LibrisNotes

The Traitor's Smile by Patricia Elliott

2012-01-25T18:16:00.001-05:00

The Traitor's Smile set in revolutionary France is the sequel to Elliott's Pale Assassin. We have a copy of the latter on order, but I just couldn't wait to read this book.

Eugenie De Boncoeur, a young aristocrat from France, has newly arrived in Deal, England, along with Julien de Fortin, a friend of Eugenie's brother, Armand. They are finally safe from the French Revolution which has claimed most of France's aristocrats. But Eugenie's brother, Arman De Boncoeur is languishing in La Grande Force, once a beautiful palace of the Marais, lately a prison for men.

Eugenie has escaped to Deal to stay with her English uncle, Thomas Coveney, who is a surgeon at the Naval Hospital in Deal, and his daughter Hetta. Hetta is an intelligent and spirited young woman who believes that the monarchy should be replaced. She often dresses as a boy so that she can go down to the harbour and help out the local smugglers. And she seems to have taken a romantic interest in Julien, much to Eugenie's dismay.

Unknown to all, Eugenie has been followed to Deal by Guy Deschamps, once a friend of Armand but who is now a spy who goes by the name of La Scapel and who is working for the sinister and cruel Raoul Goullet, known as La Fantome. Eugenie is unaware of Deschamps connections to Goullet and refuses to believe that Deschamps is the one who attacked Julien in France. However, she soon learns that Deschamps is quite willing to take her back to Paris, by force if necessary, to marry Goullet whom her guardian promised her to, years before. Guy Deschamps tells Eugenie that if she upholds her end of the contract, her brother will be set free by Goullet.

Eugenie and Hetta end up back in France, via a wayward balloon trip in a last minute escape from the clutches of Guy Deschamps. Once in France they are helped by those fighting the revolution. They eventually meet up with Julien who has returned to his country to continue fighting for peace. In pursuit, is Deschamps, who is determined to capture Eugenie and kill de Fortin, thus raising his profile with Goullet and ultimately Robespierre. Goullet's motives are more personal - he is out for revenge, the details of which the reader learns near the end of the book.

For the most part, The Traitor's Smile was an exceptionally exciting read, even if it was a bit predictable and even a little familiar. The Traitor's Smile is reminiscent of The Scarlet Pimpernel books written by Baroness Orczy. There are some similarities between the storyline of the two books, but the Pimpernel books are by far, better written and very very romantic. If you haven't read them, and you love historical fiction AND romance, I highly recommend the entire series by Baroness Orczy.

The characters are well developed even if our heroine, Eugenie, is at times frustratingly naive. Elliott's portrayal of the decay of France and the decline into anarchy is well done. Young readers will get a true sense of how a the French citizen's attempted to forge a new path for their country but inevitably lost the jewels of justice and liberty.

One aspect of the book I did not like was the attempt at romance. Romantic sections read like cheap paperback romances and were out of character with the quality of the writing in the rest of the book.

Book Details:
The Traitor's Smile by Patricia Elliott
New York: Holiday House 2010
308 pp.

It's A Girl - Documentary Film

2012-01-22T14:47:00.004-05:00

From the official website for the documentary film, "It's A Girl!" :

In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls(1) are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”.

Girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members.

The war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which, in combination with government policies, accelerate the elimination of girls.

Shot on location in India and China, It’s a Girl! explores the issue. It asks why this is happening, and why so little is being done to save girls and women.

The film tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters’ lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.

Currently in post-production, It’s a Girl! is scheduled for a 2012 release.

Many feminist and women's groups in the Western world do not want to fight against the cultural and religious beliefs nor the policies that result in gendercide, fearing that abortion rights will be eroded. In their silence, they are complicit in this holocaust of girls. All baby girls have the right to be born. All women have the right to bear their children, including their baby girls.

Please share this documentary trailer.

Visit It's a Girl! The Three Deadliest Words In The World.

Other organizations working to save women and their girl babies include: Women's Rights Without Frontiers.

Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart

2012-01-17T19:29:00.001-05:00

Seventeen year old Katherine whose twin sister Anna died this past February 6th is not coping well. It is now summer, and Katherine is distraught and has feelings of guilt and anger, especially towards her father and mother who appear outwardly at least, to "have gone on living". Katherine cannot forgive them for this.

Katherine's parents seem remarkably disengaged. Upper class 19th century Philadelphians, her father works at the Philadelphia National Bank while her mother is preoccupied with teas and women's rights. Katherine wants to tell her mother what happened so that she can receive her mother's forgiveness and in turn forgive herself. But her mother simply insists that the past remain in the past and that they look to the future. But the future is what Katherine is determined not to face.

So, Katherine plans to take her own life. She has been visiting the highest places in Philadelphia and when the book opens, she has decided that place to fly away will be the Colosseum. But when she climbs out onto the roof, she is discovered by Bennett, her sister's lover. Bennett has been shadowing Katherine for months because he knows her pain and knows what she wants to do.

Although Katherine doesn't act on her intentions throughout the rest of the summer, she hasn't forgotten what she wants. As she plans her next attempt the reader is filled in on the events of the previous year in the life of Anna and Katherine. Anna is the older twin, more inquisitive, and the one who seems to indulge in risky behaviour. And Katherine is the one who always rescues her.

"Still, as they got older, Katherine put herself on guard, made herself responsible for interrupting Anna's drift toward the perilous, for fixing the fences and defining the borders, the edges, the ends. Anna listened to Katherine when it was important, because Katherine's talent had never been beauty; it was saving, rescue."

But things changed last April when Anna became involved with Bennett, the baker's boy - a very unsuitable match for a girl from a family with a high social standing such as Anna and Katherine's. Bennett is, as their father describes people from the lower classes, a "dangerous neighbor". Anna's father had hoped to marry her to Alan Carver but Anna quickly cooled that idea. Instead, she bullies and manipulates Katherine into helping her arrange clandestine meetings with Bennett - something Katherine deeply resents.She feels betrayed by the loss of her close relationship with her twin.

When Katherine rebels at her sister's dishonesty with their parents, Anna simply ignores her and acts as though she doesn't need her. Anna tries to tell Katherine that she is judging Bennett because of his social status. "Look into his eyes sometime. Try and see him." she tells Katherine. Anna seems oblivious to the effect her behaviour is having on her sister.

Even when they travel to Cape May for holidays and Katherine makes Anna promise not to lie anymore and to tell their father, Anna breaks this promise too. She has no intention of doing this and continues to manipulate Katherine, causing them to drift further apart. Finally, Katherine decides that she can no longer save Anna. She decides to accept Anna as she is and in doing this, she feels she is responsible for her death.

"That night Katherine gave up trying to talk sense into Anna. That night she did not try to argue her twin sister out of her gargantuan joy; she did not try to save her. It was then that Katherine decided to begin to look the other way on purpose, but this time without anger, without the intent to prove a point. She decided to stop protecting Anna, so that she might love her more truly."

Until one day, Anna arranges for the two of them to go skating and meet up with Bennett - again without their father's knowledge. Events on that fateful day in February unfold in such a way that Katherine is not able to rescue Anna. She blames herself.

All of this is revealed to the reader on the day Katherine decides to climb to the top of the tallest building on the grounds of the Philadelphia Centennial Fair. Once again she meets Bennett and this time they have the conversation they both need to. Although Bennett reminds Katherine of the terrible tragedy, when Katherine really does look at him and listen to him, he helps her deal with her loss by realistically focusing on what happened and that no one could have saved Anna. This creates a crisis of identity for Katherine at this moment because Katherine's identity is completely tied up with being Anna's caretaker.

"For if Katherine isn't needed for anything, if she is no longer responsible for Anna, who is she now? What can she give?"

But meeting Bennett and coming to the Centennial Exhibition turns out to be the salvation of Katherine when she saves a baby and forms several new friendships; with a young man, William, who saves animals and a woman whose baby she cares for. In the end, there is hope and new possibilities for Katherine.

I actually thought there would be more about the Centennial Exhibition in this novel but it really plays a part only at the end. Kephart ably describes the fair and gives modern readers a sense of the setting with the modern up-to-date novelties on display at the fair across the street from Shantytown with its prostitutes and hucksters and the squalor of its wooden shacks.

"The wonders of the world slide past. Parisian corsets cavorting on their pedestals. Vases on lacquered shelves. Folding beds. Walls of cutlery. The sweetest assortment of sugar-coated pills, all set to sail on a yacht.....

At the intersection of the main aisle and the central transept is a palace of jewels: Tiffany, Starr & Marcus, Caldwell. ...See these cinnamon colored cameos; this diamond necklace; these perfect solitaires; these black, white, and pink pearls...."

Dangerous Neighbors doesn't get bogged down in Katherine's guilt, mainly because it's too short to do that and because the narrative flips from present to past, gradually revealing the relationship between the two sisters. It is emotional and we feel Katherine's brokenness and despair over the loss of her twin and the fact that her parents seem unaware of her emotional state. Dangerous Neighbors has at it's core themes of loss, guilt, and redemption as well as a the typical themes of teen suicide and identity. Brilliantly done and a great short read for teens looking for something different.

Book Details:
Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart
New York: Laura Geringer Books, Egmont USA 2010
176 pp.

Crossed by Ally Condie

2012-01-16T23:01:00.001-05:00

As in Matched, Crossed continues the saga of Ky and Cassia, this time told through both of their voices. As we learned in the first book, Ky as an Aberration has been sent out to the Outer Provinces supposedly for six months. But we learn in Crossed that he is a decoy villager. He along with other Aberrations are placed in specific areas in an attempt to make the Enemy believe that the Society still occupies these areas. They are given a warm coat, but only enough water and provisions to keep them alive until the Enemy kills them. The Society promises the Aberrations that after a six month tour of duty, they will be given "Citizen" status. However, no one has ever survived long enough to achieve this.

But for Ky, the Outer Provinces are his home. And he doesn't plan on sticking around to die. One night Ky along with Vick Roberts and a young boy name Eli escape into the Carving - a large series of canyons, during an Enemy attack. Ky's intent is to make it back into the Society to meet up with Cassia. But what he doesn't know is that Cassia is on her way to try to meet up with him.

Meanwhile, Cassia is on her work assignment at a camp in Tana Province. Her parents requested the work assignments as a way to let her attempt to locate Ky, but she's not been able to get near to the Outer Provinces, which is where Ky has been sent. She also learns about a movement called the Rising, and their leader named the Pilot who will lead a rebellion to confront the Society. After this next assignment, Cassia's final work position will be in one of the sorting centers in Central, the largest city in the Society. Cassia comes to the realization that she may have to escape and travel on her own to the Outer Provinces to find Ky.

Xander came to see Cassia before she left on her assignment and gave her several dozen of the blue tablets which Cassia believes will help her survive out in the wilds of the Outer Provinces. Cassia is careful to keep them safe and hidden. When she is getting ready for her last assignment before leaving for Central, Xander mysteriously shows up at the camp. He is passing through Tana on his way to Camas Province adjacent to the Outer Provinces. She meets with him and still feels an attraction for her old childhood friend. But she is determined to find Ky, despite having strong feelings for Xander. Although Xander appears to help Cassia get what she needs one has the feeling that there is something about him we don't know.

Eventually Cassia escapes her work detail by sneaking onto a transport to the Outer Provinces. She is accompanied by a girl she doesn't know named Indie. When Cassia and Indie are dropped off at their location, they meet a boy who knew Ky and saw him escape into the Carving. This boy shows them the way into the Carving and they go their separate ways, but not after Cassia offers him a few blue tablets.

Eventually Cassia and Indie meet up with Ky and Eli on the other side of the Carving. Cassia is not well and Ky, Indie and Eli discover that she has taken one of the blue tablets believing that they will help her survive. They tell her to her disbelief, that she is poisoning herself.

The canyons in the Carving are full of surprises. Ky has discovered the township - a village of farmers that has been recently abandoned. In caves far above the canyon walls he and Vick also find caves filled with artifacts - books, pamphlets and maps from the time before when people were allowed to create.

Ky and Cassia, as well as Indie and Eli decide to return to the township for food and supplies and the artifacts. At this time they meet a lone farmer, named Hunter who shows them a hidden cave containing something completely unanticipated. The significance of this discovery is not readily apparent, even by the end of this second novel. They also locate a map showing them were The Rising is based.

As a result of all of this new information, everyone's plans change. Cassia and Ky make discoveries about each other that both fill in gaps but also lead to new questions. Cassia whose sole intent was to find Ky now wants to join the Rising. Ky doesn't want this for himself or for Cassia. Indie also wants to find the Rising. Hunter wants to find the farmers who fled the township to safety. The novel ends with Cassia, Indie and Ky traveling downriver to the Rising.

Condie does an excellent job of maintaining suspense throughout Crossed. As the novel progresses there are plenty of mysteries. Did Xander know the truth about the blue pills? Is Xander working for the Society's and is the Society still manipulating what is happening to Cassia and Ky in some way? But we also learn more about each of the characters and the Society.

Matched and Crossed have a number of themes; government control, identity, life ethics, control of information. How much government control should there be? In the Society, the government controls every aspect of life, including what and how much food is consumed, the job you do and the person you marry, in order to achieve a long life span. This is no choice in love and relationships and social responsibility is coerced.

The issue of life ethics is a dominant theme in both novels which is not surprising given that they are dystopias. The elderly are euthanized at age eighty, political prisoners are murdered covertly, drugs are used to manipulate the general population and there is the deliberate poisoning of rivers to prevent rebellion. Not to mention that Cassia and Ky are part of an elaborate experiment that was undertaken without their consent or knowledge.

The Society also completely controls the flow of information to its people. All historical artifacts are destroyed leading to a black market trade in artifacts. In an attempt to obliterate the practice, there are random raids in neighbourhoods to locate and destroy artifacts. The general population doesn't know how to write and therefore cannot create or express. Any paper produced degrades quickly. Thus, no history is created for future generations.

Crossed wasn't as thrilling as Matched, but it was still a very good book. We see Cassia beginning to make decisions about what she wants in life - breaking out of the bubble that the Society creates for all its citizens. At times the book is slow mainly when we are reading about Ky and Cassia in their journey through the canyons. Overall though, the mystery of the Rising and the actions of the Society in the Outer Provinces as well as the conflict between Ky, Cassia and Xander make for an excellent read.

The book trailer by Penguin Young Readers is below:

Book Details:
Crossed by Ally Condie
New York: Dutton Books 2011
367 pp.

Catholicism by Father Robert Barron

2012-01-14T22:47:00.000-05:00

The book Catholicism and its accompanying television series of the same name, have been the talk of the Catholic world for some time now. Pre-publication reviews for Father Robert Barron's books were unlike that for any other Catholic publication in recent years. His documentary series offers viewers both Catholic and non-Catholic alike, an inside look at the Catholic faith in a way never quite presented to the world.

Barron is a visionary in the use of social media and electronic media to push forward the new evangelization that John Paul II challenged all Catholics to undertake in the new millennium. His website, WordOnFire, is the virtual home for his nonprofit Catholic ministry dedicated to "draw people into or back to the Catholic faith." Word On Fire is a beautiful, tantalizing cornucopia of Catholicism at its best and I highly recommend it. There are articles, commentary, radio and video, and Father Barron definitely continues the tradition that Mother Angelica pioneered with her television station EWTN.

In 2008 Father Barron began to film a 10 part series about the Catholic faith, utilizing his travels throughout the world. The trailer for the series which ran on PBS in 2011 is below.

I'm reading the accompanying book, Catholicism. A Journey To The Heart Of The Faith. The timing of this book couldn't be better, with Catholics and the Catholic faith itself under intense pressure by many different segments of society today.

I'll be reviewing this book over the next two weeks.

There are ten chapters in the book; the first titled "Amazed and Afraid: The Revelation of God Become Man.
This chapter's focus is on God become man: Jesus, and his mission on Earth. Father Barron explores the Jesus' mission in the context of the expectations of the nation of Israel. Jesus' purpose or mission what four-fold:

"He would gather the scattered tribes of Israel; he would cleanse the Temple of Jerusalem; he would definitively deal with the enemies of the nation; and, finally, he would reign as Lord of heaven and earth....that through these actions Yahweh would purify Israel and through the purified Israel bring salvation to all."

Gather the scattered tribes of Israel.
Father Barron then commences to demonstrate just how Jesus fulfilled each of these purposes. He begins by discussing the uniqueness and even peculiarity of Jesus who unlike other "prophets" asked the daring question, "Who do people say that I am?". His intent was to draw people to himself, unlike others before him who focused on words and actions. Only God, or the God-Man would do this; in effect showing us what it means to be a Christian disciple. When we understand who Jesus is, we can begin to comprehend why he behaved as recorded in the Gospels. Jesus went against the social conventions of his time to establish the importance of forming the Kingdom of God here on Earth. This was to transcend duty, family, religious ritual - in short, everything.

Cleanse the temple.
Father Barron demonstrates how God chose a people - the descendants of Abraham to form a "priestly nation" to model the Kingdom of God.

"The people Israel were shaped primarily according to the laws of right worship and derivately by the laws of right behavior so that they could model to the nations how to praise and how to act."

However,time and again as Israel failed in its mission to bring God to other nations, and as its faith was corrupted, so was its worship.
The temple was a symbol of the Garden of Eden (when man was in union with God) and represented Israel's mission to evangelize or as Barron states, to "Eden-ize" the pagan world. With Jesus on earth, he redefined the temple - as himself.

"If Jesus is, in his own person, the true Temple, then he should be the definitive source of teaching, healing, and forgiveness, and this is just what the Gospels tell us."

Jesus' actions of cleansing the Temple and his response that "in three days I will raise it up" when confronted by the Pharisees suggest that he was "telling the people that the entire purpose of the earlier temple would be transfigured in him, transposed, as it were, into a new key." There is also a wonderful exposition of how there is no way to explain the development of Christianity as a messianic movement without the resurrection. All the apostles, save one, died in their efforts to evangelize the world. They did not die for a "good man" who "symbolized the presence of God" but for a man who was both man and God.

Definitively deal with the nation's enemies.
The ancient nation of Israel had many enemies and had been overpowered and sugjugated by numerous nations throughout its history. The Jewish people therefore,had a strong expectation that the Messiah would be a military conqueror. As did C.S. Lewis, Father Barron suggests that the baby Jesus was born in a quiet, backward town to very humble parents so as to "slip in behind enemy lines". And as the Gospels indicate, the military leaders took seriously the prediction of a great kind out of the Jewish nation, to the point that they slaughtered all the children 2 years of age and under.

Reign as King of heaven and earth
Barron demonstrates that the circumstances of Jesus birth redefined the nature of "kingship" from one of power and self-interest, to that of love, sacrifice and "the willingness to be bound for another." He contrasts "two very different personifications of power" by describing Augustus Caesar and Jesus Christ.

This first chapter was rich with wonderful insights into the life of Jesus Christ and sets the stage for the next chapter which discusses the teachings of Jesus. For although the "Christian faith centers on who Jesus is", his teachings have transformed the world and continue to do so.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

2012-01-12T21:58:00.002-05:00

War Horse is typical Morpuro - simple, unadorned writing for children interested in a good animal story.

War Horse tells the story of Joey, a red bay, in the voice of the now famous horse. Joey is bought as a "gangling, leggy colt", a mere six months old, by Albert's father. He won a bidding war with Farmer Easton, with whom he has had fights over fencing between their adjoining land. Joey settles into life on the farm with thirteen year old Albert Narracott, the young lad who loves him and trains him up. The old mare, Zoey, who is also a working horse, helps Joey adapt to his new life on the Narracott farm. Gradually Joey comes to trust and love Albert and his gentle manner.

