placed in his room. Solomon is a former jazz musician, who is Jewish and who has dementia and needs constant supervision. His daughter Talia helps him get settled in and promises to bring Betty, his saxophone the next time she visits in a few weeks.</div><div><br /></div><div>Once they are alone, Aaron makes the astonishing discovery that Solomon can hear his thoughts in his head. This means for the first time in two years, Aaron can communicate with another person. Over the next few weeks, Aaron shares conversations with Solomon and discovers he can only hear Aarons thoughts, observations and questions that Aaron directs towards him as if in conversation. If Aaron is just thinking thoughts he can keep them private. This is a relief to both Aaron and Solomon.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, Aaron also discovers that when Solomon is having a dementia episode, he gets pulled into Solomon's memories and becomes a part of them, actually living out those memories in his mind. This extra mental stimulation has a profound healing effect on Aaron as he begins to make a miraculous recovery.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Four Years Trapped In My Mind Palace</i> is a unique novel that combines realistic fiction with historical fantasy novel by award-winning author Johan Twiss. </div><div><br /></div><div>Author Johan Twiss writes in his Author's Note at the back that the genesis of the novel was a news story about a man who contracted a rare form of meningitis when he was child. This illness resulted in full paralysis, and being trapped in his mind, fully aware, for fourteen years. No one recognized this but fortunately the man eventually achieved enough recovery to marry and have a life. This situation reminded the author of men he knew who were also trapped in their minds, but by dementia and Alzheimers. "Merging these two experiences together Aaron and Solomon's story developed -- a coming-of-age story entwined with and end-of-age story written with a hint of nostalgia, a hint of whimsical unknown, and a heartwarming hope for the beauty of life."</div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>Four Years Trapped In My Mind Palace</i>, the main story of the novel is the relationship between a teenage boy, Aaron Greenburg who is in a "vegetative" state, (a loathsome term that is used quite frequently and should be replaced by something more accurate like non-responsive state) and an elderly man Solomon Flesher, who is suffering from dementia. Inexplicably, the two, who are roommates in a senior's home, can communicate via their thoughts. This allows Aaron to experience some of the defining events Solomon lived through during a sixty year span from the 1920's to the 1980's.</div><div><br /></div><div>Initially Aaron has created his own world which he calls his mind palace, a palace with many rooms. Aaron describes it as <b> " a giant castle surrounded by green rolling fields, bordered by a dense, dark forest..." </b> Aaron and the fruit from a painting in his room that he brings into the mind palace have grand adventures. However, while<b> "... most of the castle stayed the same, with a throne room, banquet hall, kitchen, and armory, other parts were also changing, like the north clock tower. No matter what we tried, we could never find a passageway that led to the tallest tower of the palace."</b> For some reason, Aaron is unable to reach the north clock tower which seems to suggest that him reaching the north clock tower offers an escape from his locked-in syndrome.</div><div><br /></div><div>When Solomon arrives, he is able to hear Aaron's conversations in his mind and is soon pulling Aaron into his own memories when he has a dementia attack. Before Aaron arrives in those memories though, he first enters his own mind palace, but often in a new room. At first these rooms seem to be related to something Aaron cannot have in his own life. For example, the room he enters before being in Solomon's first memory of the Jack Dempsey fight, is a large dining hall with a table laden with fine china, silverware, crystal glasses and food. Aaron stuffs himself with the delicious food before passing through a door that leads to Solomon's memory. Aaron is unable to eat in a normal manner and must be fed through a stomach tube and can only dream about eating real food. Before being drawn into Solomon's memory a second time, Aaron finds himself in an auditorium-like room, on a stage with his trombone which he misses playing. </div><div><br /></div><div>Before each of Solomon's memories, Aaron encounters a new room in his mind palace, moving from the weapons training area before the World War II foxhole memory, to the castle dungeon before the World War II concentration camp memory, to the south tower of the castle - the second tallest behind the massive north clock tower before meeting Walt Disney. This journey through his mind palace mirrors the gradual healing that is occurring in Aaron's mind. For example, Aaron shed's tears at his father's pain over his impending divorce, just before entering the weapons training area, then he blushes and is able to groan before entering the castle dungeon. As Aaron's recovery continues, as he begins to learn to speak again, he enters the south tower of the castle, behind the north clock tower. Finally, as he begins to become more physically responsive, Aaron is able to enter the north clock tower where he sees his future and is thanked by a dying Solomon for his friendship. The north clock tower represents Aaron finally being freed from his mind palace. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is only when Nurse Penny sees Aaron visibly blushing in response to Solomon's granddaughter Sarah that she decides to get the doctors involved in re-evaluating Aaron. Up to this point she has refused to believe Solomon's view that Aaron is awake. This leads his physician, Dr. MacPhearson to realize that Aaron is aware and healing and to begin working with him. Aaron's progress is slow but ongoing. By the end of the novel he is able to communicate verbally and is upright in a wheelchair.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since the novel is set in the 1980's, from 1985 when Aaron contracted meningitis, to 1989 when he begins to wake up, little was understood about patients who appeared to be non-responsive but were still alive. It was assumed these patients were completely unaware and had no or little brain function. Over the years, with better medical support, some patients have recovered and revealed that though they were unable to respond, they were completely aware of everything happening around them. In some cases, patients could hear and understand family and medical professionals discuss removing life support. Readers might be interested in the research being done at Western University in London, Ontario Canada by Dr. Adrian Owen. His Owen Lab (https://www.owenlab.uwo.ca/ ) has much information on his work to determine whether a patient in a "vegetative state" is actually conscious and aware. His work has surprised the medical community and given hope to many families with members who are comatose or locked-in.</div><div><br /></div><div>At the end of the novel Aaron has a chance to reflect on the friendship he had with Solomon and the role of sickness and suffering in life. He decides that although he wishes he had never been sick, he would not give up the friendships he formed with Solomon and his granddaughter, Sarah, and the experiences his illness gave him. Aaron is now sixteen years old and even though he's been</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Four Years Trapped In My Mind Palace </i>is a thoughtful, engaging novel with a unique and fresh storyline that should appeal to teens and adults alike. Twiss invites his readers to consider what makes life meaningful, especially in situations like those of Aaron or Solomon.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Four Years Trapped In My Mind Palace by Johan Twiss<br />Fresno, California: Milk + Cookies 2023<br />320 pp.</div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-68494366318219381922024-02-14T19:30:00.001-05:002024-02-14T19:30:24.526-05:00Brother's Keeper by Julie LeeIt is June 1950 and Sora Pak and her younger brother Youngsoo are at the river: he is fishing and she is there to watch him and do the laundry. After fishing, Youngsoo races off to attend the Sonyondan Club meeting at the school led by his teacher, Comrade Cho. But twelve-year-old Sora no longer attends school, instead minding her two-year-old brother, Jisoo. Sora's mother is determined that she learn how to cook so they can marry her off in a few years but she wants to continue her schooling. <div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOor8KX3fTj8q0RqdqcwyKcowP-VDRx2eEjhqWBvr9GEM5c6qRxeArxZFx-6T__WT0pJvHrza3CBVSrOlBJeBIAg_a8d8khBFKbyueaSAVBUTA4_VxURECgK34GHOD4XJhtgFDr0P2kqbZQC71Dff5NsFS78JCnl8MRdP98HFEHjB4VV8L8WiE4UETTnU/s1000/brother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="662" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOor8KX3fTj8q0RqdqcwyKcowP-VDRx2eEjhqWBvr9GEM5c6qRxeArxZFx-6T__WT0pJvHrza3CBVSrOlBJeBIAg_a8d8khBFKbyueaSAVBUTA4_VxURECgK34GHOD4XJhtgFDr0P2kqbZQC71Dff5NsFS78JCnl8MRdP98HFEHjB4VV8L8WiE4UETTnU/w424-h640/brother.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div><div>Then as she's doing laundry, Sora sees an elderly woman rush to the river. Suddenly all the women at the river begin leaving for home and Sora races home as well. At home Youngsoo announces to their parents, Sangman and Yuri, that school has been cancelled because North Korea is now at war with South Korea. </div><div><br /></div><div>Korea was divided into two countries after World War II and the defeat of Japan, with North Korea a Communist dictatorship and South Korea a democracy. If North Korea wins, all of Korea will be Communist. Before the Communists, Japan occupied Korea. Sora's family, like other Koreans, were forced to adopt Japanese names and their Hangul language was banned. Youngsoo is thrilled that there is no more school, but Sora is worried.</div><div><br /></div><div>Later that evening Mr. and Mrs. Kim, their son Myung-gi and daughter Yoomee visit for dinner. Sora finds fourteen-year-old Myung-gi attractive. Like her, Myung-gi loves books and always carries around a bag of books. But today he shows Sora that his bag is filled with books about communism telling her he is <b>"tired of reading the same mind-numbing rubbish. Marxist dialectics. Revolutionary principles. Everything for the collective."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>During a dinner of rice, bean-sprout soup, kimchi and pancakes, the Kims tell the Paks they are planning to escape North Korea and travel to the South. Sora realizes if they escaped to the South they would have their freedom and not live in fear of their neighbours and maybe Sora could return school? Mr. Kim tells them they plan to settle in Busan on Korea's southern coast. Sora's father seems open to this idea and offers his wife's brother's house in Busan. But her mother is furious and tells the Kims they cannot possibly go with them, that it's too dangerous, and she admonishes Mr. Kim for telling them of their plans as it endangers her family.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sora is devastated at her parents' refusal but she overhears her father give Mr. Kim directions to Uncle Hong-Chul's home. She knows that her mother's refusal is due to the fear over what happened to her own family: the execution of her mother's uncles, aunts and cousins because a relative was accused of being a traitor by the Communist regime. Sora's family was spared because it was not their family and her mother told the North Korean police her relative had broken into their house.</div><div><br /></div><div>After this Sora's (mother) Omahni refuses to permit them from seeing or talking about the Kim's. When North Korea announces it has captured Seoul, Omahni insists that if they simply keep their heads down and follow the rules they will be fine. But Sora's father, Abahji isn't so convinced as he points out that under Communist rule they will not have free elections, there will be no contact with the outside world or freedom of speech. Abahji believes the Kim's will soon leave and that they will make it to Busan where it is safe.</div><div><br /></div><div>Days later the Kim family is gone and rumours abound as to their fate. Because there is the belief that the Kim's are in a labour camp or worse, Omahni tells them that they are being shunned by association and she keeps Sora and her brothers inside.</div><div><br /></div><div>By August 1950, Sora's village is emptying. Omahni insists that people are being taken by the police. When North Korea imposes a draft, Sora's family did a large pit at the edge of the millet field to hide Abahji in it for days at a time.</div><div><br /></div><div>In September 1950, they learn that General MacArthur, head of the American forces and their allies have recaptured Seoul and Inchon. Then in October, with the Americans continuing to push north, Sora's village is bombed. Eventually Pyongyang is taken and soon American troops arrive in their village. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then in November, China joins the war on the side of North Korea and the tide turns against the Americans. Abahhi is insistent that they leave that night, ahead of the American retreat. He tells an angry Omahni that once the Americans are gone they will be trapped in North Korea forever. When Sora sides with her father, Omahni gives in and they pack and leave for the South. Although the Pak family will gain their freedom, it will come at a price they could not have imagined. For Sora and Youngsoo it will be a journey that will forever change them.</div><div><br /><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Brother's Keeper</i> is Julie Lee's debut novel. Set in a Korea, divided by war, Lee chronicles the experiences of the Pak family's struggle to survive under the Communist dictatorship in North Korea, their difficult decision to finally flee their home, and the journey of the oldest two children when they become separated from their family. Although <i>Brother's Keeper</i> is historical fiction, it is based on real-life events that occurred during the Korean war. City bombings, refugees crossing frozen rivers in canoes and on ice floes only to perish and taking refuge in abandoned homes were just some of the situations refugees from the North, like Sora and Youngsoo encountered, in their rush to freedom. It is also based on the experiences of her mother, who was fifteen-years-old and living in North Korea when the war began, and who also made the harrowing journey south as a refugee.</div><div><br /></div><div>Set against the backdrop of the Korean war, Lee also explores the themes of filial duty to tradition and the place of women in Korean society through the character of twelve-year-old Sora Pak. The Korean people have spent decades under Japanese occupation , during which the Japanese attempted to eradicate Korean culture. Their native language was suppressed and Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese names. There is also an indirect reference to the possible use of comfort women when Sora states that <b>"Japanese soldiers even kidnapped several girls from the high school."</b> </div><div><br /></div><div>When the Japanese were defeated, Koreans were allowed to resume their Korean names and language. As the country came under the control of the Communists, Koreans would be eager to continue their cultural traditions despite the restrictions imposed on them. One of these was for girls to marry young, often at the age of sixteen. It was not uncommon for young girls to be pulled from school at a certain age to be trained in domestic duties like cooking and caring for children, in preparation for marriage. Sons were more valued than daughters and to have a son was considered a great blessing.</div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>Brother's Keeper</i>, as the title suggests, Sora, who loves school and is a good student, has been pulled to care for her younger brother Jisoo who is two years old. It is her duty to do so. Sara feels <b>"a twinge of loss....For all the learning I was missing. Math. Geography. Science...." </b>Whenever she can, Sora hides behind the willow tree near the school window to listen in on the class. Helping her in this regard is her friend, Myung-gi Kim who leaves books for her beneath the willow tree. But Sora still dreams, even imagining herself one day graduating from high school. </div><div><br /></div><div>Instead of school, Sora finds herself forced to do child care and cooking and her lack of interest means Sora has difficulty mastering this task, which makes Omahni critical and abusive towards her. She wonders when Sora will learn to cook and how she will ever marry her off. Omahni even comments on the colour of Sora's skin, <b>"How is it that my daughter got the tan skin while my sons inherited my fair complexion?" </b></div><div><br /></div><div>Omahni is even critical of Sora in front of the entire Kim family, telling them, <b>"No, our daughter is terrible in the kitchen, ... She's a clumsy girl who hates housework. I'm sure we'll never be able to get her married off when she's older."</b> Sora feels betrayed even though it is the custom for <b>"humble parents always criticized their own children in front of others. It was the polite thing to do..."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>When the Kim's reveal their plan to escape from North Korea, Sora is hopeful because she knows that there is more freedom in South Korea. Even though she realizes her being pulled from school has nothing to do with communism, she wonders, <b>"What if one kind of freedom led to another?"</b> Sora siding with her father who desires to accompany the Kim family, invokes Omahni's wrath. <b>"Do you think South Korea is some magical place to cure all your ills? she hissed, her eyes wild with fear. 'It's mad of the same dirt and rock as here. Nothing will change for you. You'll still be a daughter. You'll still be a noona. You must still follow our traditions. You can't get out of those responsibilities, if that's what you're thinking."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>However, things become so bad that the Pak family finally decide to leave North Korea. On the way, Sora and Youngsoo become separated from their parents and Jinsoo. It is now up to Sora, a twelve-year-old girl to not only find their way to Busan but also care for her younger brother who becomes seriously ill. As they endure starvation, cold, and even attempts by Koreans to kidnap them, Sora and Youngsoo struggle through the horrors of war.</div><div><br /></div><div>When they arrive at their uncle's home in Busan, the reunion in bittersweet. Omahni is overwhelmed at seeing her precious son but doesn't give much thought to Sora. It's obvious that Youngsoo is ill so Omahni, thinking only of her eldest son's welfare, asks Sora to attend the third grade class nearby. She doesn't care for Sora's education but wants her to attend so that she can help Youngsoo catch up. Sora is struck by just how much more valued Youngsoo as a son is, compared to herself, a daughter. She watches her mother making rice porridge for him, a dish that requires constant care.<b> "Had she ever made rice porridge for me? A quick radish soup, maybe, when I was nine and had drenched my nightclothes in fever.But never the loving, labored devotion of rice porridge."</b> When the conversation turns to consulting the matchmaker in a few years, it is more than Sora can bear. She flees after seeing her mother chop the head off a fish. This is a metaphor for how Sora sees her future. The loss of school and the expectation of forced marriage make Sora like the fish - her life is over.</div><div><br /></div><div>As the reality of Youngsoo's illness becomes apparent, Sora is overcome with guilt as she questions whether his illness and death was due to her lack of care for him. She also believes that if she had sided with Omahni rather than Abahji, they would never have made the journey and Youngsoo would be alive. Sora experiences intense survivor's guilt believing <b>"It should have been me instead of Youngsoo...Her precious son."</b> Later on, Sora overhears Auntie talking to a woman in the market about the loss of Youngsoo and that at least they still have one son. The woman then sympathizes,<b> "Can you imagine if she'd lost her only son and was left with nothing."</b> implying that Sora has no worth because she's a daughter. Sora wonders what she has risked everything for as it seems Omahni won't relent. "I'd risked everything -- including my brother's life -- to get here, thinking one kind of freedom would automatically lead to another, that I could go to school, that I could write, that we would be happy. But I was wrong." At this point Sora realizes she is going to have to fight for what she wants.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a scene that is absolutely heartrending, Sora finally confronts Omahni during a cooking lesson, over Youngsoo's death and her desire to return to school. After telling her that she did her best to care for Youngsoo, Sora also states that she is forcing her to be someone that she is not and that she just wants to do something different. But Sora's mother sees this as a negative reflection on her own worth, that Sora is ashamed of her because she is uneducated. Because Sora is always doing the opposite of what she asks, Omahni inadvertently reveals that this is why Sora is her least favourite, a revelation that deeply hurts Sora as it seems to confirm what she believes. Sora tells her mother she is worth something. </div><div><br /></div><div>From their heated exchange it is evident that Omahni is acting out of fear for her daughter and her own insecurities. Her experience of being judged and found wanting by her mother-in-law and therefore unworthy, leads her to want to save Sora from this fate. So she overcompensates by attempting to teach Sora to be a perfect cook, something Sora has no interest in. Omahni sees her actions as preparing Sora to survive in a world that is harsh towards women. Sora tells her mother she will survive because she's taught her to be strong and work hard.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Brother's Keeper</i> is a well written novel that explores the Korean War from the point of view of children, portraying the devastating effects of war on families, women and children. Lee has provided her readers with a realistic portrayal of the war and the plight of Korean refugees as they struggled to escape the brutal Communist regime. All of the novel's characters are believable and unique. Sora, as the protagonist, is compelling as she fights for what she truly wants in her own life, going against the conventions of this era.</div><div><br /></div><div>Seventy years later Korea remains divided, with families now separated over several generations. Life in North Korea under the communist dictatorship is harsh with no contact with the outside world and few freedoms. Considering what little is known about life in North Korea, it is understandable why so many wanted to flee, leaving homes and family behind.</div><div><br /></div><div>To help her young readers orient themselves, Lee has provided a map of the Korean peninsula showing Sora and Youngsoo's journey to freedom. Also included are a Glossary of Korean Words and a Timeline of the Korean War. The informative Author's Note, with black and white photographs of the author's mother, helps provide the necessary historical background for the novel. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Brother's Keeper</i> is historical fiction at its very best.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Brother's Keeper by Julie Lee<br />New York: Holiday House 2020<br />314 pp.</div></div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-18516053838679223412024-02-11T15:21:00.001-05:002024-02-11T15:21:14.006-05:00The Mona Lisa Vanishes by Nicholas Day<i>The Mona Lisa Vanishes</i> tells the story of the most remarkable art heist in the early twentieth century.<div><br /></div><div>The story begins first, long ago in Florence in 1503 with the portrait of a young wife and mother, Lisa Gherardini by Leonardo da Vinci, who named the painting Mona Lisa. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-R1kUDhjkxNYwLnwifsd24j6fmdDOv6LGqjY1hFKIy1QnbZU-5ZawKqx88uEd99HP4z7plv2GaYcSpCa8zta4W4ayLFamqlQ7pzEY6-UVJx8tJdwaaYAb3HcF_6-p_vbvJ3s2igXGoEy4_Wu6gzhS_QrjWHfnlhn-e4PUMv_EJ28luNFlbsoDHLLcsm8/s2114/mona.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2114" data-original-width="1400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-R1kUDhjkxNYwLnwifsd24j6fmdDOv6LGqjY1hFKIy1QnbZU-5ZawKqx88uEd99HP4z7plv2GaYcSpCa8zta4W4ayLFamqlQ7pzEY6-UVJx8tJdwaaYAb3HcF_6-p_vbvJ3s2igXGoEy4_Wu6gzhS_QrjWHfnlhn-e4PUMv_EJ28luNFlbsoDHLLcsm8/w424-h640/mona.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div>Five hundred years later, in Paris, France on Monday August 21, 1911 a man who has hidden all night in the Louvre. He had come to the vast museum on Sunday like any other visitor but when the museum was closing he didn't leave. Instead, he hid himself in closet among the easels and paint boxes. </div><div><br /></div><div>He knew it was possible to hide in the Louvre because a few months earlier, a French journalist who believed the Louvre's security was lacking hid himself overnight in the sarcophagus of an Egyptian king. He published his experience.</div><div><br /></div><div>The storage closet the thief had hidden in overnight was near the Salon Carre where the most valuable artwork like Titian, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci was displayed. The man emerged from the closet wearing a white smock like that of the Louvre maintenance workers. The paintings in the Louvre were not locked down as it was assumed no one would dare steal them. However, they were hung in a specific way that required some knowledge as to how to remove them. The thief had this knowledge and quickly removed the painting from the Salon Carre and slipped into the stairwell. There he removed the Mona Lisa from its antique frame and glass covering. Unlike most paintings, the Mona Lisa was painted on three slabs of wood joined together and it was heavy. To hide it, the thief placed the Mona Lisa under his white smock. After struggling to get out of the stairwell's locked door, he escaped into the Paris morning, taking the Mona Lisa and the doorknob.</div><div><br /></div><div>At first no one realized the Mona Lisa had been stolen. It was considered inconceivable that anyone would attempt this. The workmen who had walked through the Salon Carre only an hour earlier that Monday morning, now saw a blank space on the wall. But they believed the Mona Lisa couldn't be stolen so they did nothing. Even on Tuesday morning when Brigadier Maximilien Alphonse Paupardin, the guard in charge of the Salon Carre, noticed the Mona Lisa missing, he assumed not that it had been stolen, but that the Louvre photographers had it. At this time, the Louvre was photographing its collection and the photographers often removed and returned paintings without telling anyone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Louis Beroud, a painter who enjoyed painting the copyists as they worked in the Louvre, would be the man who discovered the Mona Lisa was missing. Beroud arrived at the Louvre with the intention of painting a girl working at the Mona Lisa. He was told by Brigadier Paupardin that the painting was being photographed. However, when the painting didn't show up, Beroud became impatient and asked Paupardin to find out when the Mona Lisa would return to the Salon Carre. But when Paupardin spoke to the photographers in the Louvre studio, they were puzzled and did not know what he was talking about.</div><div><br /></div><div>With Theophile Homolle, the director of the Louvre in Mexico, a panicked Paupardin informed the curator of Egyptian antiquities, Georges Benedite. However, Benedite believed the Mona Lisa was simply somewhere in the Louvre. A search did not find the painting and Georges Benedite was forced to call in the Paris police. Soon all of Paris knew the Mona Lisa was gone. What was the heist of the century would capture the attention of Parisians, French citizens and the world for months and remain unsolved for two years.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Mona Lisa Vanishes</i> is <b>"...a story about how a strange, small portrait became the most famous painting in history...about a shocking theft and a bizarre recovery."</b> But as Nicholas Day aptly demonstrates, <b>"...it is also the story of another way of looking at the world --clearly, plainly, without assumptions or expectations." </b> - the way the painting's creator, Leonardo da Vinci did. This is in contrast to the way the French police viewed their world, and therefore how they investigated the theft of the Mona Lisa.</div><div><br /></div><div>After introducing the theft of the Mona Lisa, Day takes his readers back into the past, to the story of how the Mona Lisa came to be painted. It is a story that begins with Leonardo da Vinci, born at the height of the Renaissance in 1452, in Vinci. Leonardo is sent to apprentice with Andrea del Verrocchio, a Florentine painter and sculptor whom he soon surpasses in ability. His angel in the painting, The Baptism of Christ was so sublime that Verrocchio quit painting. Leonardo develops a new technique called sfumato in which the artist blends objects and people rather than outlining them in paintings. Unfortunately, Leonardo is often unable to finish works he is commissioned. He eventually would receive the commission to paint Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco Del Giocondo, a successful silk merchant and trader. His problem is that Leonardo is not just a painter but an observer of the world.</div><div><br /></div><div>From entries in his notebooks, it is evident that he is obsessed with the world around him. His mind is on fire with questions and the quest to find answers through observation and study. This information is not necessary for his art, but this mindset means it is almost impossible to finish the commissions he receives, including the Mona Lisa. However, <b>"...it means he sees the world without being blinded by what he thinks it is already going to be. He doesn't have assumptions about what something is or what it means. He doesn't leap to conclusions. His highest values are observations and experience..."</b> As Day aptly demonstrates, this is in marked contrast to the way the Paris police proceed in their attempt to recover the Mona Lisa.</div><div><br /></div><div>Interwoven with the story of Leonardo, his life and his painting, is the story of the Paris police's inability to solve the theft and recover the Mona Lisa. Solving crimes is new to police work in the early twentieth century. Louis Lepine, head of the Paris police had begun standardizing police procedures. Helping him was Alphonse Bertillon, a pioneer in the new field of forensics. Bertillon, a temperamental man had developed a method of identifying someone using body measurements - known as anthropometry. His system, used throughout the world, was difficult to implement consistently. A newer technique of fingerprinting to identify a person was just coming into practice. Bertillon had two important leads in the Mona Lisa heist: a fingerprint lifted from the glass pane of the painting, and the knowledge that the thief likely worked in the Louvre.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, unlike Leonardo da Vinci, Lepine and Bertillon did not have an open mind, instead working on assumptions. <b>"It was the opposite of observation, the opposite of how Leonardo would have wanted the Mona Lisa theft investigated. Unlike Leonardo, Bertillon and Lepine didn't start with the world. They started with what they assumed the world to be."</b> Lepine assumed that because the crime was not a bloody, violent one, it meant that the heist was the work of a <b>"superior class of thief."</b> Lepine was looking for either a professional gang or a consummate professional thief like Adam Worth. One theory held that a rich American had paid a professional thief to steal the Mona Lisa. In 1911, many Americans who had made their wealth during the Guilded Age were eager to showcase that new wealth and to do so they purchased the art of famous painters from Europe. It was because they worked from assumptions and theories like this, rather than observations, that Lepine and Bertillon were unable to solve the heist.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Mona Lisa Vanishes</i> is not just a story about the theft of the Mona Lisa, but a biography of the the great Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci. Day also explores the world of the high Renaissance, while contrasting it with society and the art world in the early twentieth century. Readers will also learn how the Mona Lisa heist changed the public's perception of art and artists .Day's account is informative and definitely engaging, as he weaves his narrative back and forth between Leonardo's life leading to the painting of the Mona Lisa and the desperate attempts to solve the heist in the twentieth century. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are black and white oil on paper illustrations that will appeal to younger readers. However, inclusion of photographs, for example the Mona Lisa and the Louvre, of Pablo Picasso, Alphonse Bertillon and Vincenzo Peruggia would have added significantly to Day's telling. Other times, an image of a painting being discussed would have been very helpful. For example, Day writes about Pablo Picasso's painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and how this painting changed art, beginning a new movement in modern art. Without an image to consider, readers are left to imagine what Day is explaining. A map of Italy and France, showing the location of Florence and the Louvre </div><div><br /></div><div>Day does include an extensive list of sources at the back, confirming what readers will most definitely already know, that The Mona Lisa Vanishes is a well-researched book about a heist that is largely forgotten outside the art world. Highly recommended for readers of all ages.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The Mona Lisa Vanishes by Nicholas Day<br />New York: Random House Studio 2023<br />278 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-57966269262745554252024-01-30T10:28:00.000-05:002024-01-30T10:28:08.063-05:00Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan<div><i>Dragonfly Eyes</i> is a story about a Chinese-French family and their life in Shanghai during the middle of the 20th century. At the heart of the story is the intergenerational relationship between the family's French grandmother Nainai and her granddaughter Ah Mei.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGDtJUGxIRcrtijurKNkD4fEJrgd3wPlRrCO5CpMXiEmxxCito8ht82M7xqBC38v_xkT2RV-NifnSWfDxgKqSOJiZ_JzGysmAjXLmM6bejvcCm7kRthsopdTsSfBb_bh-NR4mCYDQbYSAIuQQUC7hasQUHS_-OXPpvLTL03LcrkQ4DsfPMggOrwtHKjs/s1488/dragonfly.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1488" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGDtJUGxIRcrtijurKNkD4fEJrgd3wPlRrCO5CpMXiEmxxCito8ht82M7xqBC38v_xkT2RV-NifnSWfDxgKqSOJiZ_JzGysmAjXLmM6bejvcCm7kRthsopdTsSfBb_bh-NR4mCYDQbYSAIuQQUC7hasQUHS_-OXPpvLTL03LcrkQ4DsfPMggOrwtHKjs/w430-h640/dragonfly.jpg" width="430" /></a></div><div>Nainai's husband and Ah Mei's grandfather was Du Meixi, who was the son of a wealthy Chinese silk merchant. The family's silk business was extensive extending into Europe. Du Meixi's father travelled throughout Europe establishing the European part of their sick business in Lyons, where he eventually settled. </div><div><br /></div><div>At twenty-five, Du Meixi, recently widowed, refused to join his father in Lyons to take charge of the silk business. Instead, he became a sailor, signing on to a French steamer that sailed between Shanghai and Marseilles. Meanwhile Du Meixi's family in Shanghai continued to care for his son and daughter.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1925, during a stopover in Marseilles, Du Meixi met a lovely Frenchwoman named Oceane in a café. Seventeen days after meeting, they travelled to Lyons to meet his father. When Du Meixi's father first met Oceane, he was astonished at the power she held over his son. He felt Oceane was his son's port. That night Du Meixi's father gave him two exquisite oval glass balls, called dragonfly eyes. He told Du Meixi to have them set in a necklace to give to her on their wedding day. Du Meixi handed in his notice to the steamer company and he and Oceane were married. This allowed Du Meixi's father to return to Shanghai to run the silk business while his son managed the European end from Lyons.</div><div><br /></div><div>Du Meixi was called Yeye and he called Oceane, Nainai. Yeye and Nainai had four children: a son born in 1927, a second son in 1929, Ah Mei's father in 1931, and a girl in 1933. The children spoke French and Shanghainese. The family and the silk business prospered. Yeye and Nainai took their children often to visit family in Shanghai.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1937, the Japanese occupied Shanghai. As the world slipped closer to war, the Du family silk business in Europe collapsed. In China, the family silk business was also struggling to survive and Yeye's father was struggling physically and financially. Yeye decided he needed to return home, but at the insistence of Nainai, the entire family packed up and travelled to Shanghai. This decision would seal the family's fate in the coming years, as the Communists came to power in China and life changed in ways they could never have predicted.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><i>Dragonfly Eyes</i> is a novel about the fictional Du family set first in France and then in China and covers the period from the 1920's to the 1960's. The novel focuses primarily on <b>"the family life of Du Meixi, a Chinese man from Shanghai, and Oceane, a Frenchwoman from Marseilles, their four children and ten grandchildren, against the background of war and political upheaval, particularly in China."</b> The novel immediately engages readers with the delightful and romanticized description of Du Meixi (Yeye) and Oceane (Nainai) meeting and subsequent marriage. It then moves swiftly from their tranquil and prosperous life in France before World War II to their move to Shanghai, China and their difficult life under communism.<div><br /></div><div>Wenxuan's narrative is a gentle telling of a fictional family's experiences during the first decades of the Communist revolution in China but it lacks the rich historical context needed to give it depth and perspective. In the very brief Historical Note at the back, author Cao Wenxuan writes that<b> "...the historical events are mentioned only lightly"</b>, meaning that there is only indirect mention of what is actually happening within Chinese society and therefore very little context to what the Du family is experiencing. Whenever events are mentioned, the description is brief with little explanation offered. Most authors of historical fiction, even for children's novels, strive to identify and inform readers about the political and social events occurring so readers can better relate to what is happening to the characters.</div><div><br /></div><div>For Cao Wenxuan's <i>Dragonfly Eyes</i>, this connection is not easily made because young readers are not given the background information to do so. This lack of context is especially egregious because most Western readers have little knowledge of events like the Great Chinese Famine, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution or the Gang of Four. It's as if the author doesn't want to connect the devastating impact on the Du family to the failed policies of China's Communist government. These policies were used to entrench communism in China, quell any remaining resistance, and destroy China's rich cultural history and identity. The policies of Mao Zedong directly resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese citizens. </div><div><br /></div><div>In 1949, after the Communist takeover of China, the land of wealthy farmers and citizens was given to poorer farmers. To control the rural population who worked smaller farms and were continuing to practice their traditions, Mao began forcing them into collectives between 1949 and 1958. These collectives gradually increased in size, becoming very large. Private ownership was abolished in 1958 and everyone was forced into state-operated businesses. All religious institutions and ceremonies were banned, and replaced with political and propaganda meetings. In 1956, the hukou was re-introduced. This internal passport system restricted people from living in certain areas.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Great Leap Forward was another policy developed by Mao Zedong to industrialize the country. This ran from 1958 to 1962 and saw the introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization. The result was disastrous and led to the Great Chinese Famine which lasted from 1959 to 1961. The policies of the Great Leap Forward that were most responsible for the famine included the use of poor agricultural practices such as deep plowing and close planting, the poor distribution of food and the Four Pests Program. Food was appropriated by the state and stored to achieve quotas and for stockpiling. The result was not enough food left for the citizens and they starved. The Four Pests program saw the extermination of the Eurasian tree sparrow leading to an ecological imbalance that allowed insects such as locusts to thrive and devour the crops. It is estimated than between fifteen and fifty-five million people died in the famine, which was considered the worst man-made disaster.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Cultural Revolution, launched in 1966 by Mao Zedong, had the intended goal of purging the country of any remaining capitalistic practices and of traditional Chinese culture. Mao believed that some were attempting to reinstate capitalism in the country, so he asked young people - the first crop of new communists - to rebel. They responded by forming the Red Guards, paramilitary groups made up of high school and university students. They were intent upon ridding the country of what were labelled the Four Olds": old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. To accomplish this, many cultural sites and historical artifacts were destroyed. The remnants of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, built during the Qing Dynasty and partially destroyed during the Second Opium war were badly vandalized. The Confucian Temple in Qufu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was ransacked, with many of its historical artifacts lost or destroyed. The destruction of religious sites and cultural art and antiquities resulted in a loss of religious and cultural identity for many Chinese. Schools and universities were closed and National College Entrance Examinations were cancelled. Seventeen million young people were sent to rural villages to learn from farmers. Many ended up permanently exiled, losing their chance to continue their education. Intellectuals, scientists and scholars were killed or forced to commit suicide. The Cultural Revolution resulted in mass chaos and violence with between half a million to over two million deaths. </div><div><br /></div><div>Much of what happens in China does affect the Du family. Du Meixi gives up his family's silk business to the government because he is made to do so. Instead of running his business, he becomes an employee. As the family becomes impoverished, they begin selling off their possessions. The reasons are only vaguely explained and in some cases are somewhat misleading. For example in the chapter, The Piano, Wenxuan writes about the famine in China: <b>"Shanghai had been so vibrant, but there was famine across the entire region now. The situation was serious.</b></div><div><b>In the sky above China, the sun, like a huge ball of fire, blazed furiously all day: trees were dying, crops were wilting, rivers were running dry...The sparrows that used to be everywhere disappeared, perhaps starved to death, or left with no choice but to fly off to the villages to look for food:..." </b> </div><div><br /></div><div>Based on this description, the young reader might believe that the famine China was experiencing was the result of drought and that the sparrows simply couldn't find food. Although there were floods and a drought, these were considered insignificant in relation to previous droughts and floods. As for the sparrows, they were eradicated, allowing insect pests to proliferate, destroying what crops remained. As a result, the context of the story that is described in Dragonfly Eyes, where one of Ah Mei's classmates, Qui Qui faints due to lack of food, is lost. She is starving, but not because of drought. Ah Mei's family and her classmates, including Qui Qui are suffering not from some random event, but from a man-made catastrophe.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is just one of many events that occur throughout the story where the social situation is described but there is no context given, leaving the younger reader to wonder. The rise of the paramilitary Red Guards is another example. Wenxuan merely describes how suddenly young people have become loud, chanting and yelling, fighting one another in the streets. </div><div><br /></div><div>If the author felt that providing more historical information within the novel for his readers would add unnecessary detail, a more extensive Historical Note or Author's Note would have helped young readers understand the events described in the story. Although Wenxuan mentions the Cultural Revolution in his Historical Note, it is only to state that this changed how Oceane was perceived. It is therefore recommended that readers who wish to understand some of the historical background to the events portrayed in <i>Dragonfly Eyes</i>, do some research on China's history. Also helpful would have been a map of China showing the relative placement of Beijing, Shanghai, and Yibin, and a map showing the relative placement of France and China.</div><div><br /></div><div> Although the novel concludes in 1968, when Ah Mei is fifteen-years-old, we know that draconian communist policies did not end with the Cultural Revolution but grew even worse with the implementation of the One Child Policy in 1980, that saw an estimated three hundred forty million babies murdered or aborted. The policy has created a gender imbalance in China's population as well as fewer younger workers to support an aging population. Ah Mei would have lived through this vicious policy had Wenxuan continued his saga.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although the historical detail is lacking, Wenxuan does show the heart-breaking impact these social and cultural changes have on members of the Du family. Ah Mei's cousin, Ah Lang looks like his French grandmother, with his brown hair and Western nose. Once a popular student who was considered handsome by many of his classmates, Ah Lang is tormented by his fellow students as the Red Guards create chaos in Chinese society. He becomes so ostracized that he takes to wearing a mask to hide his face and is eventually driven from school, To fit in, he voluntarily takes part in the "Down to the Countryside Movement" in which students were exiled to remote rural areas to learn from farmers. His letters seem to suggest that he is happy but Nainai believes this is not really the case. </div><div><br /></div><div>Especially heartbreaking are the attacks on Nainai and Yeye at the Blue House. As suspicion grows towards anyone the different or seen as representing the old bourgeois class, Nainai is singled out as a spy by the Red Guards. They attack the Blue House, vandalizing it and imprisoning both Nainai and Yeye. Nainai is sent to a brick yard to carry bricks and Yeye to a pig farm. Although Wenxuan isn't specific about their ages, except to say they are getting older, it is likely Nainai is at least sixty-years-old and Yeye much older than that. Their harassment by the Red Guards continues with another break-in that leads to act of heartbreaking destruction, robbery and an injury that ultimately costs Yeye his life. Wenxuan's description of the attack on Nainai's beloved apricot tree exposes the senseless violence the Red Guards used to intimidate those whom they felt were subverting the communist ideals they believed in. Even after Nainai returns to Shanghai after fleeing to the countryside for her own safety she is once again taken, this time to be paraded through the streets. Fortunately, that does not happen.</div><div><br /></div><div>Wenxuan captures the love and devotion that exists between members of the Du family, especially towards their grandparents, Nainai and Yeye. When any difficulty befalls them, their children rush to help in any way they can. Because they treated everyone with fairness and respect, whether it was friends or employees, Nainai and Yeye are often repaid for their kindness when they are in dire need.<br /><br /><i>Dragonfly Eyes</i> is a well-written but lengthy novel for readers aged nine and up. Although it lacks historical context, Cao Wenxuan's writing is lyrical and emotive, capturing both the intense emotions of this tragic period in China's history and the beauty of the countryside. The description of the area that Mrs. Song lives in, an island in the middle of a river with tall reeds is breathtaking.<b>"When the wind blew, the reeds rushed forward, a dark tide of green waves. At their feet, the water rushed too, a white tide of glistening crystals. In the distance there were boats moving on the water, their lamps twinkling in the dark, flickering as they passed behind the reeds..."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Overall, <i>Dragonfly Eyes</i> is a novel to be read mainly because it's one of the few pieces of historical fiction for younger readers that covers the early Communist regime in China and the devastating impact of Communist policies on it's people. Teachers and parents are recommended to supply historical information that will help in understanding what the fictional Du family experienced.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan<br />Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press 2021<br />375 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-87542011498481652712024-01-28T19:43:00.000-05:002024-01-28T19:43:00.739-05:00Mangilaluk by Bernard AndreasonIn the graphic memoir, <i>Mangilaluk</i>, Bernard Andreason describes his life-long struggle to find a place to belong and to understand his own identity.<div><br /></div><div>At birth, Bernard was taken away from his mother at birth and spent the first two years in several homes. He was given to the Andreasons who provided Bernard with the basics of life. Initially he felt loved at times but tragedy struck with the death of his foster mother. The Andreason family life soon became less than ideal with alcohol abuse. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH3jIQuAc8WRvvXLLYosPPjdLCHky4QT6zrNWt_H7OokRnq5a6wRaLDiquMLIinD8fN7PgRh7EJxSeOGbXIYlJsoYjO8JNFEFmxWuXbX-Z83lw780o2taxnYYp0HfNbvPK1TxjFzJhjcD3GV9Qhjxx2nd2PQ7wHlOQCjQCM0PPwx9AVMvAnAvXM7liGqM/s1000/mangil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="659" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH3jIQuAc8WRvvXLLYosPPjdLCHky4QT6zrNWt_H7OokRnq5a6wRaLDiquMLIinD8fN7PgRh7EJxSeOGbXIYlJsoYjO8JNFEFmxWuXbX-Z83lw780o2taxnYYp0HfNbvPK1TxjFzJhjcD3GV9Qhjxx2nd2PQ7wHlOQCjQCM0PPwx9AVMvAnAvXM7liGqM/w422-h640/mangil.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><div>When he was eight years old, Bernard was sent away to a residential school in Inuvik. At Stringer Hall Residential School, Bernard found life harsh, often experiencing fear and shame. One Christmas, Bernard was forced to stay at the residential school over the holidays. Bernard and his friends would often get smokes. One time, his friend Dennis took smokes from a supervisor. She knew they had been stolen and was angry. The next day the three boys left the school and spent the day in the bush. They didn't want to return to the school to face their punishment so they decided to walk home. When they came to a raging creek, Bernard felt they had to go back but Dennis decided to continue on.</div><div><br /></div><div>When the weather turned rainy, Bernard and Jack decided to turn around and find Dennis. Unable to find him they once again headed to Inuvik. But Jack became too ill to go on so Bernard made him as comfortable as possible and decided to journey to Tuk. He continued walking along the powerline and was eventually rescued. </div><div><br /></div><div>Once safe, Bernard felt that he was loved and cared for, but devastated that his friends were gone. As he could not return to the residential school, he continued his schooling in town. At school he continued to learn but at home he experienced "...a roller coaster of verbal and physical abuse, neglect, and an introduction to alcohol."</div><div><br /></div><div>As a teenager, Bernard struggled, sometimes attending school, often drinking. In high school, Bernard found some teachers believed in him and tried to help. Eventually he came to believe that to find who he was, he needed to leave home. After drifting for several years, Bernard enrolled in the Indigenous Journalism program at Western University in London, Ontario. He soon found friends in the Six Nations Reserve community who made him feel accepted. He wrote, was published learned a lot about himself. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was in the early 1990's that Bernard was diagnosed as HIV positive. He felt isolated, an outcast and began to withdraw. He left London and moved to Vancouver, at first living rough. It was Dr. Catherine Jones who helped Bernard get back on track, prescribing a drug cocktail to manage his symptoms. A social worker helped him obtain a disability income. As his health recovered, Bernard became a student at the Native Education Centre in Vancouver, obtaining his Adult Upgrading. He felt capable of achieving anything.</div><div><br /></div><div>He moved to Prince George to study at UNBC but found that while the campus was beautiful, the people were not. He felt out of place, perceived as just another unemployed Indigenous man. But when his biological father passed away in the middle of the semester, Bernard decided to head back to his family in Tuk. This would set in motion the old, destructive patterns that destroyed most of what he had built upon in Vancouver and Prince George. After more than a decade of living rough in Prince George he returned to Vancouver where he began to recover physically, mentally and spiritually. It was the efforts of a young teacher from Inuvik who would set in motion Bernard's healing from the events of his childhood so long ago. </div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Mangilaluk is a graphic memoir about one Indigenous man's perseverance, resiliency and tenacity. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bernard Andreason was born in an Inuvailuit hamlet, Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, Northwest Territories in 1961. As a child he was sent to Stringer Hall Residential School in Inuvik, NT. On June 23, 1972, Bernard, along with two friends, thirteen-year-old Dennis Dick and eleven-year-old Lawrence Jack Elanik decided to runaway from the school. Dennis had stolen a pack of cigarettes from one of the dorm supervisors. They knew the punishment would be severe and so they decided to walk home to Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, despite the fact that in two days time, they would be flown home for the summer.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1972, there was no road from Inuvik to Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, an Inuvialuit community of the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The three boys decided to make the one hundred thirty kilometer journey on foot, wearing only the clothes on their backs. They began their journey by following the telephone poles through the tundra and bush. Andreason stated that they believed they could make the journey in several days. It was June so the sun shone all day and at the start of their walk, the weather was sunny and warm. They were able to eat berries and found plenty of fresh water to drink.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, after a few days the weather changed, becoming cloudy and rainy. When they were unable to cross a raging river, Jack Elanik was beginning to feel unwell. At this point, Andreason wanted to return to Inuvik because Jack was sick, but Dennis decided to continue onward. They never saw him again. Eventually Jack became too sick to continue on. Making his friend as comfortable as possible, Andreason set out once again for Tuktuyaaqtuuqt. For two weeks he continued walking, alone. Because of the twenty-four hour daylight, Andreason often lost track of time and would hallucinate. </div><div><br /></div><div>Andreason was eventually found eight kilometers south of Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, in early July, walking the NCPC powerline. He was spotted by an Eldorado helicopter pilot flying between Inuviut and Tuktuyaaqtuuqt. Upon his rescue Andreason was taken to the nursing station in the community suffering from exposure. When Andreason was rescued, he believed he had only been walking for two days instead of weeks. Jack Elanik was eventually found dead but Dennis Dick's body was never recovered.</div><div><br /></div><div>This tragic event would have significant repercussions in Bernard Andreason's life. The loss of his friends led to survivor guilt which was compounded by growing up in a dysfunctional family, and later on by alcoholism, and an HIV diagnosis. It seems that without a supportive family and the loss of his cultural identity, Bernard struggled throughout much of his life. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Despite this, <i>Mangilaluk</i> is a story of tenacity, perseverance and determination. Bernard's HIV diagnosis came at a time when he was making significant progress in his life. One wonders, had he the support of a loving family, how things might have been different. As an Indigenous person, already somewhat marginalized, the HIV diagnosis would have exacerbated his feelings of isolation and lack of belonging. However, he managed to seek out better treatment protocols in Vancouver and restart his life by upgrading his education at NEC. </div><div><br /></div><div>Although Bernard succumbed again to his demons and ended up on the streets, this time in Prince George, he managed to return to Vancouver to get himself well again. And showing great courage, Andreason agreed to participate in a reconciliation ceremony that would address what happened to Andreason and his two friends so long ago. It would be a healing ceremony that would follow a speaking engagement to students in Inuvit. Andreason undertook this despite his self-doubts. <br />He would have to face his family and face the devastating memories of what happened back when he was an eleven-year-old boy. </div><div>"The ceremony was beautiful. Every moment was infused with a love and respect I had only just begun to understand was possible for me. And I received it. I opened my heart and I let them in to help heal it. I felt the power or their prayers over me and the admiration of all these people who felt I had lived a life worth honouring. I felt my story come alive, and I felt a weight lift from my shoulders...." This ceremony was healing for Bernard, whose Indigenous name is Mangilaluk. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bernard Andreason's story is told through the beautiful artwork of Mark Gallo, whose colourful panels are effective in portraying the emotions, and settings. Mangilaluk is another significant contribution to the Indigenous experience in Canada.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Mangilaluk by Bernard Andreason</div><div>Iqualuit, Nunavut: Inhabit Education Books Inc.<br />96 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-75306077278938837082024-01-26T13:50:00.000-05:002024-01-26T13:50:05.611-05:00In The Tunnel by Julie Lee<i>In The Tunnel</i> is the follow-up novel to Julie Lee's debut, Brother's Keeper. The novel opens in October, 1952 with sixteen-year-old Myung-gi Kim and other young South Korean soldiers running up a hill when a grenade flashes in front of him. He falls down the hill breaking his ankle and rolls into part of the enemy tunnel dug by Chinese soldiers. The tunnel collapses trapping Myung-gi in a portion that is four feet long by five feet high. In other parts of the tunnel, Myung-gi hears South Korean soldiers fighting North Koreans and their Chinese allies.