But Albert is stunned when his father, in order to pay the mortgage on the farm, sells Joey to the British Calvary at the start of World War I. What follows are the adventures of this beautiful horse during the Great War, first for the British, and then for the Germans. After a disastrous British Calvary charge in which there are only two survivors, Joey and Topthorn, a large, black stallion. Joey and Topthorn are friends who trained together in the Calvary and now they find themselves doing ambulance duty for the Germans and eventually working at pulling the guns for the German artillery. The war takes its toll, not just on the humans but the many horses who are worked to their deaths. After the sudden death of Topthorn, Joey cannot take anymore and flees from the battlefield in terror. Joey ends up trapped in the mud and wire of no man's land where he is saved by the joint efforts of the German and British soldiers. Unlike the movie version, in the book, Joey's reuniting with Albert is much less dramatic, though no less emotional. For Albert has joined the Veterinary Corps as a verterinary orderlie in the hopes of finding his beloved horse. And find him, he did. In this aspect the book is very different from the movie where Albert is a member of the British infantry who leads a charge across no-man's land, only to be gassed.

Readers will find the book very different from the movie of the same name. In fact, they will come to appreciate the creative genius of Steven Spielberg who brought the story to life on the cinematic screen. The essence of the story is the same, but much enhanced by the brilliant cinematography, excellent dramatization of some of the events in the book and a good script. This is one of those rare times when the movie really is better than the book. This is due in part to ability of cinema to portray the horrors of war, and the relationship between a man and his horse in a more visual and appealing way.

Farm Boy, the sequel to War Horse is due to be published in March 2012. In this follow up, Albert's son is now an old man who reminisces about his war-hero father, life on the farm and their horses, Joey and Zoey.

Book Details:
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
New York: Scholastic Press 2007 (1982)
165 pp.

A Faraway Island by Annika Thor

2012-01-08T19:40:00.001-05:00

A Faraway Island is the first book in a four book series by Swedish author, Annika Thor, about two Austrian-Jewish sisters who are sent to live in Sweden during the Second World War. The books were written in 1996 and have recently been translated from Swedish into English. The first two books have recently been published by Random House Yearling Books, with the final two slated to follow soon, although no date has been issued as to when.

Annika Thor was born into a Jewish family living in Goteborg, Sweden sixty years ago. Thor considers that had her grandparents not immigrated from Belarus in the early 1900's, she would likely not have been born. After the Kristallnacht in November, 1938, the Jewish community in Sweden arranged for the transport of over five hundred Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to safety. Sadly, the parents of these children were never allowed to immigrate with them, and many never saw their children again in this life. The Jewish children generally ended up living in rural areas, very different from their middle class upbringing. The cultural shock, in addition to the stress of relocating alone, must have been enormously traumatic. As with many Jewish children who were placed with families of other faiths, often their cultural and religious heritage was not respected.

Thor based her books on "interviews with about a dozen of the real refugees who shared their childhoods, their letters, and their diaries, as well as on the research of Ingrid Lomfors, a Jewish historian in Sweden who explored the destinies of the five hundred refugee children."

I've only read the first book but I simply can't wait to read the entire series. Despite the setting (rural Sweden) and the time (pre-World War I), A Faraway Island evokes reminders of Anne of Green Gables. Twelve year old Stephanie (Stephie) Steiner and her seven year old sister, Nellie, are placed with two families on a small island off the coast of Sweden. The girls are split up with Nellie living with the kindly Auntie Alma and her family, while Stephie is sent to live with the crusty and stiff Auntie Marta and Uncle Evert. Auntie Marta is a dead ringer for Marilla Cuthbert while Uncle Evert is a sort of Matthew Cuthbert who relates to the young, lonely Stephie in an endearing way. He even tells Auntie Marta, "She's a fine girl. I'm glad we took her in." There's an encouraging school teacher who motivates Stephie to excel in her studies, cruel classmates who taunt Stephie, a helpful benefactor who arranges for Stephie to continue her studies onto the next level in Goteborg, and a potential romantic interest in Sven, the young man who spends the summer at Auntie Marta's house - all very similar to Anne Shirley's story in the Green Gables books by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

This short novel is well written and holds the reader's interest with the ongoing troubles and tribulations of the young protagonist who must adapt to her new life in Sweden. Stephie's plight is real and it's easy to feel a great deal of empathy for her, especially since we know what will happen in the years to come.

This book will be of interest to girls, aged 8 to 12 who enjoy historical fiction. I'll review the next in the series as soon as it comes on our library bookshelves!

Book Details:
A Faraway Island by Annika Thor
Random House Children's Books 2009 translated by Linda Schenck
247 pp.

Legend by Marie Lu

2012-01-07T23:06:00.001-05:00

Legend is a gripping dystopian thriller from beginning to end. Lu's debut novel is a brilliant start to what promises to be a well written, exciting trilogy.

What was once the City of Los Angeles is now the Republic, while the eastern portion of the continent is known as the Colonies. Much of the Republic is flooded and lies in ruin, with decaying high rises, impoverished people and frequent plagues. Run by an aging presidential leader, Elector Primo, the Republic is at war with the Colonies.

Daniel Altan Wing, who goes by the name of Day, is 15 years old and leads the life of a fugitive - that of the Republic's most wanted criminal. Day is wanted for numerous crimes including assault, arson, theft, and destruction of military property. He's highly intelligent and physically gifted. But Day apparently failed the Trial - a test taken when you are 10 years old and designed to determine your fate in life. If you pass the test depending upon your score you continue on to high school and university or college. If your score is low, you join the poor, working in the power plants or water turbines. If you fail, you are sent to the labs to be examined for genetic imperfections. You never see your family again.

Day failed his trial but he managed to escape the labs and has been on the run ever since. His mother believes he is dead. But Day is very much alive and when he sees his family identified as suffering from the plague, he breaks into a hospital hoping to steal plague cures. Things don't go as planned and Day ends up injured and confronting Captain Metias Iparis as he escapes. He wounds Iparis and disappears into the slum sector of Los Angeles.

In contrast to Day, June Iparis, is 15 year old prodigy of the Republic. She and her family are wealthy citizens, her parents having been medical researchers. After the death of her parents, June lives with her brother Metias, in an apartment in Los Angeles. June achieved a perfect Trial score and is about to graduate from Drake University, the most prestigious in the Republic. But when her brother, Metias is killed by outlaw Day, June asks and receives permission to hunt him down and capture him. June succeeds but not before she gets to know Day who not only saves her life but also is not as malicious as portrayed by the Republic.

In an attempt to understand why Day doesn't match what the Republic has portrayed him as and to discover if his claim that he did not kill Metias is true, June hacks into the Republic's databases and reviews her brother's diaries. She makes a shocking discovery that forces her to make choices she never ever would have considered.

The characters of Day, June and Metias are well drawn and supported by a small cast of secondary characters equally well portrayed. Day is a likeable hero and underdog and it's easy to root for him. He challenges June to think more deeply about what she is being told by the Republic. Even when she betrays him, Day is still good to the core, refusing to hate her for what she's done. June, in contrast, although as intellectually and physically gifted as Day is, must grow emotionally and morally.

Although 2011 will definitely be remembered for its focus on dystopian fiction, Lu's effort is by far one of the best published that year. The story, told in the alternating points of view of June and Day and easily distinguished by the change in font and colour of text, is fast paced, with a strong plot line. It will be interesting to see where Lu takes the story from here, since this book could easily stand alone.

It's too bad such a great book has such a shoddy, and to put it bluntly, lame book trailer. PenguinUSA ought to have done a much better job on this one. Shame on them.

Book Details:
Legend by Marie Lu
New York: G.P Putnam's Sons (Penguin Group)
305 pp.

K-Pop Artists: BoA

2012-01-06T22:17:00.003-05:00

One of my favourite Korean artists is Kwon Boa, known as BoA. BoA is considered the Queen of Korean Pop and was discovered by SM Entertainment in 1998, one of the major labels promoting and managing Korean musicians. She was a mere 11 years old. Although very young when discovered, BoA trained for two years in SM Entertainment's Academy before releasing her debut album. Her second album, Listen To My Heart was a huge success in Japan and represented a breakout for her.

Unlike North American artists, it seems Asian artists release an incredible number of albums in a very short period of time and BoA is no exception to this. She has released nine Korean albums including Hurricane Venus in 2010, seven Japanese albums and one English language album, BoA which was released in 2009.

There are several factors responsible for BoA's success; she's able to speak Korean, Japanese, Mandarin and English, and in addition to remarkable vocals, she can dance. The brilliant marketing by SM Entertainment has contributed to her success. Her attempt to break into the American music scene has had mixed results and has been largely untracked by the mainstream media.

Recently BoA has re-released a self-titled album BoA Deluxe in an attempt to recapture American interest. My favourite videos are "I Did It For Love" which has her trademark hip-hop dancing. There's lots of Michael Jackson/Janet Jackson influences in both costuming and dance moves and of course the requisite catchy tune. What I don't like is the black outfits BoA and her backups are wearing against a mostly black background. The girl can dance. Let us see her!

To get a good look at BoA's dancing skills check out her "Eat You Up" video. This is more representative of BoA as an artist instead of her above attempt to sexualize her dancing to make her more marketable in the USA. I like the idea behind Eat You Up - BoA goes into an audition and blows the place apart. Just what every young artist hopes to do during an such an important and stressful life event.....

Throughout the years, this young performer has matured, drawing on and developing her hip hop influences and her Korean heritage. What attracts my interest to this performer is her hip hop dancing and her R&B vocals. Her videos are highly stylized and typical of the Korean genre with fast clips.

For more on this talented young artist, check out her website.

The Name of The Star by Maureen Johnson

2012-01-04T23:04:00.057-05:00

The Name of the Star is a fantastic novel that combines a ghost story with history, mystery and suspense. I don't generally read paranormal, vampire or werewolf fiction but this simply looked too interesting to pass up.

Aurora (Rory) Deveaux, from Benouville, Louisiana, is a senior who has accompanied her parents to England. While her parents do a year's sabbatical teaching American law at the University of Bristol, Rory is attending Wexford, a sixth form college, in the East End of London. Upon her arrival in London, Rory finds the city abuzz with rumours of a Jack the Ripper copycat. She learns that someone has been imitating the infamous Ripper by murdering a young woman on the anniversary of the first Ripper murder and in the same location. Despite all the hype about the murder and its similarity to the first Ripper murder, Rory commences to settle in at Wexford, meeting her roommate Julianne Benton (Jazza) and a cute guy named Jerome. She finds herself coerced into joining the field hockey team by the "Call me Claudia" whom Rory is convinced spends her time "wrestling large woodland animals".

Life seems pretty good at Wexford but soon all of London including Wexford, is caught up in "Rippermania". After two murders are committed, all of London waits tensely for the third and fourth murders - the double event of September 30th, mimicking Jack the Ripper's murders. When the third murder occurs, Jerome, whom Rory likes, suggests she and Jazza sneak out of their dormitory and come over to watch things from the rooftop of Aldshot, the boy's residence. Rory and Jazza do this but when they return to their residence and are sneaking back inside, Rory sees an odd-looking bald man walking by. He stops to talk to her, saying good night but when Rory asks Jazza about the man, she discovers that strangely, Jazza did not see him, even though he was directly in front of her. The next morning the body of the fourth victim lies on the green in front of Wexford and it seems that the man Rory saw was possibly the Ripper copycat.

Soon a CCTV video surfaces on the internet of the actual murder of one of the victims. It shows the actual murder but the murderer isn't visible in the footage. After the murder on the Wexford campus, Jazza and Rory get a new roommate, Bhuvana Chodhari (Boo) who seems out of place. Rory soon discovers that Boo is not a student and when she follows her she sees Boo meeting Stephen, a policeman, and a woman from the 1940's who is actually a ghost. Boo and Stephen take her to meet Callum, a London transit worker - the third member of their group which is part of a top secret British police service that investigates ghosts and their activity.

Rory comes to the chilling realization that she is seeing people that others cannot see - ghosts of people. She learns that after her recent near death experience, she has developed this unique ability. She now realizes that the man she saw that night while sneaking back into her residence is the Ripper and that he is a ghost. Her knowledge of the killer and her ability to sight "Shades" as these ghosts are called has placed Rory in serious danger. But danger or not, Rory knows this new Ripper must be stopped.
From this point on, author Maureen Johnson weaves an intricate and fascinating story of this modern day Ripper revealing his history and the motive behind his killing spree. The story builds to a fast paced and exciting finale, but along the way we are treated to the historical details of the original Ripper murders.

Johnson takes some time to set the stage and develop the character of Rory, life in London and school life at Wexford but this is well worth the effort because she creates a realistic setting and a believable character the reader can identify with.

Although all the ends are nicely tidied up, The Name of The Star could easily have a sequel. I hope Maureen Johnson will consider doing this!

Book Details:
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
New York: Putnam & Sons 2011
374 pp.

The Year in Review: Best and Worst of 2011

2011-12-31T22:49:00.000-05:00

I've read many books this year, some have been fantastic, enjoyable reads, others not so much.
Below are a few of my top reads for 2011. I haven't put them in any specific order but definitely Delirium is up there along with a 2010 book, Matched (which my library system didn't receive until 2011) as probably my overall favourites.

Top Young Adult Fiction Books:

1. The Future of Us by Jay Asher
2. Delirium by Lauren Oliver
3. Divergent by Veronica Roth
4. Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggari
5. Bunheads by Sophie Flack
6. Queen of Water by Laura Resau
7. How To Save A Life by Sara Zarr
8. Karma by Cathy Ostlere
9. Eve by Anna Carey
10. Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
11. The Tiffin by Mahtab Narsimhan
12. Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Septys

Most Disappointing Books:
These books I anticipated reading but ultimately were very disappointing for one reason or another.

1. The Fox Inheritance by Mary E. Pearson
2. The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller
3. David by Mary Hoffman
4. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
5. You Have Seven Messages by Stewart Lewis
6. Wither by Lauren DeStefano
7. In Trouble by Ellen Levine

Top Adult Fiction Books
I managed to squeak in a few adult fiction novels but there are still many left untouched this year (again).

1. Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
2. Far to Go by Alice Pick
3. Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson
4. Tell It To The Trees by Anita Rau Badami

Best Movie:

Hands down, it was Hugo.

Weirdest Movie:

By far, it was The Three Musketeers, which despite the very original twist, I did enjoy.

An Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpurgo

2011-12-30T23:59:00.003-05:00

This delightful little book, suitable for children between the ages of 9 to 12, is based on a true story about two children and their mother who escape from the bombed city of Dresden with a young elephant, in February, 1945. The story is told by an elderly woman, Lizzie, who is a resident of the nursing home where the narrator of the novel works as a nurse.

The nurse's son, Karl, has developed a friendship with the elderly Lizzie and she frequently tells him about how when she was a girl, she came to have "an elephant in the garden". At first Karl's mom is skeptical but on February 13, they find the old woman very upset in her room. When Karl's mom asks Lizzie if the date has any special meaning for her, Lizzie tells her that it was the day her life changed forever; "On February the thirteenth I am always sad. The wind in the trees, it makes me remember."

At this point they encourage Lizzie to recount the events some 65 years earlier. Lizzie who was known as Elizabeth then, her mother whom they called Mutti and her younger brother Karli, lived in Dresden. Elizabeth's father was a German soldier serving on the Eastern Front, fighting the Russians, while her mother worked at the zoo in Dresden. The people of Dresden worried about the bombing of their beautiful city, which so far had been spared. But the Allies where concerned that Dresden would be used as a headquarters to attack the advancing Russians and so there were rumours that a bombing was coming. Because of this Mutti and the staff of the zoo worried about what they would have to do to the animals should such a thing occur. They knew that all the wild animals would have to be shot. Karli was very distraught over this and Mutti hatched a plan to save Marelene, a young elephant.
One night Elizabeth and her brother, are surprised to see an elephant in the garden. Mutti has brought Marlene to stay with them at night. The young elephant has become increasingly distraught over the death of her mother and Mutti is trying to help the animal cope.

On the night of February 13th, Elizabeth, Karli and Mutti decide to take Marlene for a walk in a nearby park. When Marlene is enraged by a barking dog, she takes off after it, leading them away from home and the center of Dresden. Suddenly, they hear the air-raid sirens and soon after the bombers approaching the city. Too late for them to hide, Elizabeth, Karli and Mutti can only watch in horror as waves of Allied bombers fly over the city dropping incendiary bombs. With Dresden burning, they have no choice but to flee to the countryside to escape the flames. One of the strongest memories Lizzie has is of the burning, sucking wind that threatened to draw them back towards the burning city.

Eventually they do make it into the countryside traveling with the elephant seeking food and shelter and heading towards the west and safety. As a result of this journey, Elizabeth's family meets up with a downed Canadian airman hiding in a barn. This chance meeting changes Elizabeth's life forever.

An Elephant in the Garden is an engaging short novel for readers in the 9 to 12 age range. The are lovely ink and wash sketches throughout the book, which aid in bringing the story to life. But those wanting a story with a bit more depth will be disappointed. Morpurgo's style is unadorned and there is appeal in telling a story in this way.

Historical notes on this important event and a map at the beginning of the novel would have helped young readers immensely. The bombing of Dresden is an important and controversial historical event within World War II and some background material at the end would have added a nice touch to this book. That is part of the depth that is characteristically lacking in his books. Nevertheless, this story is a great introduction for young readers to an important event.

One complaint I do have is the cover of the HarperCollins I read here in Canada. This is the cover of the book I read. Meh. My favourite cover is the top one.

Book Details:
An Elephant In The Garden by Michael Morpurgo
London: HarperCollins Childrens Books 2010
233 pp.

Warhorse. Movie Review

2011-12-29T23:16:00.006-05:00

I went to see War Horse over the Christmas holidays and overall, I enjoyed this movie very much. It is a drama about a boy and his beloved horse, whom he loses to the cavalry in theGreat War (World War I).

Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) and his parents, Ted and Rosie, are tenant farmers on the estate of a wealthy man named Lyons (David Thewlis). When Ted attends a local auction, he gets into a bidding war with Lyons and ends up paying 30 guineas that he cannot afford, for a thoroughbred horse that is skitterish, stubborn and completely useless to him.

When Albert sees the horse his father has purchased he is thrilled because he has loved this horse from afar for some time. He reassures his father that he will train the horse whom he names Joey, to pull the plough. Despite ridicule and hostility from Lyons and his sons, Albert does succeed in training Joey to plough and his gentle ways with the horse calm and tame him. They form a bond that is deep and lasting.

However, when disaster strikes, Ted is forced to sell Joey to the British cavalry in order to save the farm. World War I has just broken out and this means that Joey will go overseas with the British army to fight in the war. Albert is stricken to learn this but he is reassured by Captain Nicholls who has purchased Joey, that he will write to him and take good care of Joey.

What follows are the adventures of Joey throughout the Great War, as he passes from Nicholls who dies during a cavalry charge against the Germans, into the hands of many different people including the German army. Joey is deeply traumatized as a workhorse in the German army and flees through the trenches and into No Man's Land, in a final effort to escape. There in a frenzied terror, he is trapped in the barbed wire, unable to free himself and horribly wounded. When the English and Germans realize what has happened, they work together to free the injured animal. Who he will go with is determined by a toss of a coin; the English win and Joey is taken to a field hospital.