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtPw5cmCTkPaisWzK_R4p2j0TzP9hzs_GbcSxpcXcnYkDuIBR20NDB9bQo6DyxVhVhbkzz-XuowxvbONnS9Q4_puoEvSVDY5k9tgUdz8EOLmm7XSJMcNStckW4xj_t92IZ6Wpu10Dn8kjUuetit7-Gd2ch93nA0G1TD1rgrDZTVkCwc6GOTDEusLPQWYE/s2550/intunnel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2550" data-original-width="1693" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtPw5cmCTkPaisWzK_R4p2j0TzP9hzs_GbcSxpcXcnYkDuIBR20NDB9bQo6DyxVhVhbkzz-XuowxvbONnS9Q4_puoEvSVDY5k9tgUdz8EOLmm7XSJMcNStckW4xj_t92IZ6Wpu10Dn8kjUuetit7-Gd2ch93nA0G1TD1rgrDZTVkCwc6GOTDEusLPQWYE/w424-h640/intunnel.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div><div>Now trapped, Myung-gi flits back and forth between the present situation and the years leading up to this moment. These memories begin when he was nine-years-old in 1945 when he had the Japanese name, Ichiro and Korea was occupied by Japan. On August 15th, the Japanese surrender, having lost the war in the Pacific. His father, Kim Junho (Ahpa) tells Myung-gi his real name is Kim Myung-gi and that his seven-year-old sister's name is no longer Hideko but Yoomee. They live in Changang Province. Myung-gi is smart, loves to read and gets good grades in school.</div><div><br /></div><div>But for Myung-gi and his family, freedom lasted only one night, as the Japanese soldiers were replaced by Soviet soldiers soon they learned "that Korea had been divided in half at the 38th parallel...the Soviets occupying the North and the United States occupying the South." While some believe the Soviets are their liberators from Japanese oppression and protecting them from the imperialist Americans, Myung-gi notices Ahpa isn't happy. He tells them the Soviet soldiers are looting homes and decides they will get rid of their valuables. Ahpa also makes Uhma remove her makeup and her jewels and to wear only her plainest clothing so she doesn't attract the attention of the Soviet soldiers.</div><div><br /></div><div>A year later, life under Soviet rule is even worse than under the Japanese. The soldiers take what they want including most of the harvest, leaving little food for the Koreans. As a result, people are starving and factories close. Ahpa's fabric business has closed because people cannot afford new clothes. He now works as the principal of the boys' school that Myung-gi attends. Ahpa and Myung-gi travel by bus to the city where visit a bookseller. On the bus Myung-gi tells his father he aspires to be a writer. Myung-gi loves <b>"...al kinds of books - history books, fantasy books, even the nonfiction ones that made his eyes grow wide in wonder."</b> At the bookshop, the shop owner tells Ahpa that the authorities told him he cannot sell European American or Japanese books or even Korean books if they are against communism.</div><div><br /></div><div>By 1948, North Korea is now a Communist state, twelve-year-old Myung-gi meets his friend Sora, bringing her a folktale book and a book of Kim Sowol's poems. As they sit underneath the willow tree, Myung-gi is attacked and beaten by a group of boys accusing him of wanting the Americans to save him.</div><div><br /></div><div>In September of 1949, Myung-gi witnesses an older boy, Yongshik from his school, kidnapped by soldiers on his way to school. That evening Ahpa brings Myung-gi more books: Twenty thousand Leagues Under The Sea and Ivanhoe. Ahpa has taught Myung-gi several language including English. To hide these banned books, Ahpa cuts a hole in the wall behind Myung-gi's wardrobe.</div><div><br /></div><div>In June of 1950, Myung-gi is now fourteen years old. He has read through a large number of banned books from Frankenstein to Kim Yeoung-nang's poems. Then one Sunday morning upon arriving at the school for the mandatory weekly communist youth meeting, Myung-gi encounters a huge commotion. Comrade Lee announces that South Korean forces have invaded the North and also that the boys' school has a new principal, Comrade Ahn. This shocks Myung-gi and he races home.</div><div><br /></div><div>At home, Ahpa tells Uhma, Myung-gi and Yoomee that he was let go and that his work organizing student protests and getting banned books may be to blame. Uhma is terrified at this revelation, worried that Ahpa may be taken away. But Ahpa tells her he has been planning their escape to the south for years, and now with the war as a distraction, it is time to leave. They are to head one hundred miles south, to the mouth of the Yesong River at the Yellow Sea. From there, boats are smuggling people south, to the west coast of South Korea. They will then take a boat to Inchon and walk to Busan on the southern coast.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ahpa tells them they will leave in a few days after he's confirmed the boat and speaks to the Paks to offer them the chance to accompany them. Ahpa also tells his family that should anything happen to him. they should leave at once and follow the escape route. He tells Myung-gi not to be afraid to go on without him and that they should ask for Ko Jusung when they get to the Yesong River.</div><div><br /></div><div>For several days, Myung-gi goes to school while his mother packs rice, clothing and money. After school one day, Ahpa tells Myung-gi to keep watch for anything suspicious while he continues to pack the jigeh back carrier. So Myung-gi takes a book about the solar systme with him and sits behind the house on the other side of the wall to read. As a result, he doesn't see the army men creeping along the side of the house and doesn't warn Ahpa. He learns of their presence by the sounds of struggle inside the house. Too late, he sees Ahpa being pushed out of the house, his hands bound behind his back, his eye swoolen and his face bruised. His father is pushed into a car and taken away. Shame floods Myung-gi. He was supposed to keep watch. When Uhuma and Yoomee arrive home, Myung-gi tells them what happened.</div><div><br /></div><div>Shock quickly leads to indecision as to what to do. Myung-gi tells them that Ahpa has said if anything should happen to him, they need to follow the escape plan and he would meet them in Busan. After careful consideration, Uhma decides they will do what Ahpa asks.</div><div><br /></div><div>For Myung-gi, the journey south is filled with anger and shame that he failed to protect his father and that he is not the man his father is. In a desperate attempt to redeem himself, he signs up to fight the Communists will be the beginning of self-forgiveness, acceptance and learning to live amid profound loss. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>In The Tunnel</i> is the second book about the Korean War written by Julie Lee. The novel was born out of Lee's research for her first book, Brother's Keeper which showed that stories like Myung-gi's were a reality: children who were never reunited with family, and child soldiers who were used in a war and never later acknowledged. Lee decided she had to write a story "...in which wrongs inflicted upon the characters were never righted... about this history, because sometimes life is terribly unfair, and I needed to figure out a way to reconcile this reality with being able to move on and be happy..."</div><div><br /></div><div>The novel features a story within a story, opening with sixteen-year-old Myung-gi Kim fighting the North Koreans in a battle that came to be known as The Battle of Triangle Hill which occurred in the Osong Mountain region from October 14 to November 25, 1952. This was a fierce battle that saw the United States and Republic of Korea Army gain ground, forcing the Chinese to hide in the tunnels they had dug. During the night, the Chinese would regain the territory they lost during the day. Myung-gi, who joined the ROKA with the objective of finding his father, is trapped in one of these tunnels during an attack on the hill. While in the tunnel, Myung-gi remembers back to how this all started in 1945 with the end of World War II and the retreat of the Japanese who had occupied Korea. But instead of freedom, Myung-gi and his family experience increasing oppression and terror as North Korea becomes a communist state. The two stories eventually merge with Myung-gi struggling to survive in the tunnel, while at the same time talking to an enemy Chinese soldier trapped in a separate but adjacent part of the tunnel.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the flashbacks, the reader learns that Myung-gi's father is kidnapped by North Korean soldiers for his anti-communist resistance. His nose in a book, Myung-gi fails to warn his father of the soldiers and as a result he blames himself for his father being taken. But prior to this, Myung-gi is already filled with self-doubt, believing he doesn't measure up to his father. On a trip to the bookseller to buy books banned by the state, Myung-gi's father questions him about which career he aspires to, principal or professor. Myung-gi reveals he wants to be neither, but instead a writer. Ahpa's response to this makes Myung-gi wonder, <b>"Maybe a writer wasn't big enough, important enough."</b> Later on when Myung-gi is badly beaten by a group of boys, he lies to his parents about what happened because he is ashamed about not being able defend himself. <b>"Ahpa would've never lost a fight, not with his judo and street smarts and muscles."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Once Myung-gi and his family are safely in the south and living in Busan, he continues to struggle with what he believes was his failure to protect his father, with the cultural expectations as the only son and with what his father told him, <b>"Don't be afraid to go on without me."</b> Several times, every day, Myung-gi visits the church where refugees are camped on the lawn, asking if anyone has seen his father. Unable to sleep, and not interested in school Myung-gi begins carrying water to make some money for his family. When Myung-gi is identified as one of several boys who are recommended to take the specialty high school entrance exam in a month's time, he is filled deeply conflicted, <b>"Because the idea of applying to a specialty high school felt a lot like moving on...which felt a lot like giving up on Ahpa... He wasn't ready to start something new without Ahpa."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>After Uhma cuts her hair to make money to buy them new shoes, Myung-gi decides to leave school. He is still overwhelmed with guilt for reading when he should have been watching for the North Korean soldiers and cannot bear to pick up a book. He also learns that with the Chinese joining the war, Northern refugees can no longer cross the 38th parallel anymore, meaning that the likelihood Ahpa will escape is now slim. In desperation, Myung-gi decides to enlist, with the hope that being in the North he will be able to find Ahpa and bring him back.<b> "It was his fault Ahpa got taken -- now it was up to him to get his father back. If something happened to Myung-gi in the process, well, that would be the punishment he deserved."</b> This desperate act shocks Uhma, Yoomee, Sora and their families.</div><div><br /></div><div>Trapped in the tunnel and facing death, Myung-gi faces the prospect of dying alone. With only a small mouse for company, Myung-gi begins to remember some passages from the banned books he's read like Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and The Hobbit by Tolkien. He realizes that as Victor Hugo wrote in his novel, his own father loved him in spite of all his weaknesses and inadequacies. And after three years of futile hoping and wishing, Myung-gi remembers to words of Victor Hugo, <b>"... that it is frightful not to live."</b> As Myung-gi comes to the realization he will not be able to find his father in this war, he want his father to be happy and to live his best life. <b>"But if you're alive, don't be sad, don't stop living, don't spend your days alone. Find a family you can love, and who will love you back -- because we can't be with you anymore. I can't be with you anymore. Be happy!"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>As Myung-gi is being rescued his entire perspective has changed: he will live his life as it is now, to the fullest. <b>"And soon he will be set down in the right place -- at home, in Busan, where he will hug Uhma tight and thank her for being both mother and father. Where he will tell his artist sister how proud he is of her and then gaze upon her portrait of their father. Where he will go to Sora, the girl he will always love, and finally say he is sorry...Where he will dig up that book from Teacher Chun and read it from beginning to end. Where he will take that entrance exam and hope for the best. Where he will write their history, his family's, the one he already started. Where he will finally do as his father said and not be afraid to go on without him." </b>Myung-gi, being extracted from the tunnel, experiences a rebirth, coming to accept what he cannot change, that his father is gone and that they likely will not meet again in this life. He realizes that he must go on and live his life and that Ahpa foresaw this possibility and gave him the permission to do so. In the Epilogue, readers learn how well Myung-gi fulfilled his father's desire for him.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Korean War ended in a stalemate, with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953 in Panmunjom by officials from North and South Korea, The People's Republic of China and the United States. According to the Korean Red Cross, nearly ten million families were separated due to the Korean War. What was originally believed to be a temporary situation has resulted in these millions being denied the basic human right to reunification of their families for the past seventy years. Although there have been some state-sanctioned visits, as the years pass, older members of families are passing on, while younger members suffer from the lack of connection with older family members like grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles. There is not only this trauma, but brief, temporary reunification of families also causes tremendous trauma. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>In The Tunnel</i> portrays the trauma of separation experienced by Myung-gi and his family but also the trauma he experienced as a child soldier. Myung-gi was one of at least thirty-thousand child soldiers conscripted into the war by South Korea. Some of these soldiers enlisted, intent upon finding lost family members as Myung-gi did. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>In The Tunnel</i> is one of several recent novels to explore the Korean War from the perspective of children. The novel offers readers the themes of forgiveness, the effects of war on civilians including the separation of families, the refugee experience, and living without a resolution to that separation.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In The Tunnel by Julie Lee<br />New York: Holiday House 2023<br />332 pp.</div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-88733460557441087682024-01-15T10:57:00.002-05:002024-01-15T10:57:26.316-05:00Suliewey by Mi'sel Joe and Sheila O'Neill<i>Suliewey</i> is the sequel to My Indian by Sawamw Mi'sel Joe, continuing the story of Mi'kmaw guide Suliwey (Sylvester Joe) as he searches for the last remaining Beothuk.<div><br /></div><div>Suliewey has left the white man William Cormack in Nujioqollek, after guiding him during the fall, across the island in search of the last Beothuk. The Elders had cautioned Suliewey to instead guide Cormack away from the Beothuk camps which he willingly did. Cormack had wanted Suliewey to accompany him by schooner back to St. John's, as far as Bay d'Espoir and even onto Spain or Portugal. But Suliewey wanted to see how his Beothuk brothers and sisters were managing to stay safe, hoping to find their winter camps. His plan is to travel to his friend, Gabriel's camp, then to Miawpukek. However, as Suliewey is leaving Chief Gontgont's house, the chief comes out and asks Suliewey to stay over longer, until the snow hardens. Chief Gontgont tells him that he will be able to rest more and eat well and perhaps learn more about the Beothuk winter camps from returning Mi'kmaw trappers.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhID01XvRLyva6Oia45ZjxYy6sS8owFLofdv9_exnjnS5valLvEP-sZVMDMCN_uLItyVT05qxghXs8syzDcw1qUsIDpv-gCReAMSpkh0xCd96zg_UfOHELLVt0fL-sYkPXwMfEyZRTM8Kl46OHxMFSJhXva1UO-Prwk56B2p_NtmzYjlCeQLx5l5lpahB4/s1000/suliwey.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="651" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhID01XvRLyva6Oia45ZjxYy6sS8owFLofdv9_exnjnS5valLvEP-sZVMDMCN_uLItyVT05qxghXs8syzDcw1qUsIDpv-gCReAMSpkh0xCd96zg_UfOHELLVt0fL-sYkPXwMfEyZRTM8Kl46OHxMFSJhXva1UO-Prwk56B2p_NtmzYjlCeQLx5l5lpahB4/w416-h640/suliwey.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><div>Suliewey agrees and stays with Chief Gontgont. He is given several gifts including <b>"...a beautiful qalipu hide bag made by his wife..."</b> that could be used as both a bundle or a bed. The Mi'kmaw trappers have no new information to offer to Suliewey regarding the Beothuk winter camp. They tell him <b>"...it was as if the Beothuk were hibernating like the Mui'n do during the winter." </b>This does give Suliewey a potential clue as to where and how he might find the Beothuk.</div><div><br /></div><div>Eventually Suliewey begins his journey <b>"...to find the winter camp of the last of the remaining Beothuk."</b> Chief Gontgont walks a short ways with Suliewey who leaves with gifts of snowshoes, skin boots, qalipu skin coat and the sleeping bag. He tells Suliewey to stop by Gabriel's camp to rest before journeying to Miawpukek to see his family.</div><div><br /></div><div>After five days, Suliewey reaches Gabriel's camp on Hatchet Pond where he finds a note from Gabriel that they are taking their ill daughter to St. George's Bay to see the medicine woman. They have left some food for him in their wikuom. Suliewey wonders how the Beothuk are doing as they have been driven from the coast which supplies their food of salmon, seal, eggs and shellfish. He decides to head northeast and not travel to Miawpukek. As he journeys, Suliewey continues to look for smoke rising, believing that will be a sign of a Beothuk camp.</div><div><br /></div><div>At this time, a large grey wolf appears at Suliewey's camp. At first he throws sticks of wood from his fire to drive the wolf away. But later after snaring a kopit, Suliewey throws bits of meat to the hungry wolf. As the wolf continues to follow him on his travels, Suliewey names him Hungry and they soon grow to tolerate one another.<br /><br />In his travels, Suliewey discovers a Beothuk summer campsite near a lake along with a birchbark gwitn. Back at his brook camp, Suliewey encounters a mysterious woman who has lu'skinikin cooking and has made tea. The woman tells Suliewey he must go back. He decides to return to the Beothuk summer camp to search for any clues as to where <b>"...they spend their winters and how man of them are left, of the hundreds of Beothuk people who lived on this land before the arrival of the aqualasiew."</b> He does find a circle of stones outside the wikuom with an arrowhead pointing south and believes that this might a hint as to where he should travel. </div><div><br /></div><div>With Hungry sometimes following, sometimes leading, Suliewey travels along the lake and finds another wikuom, this time with more signs: an unfinished stone pipe and a qalipu leg bone scrapper. Because the stone may have come from Pipe Stone Pond, Suliewey decides to travel there. Near Pipe Stone Pond, Suliewey discovers an abandoned wkuom and a cave containing the remains of a young pregnant woman her unborn baby. The hole in her skeleton tells Suliewey that she died from being shot by a musket ball.</div><div><br /></div><div>After this sad discovery, Suliewey decides it is time to return to his family in Maiwpukek. His whole village celebrates his return with a meal, and set up the sweat lodge to pray and give thanks for his safe return. He decides he will continue his search for the Beothuk people in the late fall and through the winter. He wants to help them and keep them safe. Suliewey's search will almost cost him his life, but it will also reveal the last remnants of the Beothuk and their desperate struggle to survive. As the Beothuk once saved Suliewey's grandfather, he will now return the favour.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In the first book, <i>My Indian</i>, Suliewey recounts his journey with the white man, Cormack to find the remaining Beothuk. In this sequel, Suliewey recounts his own journey to find the last of the Beothuk and offer his help. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Beothuk, in the pre-contact era, were an aboriginal coastal people who lived in small bands in Newfoundland. In the pre-contact era there were likely less than one thousand of these Algonkian hunter-gatherers who survived on seal, salmon, and sea birds and their eggs. These were preserved as food stores for the harsh winter months. The Beothuk painted their bodies, homes, canoes and weapons with red ochre. It was considered an integral part of their identity and newborns were painted to welcome them into the tribe. </div><div><br /></div><div>With the coming of the Europeans, the Beothuk were forced out of their traditional coastal hunting grounds. This often led to conflict between the two with the Beothuk usually on the losing end. Unlike other Indigenous peoples, they avoided contact with Europeans. This meant moving further inland away from the seals, salmon and sea birds and forced the Beothuk to hunt caribou. This was not enough to sustain the Beothuk and they began to starve. It is likely that the loss of their traditional hunting grounds and food sources, exposure to the European diseases of smallpox and tuberculosis, and deadly encounters with English and French trappers and fisherman were the cause of their extinction.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Mi'kmaw people have long maintained they are related to the Beothuk. Recent genetic research has shown that there are genetic descendants of the Beothuk people in Newfoundland and Labrador. The research used DNA harvested from the molars of Demasduit and her husband, Nonosabsut who were the aunt and uncle of Shanawduit, the last known member of the Beothuk. Demasduit was kidnapped by a European trapper, John Peyton Jr. in 1819. Nonosabsut was murdered attempting to rescue her. Demasduit was eventually taken to St. John's, living with her captor as a servant. She died in 1820 of tuberculosis. Demasduit and Nonosabsut were buried at Red Indian Lake but Newfoundland explorer, William Cormack took their skulls to Edinburgh. They were not repatriated until 2020.<br /><br />While there are no direct descendants of Demasduit and Nonosabsut, their family tree does have living descendants according to Memorial University professor Steve Carr. His research suggests that the Beothuk had "friendly relationships" with other Indigenous peoples that resulted in family lines that continue today.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is these friendships between the Indigenous peoples of Newfoundland that becomes an important part of the narrative in <i>Suliewey</i>. In The Book Club Questions found at the back of the novel, the authors write that the settler narrative has been that these two peoples were enemies. This goes against Mi'kmaw oral history. In an attempt to reclaim this narrative, we see that Suliewey considers the Beothuk his brothers and sisters and wants to help them. His own grandfather was cared for by the Beothuk. </div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>Suliewey</i>, the young Mi'kmaw Suliewey eventually does find a small remnant of Beothuk, including a young woman. Her husband has died and she is the only woman in the group that consists of her great-grandfather, her brother, and four Elders. At the request of her grandmother, Suliewey agrees to marry the beautiful, young woman and they have a daughter together. The Book Club Questions state, <b>"... that the authors wanted to offer possible context to the recent Beothuk DNA studies conducted by Miawpukek First Nation in partnership with Terra Nova Genomics... which provides evidence of a possible survival of Beothuk genetic lineage in modern populations of Mi'kmaq."</b> </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Suliewey</i> is filled with many interesting descriptions of Mi'kmaq knowledge in living off the land, particularly in the frigid winter months. There are descriptions of building a healing lodge and making medicine to heal consumption, as well as spiritual rituals such has leaving offerings to the spirits and praying to the Creator for safety. Mi'sel Joe uses Suliewey to inform readers about many different types of Indigenous knowledge including making various types of camps in caves and in the forest, making a narrow type of snowshoes, tanning a kopit pelt, smoking meat, and fashioning a bow and arrows along with a quiver, a spear and other tools. Suliewey describes how most parts of the kopit and the qalipu are used by the Mi'kmaq. Through the main character of Suliewey, readers come to know the deep connection between the Mi'kmaq and the land and the animals. After Suliewey sets a trap for a mui'n he sees that the animal is old and changes his mind, out of respect and also because he takes only what he needs.</div><div><br /></div><div>As a result of the detailed descriptions of Indigenous knowledge, the first half of the novel may seem slow and uninteresting to some readers. However, there is foreshadowing in the novel, especially at the beginning when Suliewey dreams of "a beautiful young woman with long black hair and red skin." This foreshadows his meeting of the beautiful Beothuk woman who he names Wtatapn, and who helps Suliewey heal from the injuries of his fall and whom he marries. <br /><br />Suliewey's fall off a cliff is an unexpected plot twist that forces the meeting between himself and the remaining Beothuk who have hidden inside a long cave. There his broken leg is set and he is cared for. From an Elder and Great-Grandfather, Suliewey learns of the Beothuk's struggle to survive with the coming of the Europeans. The cave they are wintering in has drawings that portray their history and their struggles. Great-grandfather tells how the Beothuk were cheated in trades with the white men, how their women were captured and enslaved, how the long guns allowed the white men to kill them easily, and how their food was taken leaving them will little food to hunt and store. When Suliewey learns their story he is heartbroken for them and promises to tell their story so it doesn't fade into history. </div><div><br /></div><div>Suliewey comes to help the Beothuk in a way he least suspects: the young woman's great-grandfather asks him to marry her and take her in the Mi'kmaq tribe as a way of protecting her and continuing the Beothuk line. Suliewey agrees to do this and they are married. To protect Wtatapn, Suliewey tells her she must remove the red ochre and dress like the Mi'kmaq, otherwise the white men will know she is a Beothuk. For Wtatapn, this means giving up her identity as a Beothuk, in order to survive. This final act highlights the price Wtatapn must pay to survive and it also reminds readers of the loss of identity and culture that many Indigenous peoples paid as a result of European contact.</div><div><br /></div><div>While <i>Suliewey</i> is a tragic story about the last remnants of the Beothuk, it is also one of hope. Although culturally the Beothuk did not survive, it would seem that, as Mi'kmaq oral history and modern DNA analysis indicate, there were some Beothuk who integrated into other Indigenous peoples, producing descendants. Suliewey is highly recommended for those readers who wish to know the Beothuk story from an Indigenous perspective.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Suliewey by Mi'sel Joe and Sheila O'Neill<br />St. John's, NL: Breakwater Books 2023<br />202 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-79655471671568901732024-01-06T14:36:00.002-05:002024-01-06T14:36:25.948-05:00Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers by Lawrence Matsuda and Matt SasakiIn <i>Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers</i>, six Nisei soldiers from the Pacific Northwest are profiled. All six men are now deceased. These are Army medics Jimmie Kanaya and Tosh Yasutake, Army Infantrymen Frank Nishimura and Turk Suzuki, Army Infantry Sergeant Shiro Kashino and Military Intelligence Roy Matsumoto. All were members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) or MIS.<div><br /></div><div>First profiled is Shiro Kashino's experiences. He was born in 1922 in Seattle, Washington, the sixth child of Bujinosuke Kashino and Hatsume Oda. His family had lived in Denver, Colorado but moved to Seattle. Shiro was raised by his older siblings from the age of thirteen, after the deaths of his mother in 1934 and his father in 1935. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7kTV67-Nfs3w9veTGyXcrnM_uasPE7OQChyKIV4JeudzchAS1NMQ2f-Q6bEsUIlcxidgoPfOYpEkKTYsVtkXnLkDWdz8te7PZ8ggHiO02jK7a2C39hOSdPtxeOfMgwmpekfRfDRsk2QovP_x6tj6RQQzb5KAIZANupFn7NxYo8OKIimvH0eudmMqVKFA/s1856/fighting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1856" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7kTV67-Nfs3w9veTGyXcrnM_uasPE7OQChyKIV4JeudzchAS1NMQ2f-Q6bEsUIlcxidgoPfOYpEkKTYsVtkXnLkDWdz8te7PZ8ggHiO02jK7a2C39hOSdPtxeOfMgwmpekfRfDRsk2QovP_x6tj6RQQzb5KAIZANupFn7NxYo8OKIimvH0eudmMqVKFA/w414-h640/fighting.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><div>A good athlete, Shiro received a football scholarship to Willamette University in Oregon but he never attended. Shiro delayed attending to work and earn money first and then Pear Harbor happened. Shiro ended up at Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. He volunteered for the 442 RCT in 1943 and "fought in all the major battles of the European campaigns."</div><div><br /></div><div>The second profile is of Frank Nishimura who was born in 1924 in Seattle, Washington to Ritoji and Kiku Nishimura. Frank had five older siblings: Toshimi, Shizuko, Hiromi, Yuki and Toyo. HIs parents brought and sold hotels through a Jewish attorney as Japanese nationals could not purchase land in Washington state.</div><div><br /></div><div>Frank attended Cascade and Bailey Gatzert School. Like many Japanese children he attended the Japanese Community Language School after regular school. In the fall of 1938, he was enrolled at Broadway High School. Frank was a newspaper carrier for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He delivered papers in his 1937 Plymouth automobile that he had purchased used.</div><div><br /></div><div>Life was carefree and good for Frank and his friends: they went to various beaches to clam and picnic. They also attended the annual Japanese Community Day at Seattle's Playland Amusement Park. But life took a drastic change on December 7, 1941.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jimmie Kanaya was born on October 3, 1920 to parents who were farmers in Clackamas, Oregon. He enlisted in the U.S. Army when he was twenty-years-old and became a medic. In 1942 when Japanese and Japanese-Americans were sent to concentrations camps, Jimmie accompanied his family to the temporary detention center, Portland Assembly Center. However, because he was in his U.S. Army uniform, he wasn't allowed in with his parents, brother and sister.</div><div><br /></div><div>He was stationed at Camp Crowder upon completing his medic training, then transferred to Camp Shelby in Mississippi. From there Jimmie was assigned as a medic to the all Japanese-American 442 RCT. As part of the 34th Infantry Division, Jimmie saw action in Italy and then in France with the 36th Infantry Division. He was captured by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains while attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers. Jimmie was taken to a prisoner of war camp for officers, Oflag 64 which was located in Szubin, Poland. When the Red Army occupied Poland and German forces fled, Jimmie and the other prisoners were marched four hundred miles to Hammelburg, Germany and another camp. The death march was done in subzero temperatures in deep snow.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fourth profile is that of Roy Hiroshi Matsumoto who served with the 5307th Composite Unit in Burma as a Military Intelligence Service language interpreter. This unit was nicknamed Merrill's Marauders after Brigadier General Frank Merrill.<br /><br />Roy was born in Laguna, California on May 1, 1913. He was sent to Hiroshima, Japan to attend Japanese school when he was eight-years-old. When Roy was seventeen, he and his brother returned to the United States while his parents and family remained in Japan. After graduating from Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1933, Roy worked at a Japanese grocery stroy where he learned many different Japanese dialects. </div><div><br /></div><div>After Pearl Harbor, Roy was sent to the concentration camp at Jerome, Arkansas. He volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army as a Japanese language specialist. Merrill's Marauders was tasked with opening the Burma Road connecting India and China.<br /><br />Tosh Yasutake's father Jack left Japan in 1907 when he was sixteen-years-old to live in San Francisco. He did not wish to be a farmer like his father. Jack attended high school and then Stanford University studying engineering. He left his university studies in the U.S. travelling to Japan to marry Hideko Shiraki in 1918, and returning to the States after the marriage where he was hired as a translator for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Their first son, Seiichi, was born in 1920. Tosh was the second oldest of four boys: he was born in 1922, followed by his brother Mitsuye born a year later in Japan and the youngest brother Joe who was born in 1932. </div><div><br /></div><div>Because Jack and Hideko were Japanese Nationals, they were not allowed by law to purchase land in Washington State, so they had an INS secretary do so for them. Tosh attended Beacon Hill School, then Cleveland High School and was studying science at the University of Washington when Pear Harbor happened in December of 1941. The very next day, FBI agents came to the Yasutake home for Jack who was not at home. Jack was arrested at the Japanese poetry club meeting he was attending and incarcerated in various concentrations camps. At this time Tosh left his studies at the university.</div><div><br /></div><div>The entire family including Jack were incarcerated at Minidoka War Relocation Center concentration camp. In April, 1942, Tosh and his siblings along with their mother Hideko were taken from the Seattle area to the WCCA Puyallup Assembly Center.</div><div><br /></div><div>Teruyuki "Turk" Suzuki was born in 1923. Unlike the other Nisei profiled in Fighting for America, both his parents were college graduates and Christians educated in Japan. Turk's father had also served in the Japanese Navy prior to the war. The Suzuki's immigrated to Seattle and operated a hotel called the Spring Lodge Hotel located near the downtown library. Turk and his friends loved to play in the area.</div><div><br /></div><div>Teruyuki got his nickname from a good friend, Willie who could not pronounce his name. Turk's four siblings were also given American names when they entered school. All the Suzuki children walked to Baily Gatzert School located east of Japantown.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even though Turk's parents could not become American citizens (this wasn't possible until 1952), his father stressed to him that he was an American citizen. Like Tosh's father Jack, Turk's father was also arrested after Pearl Harbor and taken to the INS building. And like Turk, Tosh also joined the 442nd all Japanese-American RCT.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Fighting For America</i> is an intimate look at the war from the perspective of six Japanese American soldiers and their families. <i>Fighting For America</i> is divided into six chapters, each featuring the biography of one of six Nisei soldiers. What started as a graphic novel on Nisei veteran Shiro Kashino, quickly expanded into a project that included the<b> "personal war accounts of other Nisei veterans Frank Nishimura, Jimmie Kanaya, Turk Suzuki, Roy Matsumoto, and Tosh Yasutake." </b> Each chapter begins with an Introduction, followed by a series of graphic novel panels detailing some aspect of each soldier's life based on their personal experiences and closing with an Epilogue about their life in the post-war period as well as photographs of the men . Each account tells of the incarceration of their families and their combat experiences as part of the most decorated unit for their size in U.S. history. <br /><br />In the Introduction, author Lawrence Matsuda writes,<b> "Approximately 14,000 Nisei or second generation Japanese Americans fought as members of the 442 Regimental Combat Team (RCT) during World War II against Germany and Italy. The 442 RCT consisted of three infantry battalions (originally 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 442 Infantry, and later the 100th Infantry Battalion in place of the 1st.), the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, the 232 Engineer Company, an anti-tank company, cannon company, service company, medical detachment, headquarters companies, and the 206 Army Band." </b></div><div><br /></div><div>For the six men profiled in <i>Fighting For America</i>, life as teenagers and young adults was filled with school, sports and jobs. However, their parents bore the brunt of the discrimination so common at that time: they could not become American citizens and couldn't own property. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, life changed quickly and drastically: fathers were jailed, they lost their homes, businesses and possessions, school ended and they were forced into concentration camps with guards and barbed wire.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nisei volunteered from the mainland United States and Hawai'i. Most from the mainland volunteered after being incarcerated in concentration camps. They would go on to fight in France, liberating towns and in Italy overtaking German positions blocking the Allies path into Europe. That the Nisei would volunteer to fight for a country that treated them and their families so terribly is all the more remarkable and reflects the loyalty, patriotism, and bravery of these men and their families. As Matsuda writes in his Foreword, <b>"The story must never be forgotten for it was their heroics that opened the doors for future generations of Japanese Americans."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Despite their tremendous personal sacrifices and patriotism for their country, many Nisei continued to experience discrimination and prejudice in the post-war period. Frank Nishimura found it difficult to purchase a home and was told he would never be hired as a welder. Shiro Kashino was certified in refrigeration and air conditioning but faced discrimination from unions in Seattle. Despite this climate of systemic racism, all six men made significant contributions to America. Turk Suzuki had a long career as an engineer and Tosh Yasutake had a distinguished career as a fish histologist. Jimmie Kanaya had a long army career reaching the rank of colonel while Roy Matsumoto became a career Army soldier. Frank Nishimura was an amazing scoutmaster and a postal worker, while Shiro Kashino worked for forty-four years in the automotive industry. </div><div><br /></div><div>The artwork of illustrator Matt Sasaki ably portrays the many emotions of the events experienced by the soldiers and their families, whether it be the fear and worry of impending incarceration, the joy of being with family. the desolation and anger at the lost of friends and comrades, or the terror and violence of combat.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Fighting For America</i> serves to remind readers that the experiences of Nisei and their families during World War II demonstrate the incredible patriotism, loyalty, and self-sacrifice made for the country that treated them so badly. It also highlights the forgiveness, industriousness, humility and charity they offered the American people, in spite of that discrimination. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers by Lawrence Matsuda<br />Seattle: Chin Music Press 2023<br />167 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-54511060359737485362023-12-30T17:19:00.001-05:002023-12-30T17:19:29.580-05:00The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond: A Civil Rights Icon by Rachel Kehoe with Wanda RobsonViola Davis was born in 1914 and grew up in the North End, where Halifax's Black community was located. Viola's ancestors had fled slavery in the United States in the 1800's. They came to Nova Scotia where they were free. However, life in Nova Scotia was not easy for Black people as society was segregated just like in the U.S. Black people did not live in the same neighborhoods or attend the same schools as white people. Few jobs were open to Black people and they were often refused service at local businesses.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyRcq39ruYBwyR5e1LI9CNwfW8FNVz_Jr1KnEKdt0XfFrXLkwMmfnktga9YIT0rZaCkEAVUNJIbKwI7IrPBTfetM9Mjfzry1cZKYAYmYaIQUwYBUJVR_9ByUHqOtKayBFn0OmahlCoQg2YXLoFU42lmHQfc38JpnkMY8pty2SjX-f_cWQlX1G5u3Ba-hM/s400/trailblazing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="303" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyRcq39ruYBwyR5e1LI9CNwfW8FNVz_Jr1KnEKdt0XfFrXLkwMmfnktga9YIT0rZaCkEAVUNJIbKwI7IrPBTfetM9Mjfzry1cZKYAYmYaIQUwYBUJVR_9ByUHqOtKayBFn0OmahlCoQg2YXLoFU42lmHQfc38JpnkMY8pty2SjX-f_cWQlX1G5u3Ba-hM/w484-h640/trailblazing.jpg" width="484" /></a></div><div><div>Viola's parents, James Davis and Gwendolyn Irene Johnson had married secretly in 1908. Gwendolyn was of mixed-race heritage, but she considered herself Black. They moved in with James's parents in the North End and started what would be a very large family. Viola was the fifth of fifteen children, however only eleven of the children survived. Viola survived a bout of pneumonia, the illness that took the life of her younger sister, Hazel. She also survived the Halifax Explosion which severely damaged Halifax and in particular, the North End.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Davises attended Trinity Anglican every Sunday. Viola took classes at Joseph Howe Elementary School which was integrated. She worked hard at her studies and was a top student at Bloomfield High School where she excelled in history, English and geography.</div><div><br /></div><div>With the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, the loss of jobs and a drought on the prairies, Viola's father worked occasional jobs. Viola graduated from high school when she was sixteen-years-old in 1930. She wanted to be a teacher, but because the teachers college in Truro did not admit Black students, Viola's application was rejected. Nevertheless, Viola was able to teach at the segregated schools when she was nineteen, after passing the provincial exam. As someone who held herself to high stands, Viola also held her students to the same level.</div><div><br /></div><div>Viola also became and advocate for her younger sister, Wanda who was twelve years her junior and experiencing racism in her class. Wanda attended Alexandra Elementary School in Grade 2. Her teacher, Ms. Reid, placed Wanda at the back of the class along with other Black students who she ignored. Ms. Reid had a rule that children who achieved top marks could sit at the front of the class. However, when Wanda achieved top marks and was moved to the front of the class, her teacher seemed upset and refused to let her answer questions. Then she sent Wanda to the Grade 3 class where she told the teacher not to assign Wanda any work. Eventually Wanda was returned to her Grade 2 class but was placed at the back of the room. When Parents' Day came around, Viola and her mother had to intervene.</div><div><br /></div><div>Viola eventually made the decision to become a beautician, as there were almost no Black beauty salons in Canada. Black women were unable to attend beauty school in Halifax, so Viola saved her money and travelled to Montreal to attend school there in 1936. During her time in Montreal, Viola married Jack Desmond. In 1937, Viola, now a trained beautician, opened Vi's Studio of Beauty Culture in Halifax's North End.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1939, Viola attended the Apex College of Beauty Culture and Hairdressing in Atlantic City, N.J. to learn more about Black beauty techniques. By 1944, she opened the Desmond School of Beauty Culture so Black women could train to be hairdressers and beauticians.</div><div><br /></div><div>But on November 8, 1946, Viola's life would take a very different turn. She travelled to Sydney, Cape Breton to deliver beauty products. When her car broke down, Viola found herself stranded in New Glasgow for the evening. She decided to take in a movie, The Dark Mirror at the Roseland Theatre. Viola bought a ticket for the downstairs section of the theatre. Patrons could sit downstairs or in the balcony. Because Viola had poor eyesight she wanted to sit close in the downstairs area. </div><div><br /></div><div>Viola took her seat in the downstairs section when she was told by the usher that her ticket was for the balcony. Puzzled, Viola returned to the cashier to pay extra for the downstairs ticket but was told she was "not allowed to sell downstairs tickets to you people." Viola knew that the woman at the desk was referring to Viola being Black. Viola refused to be intimidated and returned to her seat downstairs. With the movie starting, the usher returned, now advising Viola that if she didn't move, he would call the manager, Henry MacNeil.</div><div><br /></div><div>The manager arrived and soon the police were called. Viola was on her way to jail for sitting downstairs in a movie theatre. Viola spent the night in jail and was taken before a judge the next day, without legal representation and not given the chance to make a phone call. "She was was accused of not paying the difference in tax for the downstairs ticket - a single penny." She was found guilty and fined twenty dollars plus the cost of Henry's court fees. This would be the impetus for the civil rights movement in Canada. It would be over forty years later that Viola would receive a pardon and her efforts to be treated equally would be recognized.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond</i> traces the life of Black Canadian, Viola Davis Desmond from her family's early roots in Nova Scotia in the 1800's to her untimely death in 1965 and her legacy into the 21st century. The authors were able to write an informative biography of Viola based on the interviews with her younger sister, Wanda Robson.</div><div><br /></div><div>Viola Desmond, like her family and other Black Canadians spent most of her life dealing with racism. The systemic racism that existed in Canada in the first half of the 20th century was to shape their lives in almost every way. Slavery was abolished across the Empire by the British parliament on August 1, 1834. Although people of African descent living in the British colonies were legally free, they continued to face prejudice and inequality, even ninety years after the legislation. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the early 20th century, in Nova Scotia, schools, churches and theatres were segregated. The segregation was not uniform either within the same town or from community to community. Some hotels and restaurants would not serve Black people. Canadians of African descent lived separate from white people in their own neighborhoods. Black schools were similar to those in the United States, lacking in books, blackboards and other basic supplies. Black people couldn't work as teachers because the teachers college in Truro wouldn't admit them. There were few jobs open to Black men and women, and those available were low paying.</div><div><br /></div><div>Viola and her family encountered many of these prejudices and inequalities which affected the choices they made in their lives. Viola wanted to be a teacher but was refused entry into the college at Truro. Although she did teach for a time in Black schools, Viola decided to become a beautician. As a Black woman who prided herself on always looked her best, Viola would not have been able to be served in a white beauty shop. It is also possible that many beauticians of this era would not have known how to treat or style the unique hair of Black women, and likely had no inclination to learn. Viola set about learning her craft and bringing that knowledge back to Nova Scotia where she eventually opened her own shop and beauty school, and made available beauty products designed for Black women and men. </div><div><br /></div><div>All of this would set the stage for Viola's act of resistance in the New Glasgow theatre in 1946. She was jailed for simply wanting to sit in the downstairs area of the theatre. Her inequality extended into the Nova Scotia court system where she was found guilty and fined and then to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court where she lost her case. In that instance, the case was not about segregation. However, one judge, Justice Hall knew that Viola was treated this way because she was Black.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although Viola Desmond was not the first to resist (journalist Carrie Best was turned out of the Roseland Theatre in 1941 for the same reason), her actions marked a turning point in the fight for equality that was beginning in the post-war period in North America. Kehoe and Robson highlight some of those individuals in sidebars. For example, Pearleen Oliver a community activist and cofounder along with her husband, Rev. Dr. William P. Oliver of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP),was successful in getting Black women the right to attend nursing schools in Canada. However, progress was slow. It wasn't until 1959 that the Fair Accommodation Practices Act was passed in Nova Scotia, banning discrimination in housing. In 1963, racial discrimination was outlawed with the passage of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act.</div><div><br /></div><div>Viola never lived to see the changes that happened after her untimely death in 1965. Her small act of resistance was mostly forgotten but not by her sister Wanda who had initially been embarrassed by Viola going to jail. But as she matured, Wanda came to understand and began speaking about what happened. Viola eventually received a full pardon, posthumously in 2010. Today Canadians are reminded of Viola's desire for equality by her picture on the ten dollar bill. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond</i> is a well written biography incorporating the "personal experiences" and "treasured memories" of Viola through the interviews of her sister Wanda Robson. Readers will learn about what it was like for Black Canadians living in Nova Scotia and Canada in the early 20th century and how they fought for equality. </div><div><br /></div><div>What is lacking in this chapter book for young readers, are photographs of Viola Desmond and her family, and many of the places of importance in her story. It would have been extremely interesting to see items available from the Nova Scotia archives: for example an article from a provincial newspaper covering her Supreme Court case (noting that she was charged with fraud ), articles from The Clarion, one of the first Black newspapers in the province, and the Notice of Motion to take the case to the Supreme Court. At issue also is the over-use of digital illustrations which are so common in juvenile nonfiction and biographies. The authors include a Time Line, a Glossary, a list of Resources and an Index. </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond: A Civil Rights Icon by Rachel Kehoe with Wanda Robson<br />Orca Book Publishers Ltd. 2023<br />87 pp.</div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-35000678168234633172023-12-23T18:40:00.000-05:002023-12-23T18:40:03.465-05:00The Scarf and The Butterfly: a graphic memoir of hope and healing by Monica Ittusardjuat<i>The Scarf and The Butterfly</i> is a short graphic memoir of Monica Ittusardjuat's life, exploring how the residential school experience impacted her life and her identity as Inuit.<div><br /></div><div>The memoir opens with a memory of Monica and her friends, Umik, Ilupaalik, and Akittiq out for a walk to catch butterflies. Monica is wearing a beautiful scarf her mother gave her before going into the hospital. During their walk, Monica lost her scarf but she was able to find it. This was Monica's life before she was taken away to attend the residential school at Chesterfield Inlet.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5_EUJRdsodUSNv01B9nLWZ3Fu2wSbmtlsB7R1OImP7nt2vZzRW-cq5LvZh19GzQYSVKui-hFITerBKJlsNCge5ujgKwgVKzFuCATG8XQCoJ1VY0y1zaezhaQ_cE8DDESQWVN3FXm9A9Ihgoy4VgXSYtpEpSNpI5mKZi38q3lW2rBXMh9zTts-LXzWHqY/s1429/scarf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1429" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5_EUJRdsodUSNv01B9nLWZ3Fu2wSbmtlsB7R1OImP7nt2vZzRW-cq5LvZh19GzQYSVKui-hFITerBKJlsNCge5ujgKwgVKzFuCATG8XQCoJ1VY0y1zaezhaQ_cE8DDESQWVN3FXm9A9Ihgoy4VgXSYtpEpSNpI5mKZi38q3lW2rBXMh9zTts-LXzWHqY/w448-h640/scarf.jpg" width="448" /></a></div><div>Monica was born prematurely in an iglu at her family's winter camp at Akkimaniq on the western side of Baffin Island. Because her mother was very ill and in danger of dying, Monica's aunt took her for a time. Her mother recovered and Monica was reunited with her family.</div><div><br /></div><div>Monica's family lived a subsistence way of life along with her two uncles, Mamattiaq and Tattiggat and their families. The evening was a time to relax and listen to hunting stories and legends, and play traditional games. In the spring, they traveled from one camp to the next, hunting and fishing. Summer saw the families hunt caribou, walrus, beluga, and seal.<br /><br />Monica was sent to residential schools beginning in 1958, entering the Qallunaaq world. She returned home in the spring of 1969 after having attended three residential schools in Chesterfield, NWT, and in Churchill and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her experiences at these residential schools changed Monica.</div><div><br /></div><div>She married a residential school survivor and the marriage was violent and dysfunctional. Their children witnessed many horrible things. Later on, Monica would discover that her husband had been abused. Like her, he has also experienced "the loss of culture and spirituality." So like many other Inuit, Monica set out on a personal journey to reclaim her culture and her identity, a process that continues today.<br /><br /><b>Discussion</b><br /><br /><i>The Scarf and the Butterfly</i> focuses on the effects of the residential school experience, rather than the actual events that took place during the author's time at the various schools. It is memoir of the journey to healing and hope. Monica writes that her healing journey began when her granddaughter, Grace turned six-years-old. Witnessing Grace's free spirit and happiness, made Monica remember that she was once like this before attending school. She realized some of what she had lost and this caused her to grieve.</div><div><br />Monica explains how being sent to a residential school, far away from her family, affected her mother and their relationship. Each fall, as her children were sent back to the school, her mother noticed the silence in their home, making it as though<b> "...someone had died." </b>And in a way, the residential schools were killing the relationship between Indigenous children and their parents and elders. When Monica's mother became ill later in life, she wanted to know what had made them so emotionally distant. Monica explained that the bond between them was broken because of her being at the residential school. She learned to stop crying and accept this loss.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the residential school, Monica witnessed abusive behaviour by a teacher towards students. These events brought about a deep sense of guilt and shame as she questioned whether she was to blame in some way. Even bringing a claim forward years later was devastating to Monica as it was traumatic to admit that she had been "damaged" by her experiences. She experienced feelings of <b>"...self-hatred, shame, guilt, helplessness, and despair..."</b> that led to reviving old addictions.</div><div><br /></div><div>When reflecting back on her experiences at a retreat in 2002, Monica came to realize that she was <b>"stripped of my identity and there was nothing of my culture left in me." </b>Some of her earliest memories were of sleeping next to her parents in the deep cold of the Far North and feeling safe and of watching her father in the early morning darkness prepare for the day's hunt. These early memories reminded Monica of her Inuit identity.</div><div><br /></div><div>Through her difficult personal journey, Monica has been able to reclaim some of her Inuit culture: she can make Inuit clothing and jewelry, cook country food, drum dance and sing ajaajaa songs. She continues to struggle to understand what has happened to Inuit culture and her place in that culture. The process of reclaiming her own identity continues and is an ongoing one. This includes self-forgiveness, self-affirmation and forgiving those who harmed her.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Scarf and The Butterfly</i> portrays to readers just how complex and difficult this process has been and continues to be for residential survivors like Monica Ittusardjuat. Despite this difficult journey, Monica's memoir is one filled with hope, faith, acceptance and perseverance. She writes, </div><div><br /></div><div><b>"I am who I am, and I've become comfortable with that. I am Inuk and I have had a Qallunaaq upbringing, and I accept a bit from each. I am not the same as my Inuit friends or family, and I offer no apology for that. I have fought to become who I was meant to be. Adversities have not broken me; they have made me, and the victory is sweeter when you have fought for it than when it has been given to you."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The rich illustrations in this memoir by artists, Coco Apunnguaq Lynge and Scott Plumbe capture the beauty of Canada's Far North and our Inuit brothers and sisters, and accentuate Monica's message of healing and hope. Highly recommended for adults, teens and older children.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />The Scarf and The Butterfly by Monica Ittusardjuat</div><div>Toronto: Inhabit Education Books Inc. 2023</div><div>67 pp.<br /></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-58534415150612783132023-12-22T08:41:00.001-05:002023-12-22T08:41:42.899-05:00The Cricket War by Tho Pham & Sandra McTavish<div>Eleven-year-old Tho Pham loves challenging his best friend, Lam to cricket fights. Lam, who lives next door, spends much time training his crickets but they rarely win. Tho lives with his parents, his older brother Vu, and his two sisters, Thao and Tien. Tho's father lost his well-paying job at the bank after the Communist takeover of Sai Gon in the spring of 1975. Now even though both his parents work, they don't make enough money. As a result, they have been selling off furniture and other possessions.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzM63PnJ9gY0LNBTN7SlHBIcZD5M6_lVjU1_fAfld-bSpujKuqmxXNqHMEVpnxjxQ5gDB5_G06ahXa7OqACOQjWa5REQu7jw806pRM23rx4gCGKDLgrU1tTH4QtQH21RjTHheMdMw-QrAJ_S38SWe-J0okd-2BB9ZuIAOtvnCvudKUMGVDCLr5OB9QWag/s1000/cricket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="677" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzM63PnJ9gY0LNBTN7SlHBIcZD5M6_lVjU1_fAfld-bSpujKuqmxXNqHMEVpnxjxQ5gDB5_G06ahXa7OqACOQjWa5REQu7jw806pRM23rx4gCGKDLgrU1tTH4QtQH21RjTHheMdMw-QrAJ_S38SWe-J0okd-2BB9ZuIAOtvnCvudKUMGVDCLr5OB9QWag/w434-h640/cricket.jpg" width="434" /></a></div><div>On Monday morning, Tho waits for Lam to meet him outside his house but after ten minutes, he still hasn't appeared. Even after calling his name, Lam doesn't come out of his house, so Tho leaves for school. Lam doesn't show up at school either. After school and a pick-up game of soccer, Tho asks Lam's sister, Mai if Lam is fine. She tells him that Lam and An have gone to visit a sick uncle at his farm. However, Tho knows Mai is not telling the truth. Since the Communist takeover, people from their neighborhood just disappear. Sometimes one person or two, or even a family. Boys who come of age are conscripted into the Communist army, so to avoid this fate, they are sent away by their families. Tho knows Lam and An are gone and will not be returning.