Meanwhile when Albert comes of age, he joins the war effort and is sent overseas. Albert is seriously injured in a gas attack and is taken to a field hospital to be treated. It is there that he is reunited with his beloved horse.

Director Steven Spielberg has taken an great animal story and made it into an old style Hollywood movie. The cinematography is incredibly beautiful with the gorgeous Devon countryside in stark contrast to the stark, macabre reality of No Man's Land. The acting is superb; no actor overwhelms the story and takes it away from the main character - which is of course, the horse. Jeremy Irvine is an adequate Albert.

War Horse is a book written for children ages 9 to 12 and the movie takes this into account. Spielberg captures the reality of war without all the gore and blood. For example, when the two young German deserters are caught, their execution in a field is blocked out by the timely passing of the blade of a nearby windmill. No Man's Land, pock marked, filled with corpses, smoke and fire, is eery but not overly frightening. Even Joey, when completely caught in the barbed wire, has injuries that are suggested but not really shown. A horse racing through fences and fences of barbed wire would be a bloodied mess. Just watching Joey race through the black doom of No Man's Land is enough to convey the absolute distress of the horse and the horror of it all.

The occasional use of humour to provide comic relief is well done. One of the best scenes in the movie is the interaction between the British and German soldiers as they work together briefly to free Joey. In fact, I thought that many of the soldier characters were especially well cast.

I would love to see the broadway play of the same name, in part because of the unique design of the horses.

And I plan on reading Morpurgo's short novel.

This is a great movie, well suited for boys aged 9 to 12 years of age. At almost 2 hours in length, it's a bit long and could have been shortened somewhat by about 20 minutes. But otherwise, I highly recommend it because it's something quite different than the usual fare being pumped out by Hollywood these days.

Far to Go by Alison Pick

2011-12-28T15:06:00.009-05:00

Either way, when I think of the human potential stolen, of the millions of little lights snuffed out, I can't help but wish that the living, at least, would embrace what was taken from the dead.

Far To Go is the interweaving of two stories - a current narrative which overlaps a historical one. The present day narrator is an elderly woman whose identity I can't reveal because the reader doesn't learn this until almost the end of the novel. The past narrative is the dominant one of the book and recounts the story of a Jewish Czech couple, Pavel and Annelise Bauer who are living in the Sudetenland in 1938 and who struggle to survive in the rapidly deteriorating conditions prior to the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland and the beginning of World War II. It is told by the Bauer's governess, Marta Mueller, 23 years of age, who comes from a troubled background.

Pavel and Annelise live with their son, Pepik, in a small town in the Sudetenland, where they own a factory built by Pavel's father. Pavel, whose father fought for the Germans in World War I, is a Czech nationalist. Pavel is the eternal optimist while Anneliese is emotionally distant, fashionable and more practical.

The Bauer's story, as told by Marta, opens with ominous indications that the Germans will occupy the Sudetenland, which they lost after World War I. Czech Jews are beginning to experience the effects of marginalization, their factories and businesses are being occupied, including Pavel's factory. Other Jews are beaten to death or attacked. Anneliese wants to leave while they still can, but Pavel refuses, saying that they must "live what we believe in". Because Pavel insists upon staying, Anneliese decides to take matters into her own hands and does something that drives a permanent wedge between her and Pavel.

Eventually, the family along with many other refugees, relocates to Prague amid further chaos, in the belief that Czechoslovakia will safe. They are mistaken and as the crisis intensifies, they see their options slowly dwindle and eventually disappear. Unable to obtain the necessary exit visas and travel permits, in desperation, the Bauers make a decision that changes their lives forever. They decide to try to get Pepik onto the Kindertransport out of Czechoslovakia to safety in Britain.

Within Pavel and Anneliese's story is that of Marta. Marta is sexually involved with Ernst Anselm, a married man and Pavel's assistant at the factory. But Marta learns that Ernst is not loyal to Pavel and is a Nazi sympathizer. In fact, he is a sadistic and cruel man who thinks only of himself. Marta is a complex person, undecided about who to be loyal to and quite frightened of being abandoned. She has no family and is terrified she will be left behind by the Bauers, whatever they decide to do. Ernst warns her that she will ultimately have to choose and soon. Marta experiences great conflict, changing her mind frequently based on what happens in the Bauer household. The choices Marta makes directly impact the Bauers, in ways she could not have fathomed resulting in tremendous guilt. However, this guilt never seems to really impact how Marta behaves. She simply does what she feels she needs to - perhaps what many people do in dire situations.

Interwoven, infrequently with the Bauer's story, is the present day story told by an elderly narrator who is a Holocaust researcher by the name of Lisa. Among her many areas of research, Lisa also has studied the Kindertransport. The Kindertransport was a program in which Jewish children were sent out of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany to safety in Britain. It began after the pogrom of November 9 and 10, 1938, known as Kristallnacht. Lisa is trying to make contact with someone, a person she has spent her entire life looking for. Finally, after all her years of hard work, cutting through the reticence of Holocaust survivors to share their stories, she has managed to locate this one person whom she has more than a passing connection to. Lisa sets up a meeting with this survivor which eventually reveals to the reader how all the narratives fit together -the past finally catching up to the present.

Overall, the writing in this novel is brilliant and eloquent. It's difficult not to read the Bauer's story and feel a sense of impending doom and overwhelming tragedy. We know that if the Bauer's don't act quickly, it will be too late and we know what lies in their future. Their story is all the more poignant because as Europe careens towards war, their relationship unravels, the result of personal tragedy, personal loss, betrayal and the developing crisis in Czechoslovakia. There is tragedy on many levels too - ethnic, national and personal.

One aspect that Pick is exceptional at depicting in her book is the gradual descent of Europe as a region and also on an individual level, bit by bit into racial hatred and war. This is especially well demonstrated by the character of Ernst, who whispers to Marta, asking her if she's noticed whether Jews smell.When he blurts this out during one of their clandestine meetings, he immediately retracts it. He's not sure what he should or should not say. Later on Ernst talks about how he's is beginning to feel that Germany and the Sudetenland would be better off without Jews and that it's not about religion but race. While Marta doesn't know what she believes, she does make a point of noting whether or not Pavel smells. However Ernst is an opportunist, or maybe worse yet, a predator. He begins to actively try to seize all of the Bauer's assets. But he still has a glimmer of conscience when he appeals to Marta for affirmation.

"He was more uncertain than he was letting on, about his feelings towards the Jews and how his old friend Pavel might fit in with them. He wanted to be bolstered, reassured. Ernst too, Marta realized, felt guilty. Even if he himself was unaware of it."

Pick keeps her readers engaged by the ongoing mystery of the identity of the book's narrator and her connection to the Bauer family. It works well and creates a multi-faceted story that holds till the very end. Far To Go is a unique blend of historical fiction with modern mystery. There are themes of identity, loss, and betrayal throughout. A few unnecessary items creep into the story but overall a brilliantly conceived piece of story-telling.

For more information on the Kindertransport please check out the Kindertransport Association website at www.kindertransport.org.

Listen to Oliver Gebhardt, an 8 year old German Jew who left his mother and grandmother and was placed on a Kindertransport to Britain.

Book Details:
Far To Go by Alison Pick
Toronto: House of Anasi Press 2011
314 pp.

Under The Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

2011-12-25T13:51:00.005-05:00

a mesquite

in the rose garden

In the squint of morning,

before anyone else is awake,

when the roaring sounds

of unbridled verses

rush furiously through my head,

the mesquite is my confidant.

I lean back against its sturdy trunk

and read aloud every word

imprinted en mi corazon.

The mesquite listens quietly --

as if the poems budding in my heart,

them blossoming in my notebook,

are Scripture -- and never tells a soul

the things I write.

Under The Mesquite is another fine young adult novel written by a newcomer and Mexican-American author, Guadalupe Garcia McCall. This exquisitely crafted novel in free verse tells the story of fourteen year old Lupita from Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. When she was six years old, Lupita's family left Mexico for the United States, moving to Eagle Pass, Texas. Lupita is the oldest in a family of eight children, six girls and two boys, the four youngest children having been born in the U.S.

The novel is divided into six parts each following Lupita and her family's life over the past eight years. Part One, The Weight of Words sets the stage by providing the reader with some background information important to the storyline. In addition to telling us about her family we also learn that when Lupita was in her first year of high school in Eagle Pass, she learns that her mother has cancer. This knowledge is unspoken between them. Her mother will not speak THE word because of what it means, hence the title, "The Weight of Words."

"It's okay," I whisper
against her cheek. "I know."
My heart aches
because I have heard the word
that she keeps tucked away
behind closed doors.

There is also the weight of the words from Lupita's friend, Mireya, who tells her that cancer means her mother will die. These words are poison to Lupita.

Lupita tries to bargain with God, telling him she will become a nun if her mother is cured. But, when the nuns come to get her, Lupita's mother whom she affectionately refers to a Mami, turns them away.

Part Two, Remembering tells the family's story in Mexico and their move to America. At this time Lupita lives with her Papa and Mami, her sisters Analiza and Victoria, and her brother, Paco. Soon they move across the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, Texas. This set of poems tell of Lupita longing for the culture and landscape of Mexico.Garcia McCall's lyrical poems convey the beauty and simplicity of life in Mexico and the difficulty assimilating into a new culture. But at the same time, her family is doing well, with money saved and her mother giving birth to four more children. It is a time of prosperity and health with the family living "the American dream".

"And I doubted los girasoles
would understand me anymore,
because now I was speaking
a different language.
I swallowed consonants
and burdened vowels with a sound
so dense, the works fell straight
out of my mouth and hit the ground
before they could reach the river's edge."

Part Thee, Crossing Borders continues the story after Lupita's freshman year. On the homefront, Lupita's mother receives treatment for her cancer while at school Lupita gets help from her new drama teacher, Mr. Cortez, who recognizes Lupita's talent and encourages her to work at developing her drama skills. Lupita also struggles with assimilating into American society, while still retaining her Mexican identity.

"Being Mexican
means more than that.
It means being there for each other.
It's togetherness, like a familia.
We should be helping one another,
cheering our friends on, not trying
to bring them down."

Part Four, Give Us This Day chronicles the family's struggles when Mami's cancer returns. Lupita must try to come to terms with her mother's situation as well as the fact that the family is now struggling financially under the burden of her mother's treatments. While her father stays with her mother in Galveston, Texas, Lupita remains at home taking care of the younger children.

In Part Five, Cut Like A Diamond, Lupita is in her senior year at school when her Mami dies. As she watches her mother weaken, Lupita's pain almost overwhelms her. When she confides in Mr. Cortez, he is sympathetic and urges her to use that pain to become someone else - to use it in her acting. He encourages her to reconsider her involvement in the spring play.

"...True performers are able to turn

their most painful experiences

into art that other people

can connect with.

You do this exceptionally well..."

Part Six, Words On The Wind sees Lupita coming to terms with her mother's passing and learning to live again. At first she has a difficult time coping and spends some time in Mexico with her grandmother. She doesn't know how she's suppose to go on living without her mother. When the laundry gets dirty after being blown onto the ground, Lupita's abuelita tells her that sometimes it's best to start all over again.

Guadalupe Garcia McCall's novel is a beautiful rendering of a teenager's struggle to cope with life changing events and the transition to another culture and to adulthood. The poetry is simple, easily conveying the beauty of life in Mexico and alternatively, the struggles in America; the happy family days and in contrast, the tragedy of Mami's illness.

I found myself quickly rooting for Lupita and easily identifying with her struggles in life, even though I have little in common with her. Some tragedies transcend location and time and Garcia-McCall's poems reflect this. The poem, A Night To Remember which tells of Lupita's family receiving a late night call telling them that Mami has died, tugged at my heart because I too had a similar experience when my mother died.

"Our bare feet cold
on the old linoleum,
we huddle and cry together,
fingers, hands, and arms
all intertwined.
We are tangled up"

The mesquite tree is a metaphor for the tragedy in Lupita's life. It appears one day in the middle of Mami's rose garden which like her family she has tended and it has flourished. Like the cancer, despite being repeatedly pulled out by its roots, the mesquite returns and thrives. Eventually it becomes part of the family garden. When Mami dies, the rose garden perishes too, but the mesquite is now a sturdy permanent thing. At first when Lupita sits under the tree, leaning against its trunk, the poems she writes reflect this overtaking of their lives by the tragedy. But later on, against another mesquite tree she finds hope and a new beginning. She learns to begin again.

Garcia-McCall has succeeded in writing a novel that allows readers everywhere to identify with Lupita's life, the problems she encounters, her loss and her Latino culture. Beautifully written and deeply authentic.

Book Details:
Under The Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
New York: Lee & Low Books Inc. 2011
224pp.

You Have Seven Messages by Stewart Lewis

2011-12-22T21:51:00.002-05:00

Fourteen year old Malia Clover, lives in Manhattan with her father, Jules Clover, a famous film director and her younger brother Tile, so named because her mother would lay on the Spanish tile in the bathroom for comfort when she was pregnant with him. Known to all as Luna, and to her father as Moon, Luna's mother who was a beautiful model, was killed in a car accident almost a year ago. Luna is having a tough time coping with the loss of her mother partly because her father hasn't really told her much about what happened. So she decides to go to her mother's studio which has remained untouched since her death.

She finds two things of interest; "a cufflink made to look like the face of a sad theater mask" on the nightstand and her mother's cell phone which still works. Luna is puzzled by the cufflink because she is certain it doesn't belong to her father. This mystery makes Luna somewhat uneasy and she wonders if her mother was having an affair. She also is startled to see that her mother's phone has seven new messages. Luna decides that she will listen to these messages in the hopes that they will help her learn more about the circumstances of her mother's death.

At the same time, Luna befriends Oliver, a sixteen year old neighbour who plays the cello and whom she has been crushing on since grade nine. Luna confides in Oliver about the cell phone messages and asks him to help her sort out what has happened with her mother. Although he agrees, Oliver doesn't really do much to help Luna. Instead, they start to become friends.

As she listens to each new message, Luna becomes convinced that her father is not telling her the entire truth and that her mother was living a life that Luna knew very little about. The reader expects each message to be unusual and mysterious but in reality they aren't. Instead of this novel developing into a mystery story, it takes off in an entirely different direction with Luna's father giving her a vintage camera and her relationship with Oliver breaking up. Luna's work with the camera eventually leads her to Europe where she reunites with Oliver.

Instead of Luna uncovering information about the accident and her mother's secret life, she learns most of what she wanted to know through two people - her father and her Uncle Richard who lives in Tuscany, Italy. Along the way, Lewis works in numerous references to well known Hollywood stars such as Drew Barrymore and Orlando Bloom.

Readers expecting a mystery will be disappointed, as was I. Although the initial premise of the book was promising, it never really succeeds for me. You Have Seven Messages is one of those books that is difficult to make work. It is a difficult task to craft messages that are both clues, and yet not outside the realm of ordinary.

A strange aspect of this book is that the main character is referred to by FOUR different names; Malia (her mother), Moon (by her father), Luna (by her friends) and Fifteen (by Oliver)! Although initially I liked the character of Luna, as time went on, this changed. Luna seems spoiled and insular, appearing to have few close friends. She is opinionated and at times even creepy.

When Luna confides in a classmate about her budding romance with Oliver, Luna goes on to criticize the choice of abstinence and identifies those who choose abstinence as prudes.

"There are girls at my school who wear these silly bracelets and preach about abstinence. Even our Health Ed teacher tells us that it's our choice, that whatever we choose to do sexually, we just have to make sure we're safe and responsible. Aside from them, most everyone has experimented in my grade...I just got sidetracked and kind of gypped out of last year because of Mom dying."

Luna's view that she wasn't able to experiment sexually in the past year because of her mother's death makes her seem shallow and self-centered. Her parroting of her Health Ed teacher's words demonstrate a character who doesn't really think much for herself.

Other times Luna seems creepy as when she mentions having watched a porn movie with one of her friends. When she thinks about how innocent her friend Oliver is she wonders, "Suddenly, I want him to be mine to corrupt, forever." It's a chilling, sad statement from a fifteen year old girl.

I'd love to be able to recommend this book, but I think there are plenty of more interesting young adult novels to read these days. Pass on this one.

Violet by Tania Duprey Stehlik

2011-12-21T21:44:00.000-05:00

Violet is dreading her first day at her new school. She is worried she might not be liked by anyone, but her mother encourages her to just be herself.When Violet arrives at school she sees red kids, yellow kids and blue kids and she tries her best to blend in.

After a day of crafts and fun, while waiting for her dad to pick her up, someone points out to Violet that her father is blue. Caught off guard, Violet realizes that she is not blue or red or yellow like the rest of her classmates. Why isn't she blue like her father or red like her mother?With some help from her mother, Violet learns that it doesn't matter what colour your skin is.

Violet is a poignant story with an important message reminding us that the colour of our skin is unimportant. What is important is to be true to ourselves. Each person is unique in their own way, regardless of skin colour. Violet is beautifully illustrated by Vania Vuleta Jovanovic, a multimedia artist based in Toronto, Canada. Jovanovic's unique style further enhances the message of this delicious little picture book!

Book Details:
Violet by Tania Duprey Stehlik
Toronto: Second Story Press 2009

Movie Review: Hugo

2011-12-20T10:04:00.001-05:00

Based on Brian Selznick's juvenile novel, The Invention of Hugh Cabret, Hugo is a beautiful story brought to life on the big screen in a dazzling manner. Directed by Martin Scorsese, Hugo is reasonably faithful to Selznick's story of a 12 year-old orphan boy living in the Paris train station during the 1930's. Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lived with his father who was a worker at the museum repairing clocks and other mechanisms.

One day his father returns home from work with an automaton, an intricate Victorian type of robot that works using clock mechanisms. This automaton is broken and so Hugo and his father set out to repair him, keeping detailed notes in a book. But before his work is completed, Hugo's cherished father dies in a fire at the museum and he is collected by his rough uncle who is in charge of keeping the clocks in the Paris train station in working order. Devastated by his change of circumstances, Hugo cherishes the automaton, which he manages to take with him, and sets out to repair it. When his uncle disappears, Hugo continues to maintain the clocks in the station while hiding from the eccentric station master(Sacha Baron Cohen) who delights in capturing children without parents and sending them to the orphanage.

But fate steps in, in a way that Hugo could never anticipate. Partaking of petty thievery in the station, in order to obtain the parts necessary for his automaton, Hugo is caught stealing by an elderly man who runs a toy booth. He takes Hugo's father's notebook on the automaton and refuses to return it. Desperate to retrieve the last item he has of his father, Hugo follows the old man to his home where he meets Isabelle, the old man's god-daughter. Isabelle is just waiting for an adventure and she agrees to help Hugo recover his book from Papa Georges and Mama Jeanne.

Hugo tells Isabelle he needs his father's notebook back because he is repairing something. Hugo takes Isabelle to the theatre to see the movies, something her "Papa" doesn't allow her. After leaving the theatre, Hugo and Isabelle have an incident at the station and it is at this time that Hugo sees that Isabelle has something he needs - something to make his automaton finally work. This opens the door not only to an amazing adventure for Hugo and Isabelle, but also reveals a secret long kept about Papa Georges and Mama Jeanne. We learn that Papa Georges is the long forgotten but once innovative Parisian filmmaker, Georges Melies. Papa Georges career petered out after the First World War, with most of his groundbreaking films lost or sold to be melted down.

Hugo and Isabelle delve into Papa Georges life and with the help of a film researcher, Rene Tabard, help to recover his lost history.