</div><div><br /></div><div>So when Tho sees two soldiers banging on Lam's family's door, he tells them that soldiers have already come to take away An. Vu overhears this and admonishes Tho for doing this, telling him that he will be punished instead. Vu is also worried because he is almost eighteen and will be conscripted soon. In an attempt to prevent this, Vu wants Tho to chop off his trigger finger. Fortunately, they are stopped by their father.</div><div><br /></div><div>One day in May, 1980, Tho and Vu are told by their father that he has arranged for them to leave Vietnam. They will travel on a boat owned by someone he knows. They leave immediately, taking an xe lam to the home of Mr. Binh. However, Mr. Binh tells their father he can take only one boy, as their father has only paid enough gold for one boy. So they leave Vu behind to escape. A month later they receive a telegram from Vu stating that he has arrived safely in Malaysia. A few letters later on reveal that he is most likely in a refugee camp there.</div><div><br /></div><div>A year later, in May 1981, Tho is now a year older. Tho knows that the disappearing furniture is an indication that his parents are trying to earn money for his passage out of Vietnam. With the disappearance of Mr. Binh, Tho's parents take him to his mother's sister, his Aunt Linh's who has learned that a boat is leaving near her village. Tho's mother gives him a plastic bag with a pair of shorts, a T-shirt with a gold chain sewn into the hem. He is also given his Uncle Quang's address in America.</div><div>So Tho and his mother make the journey of over two hundred kilometers, first taking a long bus ride, then making two ferry crossings. Linh's husband and their five oldest children have already fled Vietnam. Only Aunt Linh and her youngest son, Phat remain. </div><div><br /></div><div>After a feast of roasted pig, vermicelli and spring rolls, Tho and his mother, along with Phat, are led by Aunt Linh to the back of the house which faces the river. With a full moon to see by, they board a small boat, along with six other people. After a long trip, Phat docks the boat and Tho and the others quietly board a larger boat. Phat waves good-bye to Tho, who never was able to hug and say good-bye to his mother. </div><div><br /></div><div>Tho's journey to escape Vietnam has begun, as the larger boat travels towards the sea. Tho falls asleep but when he awakes in the morning he vomits in the boat. He is astonished to see Mai and her parents in the boat. She tells him her mother found out about the boat from his mother. For Tho, having Mai and her parents with him makes him feel less lonely and that someone will be there to help him. But his journey is only beginning. It will test Tho's courage and resiliency as he encounters pirates, hunger, death and even the loss of friends made.</div><div><br /></div><b>Discussion</b><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>The Cricket War</i> is another personal account of a Vietnamese refugee from the Communist takeover of the country. Almost fifty years after this event in 1975, many memoirs and children's nonfiction books are being published about the experience of fleeing Vietnam in the aftermath of the war and the fall of Sai Gon. </div><div><br /></div><div>The events in this short novel are based on the experience of Tho Pham as he fled his homeland in 1981 and landed as a refugee in Toronto, Canada. Tho was twelve-years-old when his parents arranged for him to escape Vietnam alone. Unlike the character Tho in <i>The Cricket War</i>, the real Tho was the only member of his family to escape Vietnam at the time. His two brothers and his parents remained in Vietnam, and his older brother was eventually conscripted into the Vietnamese army. Many of the events in the novel are based on Tho's experiences during his journey from Vietnam. These are explained in the Afterword found at the back of the novel.</div><div><br /></div><div>The authors do provide a short note on Vietnam's history in A Brief Recent History of Vietnam at the back of the novel. <i>The Cricket War </i>explains why many Vietnamese chose to make the dangerous journey to freedom, despite knowing it could cost them their lives. This is done through the character of Tho and Vu's father, who explains to his sons how the Vietnamese have endured centuries of occupation and simply want to rule themselves. However, the Communists are simply another occupier. He explains,<b> "It is torture living in a Communist country...If you had money, or a big house, or lots of land before the Communist regime, they took it from you. The control what you learn, what you say in public, even how you practice your religion. If you vocally disagree with them, they will silence you by force or intimidation, or send you away to what they call 're-education' camp. At these camps, people are treated like prisoners and forced to do hard labor. Sometimes they die of starvation or beatings. If you try to leave the country and are caught, you are sent to prison. You also might be tortured or simply disappear."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The Vietnamese refugees were called "the boat people" because this was the primary escape route out of the country - often by rickety, unseaworthy boats across the South China Sea to Malaysia and the Philippines. As in <i>The Cricket War</i>, these refugees were attacked by sea pirates, often the boats sank with considerable loss of life, or they were captured by the Vietnamese and towed back to land to end up in re-education camps. </div><div><br /></div><div>Tho Pham's experience fleeing Vietnam mirrors that of most other Vietnamese refugees. The wooden boat was barely seaworthy and was overloaded with over seventy people, many who quickly became <b>"sick, tired, hungry and scared."</b> They were exposed to the scorching sun, the cold at night and violent storms. During Tho's journey, his boat was attacked daily by pirates, who robbed them of food and any valuables. Later attacks saw the pirates leave some food and water for the refugees. As in the book, Tho was fortunate to have survived multiple pirate attacks, even hiding on one of the pirate boats! He was rescued by the Cap Anamur, a German ship dedicated to help Vietnamese refugees, and brought to a refugee camp.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Cricket War</i> captures all of the terror and suffering the refugees experienced but it also portrays the resiliency and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people. For example, the refugees devise a way to catch fish and are able to cook their catch on the charcoal stove on the boat. They actively help one another, working together to try to survive. The novel, written for young readers is never graphic in recounting life under the Communists in Vietnam, nor in describing the pirate attacks. </div><div><br /></div><div>Canada was one country that took in many Vietnamese refugees. They have repaid our country many times over with many making wonderful contributions to every aspect of Canada. Many like Tho, were sponsored by individuals and church groups. </div><div><br /></div><div>The authors have included a map of Vietnam and neighbouring countries as well as a Pronunciation Guide to Vietnamese names and words.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />The Cricket War by Tho Pham & Sandra McTavish<br />Toronto: Kids Can Press Ltd.<br />160 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-27981557095928511102023-12-06T12:15:00.001-05:002023-12-06T12:15:09.754-05:00Stars of the Night by Caren Stelson<i>Stars of the Night</i> relates the incredible story of Nicholas Winton and the Czech kindertransport.<div><br /></div><div>In 1938 Czechoslovakia, life for young children in the old city of Prague was good. There were picnics in the park with dark bread with cheese and slices of their mother's sweet honey cake. In the winter, skating on the rivers was followed by a trip to the local coffeehouses for hot cocoa with whipped cream. The children, who were Jewish and eight, nine and ten years old played with friends who were mostly not Jewish. This didn't matter to them. They attended school. Prague was a peaceful city.</div><div><br /></div><div>But in November of that year, things began to change. Tent camps were set up outside the city, filled with people, who the children were told, were refugees. In Germany, the stores and synagogues of Jews were vandalized and burned. The people in the tents were seeking safety. Soon the Jewish children of Prague found they were being yelled at too.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7C_jeBG8iSvZdizZyrKfm3FIp9BLOSWq358TEB-GUjrhjjqEE_byasRp7uszXucFKpnkayTcxP3N8Jo2OBkWDP4-AraAuIdNJ351vlDiTjfVr5xk_vYj-wMKBUqQz1uNn4wrPIpLJN-yCWNDrNYKpq2g_SYvuZZQ5WvHLAUU5Bk-687a252SNeGaHGoM/s1000/Stars.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="844" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7C_jeBG8iSvZdizZyrKfm3FIp9BLOSWq358TEB-GUjrhjjqEE_byasRp7uszXucFKpnkayTcxP3N8Jo2OBkWDP4-AraAuIdNJ351vlDiTjfVr5xk_vYj-wMKBUqQz1uNn4wrPIpLJN-yCWNDrNYKpq2g_SYvuZZQ5WvHLAUU5Bk-687a252SNeGaHGoM/w540-h640/Stars.jpg" width="540" /></a></div>Their parents began to worry but were too busy to explain. Soon they decided they had to meet the man who was offering to make arrangements. But what man were they meeting in Prague?<br /><br />In March 1939, the German army entered Prague, with their leader Hitler standing in a car, his arm straight out in front of him. Everywhere the red flags with the black zigzag were hung.<div><br /></div><div>When the childrens' fathers received replies to their letters, the packing of suitcases began. The children were told they were taking a trip to England. And they were told, "There will be times when you'll feel lonely and homesick. Let the stars of the night and the sun of the day be the messenger of our thoughts and love."</div><div><br /></div><div>The childrens' journey began. Prague's Wilson Railway Station was filled with mostly Jewish families who were saying tearful goodbyes to their children as they boarded the trains. At the German border, the children alone on their train without their parents were afraid of the gruff German police who checked travel documents and searched suitcases. From Germany they travelled through the Netherlands to the English Channel where they boarded boats.</div><div><br /></div><div>After another train ride in England, the children arrived in London where they were welcomed by the English families who would care for them. The children didn't know that the man their parents had written to was a man in London who had made this all possible. </div><div><br /></div><div>In England, they soon learned that war had broken out and as the years passed they saw pictures of people being made to wear yellow stars, and being forced into cattle cars on trains and sent to terrible places. Were their parents safe at home in Prague? They didn't know.</div><div><br /></div><div>When the war ended, many of the children were much older, seventeen and eighteen and were able to travel back to Prague to search for their parents. They soon realized that their parents were gone, that they were some of the people put on the cattle cars and sent away. Many years passed, the children grew up, married and had their own children.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then one day a scrap book was found with the names and photographs of children, their passports and letters and a plan of escape. In the scrapbook was also the name of the man who organized all this - Nicholas Winton. The children, now older adults, finally met him to thank him.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Stars of the Night</i> tells the story from the perspective of 669 brave children, who made the journey from Czechoslovakia to Great Britain just as Hitler began his rampage across Europe. As children, at the time they didn't really know what was happening in their communities, and in the world at large. They were told they were being sent away, but they couldn't possibly understand what that really meant. These children were part of the larger kindertransport - an attempt to save the children of Jewish parents from inevitable death. One person determined to do that was Nicholas Winton. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nicholas Winton was born in 1909 in West Hampstead to parents of German Jewish ancestry. He worked as a stockbroker. In 1938, Winton's life was about to change forever. Germany had taken over areas of Czechoslovakia that were predominantly German-speaking, called the Sudetenland. This was allowed as per the Munich Agreement. After this, in November, the Nazis conducted an organized attack on Jewish citizens in Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland in what became known as Kristallnacht. As a result, Jewish refugees from these areas began to arrive in Czechoslovakia, on the outskirts of Prague.</div><div><br /></div><div>As a result of this, the British government decided to allow children under the age of seventeen from Germany and other areas annexed by the country to enter Great Britain. The requirements were that they have a foster family willing to take them in and that there were certain financial commitments made.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was at this time in December, 1938 that Nicholas Winton's friend, Martin Blake asked him to visit Czechoslovakia instead of travelling to Switzerland for a ski trip. Winton arrived in Czechoslovakia as an associate of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, an organization created in response to the refugee crisis in Prague. There he met Doreen Wariner who arranged for him to visit refugee camps filled with Jews and political opponents of the Nazis.</div><div><br /></div><div>Winton know of the Kindertransport to rescue Jewish children from Germany and Austria and he decided to organize a similar operation for Czech Jewish children. He first began organizing from his Prague hotel room and then in an office. Winton soon had thousands of distraught parents attempting to apply. He returned to England to raise money for the transport of Jewish children to England.</div><div><br /></div><div>The first kindertransport organized by Winton from Czechoslovakia left Prague on March 14, 1939. Seven more transports would follow, these by rain and ship, as portrayed in Stars of the Night. When Germany invaded Poland and Great Britain declared war on Germany, the transports ended. Nicholas Winton's remarkable efforts remained hidden until his wife Grete discovered a scrapbook with the names and photographs of the children he saved. In 1988, the year the scrapbook was discovered, the children, now adults were finally able to meet the man who saved them on a British TV show.</div><div><br /></div><div>Author Caren Stelson, who is Jewish, focused on five children from the Kindertransport in her story, giving each a different colour that is consistent throughout. Sisters Eva and Vera Diamantova wear orange and red respectively. Eva and Vera were ten and fifteen-years-old when they left their parents on July 20, 1939 and boarded the Czech Kindertransport to England. Vera would use the diary her father gave her to write about her experiences and to write down the words her mother told her, about the stars of the night and the sun of the day being the messenger of their thoughts and love for her. Vera remained in England becoming a writer while Eva moved to New Zealand and became a nurse.</div><div><br /></div><div>Brothers Josef and Ernest Schlesinger are portrayed wearing dark blue and light blue respectively. Josef was eleven and Ernest, nine-years-old when they left Bratislava to travel to England. Sadly, Josef and Ernest's parents did not survive the Holocaust. Canadians will know Joe Schlesinger as a famous foreign correspondent for CBC. </div><div><br /></div><div>Renata Polgar wears green in Stars of the Night. She was only eight-years-old when she left her parents in her hometown of Brno to live with the Daniels family in Britain. She remembered happy times with this family. Renata was one of only five children whose parents both survived the Holocaust.</div><div><br /></div><div>The illustrations in <i>Stars of the Night </i>were created by artist Selina Alko with acrylic paint, colored pencil and collage. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Stars of the Night</i> is a picture book that introduces the Czech kindertransport to younger readers in a simple manner, allowing for further exploration and learning about this event and the remarkable Nicholas Winton who orchestrated it. His story demonstrates how one person can make a significant difference in the lives of many. As Joe Schlesinger remarked about Nicholas Winton, "This is the man who gave me the rest of my life."</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Stars of the Night by Caren Stelson<br />Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books 2023</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-17356407476907426362023-12-04T11:25:00.004-05:002023-12-04T11:25:31.781-05:00Courage To Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust by Neal ShustermanIn <i>Courage to Dream</i>, five historical fantasy stories are presented. <br /><br />In <b>He Opens A Window</b>, three sisters, Anna, Gretchen and Katja are in hiding in an upper room in Frau Muller's house. The secret room is hidden behind a bookcase and Frau Muller keeps the door locked. Every day a delivery book brings food which she brings to the girls. One day the delivery boy is late, held up by a parade of German soldiers of to the battlefront. After making his delivery to Frau Muller, he notices that the upper middle window of her house is missing!<div><br /></div><div>That night when Anna wakes up and opens the curtains she sees an amazing sight: a brilliant sky filled with stars and suns. The next day the delivery boy brings more food from Herr Baumann, the grocer, to Frau Muller. However, Baumann has seen him stealing chocolate bars. Enraged, Baumann who promised the boy's parents to care for him, refuses to pay him and tells him he will be joining the Hitler Youth.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw72JjAj3CCA32MCCo7l4X_ZVRWcaiZ9eiZ_f7QYOOj5sV20ZK7akXHhCEAKDmPwstQd8n44J0tBv8H9YNg3lnAvbY_Y6v8-nLnI_jTc357NIF4A6yl0z-GvOyPORggMAKmGBHm6JkKEyINJbqqjlnwVJ5qjq1DXOSemVgenedyaYh278YkStB2eN0Z7c/s2700/courage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2700" data-original-width="1800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw72JjAj3CCA32MCCo7l4X_ZVRWcaiZ9eiZ_f7QYOOj5sV20ZK7akXHhCEAKDmPwstQd8n44J0tBv8H9YNg3lnAvbY_Y6v8-nLnI_jTc357NIF4A6yl0z-GvOyPORggMAKmGBHm6JkKEyINJbqqjlnwVJ5qjq1DXOSemVgenedyaYh278YkStB2eN0Z7c/w426-h640/courage.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div>Meanwhile, the three girls eat the chocolate bars in their secret room. They tell Anna they also have seen the strange sights out the window. When Anna opens the curtains, this time they see islands floating in the sky above Hamburg. Anna tells them they cannot tell anyone and that the curtains must stay closed. </div><div><br /></div><div>Disaster strikes when Frau Muller picks up papers approved by Consul Ho for Shanghai but is hit by a truck on her way home. The girls' only connection to the outside world is lost and locked in their room upstairs they begin to starve. When they open the curtain, they see a devastated city of Hamburg. </div><div><br /></div><div>The delivery boy, now in the Hitler Youth, is questioned and pressured by the Gestapo to reveal who he's been supplying food . He is tricked into revealing the house and the soldiers break into Frau Muller's home. When Anna hears the soldiers climbing the stairs, she devises a plan to protect the girls using the magic window. </div><div><br /></div><div>In <b>Legend Speaks of a Hero: The Golem of Auschwitz</b>, the Jewish myth of the Golem comes to life. The Golem was "a man formed from clay, infused with the name of God and inscribed with a brand of truth", called to life in the 16th century by Rabbi Judah Loew Ben Bezalel. The Golem came to the rescue of Jews in the city of Prague. Legend is that he either ran away or crumbled into earth once the special attributes given to him by the Rabbi were removed.<br /><br />Duvid had heard about the Golem but a blow to his head had hurt his memories and thoughts. In Auschwitz some of the prisoners have heard the Golem came to Treblinka and despite the Nazis attempting to gas him and burn him, he survived and feed everyone. However, others believe this is a lie. The Rabbi believes that it is good to have hope, even if it is false hope. </div><div><br /></div><div>Trains arrived daily, packed to bursting with most people who were made to walk to the Birkenau two miles behind Auschwitz, to their deaths. One day a prisoner named Ben attacks a guard who had just beaten another prisoner. Ben is shot in the head in front of everyone. At night, Duvid is awakened to see something punching its way into the Nazi soldiers barracks. Duvid is awoken by the Rabbi who tells him to get back inside. At dawn, all the prisoners are lined up and told that an officer is missing. Duvid tells the Nazis that the Golem is responsible but they think he is joking.<br /><br />When the prisoners are lined up for inspection to be send to Birkenau, to the gas chambers, Duvid learns his true identity and acts to free some of the prisoners.</div><div><br /></div><div>In <b>Spirits of Resistance</b>, Baba and Izbushka watch as intruders invade their forest: a boy, Yosef and a girl, Hannah are being pursued by Nazi soldiers. They are found by Abe, a soldier of the Resistance who takes them to his camp deep in the forest. Yosef and Hannah escaped a transport to a death camp.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the camp, Hannah tells Yosef she saw a house moving through the woods, and an old woman flying in a bowl. A resistance fighter tells her that was Baba Yaga who roams the forests of Eastern Europe, and eats little children. During the night, Yosef and Hannah are awoken to see the Fools of Chelm capturing the moon in a barrel.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next day the Resistance plans to attack a train travelling to Treblinka, to save as many people as possible. Baba and Izbushka watch the attack and then confront Yosef and Hannah back in the resistance camp. Hannah tells Baba they want her help to fight the Nazis. After giving the children a piece of meat from Ibushka's left leg, Baba visits the resistance camp later that night and tells them she will help them. To aid her efforts, she enlists the help of the Chelmites.</div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, the Nazis are preparing to lead a major offensive against the resistance fighters in the forest. But with the help of Baba, Ziz, Isbushka and the Chelmites, the Nazis have little chance.</div><div><br /></div><div>An old family heirloom saves lives in <b>Exodus.</b> Jory Svedberg and Soren are friends even though Jory is Jewish and Soren is Lutheran. They simply consider themselves Danes. Denmark is under Nazi occupation but it wasn't until the summer of 1943 that they began to plan to deport Danish Jews to camps.</div><div><br /></div><div>One night when Soren stays for dinner at Jory's home, Jory's mother complains about how the curtain rod is always tearing their curtains. But Mr. Svedberg tells her it is a family heirloom, the staff of Moses. Jory reminds his mother it brings plagues and doesn't clean his room!</div><div><br /></div><div>As the German army floods more soldiers into Denmark, the peaceful occupation ends. On August 29, 1943, the Danish government resigns as rumors suggest that the Danish Jews would be deported to concentration camps. Jews in Copenhagen began to flee or go into hiding. Then the Nazis come for Jory's family. But Jory has no intention of going with them. Picking up the rod, he quickly knocks out all three Nazi soldiers. But this is just beginning as Jory uses the rod to save Copenhagen's Jews and get them to safety across the Oresund Sound, separating Denmark and Sweden.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Untold </b>is a story of lives and a world that could have been. Caitlin's Grandmother Ida is dying. Caitlin loves her grandmother but is scared to see her because it means confronting death. Her grandmother tells her there are many stories that remain untold. She gives Caitlin a box and tells her to open it when she is feeling strong and when her heart is ready. After this, Caitlin's grandmother dies.</div><div><br /></div><div>Puzzled and driven by curiosity about the unique gift, Caitlin finally opens the box weeks later. Inside, she finds a crystalline seashell. When Caitlin places the shell to her ear she hears hundreds of voices. When she goes downstairs for dinner, Caitlin is shocked to see a much larger dining room table and sees two strange boys in the living room. Caitlin is told they are Grandma Ida's grandnephews. Her mother tells her she should know this based on the family tree she did last year. But when Caitlin pulls out the family tree from her desk, she sees that is has many more branches than what she remembers. When she lifts the crystalline shell to her ear again, she hears silence. </div><div><br /></div><div>Upon returning to the dining room, Caitlin finds everything as she expects with just herself, her brother and mother. And the family tree is as she remembers. The next day sees her not only experience a different home but also school is different. There are new kids she doesn't know and her history book states that World War II ended in 1942 with Germany not even in the war. When she shows her best friend Adam the shell, he disappears. Putting the shell back to her ear, Caitlin again hears the voices and she is back into the altered time line when she arrives home. There she learns that a brick has been thrown through a window in their house, and that anti-Semitism is on the rise in America. Her large family talks about emigrating to Palestine, and Israel doesn't yet exist. Not being able to deal with this Caitlin puts the seashell to her ear and she is back in her own timeline. She promises herself to leave it there until the 4th of July celebrations when she finds she is missing the large family in the alternate timeline. </div><div><br /></div><div>Using the seashell again, Caitlin returns to that timeline, a house filled with many family, "to be surrounded by a family you never had." But talk is about a book written by a congressman, on the front cover the Nazi symbol on the American flag. Horrified, Caitlin encounters her grandmother who explains what has happened and why she gave her the crystalline seashell.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Courage To Dream</i> is another very unique book by author Neal Shusterman. In this graphic novel, Shusterman who is an American Jew, has written<b> "fantasy stories with a Holocaust theme"</b>. Most of the stories are a mashup of Jewish history during the Holocaust and Jewish folklore. In his Imagination and the Unimaginable note at the back of the novel, Shusterman mentions that writing from this perspective was both exciting but uncomfortable and asks, <b>"Where is the intersection of fantasy and the grim reality of murdered millions?"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>As the author notes, <b>"These are stories of wish fulfillment where the tragedy lies in the fact that they can never be fulfilled."</b> How many Jewish men, women and children imagined the Golem or some other hero coming to their rescue in the death camps? How many hidden Jews wished to fly out the window of their secret hideaway to a glorious world of freedom and safety? How many survivors of the Holocaust wondered what might have been had parents and siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, husbands and wives survived? </div><div><br /></div><div>As he wrote his stories, Shusterman began to realize the stories were<b> "..a unique way of addressing the Holocaust and perhaps engaging readers who might not otherwise go there."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In the last story, The Untold, Shusterman tackles the idea of a world where the Holocaust never happened in the 1940's but instead could possibly happen in the twenty-first century. In the Untold, the main character, Caitlin discovers a huge family in an alternate timeline because World War II ended in 1942, before the implementation of Hitler's "Final Solution" - the systematic murder of European Jews. Her huge family is the result of people living to produce the succeeding generations. </div><div><br /></div><div>In that alternate timeline Caitlin wanted to believe that a world without the Holocaust was a better one, but instead she finds it is just as flawed as her own time, maybe even worse. When she confronts her Grandmother Ida in that timeline she tells her granddaughter, <b>"The world that might have been always looks glorious at first but there are twists and turns in its spiral and depths that no one can see."</b> Caitlin realizes that her grandmother gave her not the choice to live in an alternate world but a vision, enabling her to understand who she is mourning, when she remembers the Holocaust. </div><div><br /></div><div>The unique stores are told primarily by the wonderful artwork of illustrator Andres Vera Martinez who researched historical photographs so he could <b>"...accurately depict clothing, architecture, uniforms, and even landscapes of the time."</b> He also did considerable art history research into the various aspects of Jewish folklore/ The panels are set in a somber tan tone. Many of the illustrations are rich with detail and capture the fantastical element of the stories being told while also portraying historical events.</div><div><br /></div><div>Shusterman has also included an extensive Bibliography and a Note about the Hebrew Letters In This Book. The first five letters of the Hebrew alphabet appear at the beginning of each story and are relevant to the story.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Courage To Dream</i> is a book that twelve years in the making, but rich in themes for readers and students to explore.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Courage To Dream: Tales of Hope In The Holocaust by Neal Shusterman<br />New York: Graphix, an Imprint of Scholastic Inc. 2023</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-53722311310164631552023-11-30T21:06:00.000-05:002023-11-30T21:06:10.439-05:00Obaasan's Boots by Janis Bridger and Lara Jean OkihiroCharlotte and her mother, Masumi, travel from their home in Vancouver to Toronto to visit her grandmother. On the flight out of British Columbia, Charlotte's mother switches from her Japanese name of Masumi to her English name of Mary, something that both puzzles and annoys Charlotte. Charlotte who is half Japanese, lives with her father and brother in Vancouver. She also has family in Germany.<div><br /></div><div>In her grandparents home in Toronto, Charlotte meets her many aunts and uncles and her cousins. Charlotte's cousin, Lou is a year and a half younger and the one she knows the best. Lou, like Charlotte and all their cousins, is half Japanese. She lives in an apartment with her mother, and visits her father and grandparents on evenings and weekends. Lou's Grandma Donnelly lives on a farm outside London, Ontario. <div><br /></div><div>Both girls have heard their Japanese family talk about the past, when Japanese Canadians were "evacuated" during the war and how they lost everything. In the dining room while eating pan fried salmon, sushi, snow peas with bacon and plain rice, the two girls listen as grandma notes that <b>"...almost everything from back then is gone. Their house, our first home, all our things. It's all gone...lost."</b> Lou knows more than Charlotte about what happened but not a lot. She doesn't know the story of her family's past, why they had to move or how everything was lost. During Lou's trip with her father, Koki (Richard) to British Columbia last year, she met family from all over the province and came to realize that this is where her Japanese grandparents are from. The next day Charlotte and Lou arrive at Grandma's house to help her with her garden which is behind her house. In the garden, Grandma begins telling the story of her family, and that of Charlotte and Lou's. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Grandma's father came to North America to help build the American railway, while her mother came to Canada to earn money to send home to her family in Kumamoto, Japan where they had an orange farm. After meeting and marrying in Canada, her parents settled on Sea Island in the Frasier River. When Grandma lived there it was an island dotted with farms. Today it is an airport.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCjSSZTrglGQQFzJZLga1VxwmYD9xGycwjMJC_vqUX5-c2N32ec247UUk3ji6Wzvb4y37N5USpBAdQEA7YnfRxdblhuK5mtgqomfffiRZQSXsUiUMQA8eSRCxZSi11228Gq_aT1cZDBvjEO8fmpTfhoSV5PjGwhyv1awlaZ1rScyoJwiUaYnX4a01V75k/s2250/obaasan's%20boots.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="1575" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCjSSZTrglGQQFzJZLga1VxwmYD9xGycwjMJC_vqUX5-c2N32ec247UUk3ji6Wzvb4y37N5USpBAdQEA7YnfRxdblhuK5mtgqomfffiRZQSXsUiUMQA8eSRCxZSi11228Gq_aT1cZDBvjEO8fmpTfhoSV5PjGwhyv1awlaZ1rScyoJwiUaYnX4a01V75k/w448-h640/obaasan's%20boots.jpg" width="448" /></a></div><div>In 1928, and Hisa (Charlotte and Lou's grandma) and her sister Jeanne walk to school. Their village on the island is small and is both a fishing and cannery town. Hisa's mother works at the Acme Cannery Company. Hisa's father wants to quit fishing and work for the lumber mill. </div><div><br /></div><div>By 1930, almost everyone in their village works in the cannery. Hisa's older brother Toshi works at the cannery, while Hisa, Jeanne, Isi and Sam all attend school. Tragedy strikes when Toshi falls ill and dies suddenly from appendicitis. His death devastates their family. Hisa's father tells her, <b>"Shikata ga nai"</b> or it cannot be helped. </div><div><br /></div><div>During the winter of 1930, Hisa's father sells his fishing boat and begins to work full time in the lumber industry. This means working far up the Frasier River and not seeing the family for long periods of time. However, there are not many jobs open to Japanese people as they cannot be doctors, lawyers, accountants, or work for the government.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1933, Hisa finally finishes Grade 8 and school. She won't be attending high school as there is not one nearby. Instead Hisa goes to live with the Bowers, to cook, clean and care for the children. Meanwhile with her parents both working, they are able to buy their first house in 1934 in Marpole in New Westminster across the river from Sea Island.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the summer of 1939, still living at the Bowers, Hisa is introduced to Koichiro, the cousin of the lady from the Japanese Language School. Koichiro was born in the United States, but was sent to Japan to Hiroshima where some of his family still live, to attend school. He returned to New Westminster, to care for his mother and brothers and sisters when his father died.</div><div><br /></div><div>By late 1940, Hisa and Koichiro are engaged and marry on a sunny autumn day. They move in with Koichiro's family in New Westminster. In New Westminster, there is a large Japanese community, with a Buddhist Church, a Japanese United Church, Japanese stores, and a Japanese language school. Koichiro and his brother Roy work in the lumber mills, his sister Masako has a dressmaking shop. In the spring Hisa plants a small garden of snow peas, beans and spinach from seeds her mother gave her.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then in December 1941, with Hisa expecting their first child, they learn the Japanese army has bombed Pearl Harbor, the U.S. naval base in Hawai'i. Hisa, Koichiro and other Japanese Canadians in their community are worried it will be like 1907 again. At that time, nine thousand people stormed Chinatown and Japantown, beating people, looting stores and destroying homes. </div><div><br /></div><div>Events move quickly from this point on. The next day all Japanese fishing boats are seized, Japanese schools are closed, and Japanese newspapers shut down. At night lights must be turned off or windows covered with thick black paper. "The lantern at the Japanese War Memorial in Stanley Park was extinguished soon after the bombing, the loyal sacrifice of the Japanese soldiers forgotten."</div><div><br /></div><div>Before Christmas, anyone of Japanese heritage must register as enemy aliens. In the New Year of 1942, "all men of Japanese origin between eighteen and forty-five years old has to move to labor camps away from the coast." Hisa, pregnant, wonders<b> "What will I do without Koichiro? And what will happen to my brothers? Or Roy, the gentle soul who likes to sing and feed the stray black cat...."</b> And then the Canadian government orders everyone of " the Japanese race" including, women, children and the elderly to be "evacuated". <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Expecting her first child, Hisa and her family along with thousands of other Japanese Canadians wonder what this will mean. What will happen to their homes and businesses? What will happen to their sons and husbands and grandfathers? Will their family be separated? When will they be able to return home?</div><div><br /><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Obaasan's Boots </i>tells the story of one Japanese Canadian family's experience during World War II. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in December of 1941, Canada moved quickly to declare any person of Japanese heritage as an "enemy alien" and to remove all of their rights to property, employment and to incarcerate them in internment or prison camps.</div><div><br /></div><div>Cousins Janis Bridger and Lara Jean Okihiro had heard bits and pieces of their family's story during World War II during family get-togethers, but the cousins never really asked questions about the past. When they did, they were told, "Shikata ga nai" or it cannot be helped. Bridger, now a teacher-librarian grew up on the West Coast, apart from her beloved grandparents who had moved away from the West Coast and lived in Toronto. When their grandmother, Hisa Okihiro passed away in 2019, they realized the opportunity to hear her story was lost and might be forgotten, so they set out together to uncover that story by sleuthing through family documents, photographs, archives and directories. What they found was a story of determination, resiliency, and courage in the face of discrimination, injustice, and fear. </div><div><br /></div><div>Their research began with the discovery of Koichiro and Hisa's wedding guest book. With help from the New Westminster Museum and Archives, they searched censuses and city directories to map their family's past. It was a 1983 newspaper article by Koichiro in The Canada Times that shed light on their family's experiences during the Second World War.</div><div><br /></div><div>Faced with forced expulsion from their homes in 1942, Koichiro and other Japanese-Canadians formed a group called the New Westminster and District Japanese Housewives Association. Koichiro was secretary of the group whose purpose was to advocate on behalf of their community. In a letter written by Koichiro and four other men of the Association to local Japanese Canadian families, he outlines what they were experiencing. The five men and five women of the Association advocated for keeping families together and to that end, have them move to an old gold rush town named Kaslo, rather than the dirty, smelly stables of Hastings Park where many other Japanese Canadians were being held.</div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>Obaasan's Boots</i>, Hisa Okihiro tells her granddaughters Lou and Charlotte what happened to her as young wife and new mother as the Japanese Canadian community of New Westminster were declared enemy aliens, stripped of their property, their civil rights, due process and incarcerated. Hisa's narrative is interspersed between Lou and Charlotte's thoughts about what their beloved grandmother is telling them. </div><div><br /></div><div>The novel describes scenes that are especially heartbreaking: the Ishii family being forced to leave their home immediately when police showed up during dinner and their last views of their home being the still-warm dinner on the table and people breaking into their home stealing their possessions. Koichiro tells Hisa that he was told their son, Koki must have a "Canadian name" (he chooses Richard as it is the name of an English king), register their property and entrust all their property and bank accounts to the government with no proof of ownership. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is heartbreaking to read how Hisa must choose between her prized possessions like their family photo albums and her wedding dress, and more practical items like her sewing machine. After learning what happened to the Ishii family, Hisa and Koichiro hide their possessions in their home in built-in bookcases and plaster over them and leave other things stored at the Japanese Language School or the Buddhist Church where they hope they will be safe. As it turns out, the government sells off almost everything, including their home, without their permission. <br /><br />It's heartbreaking to learn that all their <b>"furniture stored in the basement of the Buddhist Church was chopped up for firewood less than a year after we left...I think of the beautiful dining room table where I served futomaki to family in our home in New Westminster after our wedding. The curio cabinet where we displayed out tea set from Koichiro's aunt in Japan and other pretty trinkets.These things that made up our lives. Firewood?"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>After all of this, Hisa and her family along with her New Westminster community are sent to Kaslo, an old gold rush town, leaving behind almost everything they own. Despite this, Hisa and many of her community find the resiliency and determination to try<b> "to live with purpose"</b> as Hisa describes it. Hisa begins gardening with the help of a kindly neighbour in Kaslo and the Japanese Canadians demonstrate their remarkable resourcefulness and determination by forming schools for their children, and many different clubs. Hisa also comes to see the beauty in Kaslo, noting the calming blue of Kootenay Lak, <b>"its shores sprinkled with wild pink sweet peas and indigo chicory flowers."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>One interesting aspect of Hisa's narrative is the reaction of the Japanese Canadians to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not many historical fiction novels about the internment of Japanese Canadians explore this aspect of the war. Koichiro's family along with aunts and uncles, lived in Hiroshima. Hisa and Koichiro learn that Hiroshima is "completely flattened". When Japan finally surrenders, and Canadians celebrate, Hisa along with other Japanese Canadians are devastated. <b>"But to me, it felt like people were celebrating the deaths of thousands of people. Of Koichiro's family..."</b> At the time, many people felt that the dropping of the atomic bombs was justified. However, with the passage of time, that decision has been called into question, given the tremendous devastation and deaths the bombs caused.</div><div><br /></div><div>In many respects, the treatment of Japanese Canadians during World War II is reminiscent of the treatment of Indigenous Canadians by the Canadian government and by Canadians. In their Authors' Note at the back Bridger and Okihiro write <b>"We hope remembering this history will help us all be more accepting and work to prevent injustices in the present and future. This is especially important because the treatment of Japanese Canadians during the war is not the only example of those in power in Canada abusing people's rights. We think of the Chinese Head Tax, the Komagata Maru, the demolition of Africville, and most notably, the treatment of the Indigenous Peoples across the land we now call Canada."</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Obaasan's Boots</i> offers two perspectives on the Japanese internment: from the Japanese Canadians through Hisa Okihiro's narrative and from the perspective of a younger generation looking back on the history of this event, through Lou and Charlotte's narratives. The authors have these young Canadians posing questions and reactions to Hisa's story that might be asked today.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hisa's stories cause Charlotte to re-examine her views on her mother using her Japanese name.<b> "I complain about her Japanese name because all I want to do is fit in."</b> Listening to her grandmother's stories makes her wonder why she doesn't have a Japanese name. And later on, she reconsiders that <b>"Maybe Mom chose to use her Japanese name because she finally could. Maybe she's called Masumi because she wants to honor her family, who suffered so much and didn't have a choice. Maybe choosing her Japanese name is her small way of showing hope. That hearing her Japanese name will make other less common names more accepted as well...And I haven't been very kind to Mom. Masumi, I think is a beautiful name."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>For Lou, having to move between the homes of her mother and father is challenging, but learning how her grandmother was able to adapt to living in Kaslo makes her consider that maybe she <b>"...can make things meaningful and comfortable in each place for myself." </b></div><div><br /></div><div>For both Charlotte and Lou, their grandmother's stories lead them to ask many questions. Lou questions how <b>"Canadian citizens - be forced to live in barns with no toilets or showers, and to eat terrible food?"</b> Charlotte wonders <b>"What would happen if these stories were never told? People silenced, the past forgotten. Would something like this happen again? To a different group of people? In another place or time?"</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Obaasan's Boots</i> is a poignant, short novel that successfully brings the reality of the Japanese internment to young readers and asks them to seriously think about what happened over eighty years ago and to consider how would they have responded? With fear? Or with understanding and love like that of Mrs. Beck?</div><div><br /></div><div>The authors have included several black & white photographs, a Historical Timeline, and a Glossary.</div><div><br /></div><div>Readers wishing to know more about the internment of Japanese Canadians are encouraged to check out the Landscapes of Justice: The Dispossession of Japanese Canadians (https://loi.uvic.ca/narrative/#)</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Obaasan's Boots by Janis Bridger and Lara Jean Okihiro<br />Toronto: Second Storey Press 2023<br />160 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-69719112235816397722023-11-16T12:51:00.003-05:002023-12-12T17:57:39.070-05:00Harboring Hope: The True Story of How Henny Sinding Helped Denmark's Jews Escape The Nazis by Susan HoodTwenty-two-year-old Henny is stealing down the dark streets of Copenhagen, leading a mother and her toddler to a safe house on Strandgade (Strand Street). Along with many other Jewish families, they wait until early morning and the opportunity to race to the lighthouse supply boat waiting on the wharf. That boat, the Gerda III, will carry them across the sea to safety in Sweden. Henny waits until the Nazi guards separate and then cues each adult to cross. The children are carried across after the adults by Henny and another crew member. Once in the Gerda III, the refugees are hidden in the damp, dark hold, behind barrels, cargo and nautical gear.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3_8P_Qgqj35S_n6u1UBMyW3bv11VhRyPWpDz9VgGX-gmt3QinKdDvMBvCdtwTohYoZu6E8qdhDyn7XK8BpozcsZqLLxA8kBt9faAoUaHolVvO7eZMebWF2GL7HUbioqTXuSHKqr8LmFMsqnMuyMsp0QDD91D4lZPCKHf8IEEaIx3CFua9j5PwFJMh5pU/s2055/harboring.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2055" data-original-width="1374" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3_8P_Qgqj35S_n6u1UBMyW3bv11VhRyPWpDz9VgGX-gmt3QinKdDvMBvCdtwTohYoZu6E8qdhDyn7XK8BpozcsZqLLxA8kBt9faAoUaHolVvO7eZMebWF2GL7HUbioqTXuSHKqr8LmFMsqnMuyMsp0QDD91D4lZPCKHf8IEEaIx3CFua9j5PwFJMh5pU/w428-h640/harboring.jpg" width="428" /></a></div><div><div>After submitting to a check by the German guards, and a friendly drink with the Germans, the Gerda sets out, down Christianshavn Canal. Its destination is the Drogden Lighthouse and then onto Sweden to drop off the Jewish passengers. It is a dangerous journey, with German patrols on the bridges, open sea, enemy patrol boats, and underwater mines.</div><div><br /></div><div>Henny Sinding was born in 1921 in Copenhagen, Denmark, a country led by the beloved monarch, King Christian X. Henny was the middle child of Royal Danish Navy Commander Paul Sinding and his wife Elna (nicknamed Chika). Henny had an older sister Bente and a brother, five years her junior, Carsten. Henny's father was in charge of the Danish Lighthouse and Buoy Service, supervising the Drogden Lighthouse and managing the Gerda III. Henny adored her father and came to share his love of the sea. For the Sindings, having a <b>"good inner moral compass" </b>and being humble were important.</div><div><br /></div><div>Henny's passions were music and dance and she aspired to attend the Royal Danish Ballet School. This was not acceptable to her parents who did not approve of the lifestyle of dancers, so Henny learned to play the accordion and to step dance. Henny attended N. Zahle's School for Girls. Her best friend was Isse (Annelise) Brune. It was Isse's father who introduced both girls to sailing. Henny soon became a proficient sailor, racing iceboats in winter, learning the Oresund Strait between Denmark and Sweden.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1938, when Henny was seventeen, she worked as an au pair in England, learning to speak and read English. She arrived back in Denmark in 1939 with a wider perspective on the world. In September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and Britain declared war on Germany. Denmark had a "non-aggression pact" with Germany, which meant they were at peace. For now.</div><div><br /></div><div>Henny began working with her father's naval unit, the Danish Lighthouse and Buoy Service in Copenhagen. She was assigned to plot the locations for buoys and lighthouses as well as mapping safety routes. Henny also learned to become a proficient typist. Her work involved a group of close friends, Captain Ejnar Tonnesen, Engineer John Hansen, Gerhardt Steffensen and Otto Andersen.</div><div><br /></div><div>The crew of the Gerd III set sail every morning bringing mail, books and newspapers to the lighthouse keepers at Drogden Light. It also serviced the buoys that guided ships travelling between the Baltic and North Seas. </div><div><br /></div><div>In 1940, when Henny was eighteen years old, the Nazis invaded Denmark on April 9 at 4:15AM. The German invasion, Operation Weserubung was over by 6AM. King Christian X agreed to cooperate as long as Denmark's right to freedom of religion was respected. Germany desired a peaceful occupation of Denmark as this meant the need for fewer soldiers to police the country. While the Dane's ran the country, the Nazis controlled agriculture and industry and set about fortifying the coastline.</div><div><br /></div><div>Henny and Bente and their father continued to work, the Gerda III continued to sail, but life was more difficult. The Danes were not friendly to their Nazi occupiers and they wondered what would happen to Denmark's Jewish citizens. More than eight thousand Jews lived peacefully in Denmark, accepted in the country and thriving. Hitler attempted to force the Danish government and people to follow his orders but politicians resigned and students protested. King Christian X agreed to cooperate as long as Denmark's right to freedom of religion was respected.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1941, the Nazis began to implement their "final solution" to the Jewish problem: murder and extermination. The attempt to have Danish Jews wear the Yellow Star failed and the Danish resistance grew. Medical students, and physicians joined the resistance movement, student unrest was country-wide. Knud Peterson and his older brother Jens, along with a cousin and two friends formed a club, the RAF club to fight back. A group of men formed the Holger Danske, named after a knight of Danish legend. </div><div><br /></div><div>In September of 1942, King Christian refused to acknowledge Hitler's birthday greeting in a way that the Fuhrer expected. And so the Germans replaced their white glove approach with that of an iron fist. After another year of demonstrations, sabotage and strikes, in August of 1943, Danish workers went on strike. Then on August 29, with Operation Safari, the Nazis attempted to capture the Danish navy. But the Danes had anticipated this and scuttled many of their warships, torpedo boats and submarines. Eventually Henny came to meet Jorgen Kieler, a medical student and Erik Koch Michelsen or Mix, a naval cadet. All were interested in actively resisting the Nazis. </div><div><br /></div><div>Werner Best, Hitler's man in Denmark, was struggling to subdue the increasing Danish resistance. To regain Hitler's favour, Best decided to suggest that they roundup all of Denmark's Jews. Hitler was pleased with this plan and the date was set: Friday, October 1, 1943, the end of the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and the Shabbat Shuvah. It was a truly evil plan because most Jews would be at home and therefore, easily captured.<br /><br />The Danes had three days to save their Jewish friends and neighbours. Henny along with Jorgen, Mix and hundreds of others sprang into action. Using the Gerda III, Henny set to work planning just how the boat and its brave crew could save hundreds of Jews and transport them to safety in neutral Sweden.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Author Susan Hood tells the story of Henny Sinding and the Danish resistance mostly through the use of free verse. Henny's story is one of incredible courage, perseverance and a touch of luck, as work in the Danish resistance was dangerous.</div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>Harboring Hope</i>, Henny Sinding and the crew of the lighthouse supply boat, Gerda III worked tirelessly to save as many Jews as possible, after the Nazis decided to implement the first part of their "final solution" which was to round up all of Denmark's Jews and transport them to the concentration camps on the continent. They had three days to devise a plan, locate their Jewish neighbours who had gone into hiding, learn who to trust, hide them and then get them to safety. This required planning, organization, courage and determination, all of which Henny Sinding had in abundance.</div><div><br /></div><div>The crew of the Gerda needed the permission of Henny's father, who was in charge of the Danish Lighthouse and Buoy Service. Twenty-two-year old Henny was able to obtain his permission to not only use the Gerda but also to relocate it simply by asking her father not to notice the boat's different sailing route. With the help of a naval cadet nicknamed Mix, and a medical student, Jorgen and his resistance group, as well as others in the underground, Henny helped locate Danish Jews, shelter and eventually lead them onto the Gerda which then ferried them to safety in Sweden. Henny's group was able to save around three hundred people.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Harboring Hope</i> realistically portrays life in Denmark during World War II. The Danish, unable to effectively fight the mighty German military machine, at first settled into an uneasy coexistence. Soon resistance to the Nazis grew. Hood includes several notable Danish citizens who felt deeply motivated to fight back against the Germans, including many young teens who were ashamed of their country's weak response. One was Knud Pederson and his Churchill Club. In 1940, fourteen-year-old Pederson was inspired by the resistance of the Norwegians to the Nazis. Initially he and his brother Jens along with other friends formed a club called the RAF club which undertook small acts of sabotage. When he moved to Aalborg, he formed a new club, the Churchill Club which became more deeply involved in fighting the Nazis.</div><div><br /></div><div>Through many different forms of poetry, Hood is able to convey Henny Sinding's remarkable courage, determination and levelheadedness as well as her ability to organize. She became the focal point around which the crew of the Gerda III could effectively outwit the Nazis and really contribute to helping their Jewish countrymen.</div><div><br /></div><div>The novel is divided into nineteen parts and employs mostly free verse to tell Henny's story. However, in her Poetry Notes, the author writes that she also wrote other forms such as a shape poem, a sensory poem, an ABC poem, a triolet, a nonet and elegy. Hood writes that various <b>"poetic techniques, such as alliteration, anaphora, assonance, onomatopoeia, refrains and rhythms"</b> were also used. This variety adds interest and aids in the storytelling.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Harboring Hope</i> is another excellent novel by author Susan Hood. She provides her readers with a large amount of supplemental information at the back of the novel in a part titled Ship's Log. In this part there is More About Henny, Gerda III, and the Escape of the Danish Jews, Homecoming which provides information on the return of the Jews in the post-war period, What Happened to Gerda III?, Photographs which include photos of Henny, her parents, Nazis in Copenhagen, the Gerda III, and Mix, Poetry Notes, Sources, a Bibliography, and an extensive source for Quotes used in the book.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Harboring Hope: The True Story of How Henny Sinding Helped Denmark's Jews Escape The Nazis by Susan Hood<br />New York: HarperCollins Publishers 2023</div><div>352 pp.</div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-37745111021608128852023-11-06T12:13:00.007-05:002023-11-06T12:13:57.568-05:00Two Tribes by Emily Bowen CohenMia Harjo Horowitz attends West Hill Jewish Community School . She and her best friend, Chloe are eating lunch when a fellow student, Justin asks Mia if she is Spanish. Annoyed, Mia tells him her father is American Indian. He then questions her as to whether she wears beads, can ride a horse or has a secret Indian name. As Mia has none of these, she wonders if she is not really Indian.<div><br /></div><div>This leads Mia to wonder how she can claim to be Native if she knows nothing about Indian culture. She can't ask her Jewish mother because she doesn't like talking about Mia's father. And her father lives in Oklahoma with his new family. Mia and Chloe decide that maybe Mia can find "a book about being Native American at the library". </div><div><br /></div><div>At home, Mia helps her mother make challah in preparation for Shabbat on Friday night. Mia, her mother and her stepfather Roger also have Rabbi and Rebbetzin Goldfarb over the Shabbat. He helped prepare Mia for her Bat Mitvah recently. However, Mia tells her mother that she is not just Jewish, and that the students at school act as though she is different.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzzK9GaItzDotpCix1R1jDpeCnw0i4XrUxAaXkXXPOD0mjmSIQ1MFJruFs3ShtyXvh4JgwsVpoWLvMhFQ66_lCpu2J_CJG0JledbGOdeZITPSuWIwDITu_fUqnF7TxCAv8hpeWrWnwSalkihFEGdY9QQ8WphLkdQm0TqiZ5Uiyz43sEPRggJ7-UabDZP8/s648/twotribes.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="432" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzzK9GaItzDotpCix1R1jDpeCnw0i4XrUxAaXkXXPOD0mjmSIQ1MFJruFs3ShtyXvh4JgwsVpoWLvMhFQ66_lCpu2J_CJG0JledbGOdeZITPSuWIwDITu_fUqnF7TxCAv8hpeWrWnwSalkihFEGdY9QQ8WphLkdQm0TqiZ5Uiyz43sEPRggJ7-UabDZP8/w426-h640/twotribes.