Hugo is a breathtaking cinematic version of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, with beautiful sets that are well shown in the 3D medium. My only complaint is that the visuals are so intense, especially enhanced by the use of 3D, that the characters sometimes have a tendency to get overwhelmed. It's hard not to focus on the stunning special effects, although Asa Butterfield is certainly able to capture and hold the viewers interest. With his intense blue eyes, Butterfield is a compelling actor with an expressive face. Both Asa Butterfield and Chloe Grace Moretz are engaging young actors, who were well cast for Hugo.

I also feel that although this is a kid's movie, the storyline might be a bit too complex for younger viewers - not entirely the fault of Scorsese. Selznick's books, although meant for juvenile and young teens, have detailed plots with plenty of twists. And the plot does drag a little in the middle. But overall, I felt this was an enjoyable, entertaining movie.

You can check out Brian Selznick's website about the book and the movie here.

You can watch the trailer below:

Seventeen Ultimate Guide to Style. How To Find Your Perfect Look by Ann Shoket

2011-12-18T19:11:00.003-05:00

Seventeen, the most popular and best-selling teen magazine has published what it calls its Ultimate Guide To Style. This guide is divided into three parts. The first part is "Your Ultimate Style Guide" which highlights "six iconic style vibes" to help young teens find their own fashion style. The six styles are girly, edgy, boho, classic, glam and indie with each style guide featuring seven sections. Each of the sections are divided into the following pages; "must-haves" including eight essential pieces, a what to wear section featuring how to turn the "must-haves" into an outfit, a girl whose style fits that section, a celebrity whose fashion style matches that of the section, tricks to try with the featured look, a "Look Book" featuring photos from celebs and the runway and finally where to shop to get the look.

The second part of the book is "Your Ultimate Accessory Guide" which features shoes, bags, jewelry and so forth. The third part, "Your Ultimate Fit Guide" has an great section on jeans and the style best suited for different body types.

There are plenty of great photos throughout, making this an excellent visual guide for each of the six styles. The layout is clean and funky with bold fonts and lots of colour. Each style has its own unique design. My only complaint, is that some of the runway models featured in the photos are painfully thin - even anorexic in my opinion. However, the majority of models chosen to present each style type are healthy looking and wholesome.

This is a great book for teens and early twenty- something women to check out their style and get their fashion game on.

Book Details:
Seventeen Ultimate Guide to Style by Ann Shoket & The Editors
Running Press 2011
187 pp.

In Trouble. A Novel by Ellen Levine

2011-12-16T23:53:00.012-05:00

In Trouble is a short novel that attempts to document what it was like in the 1950's for young women experiencing a crisis pregnancy, hence the title "in trouble". The novel tells the story of two girls, Jaime Morse and her best friend Elaine over the span of four months, from March to June of 1956. The author sets her novel in the McCarthy era, when Cold War America was on the hunt for any type of communistic infiltration of society. Attitudes towards people who were different were unaccommodating and the strict social norms of that period were not to be broken, for any reason.

Told in Jaime's voice, the novel opens with Jaime talking to Elaine who wants her to help set up a weekend away with her college boyfriend, Neil. Elaine wants to stay with Neil who has been pressuring her to have sex, saying that he has told her "it's a sign I don't love him if I won't". Jaime agrees to help her friend although she doesn't feel this is the right thing for her friend to do.

Eventually Elaine confides to Jaime that she is pregnant. When Jaime offers to get her aunt to "help" her, Elaine tells Jaime that as a Catholic she cannot have an abortion.

Jamie who is in high school also hints that something terrible that has happened to her.

Now when something happens -- I will not think about It. I will not remember It. I will NOT -- I cannot tell anybody, not Elaine, not Georgina, who's my closest friend now that Elaine is gone.
Not anybody.
Not ever.

Although Jaime won't tell anyone and she doesn't want to think about what happened, the reader soon learns that she went to visit her cousin Lois in Greenwich Village and was date-raped by her cousin's friend.

All of this is set against the backdrop of Jaime's father returning home after being imprisoned for just under 11 months for being a member of the Communist party years ago. As well the author sets the tone of what it's like to be pregnant and unmarried in 1956. Girls who are "in trouble" are suddenly sent away when their "time comes". There are the requisite discussion about sex education, condoms and abortion circa 1956.

Soon Elaine's parents learn of her situation and she is taken to Catholic Services where she signs away her baby to be adopted. In 1956, as a single mother, she doesn't have the option of keeping her baby. Elaine loves Neil, who now won't have anything to do with her but who pressured her into sex in the first place. She wants his baby, but she isn't being allowed really to have any say in what will happen to her or her baby. Elaine's parents haven't been much help to her either - telling her that she's ruined their life!

Eventually, Jamie is able to tell Paul, a boy from the school newspaper when they are on a date, what has happened to her. The panic that she feels when she first suspects she might be pregnant is truly heartrending. She can't believe what is happening to her and Levine creates a great deal of empathy for Jamie in her descriptions of how she feels and the terror and helplessness Jamie experiences over becoming pregnant.

Elaine has her baby at a Catholic orphanage but it is taken away from her and she is understandably traumatized. Levine also effectively portrays the loss and the terrible pain Elaine feels in giving up her baby which she truly loves and wants. "They took away my beautiful baby." she tells Jamie.

There are several things I found problematic about this novel. As the representative Catholic character in the novel, Elaine is portrayed as stupid, unrealistic, ignorant and naive. She believes to the very end that her lover, Neil, will come get her at the maternity home and marry her. Although Jamie views Elaine as having been "forced" to have her baby, Elaine tells Jamie that she loves her baby and she loves Neil. Her false hope contrasts with Jamie's realistic view of her predicament.

In comparison, Jamie, who decides upon abortion is portrayed as intelligent, realistic and in some ways very savvy. She knows how to get the information she needs to make the "choice" that will free her from the burden of her unwanted pregnancy.

But Jaime rationalizes her abortion choice primarily by denying the humanity of her unborn child.

She tells Elaine that her unborn child is a "prebaby".

"Elaine, hello. You don't have a baby. You've got a pre-baby in you. Not a baby."

To which Elaine responds,

"A baby, Jamie, it's a baby and it's mine."

Later on she tells her parents:

"I love you both," I said, and I meant it. "But I can't. I don't know all of the why. It's not just going to college." I touched my belly. "This is not a baby yet, and I can't let it be one. I mean, how could I have a baby and not take care of it?"

In Trouble contains a few bits of abortion rights rhetoric. For example, when Jaime tells her mother what's going on with her friend and that she is being forced to give up her baby for adoption, her mother admits it's a terrible choice. But Uncle Maury has the following response:

"The only terrible thing," Uncle Maury said, "is when someone brings an unwanted child into the world."

Of course, Uncle Maury is referring to the oft-repeated feminist mantra that "every child a wanted child", implying of course that wantedness confers humanity and makes a pregnancy, a baby. Abortion of course, will rid the world of unwanted children.

I also noticed that the choice of adoption is portrayed as very traumatic one, while the choice of abortion appears to have little negative outcome. We are told how Elaine feels after the adoption - a choice she didn't want or really make. But in contrast, we are not presented with the effects of abortion on Jamie, because the novel ends at this point. However, a point is made that the abortion allows Jamie to regain her life and that it is a good choice because it was the choice she wanted.

In Trouble is a good starting point for a discussion about abortion, premarital sex, teen sex, rape, adoption and single parenting. It is also useful in providing a starting point for a discussion on how society has changed in its views of single mothers, premarital sex and rape. I found it interesting that not one adult in the story reported the rape of their cousin/daughter. Lois simply sends her young male friend packing and Jamie's parents never really address their daughter's rape at all. Single mothers were strongly discouraged from keeping their babies mainly because at that time there was still great shame in having a baby outside of marriage and because there were few support systems in place for single mothers.

In Trouble attempts to demonstrate to teens what it was like to have an unplanned pregnancy when abortion was illegal in the United States. It is based on the author's interviews with many women who experienced just such a situation in the 1950s. There is no doubt that society did not offer much in the way of emotional and physical support to these women, often treating them with contempt while the men who pressured women to have sex or who raped women suffered few if any consequences. And certainly the type of help that was offered to women in 1956, often being sent away to have their babies in secret while society gossiped and judged did great harm. But that has all changed today.

Levine states in her author's note that women now have choices and in particular the choice to abort and that they would do well to remember what it was like in the days of coat hanger and back alley abortions. It is my opinion that abortion is not a reasonable choice to offer a woman in a situation that is both complex and intensely emotionally charged. The situation today for women with an unplanned pregnancy is much better - more options such as single parenting, and adoption along with a huge change in societal expectations and morality.

Book Details:
In Trouble by Ellen Levine
Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Lab Lerner Publishing Group 2011
200 pp.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

2011-12-14T22:49:00.003-05:00

Imagine you are 16 years old in 1996. Your dad gives you your first computer and your best friend brings over a CD-ROM that allows you to access AOL. You download AOL, log on and find yourself on a website called facebook. This website is unlike anything you've ever seen mainly because it seems to have pages of personal information - information about you - in the future!

This scenario is exactly what happens to Emma Nelson and Josh Templeton in The Future of Us. Emma downloads AOL from Josh's CD-ROM, onto her computer and inexplicably she is able to access her facebook account 15 years into the future when she is 31 years old. Of course, Emma and Josh have no concept of what facebook is and at first both of them believe the entire thing is a prank. But it soon becomes evident that this is no prank. Their pictures look like them, only older, and there is plenty of personal information such as pictures from high school, who they work for and more importantly, who they are married to that suggest this is for real.

The novel follows Emma and Josh over the period of six days as they struggle to come to terms with what they learn about their lives in the distant future. Told in alternating points of view, Emma and Josh discover that what they do in the present has ripple effects in their future lives. Based on what she sees on facebook, Emma discovers that her future is not a happy one. Josh, appears at first glance, to have secured for himself a happy, easy life, married to the most attractive girl in his high school and working for her father.

Emma soon discovers that every time she logs onto her computer, her facebook status changes, depending upon the choices she has made that day. Emma immediately sets about trying to manipulate her future into a happier one. But it seems, no matter what she does, she is always destined to be unhappy.

Although Josh assumes he's happy in the future, his facebook page is more vague about what his life is really like. While it seems that marrying the prettiest girl in the school might be wonderful, the more he learns about his future, the more he wonders. And when Josh starts to date Sydney, it just feels wrong. Is it because it's too soon in their lives or is there another reason?

Both Emma and Josh struggle to understand the choices they've made in their future lives. The reader learns almost immediately that Emma and Josh have known each other since they were little kids, spending all their time together. But during the previous year things changed when Josh developed a crush on Emma, and she didn't have the same feelings for him. This drove them apart and their relationship has become awkward and strained. Suddenly, with them spending time together checking their facebook, they begin to grow close again.

Josh tries to make Emma understand that she doesn't have enough information about the future to know fully what has happened and why things aren't working out. He tries to discourage Emma from attempting to manipulate her future. He is also afraid of how Emma's actions will impact his future life which appears to be a happy one.

Eventually both Josh and Emma must confront that fact that they will only be happy in their future life if they remain true to themselves in the present and if they are honest about how they feel towards one another. Emma tends to date guys based on their physical appearance - a pattern that she apparently takes into adulthood. Emma begins to realize that things are wrong in her future not only because of things she is doing now but also because of what she isn't doing.

The Future of Us is a wonderful story based on a brilliant idea that really works. Asher and Mackler explore the concept of happiness and how our choices affect us and those around us throughout life.
This book will appeal to adults in the thirty-something age bracket because they will have been teens in the mid 1990's and will be able to identify with how different society was before the rise of "social media". They will be able to identify with the "what if" this happened to me!

One item that more tech savvy readers will want to overlook is the believability of a computer in 1996 being able to load a facebook page as it exists in 2011 via dial up. I doubt that capability would have existed in 1996.

Book Details:
The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Caroly Mackler
New York: Penguin Group 2011
356 pp.

The Wolf by Steven Herrick

2011-12-10T23:29:00.001-05:00

Ever since I can remember,

my dad has talked about the wolf.

From the age of five,

I'd sit beside him on the back step,

We'd look across the paddocks of sheep

into the forest shimmering in the afternoon heat,

watching,

the two of us sure the wolf would come

if we sat here long enough.

The Wolf tells the story of two teens, fifteen year old Jake Jackson and 16 year old Lucy Harding who are neighbours on opposite sides of the Wolli River in Australia. They spend a night together in the bush, attempting to locate a "wolf" they believe lives nearby.

The Wolf is a novel written in verse with a group of poems each forming a chapter. Herrick begins his novel by telling us first about Lucy and then about Jake, both of whom form the principal first person voices in the novel.The story is told in alternating points of view, with the occasional poem by Peter.

Both live on sheep farms in the valley, but their families couldn't be more different. Jake lives with his father and mother in a home filled with love and care. His father loves his mother and their family life is happy. Jake describes his mother cooking a roast to celebrate their wedding anniversary. He does things with his dad like help him build a hen house and the veranda on their house.

In contrast, Lucy's family, comprised of her parents and her younger brother, Peter, is dysfunctional. Her father is a mean, violent man, who drinks and who blames Lucy for any misfortune that befalls the family. He physically and emotionally abuses Lucy and she and her mother spend most of their time avoiding him.

The novel centers around the lore of a wolf sighting in Wolli Creek. Jake's father has told him about a wolf he saw at Wolli Creek when he was twenty years old. However, wolves aren't native to Australia, so Jake's dad isn't quite sure what he saw. Lucy saw her father beat one of their dogs several years ago. The dog broke free and escaped into the wild. When something begins killing their sheep, Lucy's father is convinced it is their dog who is now feral. Jake's father however, believes that it is a wolf who is killing the sheep on their farm.

When Jake tells Lucy that they believe there is a wolf nearby, she tells him that it is only a feral dog. However, Lucy tells Jake that she knows where the "wolf" hides and Jake agrees to accompany her on a bush walk to the top of Sheldon Mountain. Things don't quite go as planned however, and the two teens end up spending a night together on the mountain that forges a strong bond between them. It is also the catalyst for a good change in Lucy's life. In the end, Jake's kindness towards Lucy affirms her and leads her to discover that she is lovable. But also her night in the outback teaches Lucy that she is strong enough to face her father and that his power over her will pass on just as her Grandma said it would.

The Wolf is an intriguing and well written novel in verse, with a few twists and a satisfying ending. Herrick does a brilliant job contrasting Lucy's relationship with her father with Jake's relationship with his father, often in back to back poems. Personally, I found the poems in Peter's voice unnecessary to the storyline. They should have been edited out.

Book Details:
The Wolf by Steven Herrick
Australia: Allen & Unwin 2006
214pp.

Bunheads by Sophie Flack

2011-12-09T23:40:00.003-05:00

Sophie Flack's debut novel, Bunheads tells the story of nineteen year old Hannah Ward, a member of the corps du ballet in the prestigious Manhattan Ballet company and her internal struggle to determine the direction of her life.

Hannah, who always wanted to be a ballet dancer, left home at age fourteen to train at the company's school and is now a senior corps member, performing three to four ballets in an evening. Other members of the corps include Beatrice (Bea)Hall, Daisy, and the highly competitive, Zoe Mortimer. Otto Klein, the director of the Manhattan Ballet, is the one who chooses the ballets the company will perform and who will dance the solos. Each dancer in the corps du ballet dreams of promotion, working hard to attain this goal, often at great personal sacrifice.

One evening after being selected to understudy a solo part, Hannah decides to have dinner at her cousin, Eugene's West Village restaurant. There she meets Jacob, an NYU student who is still struggling to find his groove in life and who is also a singer at the restaurant. As her on-again, off-again relationship with Jacob develops, Hannah begins to reconsider her life and her goals. Jacob has opened her eyes to the world outside of ballet.

At the same time Hannah is also being pursued by a handsome wealthy balletomone, Matt Fitzgerald, whose jet-set lifestyle intrigues her. While Matt opens Hannah's eyes to the lifestyle of the rich and famous that ballet dancers sometimes step into, Jacob is more down to earth and relevant to Hannah's background and life.

But Hannah faces a difficult choice; to put everything into dance "Don't think, just dance." or to step outside the only world she has known to do some of the things she as an adult would now like to do.

Bunheads is definitely one of my top ten favourite teen reads for 2011.This novel succeeds because the author knows her subject. The majority of readers will not have any concept of what it is like to be a ballet dancer in a major company; the long exhausting hours of practice, the pain endured in pushing the body to its limits, the exhilaration of performing on stage and obtaining the recognition so dearly desired, the complex relationships that exist within a major dance company and the difficulty of having any semblance of a normal life outside of training and performing. But Sophie Flack is able to take the reader into that world, fill it out and make it real and comprehensible to her readers.

Hannah is a believable character who struggles to discover just what it is she wants for her life; the insular world of ballet or to discover more about the world around her. Despite her driven, high-achieving nature, when Hannah begins to see the cost of success in the world of ballet, she begins to rethink her priorities and her goals.

Bunheads is a nice change from the usual young adult fare and will appeal to those teens who are involved in the arts world, especially the world of dance. It gives them the opportunity to both the positive and negative aspects of a dance career. The novel touches on issues prevalent in the ballet world; dieting and anorexia, injuries and the social world of ballet.

Author Sophie Flack, former "bunhead" talks about her debut novel:

Book Details:
Bunheads by Sophie Flack
New York: Little, Brown and Company 2011
294pp.

The Great Plague by John M. Barry Part V Explosion

2011-12-07T17:35:00.000-05:00

Part V. Explosion. In this portion of the book, author John Barry explores the factors that led to the influenza outbreak of early 1918 developing into a worldwide epidemic. Barry describes the situation in the city of Philadelphia as a model for what was repeated in cities across the United States.

As a result of the war effort, every city is flooded with people - workers, soldiers, families. The industrial areas of cities were crowded with workers. The movement of large numbers of people to urban areas not prepared to receive them meant that there were housing shortages and few city services in place. Conditions for families were squalid, with several families often sharing accommodations. Many cities had no schools, few health services and social services were nonexistent.

Cities also saw incredible industrialization; the presence of large factories pumping out products for the US war effort were common. Shipyards were huge.

Corruption was a common feature of civil politics and especially so in Philadelphia where kickbacks were common. In Philadelphia, the corruption was especially severe because the city's mayor, Republican state senator, Edwin Vare, controlled the city's councils, legislature as well as having a strong influence in the state legislature. This meant that money that should have gone to things like street sanitation did not, resulting in filthy streets. People often paid Vare's workers to influence police and other civil authorities.

When the epidemic struck Philadelphia with the same virulence as it did in Boston, nothing was done. No quarantine was imposed and public officials merely tried to reassure the public that nothing serious was happening. The flow of information to the public was strictly controlled mainly because of the war effort.

Barry goes on to explain that to understand the pandemic in the United States, the political situation in America must be taken into account. When America entered the war, it did so with an attitude of all or nothing. Everything went into the war effort. However, most importantly, control of information was paramount.

Advertising as an industry was in its infancy but already it was recognized as offering the possibility of controlling how people responded to situations, especially crises such as a war or an epidemic.

Woodrow Wilson wanted the American people to view their sacrifices for the war effort in a positive way, so there were controls on what was presented for public consumption. The last thing Wilson and other government officials wanted was a panicked public, so they downplayed the initial beginnings of the epidemic.

Barry uses the city of Philadelphia to explain how public policy related to the war effort helped spread the influenza virus and directly resulted in the deaths of thousands. An example of this was the way the Liberty Loan parade scheduled for September 28, 1918 was handled. Depsite the fact that Philadelphia was on the cusp of the influenza outbreak, despite the fact that the next scheduled draft call was cancelled due to the outbreak in the military, and despite the fact that doctors and public health officials recommended it be cancelled it was not.