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div>Not understanding her feelings, the Rabbi makes a rude joke about Indians, further upsetting Mia. Her father, Van, is a member of the Muscogee Nation. Mia's mother tells the Rabbi and his wife that Van was not true to his vows and that he now lives in Oklahoma with his new family.</div><div><br /></div><div>When Mia receives another a cheque from her Van and his wife Sharon, she decides she might have enough money to fly to Tulsa to see her father. She will prove her dad is a good guy and that he loves her. She will also learn how to be a real Indian. However, when she tells Chloe her plan, her friend tells her that flying won't be an option if she isn't planning to tell her mother about the trip. </div><div><br /></div><div>With the help of Chloe, Mia plans a secret trip to Tulsa. She lies to her mother, getting her to sign a permission slip for a weekend trip with classmates, praying in synagogue, and getting her to agree to spending the night at Chloe's home. But instead of boarding the bus with her classmates, Mia hires a taxi and gets on a bus to Oklahoma. While her impromptu trip helps Mia discover in Native American identity, her deception has major repercussions for her and her extended family, highlighting issues of trust and honesty. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>Two Tribes</i>, author Emily Bowen Cohen explores themes of identity, forgiveness, acceptance and reconciliation. Cohen, who is Muscogee and Jewish like her main character Mia, experienced separation from her father's Indigenous family after his death when she was nine-years-old. Fortunately for Cohen, her mother made sure that she continued to learn her Indigenous culture.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unlike the author, in Two Tribes, Mia has little contact with her Indigenous father who lives in Oklahoma. This is the result of her parents bitter divorce: her mother's unresolved anger towards Mia's father for his infidelity and her father's self-absorbed focus on his problems and his new life. This means Mia learns only about her Jewish culture and its beautiful traditions while her Native culture is ignored. But Mia develops the desire to learn about her other "tribe", her Indigenous culture that comes from her father when she is questioned at school as to whether she is adopted. This is the "seed" that leads to Mia questioning her identity.</div><div><br /></div><div>Correctly suspecting that her mother is unlikely to allow her to visit her father, Mia does so surreptitiously which eventually has repercussions. However, that visit to her father's home allows her the opportunity to learn about her Native culture and beliefs.</div><div><br /></div><div>Cohen wonderfully juxtaposes Mia's Jewish and Indigenous heritages through the descriptions of food, dress and stories. At home, Mia makes challah with her mother for Shabbat. When she visits her father, she makes wild onion eggs with her cousin Nova, eats fry bread, and attends a pow wow. Mia learns about Indigenous regalia and is told the creation story of the clans. Mia also discovers that her Indigenous and Jewish cultures have something in common: the stomp dance is a form a worship done around a ceremonial fire, while in Judaism there is an eternal flame in synagogues. When she is back in Los Angeles, Mia also begins to realize that she could blend both Jewish and Indigenous food. She tells Chole, <b>"Maybe Native American and Jewish traditions can blend together as one."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Of course there are consequences to Mia's deception as both she and Chloe are punished. After returning home, Mia is made to sit with Rabbi G and talk about what happened but this also turns into an opportunity for more growth for both Mia, her parents and the Rabbi. Telling the adults what is really in her heart, Mia explains that she is a separate person, she's not her father and she will not always make the same choices her mother has made. She tells her mother and Roger, <b>"I'm not just a Bat Mitzvah though, because I'm also Native American. I'm a member of two tribes." </b> Mia also explains that in travelling to Oklahoma to visit her father, she was honouring him. This had not occurred to Rabbi G who also comes to realize how offensive his "joke" was to Mia. Happily, Mia's actions result in the reconciliation between her parents and potential for more exploration of her Native American identity.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Two Tribes</i> acknowledges and portrays the very real struggles young people can experience growing up in two cultures. The use of the graphic novel format is very effective in portraying the two "tribes" that constitute Mia's identity because there is a visual component to her dual ethnicity. Mia looks different than most of her Jewish classmates: her darker skin leads classmates to wonder if she is adopted. The vibrant panels portray this much more effectively than words do, allowing the reader to better identify with Mia. Illustrations were done by Cohen, rendered in ink, brush, Micron pen and Photoshop with colours by Lark Pien.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen</div><div>New York: Heartdrum, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 2023</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-55411936978331447092023-10-29T18:12:00.002-04:002023-10-29T19:57:18.452-04:00The Possible Lives of W H, Sailor by Bushra JunaidCoastal erosion has exposed a two-hundred-year old wooden coffin on the Strait of Belle Isle. The person in the coffin was buried with their head oriented east toward Africa. The man, with good teeth and kinky hair, was young and short in stature. He was also missing his forearm. The coffin also contained a knife and pouch and a shoe. These items had the initials WH engraved on them. Who was this man and what was his story? How did he come to be buried here?<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgun90L6mzoobmck1EDPRa2Rrl6GYOvT25LXQaMpuCiNrhpZTD5HgAcjLls-gdHmXZaZu9cnkYdPVVEj7iDg0qiZu6HoUE7JfY2ozSRiC0YHMnOCafJNM11vxebbr_Oruq2sNh3SjZIbgbql3oGu6GOXIn5B2sDZLFiisIEljoYguxh0U4syRgaiZnFreI/s1280/WH_cover__29267.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="1280" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgun90L6mzoobmck1EDPRa2Rrl6GYOvT25LXQaMpuCiNrhpZTD5HgAcjLls-gdHmXZaZu9cnkYdPVVEj7iDg0qiZu6HoUE7JfY2ozSRiC0YHMnOCafJNM11vxebbr_Oruq2sNh3SjZIbgbql3oGu6GOXIn5B2sDZLFiisIEljoYguxh0U4syRgaiZnFreI/w400-h294/WH_cover__29267.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In June 1987, a burial site near the small fishing village of L'Anse au Loup on a part of the Labrador coast was exposed. Bones, fabric and wood were exposed. Archeological investigation revealed a coffin containing a skeleton wearing a military uniform, wrapped in a shroud of a wool blanket. There was also a pouch and in the pocket of the jacket was a pocket knife with the initials WH carved into it. The lone shoe had a W carved into the sole.</div><div><br /></div><div>Working together, an osteologist and conservator were able to determine that the remains were that of a Black man. The presence of a twenty centimeter long wooden marlinspike, a tool used to separate or join together rope, in the coffin suggests that this was a sailor. Investigators believe that WH was possibly a midshipman or the servant of a ship's officer in the early 1800s.<br /><br />The Atlantic was sometimes called the Black Atlantic for the number of Black people who sailed across the ocean. Over twelve million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic in slave ships. Approximately one-fifth of all sailors in both the merchant marine and the military were people of colour, some enslaved, others free.</div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>The Possible Lives of WH</i>, Bushra Junaid, wonders about the life of the Black sailor known only as WH. Her poetry narrative is filled with questions about his name, his origin, how he came to be a sailor, lose his arm, and what he saw and felt. In asking these and many other questions, Montreal-born Junaid, an author, artist and curator, takes young readers on a short trip through the earliest Black history of Canada.</div><div><br /></div><div>Millions of West Africans were captured and forcibly transported across the Atlantic from 1526 to 1867 in what was known as the Transatlantic slave trade. This journey in the Middle Passage, was done in the festering hold of a slave ship, under such terrible conditions, that many did not survive. </div><div><br /></div><div>Other Blacks were born on plantations in the Caribbean or in America where they cut sugarcane, picked cotton and planted rice. On these plantations, life was no easier. Junaid, in her Background To Timeline note at the back, writes that<b> "Caribbean slave owners bought enormous quantities of the poorest grade of Newfoundland and Labrador codfish or 'salt fish' (also called 'refuse fish' or 'Jamaica fish') to feed their enslaved workforce." </b>The enslaved were fed poorly, among other things. When Britain was considering abolishing the slave trade in 1791, there was concern that such a move would result in the collapse of the Newfoundland fishery. Little concern existed for the enslaved and their health.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some enslaved Africans and people of colour, escaped by enlisting in the British or American navy. Some who fought for England during the American revolution, were given land in Nova Scotia. The land was of poor quality, but they stayed, had families and became an integral part of the history of Eastern Canada. All of these are possible origins for the sailor we know today only as WH.</div><div><br /></div><div>In asking her questions and offering possible answers, Junaid paints <b>"...a picture of what the life of a Black sailor in the later eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries may have been like."</b> something we know a bit about, from the writings of Black sailors from this era. </div><div><br /></div><div>The author has illustrated her story with beautiful artwork done both in traditional media and digital methods.Also included are the following resources: Background:Finding WH, a Timeline, Background To Timeline, References and Resources, photographs of Artifacts Found At WH's Burial Site, and a Teachers Guide.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Possible Lives of WH, Sailor </i>gives voice to the past, to those people of colour, who either by choice or not, are a part of Canada's history and the making of this country.</div><div><br /><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />The Possible Lives of WH, Sailor by Bushra Junaid<br />Tors Cove, NL: Running the Goat Books & Broadsides, 2022</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-89332530762236640972023-10-27T20:58:00.001-04:002023-10-27T20:58:19.338-04:00Storm of Olympus by Claire M. Andrews<i>Storm of Olympus</i> picks up where the previous novel, <i>Blood of Troy</i> ended. The Trojan War is over and Troy has been destroyed. Not only that but Daphne battled her nemesis, Nyx, who warped the mind of her beloved brother Alkaios into attacking her. The resulting battle saw the release of the Titans who had been imprisoned beneath the city by Zeus as punishment for the Titanomachy. Close to death, she was fed an ambrosia seed by Apollo unleashing her immortal powers as the daughter of the titan, Oceanus. Daphne fled the city along with others including Odysseus and his men. Now on Aeaea Island, Daphne struggles to come to terms with all she has lost: her mother, her beloved brother Alkaios, her kingdom and her queen. <div><br /></div><div>Aeaea is the prison and sanctuary of the titaness, Circe. Daphne is now a titan with the ability to control the sea and the sky. Circe encourages Daphne to use her emotions to call up her new powers, but even the pain she feels over the death of her brother Alkaios fails to work and almost leads to Daphne drowning. Meanwhile on the beach below Circe's cottage, Odysseus and his men work on rebuilding their ships.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNFKY0DkUsM27YRe_l0nBrC7hSGyzBEUjTJLsxPFVq34GqrStCsfK4muSQbP62rl4zZQxwmLGJESNU6F_4s2kPTu9W_MvTyj5dMVSSIT_548_PvYPm1oFhn06Ka5zNiQ2fiWzC3247kQrzyQ9GTaxoygBHns1j-SLVqxdBJpMvsmDp3fVSTDvhFuAluCg/s1000/storm.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNFKY0DkUsM27YRe_l0nBrC7hSGyzBEUjTJLsxPFVq34GqrStCsfK4muSQbP62rl4zZQxwmLGJESNU6F_4s2kPTu9W_MvTyj5dMVSSIT_548_PvYPm1oFhn06Ka5zNiQ2fiWzC3247kQrzyQ9GTaxoygBHns1j-SLVqxdBJpMvsmDp3fVSTDvhFuAluCg/w426-h640/storm.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div>Asleep in Circe's cottage, Daphne is awoken by screams. She races down to the beach where Circe and Odysseus are pulling bodies from the waves. One of the bodies is that of Hermes, the messenger god, who is barely alive. Circe manages to save Hermes, removing the poison of Nyx from him.</div><div><br /></div><div>When Daphne falls asleep that night, Hypnos, the god of sleep, shows her the destruction of the Olympian gods by the Titans. She sees Hera get impaled, a dead Poseidon, the death of Demeter, Persephone and Hades. Apollo, her lover, warns Daphne to leave before she too is killed. Horrified, she watches as Apollo and Zeus are killed by the titans. Hypnos tells Daphne she can still save them.</div><div><br /></div><div>When she awakens, Daphne tells Circe that the titans have stormed Olympus, killing the gods and have claimed Mount Olympus for themselves. She was unable to save them, but Circe tells her that's because she isn't ready yet to use her powers.</div><div><br /></div><div>When Hermes regains consciousness, he tells Daphne that she is able to save the gods including her lover, Apollo, because they are not dead but trapped in Tartarus (the Underworld), a sort of purgatory or cage. He tells her must free the gods from the Underworld. Hermes informs Daphne that because of the curse on him, the titans will know where Daphne has fled and they will come to Aeaea. He was a spy in the titan's camp during the Trojan war. He also tells Daphne that Helen of Troy, Lykou, and Hippolyta are safe in Mount Kyllini and that in the seven months that she has been on the island, the titans have attacked Olympus, while Agamemnon's army has conquered Athens, Crete and Salamis. The Spartans have rebelled against Menelaus but likely will not defeat him. </div><div><br /></div><div>Eventually Odysseus and his men finish one ship and Daphne and Hermes set sail for Eleusis where they know there is still an entrance to the Underworld. During the journey there, Hermes reveals that Cronus is likely leading the titan army which includes Perses the titan of destruction, Phoibe and Oceanus, Daphne's father. Daphne will not only have to free the gods from Tartarus, but she must also reclaim Mount Olympus and save the Garden of Hesperides. But can Daphne accept her fate, as the Storm of Olympus, to save those she loves?</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Storm of Olympus</i> is a book of battles from beginning to end with plenty of gore and death. Andrews draws from Greek and Norse mythology to create a lengthy saga involving a secondary goddess, Daphne while incorporating many other facets of Greek mythology.</div><div><br /></div><div>The end of the Trojan war has seen the release of the titans from their prison beneath the city of Troy. They waste no time in attacking the gods on Mount Olympus, defeating and imprisoning them in Tartarus. Their ultimate goal is to take over the world. Daphne, now a titan, is the gods only hope of regaining Mount Olympus. But to do this she must learn to wield her immense powers over sea and sky. With the help of Hermes and the mortal, Odysseus, she journeys to Eleusis, the location of a door to the Underworld. There, after battles with sea monsters and the god Ares as well as titans, Daphne, with the help of the souls of the Underworld including her beloved brother Alkaios and her friend Theseus, frees the gods. Escaping the Underworld takes Daphne and the gods to Lemnos, the site of the resistance's camp and Hephaestus's forge. In an attempt to win the battle against the titans, Daphne is initially unsuccessful in enlisting the help of the gods of Asgard, Odin, Thor, Freyja and Loki, despite her reminding the AEsir that should the titans and gods succeed in controlling the Garden of the Hesperides, they will come for other gardens including Yggdrasil.</div><div><br /></div><div>Eventually, Daphne along with Zeus and the other Olympians, their mortal and centaur allies engage the titans and their allies, the armies of Menelaus and Agamemnon in an epic battle on Mount Olympus. Daphne is fighting to restore balance to Mount Olympus because she, along with some of the Olympian gods and the mortals, believes the gods/titans have abused their powers. They have used the mortals, causing wars and other calamities for their amusement. Mortals like Clytemnestra, princess of Sparta also believe that the gods allowed Troy to fall, and that they have led mortals "astray with their selfish interests for too many centuries." </div><div><div><br /></div><div>Once they take Mount Olympus, Daphne must now protect the Garden where Zeus and Poseidon have fled. The AEsir do eventually respond and come to their aid in this final battle, helping defeat Zeus, Nyx and Poseidon. </div><div>Daphne explains what must happen next:</div><div><b>"A thousand years ago, the Garden spoke to the goddess Hecate and told her to give the Olympians and titans ambrosia, creating the immortals we know today. They were chosen as the Hesperides's protectors, to keep the power from falling into the wrong hands and destroying the world. Some - the titans - went mad with power. Over the centuries, it consumed many of the gods, too."</b> Now the Garden has asked for new protectors, balance and sacrifice. Hecate arrives to help decide who will be the protectors, allowing the Garden to be reborn.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Storm of Olympus</i> is plot-driven, with a wealth of battles, gore and gruesome death, but also sacrifice and heroism. There are so many characters and various monsters in the novel that unless the reader is well versed in Greek and Norse mythology, they may feel overwhelmed. Andrews, to her credit, does attempt to identify characters and beasts within the story. There is a list of characters at the back of the novel but this by no means covers every character or monster involved (for example, Perses, a recurring character is missing). This list should be more extensive, perhaps in order of appearance in the story, and placed at the front of the book. </div><div><br /></div><div>A subplot is the relationship between Daphne and her lover Apollo. He is the impetus for her drive to save the Olympians from Tartarus. Seeing his gruesome death at that hands of the titans fuels her rage which leads her to develop and learn to control her power over sea and sky. They are reunited after his rescue from Tartarus and survive many battles. Another storyline is the relationship Daphne has with her brothers, Alkaios who was warped by Nyx and whom Daphne killed, and Pyrrhus who considers her a Spartan traitor. She is reunited with both at various points and they each experience the power of forgiveness.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not surprisingly, the major character, Daphne is a strong, determined, courageous immortal who risks everything to try to save those she loves. Along the way she learns to trust not only her own abilities, but her friends too.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Storm of Olympus</i> ends happily, after many battles, hardship, suffering and sacrifice. Andrews has crafted a unique story, focusing on a minor figure in Greek mythology, Daphne, beautiful daughter of a river god, loved by Apollo. This trilogy will appeal to those adults and older teens who have a good knowledge of mythology and who grew up on the Greek and Norse myths!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Storm of Olympus by Claire M. Andrews<br />New York: Little, Brown and Company 2023<br />470 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-33616690620499562892023-10-18T12:57:00.002-04:002023-12-11T17:44:44.782-05:00Kin: Rooted In Hope by Carole Boston WeatherfordIn <i>Kin</i>, author Carole Boston Weatherford tells the story of her family, descended from ancestors brought to America via the Atlantic Slave trade.<div><br /></div><div>As a teenager, Weatherford was uninterested in her past, and more concerned with life in the present. She knew her great-great-grandfather Phillip Moaney had been enslaved but that was the extent of knowledge of her ancestry. Before Alex Haley's mini-series, "Roots" few Black people considered exploring their ancestry back to Africa. With his book and the television show that changed.</div><div><br /></div><div>At Wye River, a plantation named Wye House includes Long Green, a village of tradespeople, sailors, sawyers and boat builders. At Long Green, enslaved people lived and loved, having both shackles and bonds that linked them. Life is hard: they sleep on bare planks with only one blanket and the food is not good.</div><div><br /></div><div>Wye House is the jewel in the Lloyd family's crown. Its Puritan patriarch, Edward Lloyd emigrated from the British Isles to America in 1645. He eventually settled in Maryland colony, and was granted land by Lord Baltimore, Charles Calvert. Wye House states that it is an "agricultural factory" powered by hundreds of Black slaves. The house states:</div><div><b>"I am proof of the wealth</b></div><div><b>that America's founding families could amass</b></div><div><b>by enslaving laborers and marrying money...</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>I witnessed more cruelty than I care to recall</b></div><div><b>The sin of slavery haunts my every hall..."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The Lloyd's 1781 ledger contains an earliest known ancestor including the name of twenty-one-year old Isaac Copper. The ledger is a record of the Lloyd's property including cattle, farming equipment and slaves: their names, ages, occupations but also infirmities and quality. All are property.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5iPv1ji-3pKvpxbRqN1A8NXXzkOdpSJVhiPjEun5GYrJ6GC_TbRm10RSX8KXAbH__jaL6ma3xJSW0nlIQ-fKGs6Dce6Q0RdHBoUX7s8vro2QoUcQqE1JLPFMjO0SBW-pPkdQJPq8Rcz8NgaNsxcxYYsACxyRnQhPmOUmpfZtou5_1N-I-bGmXLAxiJ7I/s1000/kin.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="663" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5iPv1ji-3pKvpxbRqN1A8NXXzkOdpSJVhiPjEun5GYrJ6GC_TbRm10RSX8KXAbH__jaL6ma3xJSW0nlIQ-fKGs6Dce6Q0RdHBoUX7s8vro2QoUcQqE1JLPFMjO0SBW-pPkdQJPq8Rcz8NgaNsxcxYYsACxyRnQhPmOUmpfZtou5_1N-I-bGmXLAxiJ7I/w424-h640/kin.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div>Weatherford's great-grandpa James Henry Moaney never told her that his father (her great-great-grandfather) Phillip has been enslaved and that his father-in-law, Isaac Copper was also enslaved at Wye House but fought in the Civil War.</div><div><br /></div><div>A litany of Lloyd's from Edward Lloyd III (who lived from 1711 to 1770) to Edward Lloyd VII (1825 to 1907) speak about life at Wye House and in the Maryland area. </div><div><br /></div><div>Edward Lloyd III is concerned about <b>"the French corrupting enslaved people with promises of freedom" </b>while his son Edward Lloyd IV switches sides during the Revolution. He now owns two-hundred-sixty Blacks. </div><div><br /></div><div>As the Lloyd's influence grows, Colonel Edward Lloyd V (1779 to 1834) becomes a state senator and eventually Maryland's thirteenth governor and a U.S. Senator. A boy called Frederick listens outside the schoolroom window as Lloyd's children are tutored. </div><div><br /></div><div>Edward Lloyd VI (1798 to 1861) owns over four hundred Blacks, worth more than twenty-eight thousand dollars. He trusts his overseers <b>"to wield the lash and report runaways." </b> Unable to support so many slaves at Wye House, Lloyd moves some slaves south to Mississippi, taking them along as punishment and selling some. </div><div><br /></div><div>Edward Lloyd (1825 to 1907) sees all of his slaves freed as a result of Emancipation. In 1881, that boy called Frederick, Frederick Douglass returns to Wye House where he makes peace with the slaver Thomas who repeatedly beat him.</div><div><br /></div><div>Frederick Douglass (1818 to 1895) was brought to Wye House by his grandmother when he was six-years-old. He lived with Captain Anthony who he learned was his father. He was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and he was enslaved. He was <b>"a ship caulker, abolitionist, orator, and publisher of the North Star newspaper. After the Civil War, a public servant who rose to become minister of the Republic of Haiti."</b> Frederick Douglass writes about Isaac Copper, a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Divinity, and a confirmed cripple who taught Douglass and other children how to say the Lord's prayer. It is Douglass's written account of Wye House that leads the author to an Isaac Copper the man she knew who leaned heavily on a cane. He was not the Isaac Copper who fought in the Civil War but likely his son. The Isaac Copper in the ledger of 1781 was likely born c.1760 or 1763. Weatherford wonders how he came to be owned by the Lloyds in a poem filled with many questions.</div><div><br /></div><div>From this point on, the life of the children of Isaac and Nanny Copper, other slaves at Wye House are told, including some who flee as the Civil War approaches. And after freedom, it is the Coppers who work at building Black villages during the Reconstruction era, their industriousness and their determination to make a better world for their children and grandchildren.</div><div><br /></div><div> <b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Kin</i> is author Carole Boston Weatherford's family's story, begun in Africa and told in America. It is a story mostly lost in the mists of time, with just enough hints and records to form an understanding. The setting spans the mid-1600's to the early 1900's, in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore, at Wye House, the state's largest slave plantation and in the Black Reconstruction-era villages of Unionville and Copperville. </div><div><br /></div><div>Before Alex Haley's famous "Roots" mini-series, many African Americans never considered tracing their own "roots" back to Africa. For many, their roots go back only a few generations, before the darkness of the past closes in. For Weatherford and her son, they could only trace their family back five generations. And so with what information she could glean from records, library records and historical societies, from databases of slave ships and records from Wye House, Weatherford has pieced together a story, giving voice to her ancestors who were enslaved but who, when freed after the Civil War, played an important part in the founding of several Black Reconstruction-era villages. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Kin</i> is written in verse, featuring many different voices, including several Isaac Coppers whom Weatherford believes are her ancestors: Young Isaac Copper and his wife Nanny, some of their eight children including Marena, Prissy and Polly Copper as well as sons Henry (born 1800) Isaac Copper II (born 1798), and Isaac Copper III who fought in the Civil War and became a founding father of a Black village. </div><div><br /></div><div>Other poems give voice to Colonel Lloyd, Daniel Lloyd son of Colonel Lloyd whose companion was Frederick Douglass, Edward Lloyd IV's wife Elizabeth Tayloe Lloyd, house servant Daphne, Chicken Sue who cares for the poultry, the servant Katy who once worked in the Great House Kitchen but now cooks for her people because she's too old. Then there are poems in the voice of former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Francis Scott Key composer of The Star-Spangled Banner and Harriet Tubman,</div><div><br /></div><div>Chesapeake Bay, Wye House, the Wooden Case Clock, and the ship the Rachel also lend their voices, all having no say in their involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. The Rachel laments being involved in the slave trade:</div><div><b> "I am no vessel for sweet memories...</b></div><div><b>I bore thirty-seven Blacks into bondage</b></div><div><b>in the British colonies, having lost but one</b></div><div><b>Black captive enroute from Antigua</b></div><div><b>Yet my belly is full of regret..."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The ship mentions it is like the enslaved teenager, Rose who bore Captain Bruff two sons: <b>"I had no more say in carrying cargo than Rose did in bearing those children." .</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Each of these poems piece together a part of the story, from the beginnings of Wye House, the generations of the Lloyd family who enrich themselves through the slave trade and move up the social class ladder, the ships that brought the enslaved to America, the enslaved who lived, suffered and worked the plantation, those who ran away sometimes successful sometimes not, the enslaved who fought in the Civil War and who returned free men to rebuild their lives and communities. </div><div><br /></div><div>The poems portray life as a slave: the beatings for the slightest infractions, long hours of back-breaking work in the fields, little food, one set of clothing and shoes that once worn out meant going naked, the rape and forced pregnancy of young enslaved girls, and separation of families as children and parents are sold off sometimes for extra money, sometimes as punishment. In contrast, the life a slaveholder like the Lloyds was one of opulence, enriched by the free work of the enslaved. Many poems describe Wye House as one that included beautiful furniture <b>"mahogany table draped in fine lace and set with English crystal, china, and silver"</b>, and expensive carriages, saddles and harnesses. The family ate delicious food and sipped <b>"fine wines shipped from across the ocean". </b> </div><div><br /></div><div>Wye House was a house of many mirrors, of all types, that witnessed the goings on in the plantation. Those mirrors saw all the occupants of the house, including the enslaved. Weatherford notes this in several poems including "My Question For the Looking Glasses" and in "Missing Faces" The mirrors are <b>"...forever neutral as generations dart past or pose to ponder reflections."