None of this was known to the public.Dr. Wilmer Krusen, Director of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health denied the threat the virus posed to the city and did nothing. Even after meeting with researcher Paul Lewis and Lieutenant Commander R. W. Plummer, Krusen still did not act. On September 28, the parade went ahead as planned, with thousands upon thousands of people in attendance. Two days later, Krusen admitted that the influenza epidemic had touched the general population.

"In ten days -- ten days! -- the epidemic had exploded from a few hundred civilian cases and one or two deaths a day to hundreds of thousands ill and hundreds of deaths each day."

Bodies piled up, undertakers ran out of coffins. Gravediggers became sick and no one was able to dig the graves. Funeral homes, morgues and hospitals were overwhelmed. Bodies were stuffed on porches, fire escapes, in rooms in homes, left on beds or stuffed into corners. So many people were ill that life in the city came to a virtual standstill. Each one of Philadelphia's five medical schools dismissed it's students. There were no doctors or nurses to treat the sick.

"The city was frozen with fear, frozen quite literally into stillness."

In the remaining part of Explosion, Barry tells the story of the epidemic in the army cantonments.

The Tiffin by Mahtab Narsimhan

2011-12-04T15:43:00.001-05:00

The Tiffin is an beautifully crafted story about a young boy full of courage, integrity and hope written by Bombay-born Mahtab Narsimhan. The story opens with the hint of a tragedy about to befall a young unmarried woman, Anahita. She writes a note to her lover, Anurag Parekh, placing it in his tiffin, a tin lunchbox which is delivered by dabbawalla's throughout the city of Bombay. The note bears shocking news which Anahita must get to Anurag and the safest way to do this is to place it in his lunch. When her regular dabbawalla is sick, Anahita is concerned that her tiffin might get lost or stolen - an almost unheard of occurrence. But in a one in six million chance, Anahita's tiffin doesn't make the train to Bombay and is lost, with tragic consequences.

The novel skips ahead thirteen years to tell the story of a boy named Kunal who works as a slave in a Bombay dhaba (restaurant) named Bombay Bahar. The Bombay Bahar supplies food for customer's tiffins, which are then sent to the train station and into the center of Bombay. Over two hundred thousand tiffins are delivered precisely at noon daily usually without ever losing a lunch box.

Kunal's life is not a happy one. He has been told that he is an orphan, dumped on the doorstep of Mrs Seth and her husband who own the dhaba. Kunal is given little to eat, often beaten, verbally abused and there are suggestions that he is enduring sexual harassment by both customers and some staff because he is very good looking. Kunal does have one friend though, and that is the older Vinayak, a dabbawalla who frequents the dhaba for breakfast every day. After another altercation at the dhaba, in which Vinayak defends Kunal, Vinayak offers Kunal a place of refuge if he should ever need one.

Soon after, Kunal decides to leave but returns to steal the wages owed to him. He is captured by Seth, who viciously beats him and decides to sell Kunal to The Beggar King, a vicious man who cuts off the legs of young boys to make them into pitiful beggars. With the help of Mrs Seth, Kunal not only escapes but learns that he is in fact, not an orphan but has a mother. The Seth's took Kunal in temporarily to help his mother who left a letter with them. When she never returned, he was left to his fate. This shocking revelation changes the direction of Kunal's life but fills him with hope. His deepest desire in life has been to be a part of a family and be loved.

From this point on, the novel tells the story of Kunal's attempt to find his long lost mother. With the help of Vinayak, Kunal learns the work of a tiffin carrier and devises an audacious plan to locate his mother.

The Tiffin's greatest strength lies in its ability to realistically portray life in Bombay to young Canadians who will have no concept of such an existence. Mahtab Narsimhan's descriptions of India and the people are superb.

Mahtab has a website and a blog entitled Moonlight Musings. Now living in Toronto, Canada.

Tell It To The Trees by Anita Rau Badami

2011-11-30T14:27:00.006-05:00

"...Tight as a fist, we are, and as hard if you get in our way. Suman is the only weakness, the little finger, but Papa and I knew right away we'd have to hold her hard in our grasp. That way she wouldn't have a chance to do anything silly."

I really had no idea that Anita Rau Badami's newest offering, Tell It To The Trees, would be so chilling, so utterly disturbing.

Tell It To The Trees is a story about a dysfunctional family of East Indian immigrants whose burden of secrets spells disaster for them and others. The story centers around the Dharma family, headed by Vikram Dharma who lives in the house that his father, Mr. J.K. Dharma, built years ago in the isolated wilds of Merrit's Point, British Columbia. Living with him are his mother, Akka, his second wife Suman, Varsha Dharma, 13 year old daughter of Vikram and his first wife Harini (Helen) and Memant son of Suman and Vikram.

The novel opens with the finding of the frozen body of Anu Krishnan, a young, successful woman of East Indian descent, outside the Dharma home. Anu was a tenant who had been renting the back house on the Dharma property for the past 8 months.

The events leading up to this point are recounted in the voices of Varsha, Suman, Hemant, and Anu Krishnan, the tenant. In the voice of Varsha we learn the history of the Dharma family and the tragic family event that occurred when she was four years old. When she was four, her mother Harini left her father and shortly afterwards dies in an accident. Vikram and Harini fought a great deal and Varsha's mom went out a lot, what Varsha calls "roamings". Harini was very beautiful and she had many beautiful and expensive things which Varsha found intriguing. When Varsha asked her mother where she got them, she was told that she "found" them. She asked Varsha to keep this a secret from her father, something the little girl found almost impossible to do. When Varsha sought out her grandmother, Akka, she was told "Go tell the trees,...They won't tell a soul." Shortly after this, Harini leaves and is found dead. The reader never really learns the circumstances of Harini's death but later events lead us to consider several possibilities. Varsha was told by her father that she must forget her mother and never ever forgive her. Her father removes all evidence of Harini's existence in their lives, including pictures and all her personal belongings - thus setting the stage for the Varsha's determination not to ever lose someone again.

Eventually, Varsha's father travels to India and returns with a new wife, thirty year old Suman who arrives in Canada six months after their marriage in India. She is quiet and not very pretty but she has a good heart and is willing to love Varsha. Suman learns almost immediately that Vikram is jealous, controlling and has a terrible temper. No matter what she does it is never good enough for Vikram, who demeans and abuses her and the children.

Akka, wise to her son's ways, advises Suman again and again to leave, but the reader discovers that there are several reasons why she cannot. One of the main reasons centers around Varsha, who as her narrative develops, is revealed to be a deeply disturbed young girl. Intensely affected by the loss of her mother, Varsha will do anything to keep from losing another mother. She becomes manipulative, cruel and cunning in her plan to thwart Suman from gaining any chance to leave or even to assert herself. Varsha is also emotionally entangled with her step-brother Hemant whom she controls absolutely. Varsha, although a tragic character, is intensely dislikable, as her narrative progresses.

The entire fabric of the Dharma household is upset with the arrival of Anu Krishnan, a self-confident East Indian woman who was once a classmate of Vikram Dharma. Anu has come to Merrit's Point to take a break in her hectic life and possibly to write a book of stories. As time passes, Anu comes to understand that the Dharma family has many secrets and that things are not as they appear to be. On the outside they present an image of the perfect family, but the reality of life in the Dharma family begins to emerge as Anu gets to know Suman and Akka. Unable to bear Suman's abuse, Anu begins to support her emotionally and offers to help her. It is a decision that has heart-rending repercussions for everyone but also offers possibility to Suman. Some readers may not like the inconclusive ending....

Tell It To The Trees is the first of Badami's novels that I have read. It was amazing, unsettling and completely riveting. Despite the story being told from four different perspectives, each narrative flows seamlessly from one to the other. Although the reader knows where the story is leading (to the death of Anu), Badami is able to create a suspenseful recounting of what actually happened, with the result that both shocks and disturbs. What begins as a simple recounting of events through the eyes of several narrators increasingly becomes a psychological thriller.

This novel explores many issues including those of arranged marriage, wife and child abuse, immigrants in Canada, and especially identity. Tell It To The Trees vividly portrays the increasing isolation of the Dharma family in the Merrit's Point community - an isolation that is matched by Suman's isolation from the rest of this frightening family. The writing is beautifully descriptive and provides the reader with a definite sense of the wildness, isolation and cold surrounding the Dharma family. This is in contrast to the beauty of Suman - her colourful saris and a her delicious, unique food.

I thought the idea of the children telling their "secrets" to a tree very interesting. Varsha, overcome with guilt both her own and that of others, uses the tree like a confessional.

Tell It To The Trees is brilliant, well-crafted novel that makes me definitely want to read more from this author. You can check out this booktrailer:

Book Details:
Tell It To The Trees by Anita Rau Badami
Alfred A. Knopf Canada 2011
255pp.

The Great Plague by John Barry Part IV It Begins

2011-11-28T11:17:00.003-05:00

Camp Funston military emergency hospital 1918.

It Begins Part IV.It is difficult to know for certain just where the 1918 influenza originated. Circumstantial evidence suggests that several people probably carried the influenza virus from Haskell County, Kansas to Camp Funston around late February or early March, 1918. Within days the first cases of influenza began appearing and within three weeks, 1100 men were hospitalized from Funston. The virus was found in military camps in Georgia and then in other camps as well as cities located adjacent to military camps. From there it is likely the virus spread to Brest, France where American troops disembarked on their way to the bloody fields of Europe. The disease spread to Chaumont and then to Paris, to Spain where it picked up the infamous name, "the Spanish flu" and onward throughout Europe, the United Kingdom as well as Asia and the Orient. Most cases were mild and there were doubts that it was in fact influenza. But there were some cases that were serious with victims dying within hours of getting sick. Then, it seemed to disappear. But as Barry writes,
"For the virus had not disappeared. It had only gone underground, like a forest fire burning in the roots, swarming and mutating, adapting, honing itself, watching and waiting, waiting to burst into flame."

In hindsight, it is easy to see now that the 1918 pandemic came in waves. The first spring wave, as mentioned above was mild, but the second wave was much more lethal. Barry writes that a phenomena known as "passage" can cause a virus to increase in potency. It does so by passing from one animal to the next, each time adapting better to its host environment and becoming more efficient at infection. So the first wave may have been mild due to the virus beginning to adapt to its new host (man). Then as it gained proficiency at infecting each new person, it became more lethal. Researchers believe this is the explanation for why an outbreak of mild influenza in February, 1918 in the US gradually developed into a virulent form of influenza later in the year.

By late spring, early summer of 1918, people began to die of influenzal pneumonia. The second wave began gradually with separate outbreaks of increasing severity occuring throughout America and Europe. Increasingly there were reports of ships pulling into port with sick sailors who spread the virus to dock workers, troops and others. In this manner, the virus was spread around the world. But the worst was to come and it began at Camp Devens, a military cantonment thirty-five miles northwest of Boston. Built to hold a maximum of 36,000 men, by September 6, 1918 it was severely overcrowded with over 45,000 men. Gradually, from late August into early September, medical personnel began to see more and more men with pneumonia and influenza like illness. Staff did nothing to quarantine the sick soldiers and they were unprepared for what happened next - an explosion of illness unlike anything they had ever seen.

Suddenly hundreds of soldiers became ill with a severe form of pneumonia. There were so many sick men, that the hospital was completely overwhelmed by September 26. Not only were soldiers dying, but also the doctors and nurses treating them. The pattern was the same for most: influenza illness that rapidly progressed to pneumonia which led to cyanosis and death in a matter of hours. The men getting sick and dying were young and in the prime of their life.

When Welch, Cole, Russell and Vaughan, all top researchers and medical men, saw the dead and dying, viewed the autopsies they were "puzzled and felt an edge of fear."
The outbreak was not confined to Devens though because soldiers had transferred out of Devens immediately before the outbreak and taken the virus with them along the eastern coast of the US, into the midwest, down to Mexico and throughout the world.
Barry states that two parallel struggles emerged: that of society which now struggled to cope with the sick and the dying and that of the medical community which raced to find the cause and the cure.

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

2011-11-27T18:24:00.002-05:00

Turn of Mind tells the spellbinding story of Dr. Jennifer White, a sixty-four year old retired orthopedic surgeon specializing in hands, who is implicated in the murder of her neighbour and best friend, Amanda O'Toole. What makes this story so unusual is that it is told in the voice of an obviously intelligent woman as she slips between lucid moments and periods of dementia. Jennifer recounts what is happening to her in the present but also reveals pieces of her life as she remembers them. From this the reader must try to piece together what happened the day Amanda was murdered but also must attempt to understand Jennifer's past and her relationship with the murdered woman.

The novel opens with the police questioning Jennifer in her home at 2153 Sheffield Avenue in Chicago where she lives with her personal caretaker, Magdalena. Her neighbour, 75 year old Amanda has been found dead in her home just down the street from Jennifer. Jennifer is a prime suspect because Amanda's corpse has been found mutilated - four fingers on her right hand have been surgically removed. When Jennifer is interviewed by Detective Luton, she apparently has no idea that her friend has been murdered, nor can she really provide any information to police. The persistent Luton, however, is convinced that locked in Jennifer's mind somewhere is the truth about what happened to Amanda.

Throughout the novel, the reader, through Jennifer's narration, gradually explores the complex relationship Jennifer and her husband James had with Amanda and her husband Peter as well as the relationship she had with her children, Mark and Fiona. Jennifer was married to James, an attorney, who recently passed away due to a heart attack which occurred while he was driving. Amanda and Peter, who had no children, eventually divorced after 40 years of marriage, with Peter moving to California to live with a younger woman. Amanda and Jennifer had a combative but close relationship; both women had strong personalities and were very controlling.

Jennifer's voice is authentic and very realistic when she is suffering through her episodes of dementia. This is especially so as she describes her actions and feelings whenever she wanders, whether it be from her home or from the care facility she is placed in later on. Jennifer's narration reveals that the two couples became emotionally entangled, and that secrets where discovered on both sides. It is difficult, in my opinion, for the reader to determine whether or not Jennifer did murder her friend - an indication that Alice LaPlante succeeds brilliantly in masking the truth until the very end of the novel. There are plenty of hints and plenty of potential suspects too! The ending with its ultimate (and possibly even predictable) twist is quite satisfying.

Two of the more unusual themes in this novel are that of religion and hands, both of which are separate themes and yet also interconnected. The main character, Jennifer White is a lapsed Catholic who hasn't been to confession in 46 years. Because she studied medieval history as a graduate student prior to medical school, Jennifer has managed to collect various Catholic artifacts over the years, such as a large statue of St. Rita of Cascia, the patron saint of impossible causes, and a St. Christopher medal (patron saint of travelers). But among her most prized is a copy of The Icon of The Three Hands. The latter item is worked into the novel in a fascinating way because it involves the loss of a hand, a healing and it also identifies the nature of the relationship between Jennifer and Amanda.

The icon was painted by St. John of Damascus who lived under Muslim rule and therefore was forbidden to have images or statues. The Byzantine Emperor, Leo III issued a verdict forbidding veneration of holy images, which John wrote against numerous times. When the Emperor denounced John to the Caliph, his right hand which he used to write the treatises defending veneration was cut off. After begging to be given his amputated hand, he prayed for hours in front of an icon of the Mother of God and his hand was healed. In thanksgiving to the Theotokos, John of Damascus added a third hand - a copy of his own right hand made of silver. The Mother of God icon is thus known as the Icon of the Three Hands.

An expensive 15th century copy of this unusual icon was purchased by James for Jennifer who was drawn to it, perhaps because she is a surgeon who specializes in healing hands, something the icon represents. When Amanda sees the icon she immediately covets it but not for the same reasons as Jennifer. It is something Jennifer loves dearly and Amanda recognizing this uses this situation to warn Jennifer that she knows something about her and James - a secret that could unravel their life. The reader is presented with this view of Amanda as a manipulative and controlling woman who is determined to find a weakness in James and Jennifer.

If you'd like a novel with a bit of mystery, told in a unique way and which touches on themes of love, betrayal, power, aging and identity, Turn of Mind, winner of the prestigious Wellcome Trust Book Prize, will more than satisfy.

Book Details:
Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante
Bond Street Books Doubleday Canada 2011
307pp.

how to save a life by Sarah Zarr

2011-11-26T22:06:00.002-05:00

When someone lives a certain kind of life all the time, it's hard to describe to them what it looks and feels like to someone who lives a certain other kind of life.

How to save a life is another great book by Sarah Zarr that deals in an unusual way with two teenagers trying to cope with difficult circumstances in life. The novel is written in the alternating voices of two teenage girls whose lives are very different. Jill MacSweeney is struggling to come to terms with the death of her father with whom she was very close. Jill who lives with her mother, Robin, is in her last year of high school. Her mother has decided to adopt a baby. This was something she and Jill's father had often discussed and Robin feels that this is the time. She posts her intention online and receives a response from a girl in Omaha. Robin then takes the unusual step of inviting this teen to spend the final weeks of her pregnancy at her home in Denver, where they will arrange an open adoption.

Mandy Kalinowski is the pregnant teen who lives in Omaha with her mother and her mother's boyfriend, Kent. Mandy is determined to give her baby a chance at the life she never had living with her mother and her numerous boyfriends. When Mandy sees Robin's request online of offering to adopt a baby she responds and they strike a deal. She will give Robin her baby and move on with her life. Mandy tells Robin only what she needs to know and not all the specifics of her situation.

How To Save a Life opens with Mandy traveling by train to meet up with Robin and Jill in Denver. It is apparent from the beginning that Mandy is a very needy person who is in search of a father figure, especially when she tries to connect with a much older man sitting next to her on the train. In fact, when he leaves to go to the bathroom she manages to copy his mailing address down, despite the fact that this fellow has made it clear to her that he's not interested. After Mandy arrives in Denver and settles in with Robin and Jill, they learn that she is not as far along in the pregnancy as she indicated. The reader gradually begins to suspect that Mandy has been living under less than ideal circumstances at home and soon learns the reality of her situation, although that is not known to Jill and Robin until much later in the novel.

The relationship between Jill and Mandy in the novel is complicated. Neither of them are likable characters but as Zarr develops her characters, they grow and mature and more positive attributes are revealed. Jill is a bit goth, rebellious and judgmental. She lives the life of an upper class kid, somewhat spoiled and she is angry at her mother for bringing this strange girl into their lives, at a time when she is struggling to cope with her dad's death. In the overwhelming and unacknowledged pain of her loss, Jill strikes out against those who love her, alienating her friends and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Dylan, alike.

When Ravi Desai, loss prevention associate, shows up at Margins, the store where Jill works, she is unexpectedly attracted to him. Jill's bad behaviour is unsuccessful in alienating Ravi, whose sensitive nature allows him to connect with her. He helps Jill understand that she has changed since her father's death. Because he didn't know the old Jill who existed when her father was alive, he is more readily accepting of the person she is now. He believes that she is a good person, even when Jill hates herself and how she is so mean to everyone around her, especially Mandy. Ravi recognizes that Jill's behaviour has its source in her grief and pain over the loss of her father.

Mandy, on the other hand, is afraid of Jill, but is much stronger emotionally than she appears. Mandy has come to Denver with a plan, and that is to save her baby's life and make sure it is a life that is happy and secure. As she lives with Robin and Jill, she comes to realize that her baby will not want for anything but will not have her mother. Unknown to Jill and Robin, Mandy's feelings about the baby begin to change as she nears her delivery date, thus adding another dimension of suspense to the novel. But Mandy has no plan for herself after the birth of her baby. She has no idea what will become of her or where she will go.