</b> The author also noticed that while the oil paintings, etchings and silhouettes remain as memorials to the Lloyds, there is nothing to remember the generations of enslaved who passed through the house. In Missing Faces, Weatherford writes, <b>"Absent are the visages of my ancestors"</b> who <b>"hanged the Lloyds' framed conceits," </b>While the decor endures, Weatherford writes, <b>"...But the faces of my kin have vanished. Erased." </b> And so through her poetry, Weatherford gives voice to some of those enslaved at Wye House, and allows us to see them through the artwork of Jeffery Boston Weatherford.</div><div><br /></div><div>Carole Boston Weatherford has written an engaging novel in verse about slavery in Maryland, at the state's largest slave plantation, imagining what life might have been like for her enslaved ancestors. It's evident from the extensive Bibliography at the back of the novel, that she has done considerable historical and genealogical research. This research, as is often the case, leads only to more questions which Weatherford expresses in her poetry.</div><div><br /></div><div>What might have given more clarity to the genealogy of the author's family as she understands it to date, is a cast of characters and perhaps a family tree that outlines her connection to the Coppers. From the novel's poems, Weatherford reveals that her great-great-grandfather Phillip Moaney was enslaved and that his son, her great-grandfather James Henry Moaney, born in 1872, seven years after the end of the Civil War (1865) was born free. His father-in-law was Isaac Copper was enslaved at Wye House, and fought in the Civil War. For whatever reason, James Moaney never spoke about Isaac Copper being enslaved. Weatherford assumes that the practice of naming children after kin continued throughout the passing generations - a reasonable assumption given the number of Isaac Coppers in the ledgers. </div><div><br /></div><div>What <i>Kin: Rooted In Hope</i> also embodies is one of the consequences of slavery: the loss of family roots that often cannot be reclaimed. Our heritage connects us to the past, to our culture, our beliefs and our identity. Knowing our past helps us to understand who we are and develop resiliency as we see how ancestors dealt with difficult life situations. For Weatherford, knowing that her ancestors were significant contributors to life for Blacks in the Reconstruction Era was likely encouraging and a source of intense pride. Despite the hardship they had endured, they built something good out of slavery and the ruins of war. They formed a sense of community and connection that continues to this day.</div><div><br /></div><div>The beautiful artwork, done on scratch board adds considerably to the story, capturing the many emotions of various characters and evoking the darkness of slavery. The cover art is exquisite, the purple background suggesting royalty and the title in gold, as many of the enslaved came from what was known as the Gold Coast of Africa. <i>Kin: Rooted In Hope</i> is a book that asks its readers to pause and think about those that came unwillingly before, ripped from land and home, and yet persevered. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Kin: Rooted In Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford<br />New York: Atheneum Books For Young Readers 2023</div><div>202 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-84124043538704576412023-10-16T09:07:00.000-04:002023-10-16T09:07:17.549-04:00Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods by Grace LinChinese Menu explores the stories, myths and fables behind the many foods that make up Chinese cuisine.<br /><br />First up is a chapter on Chopsticks. Lin admits to using chopsticks incorrectly, that her parents from Taiwan, never really instructed as to how to hold them. She uses chopsticks to eat but holds them "wrong", as her older sister likes to remind her. In this chapter, several stories about how chopsticks came to be invented are told. In the introduction, Lin writes that chopsticks were probably used as cooking tools during the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1100 B.C.) or Western Zhou dynasty (1100 to 771 B.C.). They were made of bronze and were much longer so they could be used in deep pots and hot oil.<div><br /></div><div>The great Chinese philosopher, Confucius encouraged the use of chopsticks over forks and knives, which he believed were reminiscent of weapons. A man of peace, he felt this was not good dining protocol. So forks and knives were replaced by polished chopsticks. Around 400 B.C., a population boom meant a need to save cooking oil. To do this, vegetables and meat were cut into smaller portions and chopsticks made eating these smaller pieces easier. Eventually chopsticks became rounded, shorter and commonplace.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU6e-eEQ8wRR7-pkouabt4yUk-wE01NP_2_qJOGsiAKn2cFBxc4EZ3KvnsiGD9TauSEGXDK5criOcwNkgBbTx-u83YEjsGJLkHy1JBTC7vBlGqNJaOj_Lj2EmY7fQpTkgoqs2cJGG80SdcOw1Tx0Vc895A-pHN73_bz7pDSE9U-dVfFECJR3KXfq9sTA8/s1000/chinese.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU6e-eEQ8wRR7-pkouabt4yUk-wE01NP_2_qJOGsiAKn2cFBxc4EZ3KvnsiGD9TauSEGXDK5criOcwNkgBbTx-u83YEjsGJLkHy1JBTC7vBlGqNJaOj_Lj2EmY7fQpTkgoqs2cJGG80SdcOw1Tx0Vc895A-pHN73_bz7pDSE9U-dVfFECJR3KXfq9sTA8/w640-h640/chinese.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div>Lin identifies some the superstitions around the use of chopsticks and recounts several of the stories surrounding chopsticks. For example, do not place chopsticks near the cups, uneven pairs mean possible bad luck and do not place them upright in food!</div><div><br /></div><div>There are many stories about chopsticks including how Yu the Great or possibly the beautiful but selfish Daji, companion of Emperor Zhou may have invented them. Do chopsticks detect poison?</div><div><br /></div><div>In Chapter 2 Tea, Lin explores the central place tea has in Chinese culture and identity. Tea was first cultivated by China, where different varieties were grown. Tea ceremonies are important as they can serve to honour elders and be rituals of contemplation and respect. </div><div><br /></div><div>In this chapter the author highlights some of the stories that are often told about how Dragon Well Tea, Jasmine Tea, Oolong Tea (often served at Chinese restaurants) and White Hair Silver Needle Tea (a medicinal tea) came to be. Lin also shares one of the many legends about how the tea plant came to be cultivated, a story that is connected to the founding of Zen Buddhism in China.<br /><br />Chapter 3 explores appetizers. A traditional meal in a Chinese home is usually comprised of soup, rice and three or four hot dishes. However, in Western society meals are organized differently with appetizers, side dishes and desserts. So Chinese immigrants designed their restaurant menu's in this way, but also mindful of the American palate. Instead of tofu, jellyfish and seaweed, they chose street food common in China such as meat kebabs and festival foods like dumplings and spring rolls.</div><div><br /></div><div>In this chapter Lin tells the story of how the first dumplings came about. The name dumpling possibly originated from the word jiao er which means "tender ears". Chinese takeout almost always offers egg rolls and spring rolls. Egg rolls are dipped in egg before frying while spring rolls often have a rice-flour wrapper and can be eaten cold. Spring rolls have been a part of Chinese cuisine for a long time: the story of their invention goes back to the late 1500's and the Ming dynasty. Another interesting story in this chapter is how scallion pancakes became the inspiration for pizza.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soup is a very common part of meals in China where it is "considered an essential part of a meal in Chinese cuisine." It is possible soup has been served in China for at least twenty-thousand years. It was often used to treat illness. In Chapter 4 Lin discusses soup in general, including how making soup in Chinese cuisine is an exact process, from how meats and vegetables are diced, to the temperature and amount of water used (no water is added during cooking!). </div><div><br /></div><div>The legends behind various soups are presented: from Wonton Soup, Crossing the Bridge Noodle soup originating in Yunnan Province, to Hot and Sour soup (likely adapted from a spicy soup receipe from Henan Province), Sizzling Rice soup to the famous Bird's Nest soup made from siftlet nests. </div><div><br /></div><div>In Chapter 5 Side Dishes, Lin explains how the meal in China has changed through the years, from being a meal eaten at "low, individual tables throughout the Qin dynasty" to "shared-dish eating with gong-kai (literally translated as 'public chopsticks') as the shared serving utensil became the norm. The structure of the meal has also changed somewhat in North America from consisting of rice (fan) first followed by cai (vegetables and/or meat) to primarily meat and vegetables with rice on the side. This chapter focuses on several dishes including rice which is easy to store and cook is a staple of Chinese cuisine. It is respected in Chinese culture because it is difficult to grow as evidenced by the complex system of rice paddies, terraces and irrigation systems the Chinese have developed. It is also used in many religious rituals and is believed to symbolize the connection between Earth and the Heavens. </div><div><br /></div><div>In this chapter, legends about how people first received rice, about niangao a special rice cake often a part of Lunar New Year celebrations are highlighted. As well, the history of noodles as part of Chinese cuisine, especially in Northern China where wheat is grown rather than rice, chow mein (stir-fried noodles) and tofu are complemented with wonderful stories.</div><div><br /></div><div>In Chapter 6 Chef's Specials, Lin finally leads her readers to the main dishes of Chinese cuisine. Because most early Chinese immigrants were from Canton (now Guandzhou), food in Chinese restaurants was mainly Cantonese-style. Lin outlines the eight great regional cuisines of China in this chapter and why many Chinese dishes have elaborate names.</div><div><br /></div><div>In this chapter readers will learn about Kung Pao Chicken or Gongbao Chicken as it is known in China, Sweet and Sour Pork, Buddha Jump Over The Wall (a type of rich stew that includes quail eggs, duck, chicken, ham and sea cucumbers!), Mu Shu Pork from the Shandong region, the famous Peking Duck, Beef and Broccoli, Emperor Chicken, and Mapo Tofu (a Sichuan dish that is popular in Asia and very spicy). There's an interesting discussion on Chop Suey a Chinese dish that once was made with animal entrails! and Beggars Chicken, a stuffed chicken baked in mud. </div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, Chapter 7 Desserts touches on a few sweet offerings in Chinese cuisine. There is no dessert course and no traditional Chinese word for dessert, as sweets are usually eaten between meals. However, Lin explains some of the sweets Chinese love including oranges which symbolize luck, gold and success, Red Bean Soup, ice cream, and of course Fortune Cookies.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Grace Lin's <i>Chinese Menu</i> is a long-overdue book that explains many different aspects of Chinese cuisine, as we know it in America (and Canada). Lin takes her readers on a smorgasbord of Chinese dishes from basic rice, to the famous Bird's Nest Soup and Peking Duck, to tofu, oranges and fortune cookies.</div><div><br /></div><div>Most North Americans probably know that the food we eat in Chinese restaurants, is not really the food that is served or cooked at home in China. Lin acknowledges this in her Author's Note at the back. <b>"Yes, every Chinese dish served in an American restaurant has been adapted and changed. Yes, many do not have the flavors of traditional Chinese cuisine and are unlike what you would find in China. But Chinese American cuisine is the flavor of resilience, the flavor or adaptability, the flavor of persistence and triumph. Above anything, this food is the flavor of America." </b></div><div><br /></div><div>As she remarks in her Note, the Chinese immigrants who faced racism, violence and hardship, <b>"...used their cuisine - their cuisine with its rich and wonderful histories and myths - to survive. They constantly adapted and changed their recipes to use the ingredients that were locally available..."</b> The result was the creation of a new cuisine, that of the Chinese diaspora. </div><div><br /></div><div>Lin wrote this book partially to dispel the notion that American Chinese cuisine is a "cheap" food offering compared with European cuisine such as French or Greek food. Although Chinese food was often offered at bargain prices to attract diners, there was plenty of hard work by American Chinese to not only to adapt cuisine from their homeland dishes but to establishing their restaurant clientele. </div><div><br /></div><div>As she so aptly demonstrates in <i>Chinese Menu</i>, Chinese food has a rich history with each dish having stories, myths or legends about how they were created or how their sometimes very unique names came about. Organizing her book according to a menu one might encounter in a Chinese restaurant, allows Lin to provide an overview of each category and then focus on some of the more common offerings. And to give her Western readers some context, Lin provides not only a map of the provinces in China, but also a historic timeline of the various dynasties and the foods she writes about in the book. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Chinese Menu</i> offers readers the opportunity to better appreciate not only Chinese cuisine but also the rich culture that underlies each dish they might encounter the next time they have Chinese take-out. Lin discusses the importance of dragons in Chinese culture and mythology, Chinese history and festivals. Accompanying each chapter is Lin's beautiful artwork, rendered "in pencil on tracing paper and then scanned, retouched and colored in Adobe Photoshop." The extensive Bibliography at the back is evidence that the author has done extensive research for each chapter to back up her own rich cultural experience. <br /><br /><i>Chinese Menu</i> is an exquisite and informative book with a beautiful cover that invites young readers inside. Highly recommended!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Chinese Menu by Grace Lin</div><div>New York: Little, Brown and Company 2023</div><div>288 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-66186810977525766222023-10-12T14:19:00.000-04:002023-10-12T14:19:23.746-04:00Eagle Drums by Nasugrao Rainey HopsonPina lives with his mother and father in the harsh Arctic tundra, where winter lasts eight months, leaving them only four months to stock food. They are Inupiaq.<div><br /></div><div>Out on a hunting trip, Pina catches twelve caribou. For each of the fallen animals, Pina honours their lives, placing a pinch of lichen on each of the animal's tongues and severing the third vertebra. He butchers the caribou, wrapping the meat in their skins and burying the bundles to keep them cool until he can return. Eventually, the caribou meat was stored in the family's siglauq, an underground chamber carved into the ice that never melted deep within the ground.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pina had two brothers, the elder Atau and a middle brother, Maligu. When Atau had disappeared long ago in the mountains, his beautifully carved bow, found by their parents, passed on to Maligu. He carved many images into the bow, of mountains and land animals, and where they can be found. But Maligu also disappeared in the mountains, leaving behind the bow. Neither Pina nor his parents knew what happened to either boy. Pina's father's grief was intense so he focused on being the best son.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pina and his parents live alone, rarely encountering any other people. Their life is good, and they always seem to have enough to eat. They shun people and Pina doesn't really know how his parents met.</div><div><br /></div><div>One night during dinner, Pina's mother indicates they need more obsidian and because his father will be fishing down the coast to bring in one last catch, Pina will have to travel to the mountains where it can be found. Pina senses his mother's worry but he is not concerned as he has made many trips to the mountains since the disappearance of his brothers without any problem.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikAB_RHRCuXsOgVWe6e9JlQJ4fjFlJtDdeETYiFLLZXbuQbiYg2K_L4kwCXEEuwcuygqvuFuDwN_rjbQ-rIxa0XlYsJaqUKSxPrvLX_YmVLRU6JsfyWm8AClw-cRh2z6ZIdFc7GCSxucMAUmM0WcuEXPBzr9LqfZ-O_vaD5pROPZ4TjnWM-BxYqjrwp0M/s1000/eagle%20drums.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="661" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikAB_RHRCuXsOgVWe6e9JlQJ4fjFlJtDdeETYiFLLZXbuQbiYg2K_L4kwCXEEuwcuygqvuFuDwN_rjbQ-rIxa0XlYsJaqUKSxPrvLX_YmVLRU6JsfyWm8AClw-cRh2z6ZIdFc7GCSxucMAUmM0WcuEXPBzr9LqfZ-O_vaD5pROPZ4TjnWM-BxYqjrwp0M/w424-h640/eagle%20drums.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><div>Taking his pack and his bow, Pina heads out with the blessing of his parents. When he stops to eat and rest at the base of the mountains, Pina hears the cry of a golden eagle. Suddenly he finds himself under attack by the eagle. Barely escaping, Pina confronts the great bird, waiting to see what it does. When Pina does not attack, the eagle settles and then begins violently shaking its head, causing the feathers to peel off. </div><div><br /></div><div>Pina sees before him a tall man, wearing a parka of golden feathers. He remembers his mother telling him that "Animals are like us, Pina...They choose to be animals, but when they need to be human, they take off their parkas. And then they are human for a while...Respect them as you would any strong spirit, and never challenge them; you will always lose..."</div><div><br /></div><div>Pina is certain that this being must have a purpose for revealing himself. The man tells Pina that he is responsible for the deaths of his brothers, bringing out the pain of their loss in him again. He swiftly approaches Pina, telling him he may call him Savik. The eagle-man offers Pina a choice, he can come with him or die like his brothers chose to. Knowing his parents would want him to live, Pina agrees to go with Savik and so picking up his gear follows him. For the next fourteen months, Pina will live with the eagles, learning the lessons they wish to teach him and bringing home this knowledge to his people.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Eagle Drums </i>tells the story of how the Messenger Feast came to be in the Inupait culture. The Inupiat live in the Arctic Circle and they were hunter-gatherers, relying on hunting and fishing as well as foraging. They hunted seals, whale, polar bears, caribou and fish and also foraged for berries, roots and shoots. With such a life-style, every part of the animal was used. Hopson portrays this throughout her novel, through her main characters, Pina and his parents. Pina's mother was especially skilled at turning caribou skins into beautiful parkas with exquisite borders. And Pina, while living with the eagles, knows what plants and roots he needs to search for in the deep of winter, saving himself from starving.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hopson, in her Author's Note, explains the Messenger Feast came about because long ago, their people were very isolated from one another. So men ran for miles to find other Inupiat and invite them to the feast. With the arrival of Christian missionaries, the Inupiaq songs and dances, their stories and their festivals were banned. It was only recently that the the Messenger Feast was reclaimed, after listening to the Elders' accounts of experiencing the festival when they were children.</div><div><br /></div><div>The origin story of the festival, related in <i>Eagle Drums</i> is that of a boy kidnapped by golden eagles who teach him lessons on how to make drums, compose songs, dance and how to build a qalgi, a large hall where all could come together to feast, dance and tell stories. The hero of the story, Pina is then tasked to bring together his community for the first feast when he returns home. His parents, thrilled to see their son whom they thought was lost, are happy to help plan for the feast, by storing food, making gifts for those who attend, and building a qalgi. </div><div><br /></div><div>Pina is taught much more than just the skills to hold a festival. From the eagles he learns that he does not have to do everything alone. When he and Savik begin to plan work on the large qalgi, Pina wishes that he had ten people to help him. To his surprise, the eagles help by bringing supplies for the building. Savik tells him that work goes much faster if you ask for help and work with others. This new idea makes Pina feel uncomfortable.<b> "He had never owed strangers anything before. With his family there was just this understanding."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The first festival has a profound effect on Pina. He had been raised by his parents to be wary of strangers. When he was a ten-years old, he remembered his family, while on their way to their wintering grounds, encountering a family on the tundra. Pina remembered being filled with fear as he had never been so close to strangers before. The strangers believed that Pina's family were rich because of their clothing. Pina saw that they were hungry and tired. At home that night Pina questions his father who tells him that because they do not know strangers, they cannot trust them. Pina wants to help the family and attempts to take food to them in the middle of the night but is prevented from doing so by his oldest brother. Atau tells Pina that when he did this, the people did not trust him and thought he would try to steal from them. </div><div><br /></div><div>After the feast, Pina experiences new feelings. <b>"He felt as if his very soul had grown and found roots in the people around him. He felt more connected than he had ever before, connected to the world, connected to the life around him, and connected to his parents. The celebrations filled him with such inspiration, such wonder, and and enduring strength. He felt his humanity blossom with new insight and a deeper sense of stability." </b> For Pina, the feast showed him that living more fully is to experience connections with others and the natural world. <br /><br /><i>Eagle Drums</i> was written and illustrated by Nasurgrao Rainey Hopson, a tribally enrolled Inupiaq author and illustrator who loves celebrating and helping to reclaim her Indigenous culture. Hopson is a gifted story-teller and her account of the origin of the Messenger Festival is both engaging and rich in details about life and survival in the high Arctic. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details: </b></div><div><br /></div><div>Eagle Drums by Nasugrao Rainey Hopson<br />New York: Roaring Brook Press 2023<br />245 pp.</div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1902923127818990835.post-70459255547973707522023-10-10T07:39:00.002-04:002023-10-10T07:39:23.686-04:00Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers: Remembering the "Comfort Women" of World War II by Han Seong-won<i>Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers</i> is a beautiful tribute to some of World War II's most courageous women survivors: girls and young women enslaved by the Japanese Imperial Army to be sexually abused for years.<div><br /></div><div>Between 1932 and 1945, the Japanese Imperial Army set up what they called "comfort stations" in war zones. With the outbreak of war in the Pacific during World War II, young girls were lured from home or forcibly taken and placed in these "comfort stations." It was not until 1991 that the Japanese government would even begin to acknowledge the existence of such places.</div><div><br /></div><div>In Chapter 1 Testimony, Han Seong-won offers the testimonies of these women, called Grandmothers because many of the women are now elderly and grandmothers. The first Grandmother to publicly testify about her enslavement by the Japanese Imperial Army was Kim Hak-soon, who filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government. As a result, women from many countries including the Philippines and the Netherlands testified. Eventually, August 14th was designated as "World Memorial Day for Comfort Women" to raise worldwide awareness of this tragic issue.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_POJn-h1rYGcQ7_-Wj0k8sfhFwh50VuvL48B48_HUAnl_afLTbzs55B1fHiDGYNWeIGYG5ls5s8LodBp0GZpQp9s53bqvLcW9teFhsSWGX4Y5lI5O05P8Wb30jv6mVFc6wHAERdGKGarQglIAJZFhDFT8V51g44zoaYVsDwmzHZ_XIWlLb7T_wcp6Pu0/s2000/grandmothers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1579" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_POJn-h1rYGcQ7_-Wj0k8sfhFwh50VuvL48B48_HUAnl_afLTbzs55B1fHiDGYNWeIGYG5ls5s8LodBp0GZpQp9s53bqvLcW9teFhsSWGX4Y5lI5O05P8Wb30jv6mVFc6wHAERdGKGarQglIAJZFhDFT8V51g44zoaYVsDwmzHZ_XIWlLb7T_wcp6Pu0/w506-h640/grandmothers.jpg" width="506" /></a></div><div>Grandmother Kim Bok-dong, a comfort woman, testified at the 1993 U.N. Human Rights Commission, and told her story in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. Grandmother Kang Il-chul was forced to work in a "comfort station" in Chanchun of Jilin Province, China. Grandmother Jan Ruff O'Herne, one of the few non-Asians, was a sex slave on Java Island, Indonesia, at a comfort station called Chilhaejung. She sewed the names of all the girls who arrived there on a white hankerchief. Grandmother Jan broke her silence about this hell in 1992 and testified in 2007 at a hearing in the United States House of Representatives.</div><div><br /></div><div>In Chapter 2 Memories, many of the Grandmother remember specific things about their home and life, such a love of singing, or a special folk songs. Some forget their names or their memories. For other Grandmothers, memories bring pain and open old wounds. And some make new memories in new cities like New York. </div><div><br /></div><div>In Chapter 3 Travelling Together explores how others can travel the road with the Grandmothers, working for recognition and an apology by Japan, helping to bring honour and healing to these women. </div><div>The author while visiting Paris, was struck by the fact that the city does not destroy things that are old. Instead it values them and the memories they bring. This led him to think about how eighty years after the war, people are suggesting that what happened to the Grandmothers be forgotten because it is in the past. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Grandmothers and what happened to them are remembered through their testimonies, scholarships to students, and in movies like "I Can Speak." And they are being helped by Japanese women like Misseuko Nobukawa who heard rumours about women and children at the front but didn't bother much about it. It was the testimony of Grandmother Kim Hak-soon that changed everything and made her ashamed to be Japanese. She now travels the journey of the Grandmothers, in particular Grandmother Lee Yong-soo for recognition and apology.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 2019, over twenty thousand people came together in protest and to remember on August 14 in South Korea. The author participated in this protest, held on the 7th World Memorial Day for the "comfort women" of Japan. By not forgetting, the memory of the Grandmothers is honoured.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Discussion</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers</i> is a moving tribute to the young girls and women, forced by the Japanese Imperial Army to be "sex slaves" for their soldiers as they rampaged through the Pacific. This crime against humanity was covered up by the Japanese government and military through the use of the euphemisms of "comfort women" and "comfort stations". In <i>Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers</i>, Han writes, <b>"From the stance of the perpetrators, the term "comfort women" is a way to hide the Japanese Imperial Army's horrible deeds."</b> He also notes that the term <b>"humiliates the survivors and deepens their wounds."</b> "Comfort women" is therefore enclosed in quotations as a form of resistance to this term which is used by survivors only because this is how Japanese historical records have labelled the women.</div><div><br /></div><div>This graphic memoir is not an easy read because the subject matter is horrifying even though Han does not go into any of the details of what the Grandmothers experienced as young women. The exact number of young girls and women involved is not truly known, but it is believed that anywhere between fifty thousand and two hundred thousand women were "sex slaves". Many of the women were minors and many women were lured by promises of work. Women were taken from Korea, Philippines, China, Vietnam. Burma, Thailand, Malay, and other countries including women from Australia and the Netherlands. They were repeatedly raped day and night, suffering horrific injuries and illness and many died of abuse or suicide. </div><div><br /></div><div>Han humanizes the young girls and women forcibly taken and abused so long ago. His portraits give faces to the "comfort women"; they are not simply a faceless, nameless group of survivors. They are real girls and women whose youth was lost in enslavement and abuse and whose trauma lives on with them. In fact, Han Seong-won's portrait of Grandmother Kim Bok-dong as a young girl and then as an elderly woman, especially highlights this reality. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers</i> is a book of remembering, of resilience, of determination, of care and of hope. The hope is that as more and more people are informed about what happened, that the Japanese government will do the right thing and apologize to the Grandmothers with sincerity, ask for forgiveness and make restitution.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Book Details:</b><br /><br />Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers: Remembering the "Comfort Women" of World War II by Han Seong-won<br />Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing 2023<br />174 pp. </div>About mehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08258946293501013131noreply@blogger.com0