As the novel progresses, the relationship between all the characters in the book work towards a resolution that is both unique, warm and hopeful. For example, Dylan helps Jill understand something about Mandy that allows her to change Mandy's life in a fantastic waym while Ravi offers Jill the possibility of a future.

I want to start again. Not necessarily in a relationship but for myself. I want to start again with me, as the me I've become without Dad here. Good and bad and all of it.

In the end, Jill offers Mandy what they both want - something different from what they both have now. For Mandy, it means saving not only her baby's life but hers as well. For Jill, saving Mandy means moving forward after her dad's death.

How To Save a Life deals with themes of friendship, loss, and identity.

Book Details:
How to Save A Life by Sarah Zarr
New York: Little, Brown and Company 2011
341 pp.

The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss

2011-11-25T00:15:00.000-05:00

War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again y'all
War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me

Edwin Starr, War 1969

While browsing through our extensive picture book collection at the branch where I work, I found two Dr. Seuss books I hadn't read. I never read Seuss' books growing up but they were a staple in the extensive literary diet of my four children. In fact I collected many Suess books and we especially enjoyed Hunches in Bunches, a lesser known title. But there are two I don't have and one of them is The Butter Battle Book which was published in 1984. In this story, a young Yook (as they call themselves) is taken to the Wall which separates his people from the Zooks on the other side. His grandfather tells him,

It's high time that you knew
of the terribly horrible thing that Zooks do.
In every Zook house and in every Zook town
every Zook eats his bread
with the butter side down!

The Yooks we learn, eat their bread the correct way, with the butter side up! Because of this terrible difference, all Zooks cannot be trusted and the grandfather is part of the "Zook-Watching Border Patrol". The grandfather Yook was able to patrol the border successfully for a time using a "Snick-Berry Switch" as a deterrant - and most Zooks stayed away until one day, an inquisitive and "rude" Zook named VanItch appears. VanItch breaks the Yook's switch and starts what becomes an escalating series of threats and counter threats made by both sides, until the ultimate weapon in this "cold war" is created by both Yooks and Zooks. Who will use it first?

This book is clearly a satire on the ridiculousness of war. Here we have two societies who are not all that different except for they way they butter their bread! They even look alike in the book. Their weapons look the same, so in many respects their societies are very similar. And yet, they are willing to annihilate each other solely because they butter their bread differently.

The situation outlined in The Butter Battle Book is reminiscent of the situation that existed post World War II and continued into the early 1980's between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union. Their homes are filled with posters promoting their way of buttering bread. Zooks are separated from the Yooks by a Berlinesque wall.

The "Cold War" saw both sides in an escalating nuclear arms race, each possessing numerous nuclear bombs capable of annihilating one another several times over. The Cold War reached its climax with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962. The bomb, in The Butter Battle Book is called "The Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo", the name of which is an obvious allusion to the first atomic bomb, named Fat Man which was dropped on Hiroshima and the second bomb, Little Boy which was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

I must clarify that I believe there are some things worth fighting against and fighting for. It was worthwhile fighting the evil of the Nazi regime, and the rapacious Japanese expansion in Asia. But many wars arise from greed, misunderstanding or intolerance. The Butter Battle Book demonstrates that sometimes, war made for these reasons, is good for nothing....

The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder

2011-11-17T19:14:00.006-05:00

This day

is like the best

of both kinds

of books.

I want to cherish

each moment and yet,

I've got to know

that this character

named Cade

will be okay

when this story

ends.

Sixteen year old Amber is about to have her life thrown into complete chaos. But before that officially happens, she takes a day off from her life, slips out of her house and takes a limo to the town of Newport. She brings her iPod, her phone, her drumsticks and her jelly beans. Amber's plan is to spend time at the beach, her favourite place to de-stress. Instead, her plans get altered when she meets a beautiful boy named Cade, at the aquarium. They seem to have an immediate connection through their love of movies, music and Amber also recognizes that like her, this boy is also going through some kind of life-altering experience.

Through the equisite poetry of Lisa Schroeder we follow Amber and Cade as they spend the next twenty-four hours together. They flip a "lucky penny" to determine where they will go and what they will do. Along the way they get up the courage to tell one another about what is happening in their lives and offer each other respect, love and hope. Amber knows that Cade is troubled and she genuinely wants to help him. In many ways, Cade and Amber's relationship in The Day Before is a truly poignant story, which leaves the reader with a sense of many possibilities to be discovered.

However, while I really enjoyed this book, in particular the poetry and the blossoming relationship between Cade and Amber, what I disliked strongly was the underlying premise the author used to set up Amber's trip. It was overly melodramatic and in my opinion, utterly unrealistic.

*spoiler*

We learn that Amber was switched at birth. Her birth parents go to court to obtain custody of her and are partially successful when the judge awards shared custody. This means that Amber will spend six months with the family who raised her for the past 16 years and six months with her biological family. Based on my personal experience and my knowledge of family law, I cannot believe that any court would grant such an order involving a 15 year old girl, without her consent or any consideration of her feelings or the impact on her life. Generally speaking courts do listen carefully to the wishes of children over the age of twelve, and especially so to an older teen. Is there actually a precedence in family law in the United States for this situation? How would such a ridiculous ruling affect this young girl's education? How could Amber possibly maintain any continuity in her education? In my opinion, because of this, The Day Before, is fatally flawed. Schroeder could have retained much of the drama of the situation simply by having Amber leave for a day to in an attempt to come to terms with the knowledge that she was switched at birth and has been raised by people who are not her biological parents.

If you don't mind the ridiculous premise behind Amber's situation, ignore it and read The Day Before, enjoying the lyrical poetry and the sweet relationship between two intelligent, caring teens.

In the video below, Lisa Schroeder discusses how she puts a little bit of herself into each of her novels:

If you'd like to see what other books Lisa Schroeder has written, check out her colourful website at LisaSchroederbooks.com

Book Details:
The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder
New York: Simon Pulse 2011
307 pp.

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

2011-11-14T23:08:00.000-05:00

Left Neglected is Lisa Genova's second book, again telling the story of a woman coping with a serious neurological problem. Thirty-seven year old Sarah Nickerson is VP of Human Resources at Berkley Consulting, which "offers strategic advice to companies all over the world in all industries". Her job is a pure stress, pressure cooker position in a company that is known for its premiere consulting work and high burnout and divorce rate among staff.

Sarah and her husband Bob, also a Harvard business grad, live in Welmont, a wealthy suburb of Boston and have three children, Charlie, Lucy and Linus (named after the Charlie Brown characters). Sarah's life is incredibly hectic, a combination of having to juggle 70 to 80 hour work weeks with the responsibility of raising three small children. But all that changes one morning on a rushed drive to work, when Sarah pulls out her cell phone and is involved in a serious single car accident. Sarah suffers trauma to the right side of her head. She awakens eight days later in ICU to discover that her brain does not recognize the left side of her body. She knows she has a left side but doesn't know where it is. Her brain ignores all sensory information that originates on the left side of her body.

At first Sarah believes that she will recover within two weeks and be back into the groove of her hectic life. She can't afford the time to be disabled. She enters therapy, first at the hospital and then at the Baldwin Rehabilitation Center. Instead of a fast recovery and a return to her crazy out of control life, Sarah begins to realize that this process will take more time than she might be willing to admit.

"The more therapy I have, the more I realize that this is not a math equation. No one will give me any guarantees. I might get better and I might not. The therapy might help, and it might not. I can work hard as I've always worked at everything I've ever done, and it might not be any more effective than just lying here and praying. I've been doing both."

As she works to rehabilitate herself, Sarah must also come to terms with her past and in particular with her broken relationship with her mother, who emotionally abandoned her when she was young. Sarah gradually learns to redefine her life, the nature of success and her priorities in life. What started out as an obstacle and a disability has become an opportunity for positive change and personal growth.

The title, Left Neglected has two meanings; referring both to a neurological disorder arising from the head injury that Sarah experiences and her emotional abandonment by her mother and father during her childhood.

There were many facets of this book I really loved. I enjoyed the overall writing style of the novel conveyed through the voice of Sarah, which was both engaging and genuine. Genova infused Sarah's voice with humour that lightened what could have been a very oppressive situation and added to the character of the book.

I felt that Left Neglected portrayed events in a realistic way, especially in contrasting Sarah's lifestyle before and after her accident, demonstrating how Sarah's disability impacted her life, it's effects on her relationship with her husband and children and how it changed the way she viewed others.

I was also thrilled to see Lisa Genova take on the issue of cell phone usage while driving. Where I live, talking on cell phone while driving is banned, yet hundreds of people still do this. It's easy to spot these people because these are the drivers who wander into the oncoming lane, drive too slow or can't make a turn properly. In Left Neglect, a momentary lapse of attention while fishing for a cell phone, changes Sarah's life forever.

Although I enjoyed Still Alice, I feel Genova's writing has continued to grow and that Left Neglected is more enjoyable and better written than the former. This is a great book that will appeal to older teens, book club participants and those who enjoy books about overcoming personal difficulties.

Below is a video in three parts of an interview with author Lisa Genova:

In the second interview, author Lisa Genova discusses the dreams Sarah has in the first part of the book and their significance in the story.

In the third part of the interview, Lisa talks about how another author who had self-published, Julia Fox Garrison, introduced her to a literary agent and then revealed a surprising piece of personal information that helped Lisa write Left Neglected.

Book Details:
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
New York: Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster, Inc.)
327 pp.

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

2011-11-13T14:53:00.005-05:00

Goliath, the final installment in the Leviathan trilogy, is the best of the three books. The story centers mainly around Nikola Tesla, a Serbian inventor, who in real life, made many discoveries in the area of electricity, and who in Goliath believes that he has the ultimate weapon capable of stopping the carnage of World War I. In the Leviathan series, Tesla is a "Clanker boffin, a maker of German secret weapons" and the inventor of the Tesla cannon, a lightning weapon that almost destroyed the Leviathan in Behemoth.

The growing relationship between Deryn and Alex and their conflicted feelings for one another, she a commoner and he a royal prince, adds the requisite romantic tension to the novel.

The story opens with both Alex and Dylan (Deryn) aboard the Leviathan on their way to some secret destination in Northern Siberia. There, in the region of the Tunguska River, they rescue the renowned scientist, Nikola Tesla and his crew of Russians. The Tunguska River area has been devastated by some kind of massive explosion, which Tesla claims is the result of his doomsday machine - Goliath. However, Dr. Barlow, the British scientist onboard the Leviathan doesn't think this is likely. She believes there might be an alternative explanation for what has happened in the region.

In the meantime, Dr. Tesla has managed to convince the British Admiralty that the Leviathan should journey to New York, whetr Tesla will demonstrate his secret weapon's ability to inflict massive destruction, thus convincing the Germans, Austrians and British to end the war. Alex forms an alliance with Tesla, believing that stopping the war is his destiny. However, soon he realizes that the situation may not be as it appears. Has he aligned himself with a madman, or with a brilliant scientist capable of performing the impossible and stopping a terrible world wide conflict?

Filled with the necessary battles, crises and twists, unusual creatures and alternate versions of history, Goliath builds to an exciting but satisfyingly predictable conclusion. There were many aspects of Goliath that I enjoyed; the strong female characters, the touch of romance and the merging together of both Clanker and Darwinist technology, especially the gradual acceptance in both Deryn and Alex of aspects of both societies. There are the fantastical creatures bred by the Darwinists; two headed eagles, three meter tall bulls and so forth. But perhaps the most ingenious are the chatty and "perspicacious" lorises who evolve into delightful "characters" in this novel, adding a touch of humour here and there.

Once again the book is illustrated with the beautiful pencil sketches of Keith Thompson and has a great cover featuring the two attractive young protagonists.

Goliath is a welcome conclusion to Westerfeld's innovative steampunk trilogy.

Book Details:
Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
New York: Simon Pulse
543pp

In Theatres Soon.....

2011-11-12T13:05:00.003-05:00

If you've read Brian Selznick's Invention of Hugo Cabret, you will hardly be able to wait until November 25 when the film is released into theatres.

One of my daughters is a huge fan of TinTin, so The Adventures of TinTin, which will be released December 21, is highly anticipated in our house. Produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Steven Spielberg, TinTin promises to be a thrilling cinematic adaptation of the beloved books by Herge. The Adventures of TinTin is based loosely on the TinTin books but especially The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure. Starring Jamie Bell as TinTin, Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock, and Daniel Craig as Ivanovich Sakharine,the movie traces TinTin's efforts to locate a treasure hidden 300 years ago by an ancestor of Captain Haddock, who scuttled his ship, the Unicorn, to prevent pirates from capturing it. Clues to the treasure's whereabouts are hidden in three tiny models of the ship, the Unicorn. Tintin, his faithful dog, Snowy, and Haddock race to locate the treasure before, Sakharine, a descendant of the pirate who attacked the original Unicorn centuries earlier. Check out the trailer below:

The other movie I'd like to see is War Horse which is also directed by Steven Spielberg and tackles the story about a young man, Albert, whose horse is sold to the calvary and sent overseas with troops to fight in World War I. This movie is based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo. War Horse stars Tom Hiddleston (Loki in Thor) as Captain Nichols and Jeremy Irvine as Albert.This movie might appeal to older viewers. Having read several of Michael Morpurgo's books and loved all of them, I will have to make a concerted effort to add this one to my gigantic "to read" list. The cinematography and the drama of the movie's trailer has captured my interest. The IMDB website indicates a Christmas Day release for those of us in Canada.

Eve by Anna Carey

2011-11-06T16:49:00.000-05:00

Eve tells the story of a girl and boy in a post-plague world. America specifically has been destroyed by a plague that killed anyone who received a vaccination against it. This meant that most adults were killed along with many older children. The result has been a catastrophic collapse of society and the emergence of a new order and a new country, The New America, ruled by one man, The King.
Eve, was five when her mother died. She along with numerous other orphans were sent to special schools where they received a special education that included the learning of Latin, writing, painting and piano. They also received a special kind of indoctrination - to fear men. Men, the girls are told, "could be manipulative, conniving, and dangerous." Through literature, they learned to avoid men at all costs.

The story opens the day before Eve's graduation, when she along with thirty-nine other girls will walk across the bridge to the giant windowless building to begin learning their trades. Eve is excited to begin this new chapter in her life. She wants to become a painter and paint murals in the King's capital, the City of Sand. She imagines a life of leisure and accomplishment. However, Eve begins to question what is going on when the school rebel, Arden, escapes. Arden tells Eve the true purpose of the building across the lake from the school - the graduates are enslaved to breed babies for the new world.

When Eve discovers that Arden is telling the truth, she escapes into the unknown wilds the night before "graduation" in search of a safe haven known as Califia. Eve stumbles upon Arden and the two of them starving, run into a young man, Caleb, who instantly is drawn to Eve. Caleb hides Arden and Eve from the government troops who are searching frantically for Eve. It is at this time that Eve discovers why she is being hunted - The King wants her for his wife.

Caleb takes her to a refuge camp in the wilderness. The camp run by a tough character named Leif, is populated entirely by boys of various ages. Eve who has been indoctrinated to distrust men, must now rely on Caleb and Leif for her safety. As Eve spends more time with Caleb she gradually begins to realize not all men are as The Teacher described in the school. Some men are bad, but some men like Caleb Eve identifies as a "good man". Gradually Eve finds herself falling in love with Caleb. From this point on, there are several twists in the story but essentially the remainder of the novel tells the story of Eve and Caleb and their attempt to reach Califia.

Overall, this novel was enjoyable and very exciting. The dystopian society is gradually explained throughout the book. After years of indoctrination, I'm not so sure Eve would have so quickly undertaken the task to learn about what was going on in the windowless building across the lake from the school. Nevertheless, this does set the stage for Eve leaving the sheltered world she has been raised in.
She also seems to quickly overcome her biased view of men and learns about loving and happiness from Caleb.

Eve is the first book in what will be a trilogy. The second book, Once, is due to be published next year. If you'd like to watch the book trailer and read about possible casting for a movie check out the website TheEveTrilogy.com

Book Details:
Eve by Anna Carey
Alloy Entertainment 2011
318 pp.

K-Pop Videos

2011-11-05T23:04:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to figure out the whole Kpop music scene now for about 6 months. It's a very fascinating genre of music that has incorporated many North American music influences, especially that of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Lady Gaga, along with Korean and Asian culture. There are a ton of videos online, many of them very very popular. For the teens in my family it all started with Korean dramas and then gradually led to the music.

Here are two of my favourite videos by 2NE1, a South Korean girl pop band. Formed in 2009, the group's acronym means "New Evolution of the 21st century. 2NE1 is comprised of four members, CL, Dara, Bom and Minzy.

I'll be featuring more of these in the coming weeks and months. Do you have any favourites you'd like to share.

Glogging Historical Fiction

2011-11-03T14:31:00.003-04:00

Below is a poster I did in Glogster showing some of the women characters tackled in recent historical novels for teens.

The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller

2011-10-31T23:43:00.002-04:00

The Lost Crown is a well researched historical novel about the final years of the Russian Imperial family before they were all murdered in 1918 by the Communist revolutionaries. The story is told in the voices of each of Tsar Nicholas II's four daughters, Olga, Maria, Tatiana and Anastasia.

The novel opens describing the idyllic and somewhat sheltered life of the Russian royal family in June of 1914. The only time the family's life is disturbed is when Aleksei, who is a hemophiliac, injures himself and bleeds uncontrollably. In August 1914, war breaks out in Europe. To Tatiana it makes no sense. Russia takes the side of the Serbians, meaning her people will have to fight Austria and Germany - the mother country of the Empress Alexandra. How can they fight their cousins?

In Catherine Place, across from the Imperial Palace, a lazaret (infirmary) is set up for the wounded soldiers who are brought in by train to Tsarskoe Selo. There the Empress and her daughters tend to the soldiers. Tatiana is proud to earn her Red Cross nursing certificate and is a competent nurse. Her older sister Olga, however, has great difficulty coping with the gore and the intense suffering of the soldiers.

At first the soldiers are thrilled to have their Empress and her daughters care for them. But as the war stretches on and more and more Russian men are chewed up in the conflict, there are murmurings against the Tsar and his German Empress. Perhaps the German-born Empress is a spy?

When the war goes badly for Russia, Nicholas II assumes command of the Russian army, even though he is only a colonel in the army. As more and more men die and the impoverished nation sinks further into dissent and mutiny, the Tsar decides to abdicate his throne in an attempt to quell the peasant uprisings. Sadly this is only the beginning of the end.

The Imperial family are imprisoned in their palace at Tsarskoe Selo, after most of the royal regiments desert the family. At this time the Duchesses are ill with the measles. Colonel Kobylinsky, commandant of the new palace guard at Tsarskoe Selo tries his best to protect the Tsar and mitigate the actions of the Bolsheviks. The Tsar and his family meet the head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky who decides that Nicholas and Alexandra must be separated from each other and their family until they are questioned.

As the revolution progresses, the imperial family is moved from Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk in Siberia. There they are restricted to living in an old "mansion" which is repaired for them. They are not allowed to visit the town nor to have contact with anyone.

The Lost Crown is in some respects a fascinating and detailed read about the last years of the Imperial family of Russia. There is no doubt that Sarah Miller researched her subject matter very well. There's lots of attention to detail and creative imagining of conversations between family members. She is able to convey as sense that the Romanov's were a caring, tender family, if not naive and completely unaware of the seriousness of their plight.

The entire novel is permeated by a deep sense of tragedy because of course, the reader knows the outcome for the Tsar and his beloved family. It is a foreshadowing of the brutality and horror that all of Russia, as it evolves into the communist Soviet Union, will sink to during the next 70 years. However, because the reader likely knows how this will end for the family, there is no real suspense to the novel, only a fictional telling of the family's last days alive in captivity.

Although the author has opted to write this novel in a very ambitious way, through the voices of all four of the Duchesses, I felt this didn't contribute much to the story nor enhance the way it was told. At times it was difficult to discern little if any difference in the voice of one Duchess from another. This along with the random alternating of who was telling the story made it difficult to remember who was narrating at any particular time without referring back to the beginning of the chapter. I think the novel could have been written just as effectively using only the voice Olga or perhaps Olga and Tatiana instead of all four sisters.

The back of the novel has an extensive Epilogue with black and white pictures of the family, an author's note and also information on further reading. The Lost Crown is one of several recent books on the Imperial family of Russia including Anastasia's Secret by Susanne Dunlap. For those readers who would like a more serious historical fiction, Miller's book is the better of the two. It takes it's subject matter more seriously and it has the backing of detailed research into the Romanov family and Russia.

For those wishing to explore the Russian Imperial family further Sarah Miller recommends the website www.alexanderpalace.org, which appears to have extensive digital reproductions of primary source material.

Book Details:
The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller
New York: Simon and Schuster Children's Publishers 2011
412 pp.

The Three Musketeers: Movie Review

2011-10-30T10:13:00.007-04:00

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is one of literature's best known and greatest stories. The novel's plot is quite complex and full of intrigue and suspense. It tells the story of d'Artagnan, a young man who travels from his home in Gascony to Paris to seek adventure and hopefully join the Musketeers, a group of guards formed to protect the King. Enroute to Paris, D'Artagnan is beaten, robbed and has a letter of introduction to the Guard of the Musketeers stolen by the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu.

When he arrives in Paris, D'Artagnan manages to stumble into duels with three of King's Rroyal Musketeers, Athos, Aramis and Porthos. These three are down on their luck when D'Artagnan happens upon them. When all three musketeers show up for their respective duels, they are surprised to learn they are all fighting the same man - D'Artagnan. All four men are attacked by Cardinal Richelieu's men and a sword battle develops, which the musketeers and D'Artagnan win. Richelieu's men are driven off and Athos, Aramis and Porthos, impressed by D'Artagnan's courage and skill welcome him into their company.

All four musketeers become involved in political intrigue in the royal court, intrigue which involves Atho's ex-wife, Milday de Winter and D'Artagnan's new love, Constance who is a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Consort.

The Queen is having an affair with the Duke of Buckingham and as a token of her love, she gives him a diamond necklace. Cardinal Richelieu, an adviser to King, is really a traitor. He wishes to start a war between France and England and usurp the throne. He suggests to the King, Louis XIII, that he hold a ball and request his Queen wear the necklace, knowing full well that she no longer has it in her possession. The Queen asks for the help of the Musketeers who travel to England to try to retrieve the necklace from Buckingham. It eventually falls to D'Artagnan to get the necklace. Richelieu's agent, Lady de Winter tries repeatedly to kill D'Artagnan and in the end, gets her own just reward.

The latest movie adaptation, is really quite different than all the previous movies. Anyone hoping for a true rendition of the book would be sorely disappointed. This movie is pure fun and entertainment, and sticks to only the bare bones of Dumas'novel while being packed full of well known actors and introducing some outlandish twists.

Matthew Macfayden (Pride & Prejudice) plays Athos, Orlando Bloom is the Duke of Buckingham, Milla Jovovich is Lady de Winter, Mads Mikkelson is Rochefort and Logan Lerman has the role of D'Artagnan. The movie is full of handsome men, beautiful costuming, special effects and was shot in 3D.
For the first time, Orlando Bloom had the role of a villain in a movie and he didn't live up to expectations. His acting seemed overdone but without any real effect. He seemed unable to convey anything but a sense of one-upmanship. He was handsome in the period costumes but there was absolutely no sense from the storyline that he was ever involved with the Queen Consort. Instead, Mikkelson comes up as the true villain in this movie as he tries repeatedly to kill D'Artagnan. He has the looks, the bad-ass attitude and the sword play to go with it.

This adaptation adds a somewhat "steampunkish" look to both the storyline and the cinematography. The opening scene in which Athos (Macfayden) appears out of a canal to attack the Richelieu's guards looks like something out of a sci-fi movie or even Mission Impossible. The "windpunk" theme (since steam wasn't yet invented) comes from the addition of wind-powered flying ships that were designed by Leonardo da Vinci who supposedly hid the plans in a vault. The Musketeers initially steal the plans for the ships with the help of Lady de Winter who as double agent, then dupes the Musketeers and steals them back for Buckingham. Buckingham will then use the plans to create an advanced armada of ships. At this early point in the movie, it becomes apparent that this will be a very different Musketeers.

There's plenty of well choreographed sword fighting, some of it in slow motion and epic air ship battles, a la "Pirates of the Caribbean". Unlike the 1974 version with Michael York, The Three Musketeers is clean and has little overt violence. People get killed but there isn't much gore. At times the movie suffers from a poor script, particularly for D'Artagnan, played by Logan Lerman. His lines are awkward and at times even redundant and silly.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie adaptation. I went to the movies to be entertained and Three Musketeers succeeded in that respect. This movie had a lot of potential and good ideas that simply weren't explored to the depth necessary to make it a really good adaptation.

The Killing Sea by Richard Lewis

2011-10-27T23:27:00.000-04:00

The Killing Sea is a novel I've wanted to read for some time now. In fact, I've taken it out of my library several times but never gotten around to actually reading it! So recently I gave it another go, and I discovered Lewis has written a surprisingly good novel about a difficult topic - the 2004 tsunami which killed an estimated 250,000 people.

The story opens on the day before the tsunami, December 25, 2004, with an American family, the Bedford's on vacation in the small harbour town of Meulaboh. They have stopped in the port to have the engine in their small chartered sailboat repaired. Ruslan who lives in Meulaboh, understands English and sends them to his father Yusuf who is a mechanic. Once their sailboat is repaired they sail out of the harbour and anchor for the night off the coast of Sumatra.

Meanwhile, Ruslan, who is a talented artist, cannot forget the deep blue eyes of Sarah Bedford. Ruslan lives with his father in the village. His father, appreciative of Ruslan's artistic gifts, plans to send him to arts college in Jakarta.

Early the next morning a magnitude 9.2 earthquake hits the area, just offshore. Sarah and her family feel the quake as a dull but deep thud. They know immediately that they are in trouble because the reef they are anchored near is drying up, the water receding quickly out to sea. Their sailboat, the Dreamcatcher is trapped, aground and as they look out to the ocean, to their horror they see a wall of water coming towards them. Sarah, her father and mother and younger brother Peter abandon the boat and try to make it to shore to the safety of the hills. It is a race against time, they have little chance of winning.

Sarah and her brother Peter survive the tsunami, but Peter has been injured by swallowing water and needs medical attention. Sarah's and Peter's journey becomes one to find help for Peter.

For Ruslan, the quake hits Meulaboh shortly after he finishes breakfast. When he runs to the waterfront to check on his father, he like others in the town gasp in wonder at the receding water. For reasons, unknown to Ruslan, he begins running away from the ocean as fast as he can. He stops at his home to grab a shirt and sandals and tries to outrun the oncoming black water. But soon he is cut off from every point of escape. His only option is to get to the top of a house and ride out the flood. Ruslan watches in horror as people he knows drown or are crushed in the black refuse-choked waters. He survives but does not know the fate of his father. Eventually Ruslan learns that he went to visit relatives that day in the Calang region. So his journey is to find his missing father.

The story is told in the alternating voices of Sarah and Ruslan as they journey first separately and then together towards safety and reuniting with their families. Chapters often end with some kind of tension that is resolved in the next chapter narrated by the character.

Lewis deftly demonstrates to his readers how the physical disaster combined with the political turmoil and Third World character in the Banda Aceh region contribute to the suffering of the people after this catastrophe. Items we take for granted in wealthy Western countries, such as antibiotics, fever medication and even doctors, simply do not exist in poor underdeveloped areas like Aceh.

Lewis incorporated much of what he learned about this tsunami from working as a volunteer in Aceh after the disaster into the novel. He spoke with survivors and refugees and this helped him in the crafting of his story.

Book Details:
The Killing Sea by Richard Lewis
New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers 2006
183 pp.

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

2011-10-25T16:59:00.003-04:00

"The strong can eat bitterness, stomach the suffering,"

Frances "Fei Ting" Ching lives with her mother Gracie, in a small, one bedroom apartment in San Francisco. She attends St. Elizabeth's, a private Catholic school along with Theresa Fong, her best friend. Frances took the SAT last year and obtained a mark of 1050 while Theresa got 1350. This puts her at a disadvantage applying to universities and her mother is very disappointed because Frances' mom has her entire life planned out for her; Frances must get into Berkley and get straight As. Frances can then attend medical school, become a doctor and make an excellent wage. Then Gracie can quit her job and Frances will be able to cure her mother of her stomach ailment. It's the perfect plan in Gracie's mind because her needs and desires are the same as those of her daughter's.

While showing Frances the family's jewelry one day, her mother makes Frances promise to undertake this plan. It is their "pact". However, things begin to go awry, when Frances is mistakenly placed into speech class instead of calculus. Ms. Taylor, the young teacher in speech, makes Frances feel excited and special, something Frances cannot envision happening in calculus class. The idea that language is powerful and that it can define a person and be used to persuade and influence is very appealing to Frances. This is partly because Frances is caught in an emotionally abusive relationship with her controlling self-centered mother.

Although she intends to correct the scheduling mistake, Frances cannot quite make herself do this. She loves speech, it is empowering and she seems to have an aptitude for it. As the deadline for course changes passes, Frances realizes she has in fact, made the decision to stay in the class. Frances knows that her mother will be furious and never accept her having taken speech over calculus, so she enlists best friend Theresa to help her keep speech class a secret from her mother.

Ms. Taylor encourages both Theresa and Frances to join the speech team, which means they will have to compete in speech tournaments. Around the same time, Frances begins attending a Princeton Review class in preparation for the SAT. During the first class, Frances meets a boy named Peter Collins whom she forms an instant bond with because he sticks up for her. In a strange co-incidence, Peter shows up at Frances' first speech competition as a competitor.

After a few Princeton classes, Frances doesn't return because they conflict with her practices for an upcoming speech competition. This now means that Frances will have to hide more from her mother and cover her tracks better. It means Theresa will have to cover even more for her.

During her first competition, Frances meets Peter again and it's obvious he likes her. But Frances isn't allowed to date boys. So now, she must also hide her friendship with Peter from her mother too. What begins as a small secret, now spirals out of control with Frances living a double life - that of a dutiful, brow-beaten Chinese daughter in the presence of her mother and that of a vibrant, confident teenager with a vision of her own life away from home.

Even though Frances is very successful in her first competition, when her mother learns that she is taking speech and not calculus she is furious. She physically attacks Frances who is made to beg forgiveness from her mother. Her win, instead of placating her mother, makes Frances mother even more controlling and manipulative in ways that are truly heartbreaking. But Frances begins to discover more about herself and who she is through her speech competitions, which act as a sort of therapy for her and also help her to understand just what her mother is doing to her. This allows her to fight back. She begins to realize that she must make a hard choice.

'It's like choosing whether to cut off one's right hand or one's left hand. It is like having to decide whether to save your drowning mother, knowing that you may both drown, or swimming to shore alone, knowing that you can only save yourself. If that is your dilemma, which way is right? Which way would you choose?'

Cara Chow has written a poignant novel about a young girl's struggle to live her life on her own terms and to be true to herself. Bitter Melon is one of numerous books written about Asian teens struggling to cope with manipulative mothers. In light of the recent publication of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, it seems to be an attempt by Asian women to confront the problem of mothers (and fathers) who push their children to the absolute limit using almost any means possible to attain academic success and ultimately, status.

While Gracie Ting is portrayed as a dragon mother, Ms. Taylor is the exact opposite - a mentor and a young woman who encourages Frances to consider her options and think for herself. She acts as a "corrective lens" though which Frances can view herself and her world. She is a true mentor for Frances, encouraging her to apply to several colleges, not just Berkley and to think about what SHE wants to do with her life.

Through Ms Taylor, Frances is introduced to some ideas that she has not been previously exposed to. For example, the idea of unconditional love is brand new to her. Ms. Taylor tells her and Theresa that their mothers will love them regardless of how they place in the speech contest.

"That's the first time I've ever heard the idea of unconditional love outside the context of religion....the idea that real live parents could be unconditionally loving is completely foreign. Often Mom and other Chinese parents say 'dai sek'. 'Dai sek describes children who are polite or affectionate, who excel in school, who serve their parents before themselves at banquets, or who send money back home. How can anyone be loved not for what they do but for who they are? Isn't who you are defined by what you do?"

Of course, this is not Frances' experience of love at all. It seems she is only loved, like other children of Chinese parents, if she achieves. And more importantly, if she achieves what the parents desires for the family.The notion of unconditional love is very foreign to her until her best friend Theresa and her boyfriend, Pater, both give her that experience by loving her despite her many flaws.

The title of the book, Bitter Melon originates from a part in the book where Frances and her mother are eating a bitter melon during dinner. Frances does not want to eat the melon but her mother tells her, "If you eat bitterness all the time, you will get use to it. Then you will like it." This is a metaphor for the troubles of life, for hard work, and for doing things we don't like or want to do. While it's true we all must do things we do not like, or that there are things that happen to us that we don't like, in reality, Frances' situation is much different. Her "bitterness" comes from swallowing what her mother wants for her again and again. It is a result of her mother's complete lack of understanding that what she wants is not the same as what Frances wants. It is Gracie's bitterness spilling into Frances' life.

Although this book might seem a little over the top in terms of some of the actions of Frances' mother, I feel it's probably close to the mark. It seems young Asian writers have a message for their parents and all parents; we must allow our children the freedom to choose their lives. As parents, we can only direct them, not control them. They will make mistakes and not heed our advice, but in the end, those mistakes can be opportunities for growth and wisdom.

Book Details:
Bitter Melon by Cara Chow
New York: Egmont, USA 2011
309 pp.

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

2011-10-19T22:24:00.000-04:00

Yet another wonderfully intriguing story from the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

In Wonderstruck we follow two separate stories that eventually merge into one. The first story begins in 1977, in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota with Ben Wilson who has just lost his mother in a car accident. He is living with his aunt and uncle in their house which is eighty three steps away from the house he lived in with his mother. Likely because his mother has just died, Ben who feels alone in the world, wonders about his father, whom he knows nothing about. Does he know about Ben? Where is he now?

When Ben sees a light on in his mother's house he decides to investigate. While searching through his mother's bedroom, he discovers a book, titled Wonderstruck published by the American Museum of Natural History inscribed with the message, For Danny, Love M. He also finds a book mark from Kincaid Books which has a handwritten message dating back to February 1965. With these two clues, Ben embarks on a remarkable journey to find his father.

This story is alternated with a second story told entirely in pictures. Set in Hoboken, New Jersey, 1927, it is about Rose, a deaf girl who lives in a house with her father and keeps a detailed scrapbook on a very famous actress named Lillian Mayhew. Rose is very, very lonely and one day runs away to the city to see her mother who only comes home to visit once a month. But her mother is not interested in seeing her and Rose ends up fleeing to the American Museum of Natural History where her brother works.

Gradually the Selznick weaves a story that ties all of the lose ends together while giving the reader some clues that encourage and entice us to try to figure out the connection between Ben and Rose.

Wonderstruck is a brilliantly conceived novel that melds together an interesting narrative with gorgeous pencil drawings in a graphic novel style. This story will appeal to young readers, especially boys who are reluctant readers as well as older readers who have enjoyed The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The back of the book contains a detailed Acknowledgement section in which Selznick outlines the origins of some of the ideas in the book.

Book Details:
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
Scholastic Canada 2011
639 pp.

She Touched The World by Sally and Robert Alexander

2011-10-17T23:27:00.001-04:00

She Touched the World tells the story of deaf-blind pioneer Laura Bridgman. Laura was born December 21, 1829, a "delicate plant" of a child to Harmony and Daniel Bridgman of Hanover, New Hampshire. Although prone to some type of "fits" for the first two years of her life, these disappeared and she developed into a bright, inquisitive two year old. However, in February 1832, Laura and her older sisters, Collina and Mary became ill with what was thought to be scarlet fever. Both Collina and Mary died, while Laura lingered for weeks with a high fever that destroyed her sight and her hearing, as well as leaving her without the ability to taste or smell. Laura's world now became one without light or sound. She was unable to develop the ability to talk or interact with her brothers and parents.

Being a child with a strong sense of curiosity, Laura began to explore her home by touch. She learned to identify everything in her home and on the farm by touch and stayed close to her mother. Laura soon learned to knit, braid, iron, churn butter, sew, set the table and bake. However, she was often left alone because her parents had many chores and responsibilities.

When a professor, Dr. Reuben Mussey learned about Laura he came to the remarkable conclusion that Laura was teachable and very desperate to learn. This was a most unusual view to form about the disabled in the early 1800's because they were considered unteachable. When Dr. Mussey published a piece about Laura, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, director of the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind saw it and was interested. He visited Laura and immediately wanted her to move to Boston to live with him and his sister.

On October 12, 1837, Laura left her home in New Hampshire and moved to the Institute in Boston. Although initially deeply upset, Laura soon began to adapt. Howe assessed Laura and determined that she was totally blind but understood the difference between light and darkness. Her sense of touch was remarkably well developed to the point that she recognized people by the touch of a hand. Laura was also sensitized to people's moods, being able to tell their mood by touch. Although Howe tried to teach her to speak, he was unsuccessful. But it is probable that Laura could have been taught to speak. Howe decided though that it was possible to free Laura from her prison and that she could learn to communicate with the world around her.

Sally and Robert Alexander outline Howe's method to teach Laura the names for objects and how using Howe's method she was able to develop language skills. Laura learned language at the age of eight, just before it became too late for her brain to develop this skill. It is now believed that children must learn language before puberty if they are to be able to communicate properly. But at the time Laura lived, this wasn't yet fully understood. Gradually Laura developed the means to communicate with people and her natural inquisitiveness helped her to make great strides in learning.

She Touched The World is a fascinating account of how one man open the possibilities for the disabled and how one very determined young woman demonstrated that given the right training, there were many possibilities for the disabled to live full productive lives. There are many black and white pictures of both Laura and the important people in her life as well as samples of her writing and needlework. This book is an excellent account of someone young Canadian's might not have heard about. One of the authors, Sally Hobart Alexander lost her sight at the age of 26 and also is partially deaf as well.

Book Details:
She Touched The World. Laura Bridgman, Deaf-Blind Pioneer by Sally Hobart Alexander and Robert Alexander
New York: Clarion Books 2008
100pp.

Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy

2011-10-16T16:37:00.004-04:00

Every triumph from patience springs,
The happy herald of better things...

Thirteen year old Zulaikha lives in the village of An Daral with her father, his second wife Malehkah, her fifteen year old sister Zeynab, her 19 year old brother Najib, and her half brothers Khalid and Habib. Her mother is dead (we learn her fate later on in the story) and her father's second wife is not kind to her.Zulaikha's life is hard. Zulaikha has had the misfortune to have been born with a cleft palate. This disfiguration makes it difficult for her to eat and speak and has opened her to taunts from adults and children alike. Zulaikha not only feels disgusting and ugly but also shame.

The story opens with the arrival of American troops into the village of An Daral. Initially, many of the people are afraid of the Americans whom they consider shocking and ignorant in their behaviour towards Afghani's, but they also have hope for the future. Zulaikha's father and brother are welders and they are soon hired on by the American's to build their base. This means the family will have money to improve their lives.

For a teenage girl like Zulaikha however, life isn't really all that different from the days before the Americans arrived. She doesn't attend school and she spends most of her time doing chores and running errands for Malehkah. One day Zulaikha meets Meena, a middle-aged widow who was a professor of literature at the university in Herat before the war with Russia. After the war, during the Taliban years, Meena ran a clandestine study group for men and women who loved literature and the ancient Afghan poets. Zulaikha learns from Meena that her beloved mother adored the great Sufi poet, Jami and his famous poem, Yusuf and Zulaikha. Zulaikha remembers her mother teaching her to read but because her mother died when she was four years old, she can only remember a few words. Meena tries to entice Zulaikha to learn, telling her about poets such as Firdawi, Jami, Hafez and Abdullah Ansari. When Zulaikha asks her to teach her to read, Meena agrees. In order to practice the words and alphabet she has been taught, Zulaikha, practices writing in the dirt - hence the title of the book.

Things are about to change even more for Zulaikha though. She is taken by her father and brother to meet the Americans who have seen her and who want to help her by having an American Army surgeon repair her facial deformity. Zulaikha meets Captain Mindy Edmanton, a medical officer who takes a picture of her mouth. For Zulaikha, it is her greatest wish come true. Could it be possible that these soldiers who have come to fight the Taliban would also want to help her? To her it is incomprehensible.

Events continue to move swiftly along with Zulaikha's Baba deciding to marry off his daughter, Zeynab to the Abdullah family to form an alliance with a wealthy family and thus raise the status of his own family. Zeynab will be the much older Tahir Abdullah's 3rd wife. It is a decision that has terrible consequences for Zeynab and breaks the heart of both her father and Zulaikha. As the family prepares for Zeynab's marriage to Tahir, Zulaikha learns that she will go to Kandahar to get her cleft lip repaired.

When she returns from her surgery and after discussing her future with Meena, Zulaikha decides that she would like to study in Herat. Her father does not want initially agree to this. He believes it is not the place for a woman to be educated. The American's have brought strange ideas with them. Zulaikha finds an ally in Malehkah who hopes for something better for the young women of Afghanistan.

Words in the Dust does a good job of exploring a number of issues related to Afghanistan as well as portraying life there to young American teens. Among the issues explored are the American role in Afghanistan, the cultural differences between Afghanistan and people from the West, man-woman relationships, the role of women in Afghan society, and the rights of women. Younger teens should be forewarned however, that there is a graphic description of the burn injuries of a young Afghani woman in the book. Older teens may find the frequent quotes from the poet Jami's work, Yusuf and Zualikha fascinating and want to read parts or all of the poem. This work can be found in partial form online here.

Trent Reedy, who was a member of the Iowa Army National Guard was called up for active duty in Afghanistan in 2004 and spent a year serving overseas. While overseas, he became convinced that he would love to write books for children. Upon his return to the United States, Reedy received a MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Words in the Dust is based on a true event that occurred while he was in Afghanistan.

Book Details:
Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy
Arthur A. Levine Books 2011
266pp.

Shattered by Melody Carlson

2011-10-15T21:18:00.000-04:00

Cleo is almost eighteen and a senior. She and her friend, Lola, want to attend a Christian concert in the city, at the Coliseum. Cleo is hoping to drive her father's car to the concert, but Cleo's mother is having none of it. When Cleo balks, her mother offers to come with her and Lola, sacrificing her own night out at her best friend's bachelorette party. Cleo doesn't want her mother to do this. She wants to go with her friend, not her mother. This concert is special to Cleo and Lola because it is Lola's last day in the city. Lola's parents divorced last summer and her mother Vera, is taking a new job in San Diego.The concert is one last time for Cleo and Lola to do something together before Lola moves.

Cleo is completely frustrated because her mother will not allow her any space to try new things and spread her wings as a young adult. She feels that her mother is suffocating her. But no matter how much she argues or tries to convince her mother of this, she will not let go.

"There will always be something," I say a bit too loudly.
"There will be car wrecks and epidemics and murders and all sorts of horrible things happening all over the planet, Mom. But that does not mean they'll happen to me. Don't you get that? Someday you will have to let me go!"

Upset at her mother's suffocating ways, Cleo decides to plan to attend the concert without her mother's knowledge. If she can't drive,Cleo decides she and Lola will take public transit to the concert. Although Cleo feels guilty about disobeying her mother and lying to her, her desire to be more independent overrules her feelings. When she and Lola arrive at the concert, Cleo pushes aside her feeling of guilt and tries to enjoy herself. After the concert they arrive safely home and Cleo decides she will confess to her mother what she did in the morning. Cleo never gets that chance because, incredibly, her mother is killed in a carjacking outside the Coliseum that night!

From the messages left on her phone, Cleo learns that her mother returned home early and when she found Cleo and Lola gone, she drove to the Coliseum to pick them up. Her mother arrived early and while driving around waiting for the concert to end, she was carjacked and murdered. Cleo concludes that if she had not disobeyed her mother and gone to the concert, her mother would be alive today. Cleo truly believes she is responsible for her mother's death. It is her darkest secret that she will never reveal to anyone. She is overwhelmed with grief and pain and in order to cope with this pain Cleo begins taking tranquilizers. Cleo becomes addicted to the prescription drugs and is soon buying drugs from a local dealer.

But there are several people in Cleo's life who are there to help her - her mother's sister, Kellie, who arrives shortly after the tragedy. Although Cleo treats her with disdain at first, calling her "slightly functional" and tries to push her away, it is Kellie who is Cleo's saviour. Eventually things spiral downward to the point that Cleo is hospitalized. Her Aunt Kellie confronts her regarding her addiction based on her experience with her brother Kevin. She discovers Cleo's secret and helps her move forward with her grieving, encouraging her to experience the pain of her mother's death and telling her that she is not responsible for what happened to her mother..

Cleo also meets a guy from her school who expresses a sudden interest in her and it is this relationship that provides some of the impetus to get well. Daniel Crane is the boy she's been infatuated with since her sophomore year. He's not only a natural athlete but he's good looking and kind to Cleo.

To be honest, I found the plot of Shattered bordering on melodramatic and stretching credibility. Cleo's mother was highly dysfunctional and it was understandable that Cleo would try to break free of her mother's suffocating grip on her life. Cleo goes out for the first time in her life and her mother is murdered - making for a very contrived and almost unbelievable plot. In most normal families, what would be happening the night of the concert would be discussed well before the date. In the case of things happening last minute, Cleo's mother could have driven her daughter and her friend to the concert. She could have picked her up afterwards. This is what normal parents do if the circumstances are such that there is a safety issue. It's what I do. It's what my friends do. But most of the time our teens go as a group to something such as concert.

It is interesting that in the front page of the book, Carlson indicates that "some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance....." While this may be true, I think many teens would find it hard to identify with the potential lessons in the book, given the strange circumstances they are framed within. I believe framing these issues under such extreme circumstances, detracts from the goal of the book and that of the publisher NavPress which as stated in the front of the book is "to helping people grow spiritually and enjoy lives of meaning and hope through personal and group resources that are biblically rooted, culturally relevant, and highly practical."

Despite the ridiculous turn of events, there are some good issues that can be discussed with teens; helicopter parenting, teen independence, obedience, lying, prescription drug abuse and family life.

Book Details:
A Daughter's Regret. Shattered by Melody Carlson
NavPress 2011
199 pp.

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry Part II

2011-10-12T18:30:00.004-04:00

In Part III The Tinderbox, John Barry demonstrates how America's mobilization for war allowed for conditions that were conducive to the spread of viruses and the development of not only epidemics but also possibly a pandemic. America's entry into World War I brought about significant changes in all aspects of American society. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States was not a man to do things by half measure. He claimed that the nation needed to be trained for war. He wanted to ensure that everyone supported the war effort. Speech was controlled, as well as the mail and a new Sedition Act was passed that made opposition to the government in any form unlawful. Much of national life was controlled.

Wilson decided to call up all men between the ages of 18 to 45. This meant that military barracks would see men crammed into buildings designed to hold far fewer men. It also meant the mass mobilization of workers into cities and lodgings which were often shared in shifts. Mobilization for war meant that America was stripped of its best and brightest medical professionals, often recruited directly from graduate schools. Barry writes that during this time, the quality of medical care for civilians deteriorated rapidly. By the end of the war, there were 38,000 physicians serving in the US military. The military also took as many nurses as it could find. There was no contingency plan for the general population; if the civilian population became ill there would not be enough medical professionals to care for them.

William Gorgas, Surgeon General of the Army was deeply concerned about the possiblity that mass mobilization would result in epidemics of disease from so many men living in close quarters. The deepest concern was with pneumonia which exists in endemic form (meaning it is always present in the general population). The Government ignored the warnings of medical professionals in placing so many men in close quarters.

"These circumstances not only brought huge numbers of men into this most intimate proximity but exposed farm boys to city boys from hundreds of miles away, each of them with entirely different disease immunities and vulnerabilities. Never before in American history -- and possibly never before in any country's history -- had so many men been brought together in such a way...
Gorga's nightmare was of an epidemic sweeping though those camps. Given the way troops moved from camp to camp, if an outbreak of infectious disease erupted in one, it would be extraordinarily difficult to isolate that camp and keep the disease from spreading to others. Thousands, possibly tens of thousands, could die."

Barry gives a fascinating account of how America mobilized for war and the enormous effect mobilization had on society. he also recounts how the US military grappled with so many men packed into cantonments. Measles epidemics raged through the army barracks and with it came pneumonia. Forty-six of all deaths were due to pneumonia as a complication of measles. A Canadian physician, Oswald Avery who worked at the now pre-eminent Rockefeller Institute was sent to work on this problem. Public health and military officials as well as physicians knew that it was pneumonia that would kill the majority of people if there were an epidemic of any kind.

John Barry also describes why researchers were so keen on learning all they could about pneumonia, often called the captain of death. Pneumonia is often a secondary illness that sets in after the initial infection has already weakened the immune system. It is still a leading cause of death today. Many people succumb to pneumonia after being sick with influenza.

"Influenza causes pneumonia either directly by a massive viral invasion of the lungs, or indirectly by destroying certain parts of the body's defenses and allowing secondary invaders, bacteria, to infest the lungs."

Since 1892, scientists have tried to find a cure for pneumonia by making a serum to treat it. Researchers began by discovering many types of pneumonia-causing bacteria. Oswald Avery, Rufus Cole and Alphonse Dochez studied this problem and had some success in treating patients with a serum. They categorized pneumonias into Type I, Type II, and Type III which were the most common. Research into the use of a serum suggested that it could raise survival rates significantly. At this time, pneumonia was considered the "captain of death" and was largely untreatable.

Outbreaks of influenza in early June 1918 were mild and were not as dangerous as the measles outbreaks in the military had been. Their concern over influenza was due to the fact that people died from complications due to pneumonia rather than from the influenza itself. To prevent the spread of illness due to influenza, Welch, Cole, Vaughan and Russell were convinced that special measures were needed. These included the creation of contagious-disease wards or separate contagion hospitals that dealt only with cases of the disease. They also felt that segregating all new troop arrivals in Europe for 10 to 14 days might contain the spread of any contagious disease to the new troops.

On The Volcano by James Nelson

2011-10-11T23:44:00.004-04:00

Katie MacDonald lives with her father Jack, in the fictitious Great Territories, on the slopes of a volcano. Her father and her mother fled to this isolated area of New Pacifica when rebels attacked towns near to where they were previously living. Katie's mother died, shortly after the move and she and her father have lived on their own for many years in a log cabin that he built. Katie's world is small; consisting of her father and his friend, Lorraine who drops by to help with work. Her dream is to accompany her father on one of his infrequent trips to Badwater for supplies. Her father reluctantly agrees to let her accompany him on his next trip to Badwater, with the stipulations that she wait until she is sixteen and that she dress as a boy named George to avoid attracting attention.

Despite these precautions, Katie as George, does attract the attention of two boys whom she ends up fighting. When 17 year old Jess Starkey is beaten by Katie he doesn't forget the humiliation, as we discover later on, to horrifying consequences. During their time in Badwater, Jack and Katie also meet the sheriff, Sheriff Benson and his Deputy, Adam Summerfield. Katie is immediately attracted to tall, handsome Adam.

Upon their return to their home on the slope of the volcano, Katie and her father resume their life but soon discover that things have changed. One day while hunting pheasant, Katie finds a man's glove in a pine grove. Not long after, during the summer, Katie has a surprise encounter with Jess Starkey that turns ugly and ends terribly. In a life and death situation, Katie's father comes to her rescue with the result that their lives are changed forever. They now realize that the peaceful existence they once knew is gone and that this will bring more people to their volcano. When Jess Starkey does not return from his trip up the volcano, this sets in motion an sequence of events that bring both tragedy and happiness to Katie.

While I enjoyed the beginning of the book and the way the plot was initially developing, my feelings changed after Jess Starkey's death. The book's unique setting and the hint of tragedy and romance made it initially very appealing. However, after Katie's encounter with Jess, I felt author James Nelson took the story in a disappointing direction that was increasingly violent with both murder and lying becoming the norm for the two main characters as well as the two supporting characters. And these actions seemed to be done with little compunction and not much internal conflict. It was as though they felt they had little choice but to do what they did.

I thought about it. I had killed a man. I, Katie MacDonald, an otherwise nice enough person, had hunted another human being like an animal. I'd figured out his path, hidden, waited for him, surprised him, killed him. Put an arrow through him just like a deer.
Could I have let him walk away?
I didn't see how.

I felt there were other choices Katie and her father could have made that were wiser, more honest and more in tune with the way the author had initially developed their characters in the novel. They were portrayed as peaceful people who simply wanted to live their lives in a simple manner. Jack MacDonald abhorred the violence that was encroaching on his life in Little Fish and so he moved far away so as not to be a part of it. They both respected all living things and killed only the animals they needed for food.

Instead we see Jack as a man who lies to cover up a murder and thus sets the example for his daughter Katie, to do the same. He does this despite recognizing that the Sheriff is a very understanding and intelligent man who likely has an idea of what has happened and who might understand the circumstances. Perhaps that is why Jack never reveals to Sheriff Benson the truth - he knows what happened and as the law he has decided not to proceed further.

I found it particularly disturbing that Katie could simply move on with her life, without much thought as to what she did.When questioned by Sheriff Benson, Katie doesn't offer him the truth, although she calls it that - she lies and she knows it.

"Technically, that was the truth. I didn't follow him around the trees. But in my heart I knew I was lying. I didn't follow him around the trees, because I followed him a deadlier way."

The author seems to suggest that because it's probable Sheriff Benson knows the real truth behind what happened to Ben Starkey, this makes what happened fine. The reader knows the Starkey's were violent, bad men and so does the Sheriff who represents the law. And as the law, he has decided to leave things be. Justice was done. By our standards today, this seems immoral and unjust. Certainly Katie in her own mind, feels completely justified in her actions and the book ends on an almost "happily ever after" tone.

On The Volcano has a unique setting -- a cabin on a volcano in a western setting. The smoking volcano is a symbol of the violence that is an undercurrent in their lives - just waiting to erupt. The plot is also unusual for a young adult novel in that it focuses on a young girl in a western setting who is involved in series of tragic events but who overcomes these obstacles to find happiness and love.

I am not familiar with any of James Nelson's previous works, all non-fiction. On The Volcano is his first young adult novel, published at the astonishing age of 91! That in itself makes this work unique.

Book Details:
On The Volcano by James Nelson
New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons 2011
272 pp.

The Fox Inheritance by Mary Pearson

2011-10-08T21:04:00.003-04:00

The Fox Inheritance is the second, long overdue sequel to the excellent The Adoration of Jenna Fox. In The Adoration of Jenna Fox we followed Jenna as she adjusted to her new life as essentially a type of cyborg with a human brain. Jenna, along with her best friends, Kara Manning and Locke Jenkins, had been in a horrific car accident. Her body had been destroyed but her human brain had been uploaded first to a special computer and then to a body made of biogel and composed of many biotic parts. This was done by her father, Michael Fox, a research scientist. Jenna was better than human and capable of living very very long - several hundred years.

It is now 260 years since the accident that "killed" Jenna and her friends Locke and Kara. We discover that Locke and Kara's families had been told that they died. However, unknown to their families, their brains had also been uploaded into a special computer. Although Jenna thought she destroyed the computers containing her friends brains, in fact copies were made by Dr. Ash of Fox BioSytems when the project was abandoned. He also retrieved tissue specimens and DNA from Locke and Kara before their bodies died. When Ash died, the uploads and specimens changed hands over the course of several generations and ultimately ended up in a storage facility in boxes labelled Fox Inheritance. Eventually these came into the possession of Dr. Gatsboro, several centuries later. Dr. Gatsboro restored their bodies with a special technology that allowed him to achieve a perfect likeness. He used their DNA to engineer their tissue in order to create their unique identity. Instead of the original Bio Gel, Locke and Kara have "an oxygenated gel filled with microscopic bio-chips" which "communicate and specialize...like human cells do."

The Fox Inheritance opens exactly one year after Locke and Kara have been uploaded into their new bodies. Kara and Locke are living in Gatsboro's compound, being educated in the new world they now inhabit and also being groomed for display. Dr. Gatsboro plans to use them as floor models to sell his process to potential clients who want to extend their lifespan.

Angry at what Dr. Gatsboro has planned for them and also at Jenna Fox for abandoning them for hundreds of years, Kara decides to runaway from Gatsboro's compound. Locke, seeing no other option, decides to run with her. Locke however, is concerned about Kara, who doesn't seem to be behaving normally. She is intensely angry and seems to have a cruel streak.

"And I'll tell you what I can't believe, Locke! I can't believe someone was able to buy my mind and then put me on display like I'm a trained monkey! I can't believe he's allowed to keep me here against my will! I can't believe Jenna has been living the high life while we've been crammed into a box and forgotten for over two hundred years! I can't believe I'm never going to see my mother or --"

Locke begins to wonder what is wrong with Kara. He doesn't remember her being like this. Perhaps her mind being alone for so long in the datasphere has damaged her in some way. When Kara and Locke get separated, it becomes a race to see who will find Jenna first. For Locke, it is about protecting Jenna. For Kara this is about revenge.

From this point on, the novel details the escapades of these two 20th century teens caught in a futuristic world as they try to locate their friend Jenna. Along the way we are treated to descriptions of American society 260 years into the future.

Unfortunately, this book was not as interesting as the first book which really works well as a stand alone. Although Pearson appears to have accomplished what she wanted to with The Fox Inheritance - that is to tell us what happened to Jenna over the course of several hundred years and fill us in on Locke and Kara (who we thought died in the first book), in reality the actual storyline wasn't unique nor particularly engaging. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that when The Adoration of Jenna Fox was written 3 years ago, books with this type of theme were very popular.

The character I liked the most was Dot Jefferson, who is a driver for Star Drivers and who is a Bot - a robot. She has no legs and no human shape below her waist because her functionality does not require this. She is a driver and is therefore wired directly into the vehicle she operates. Since Bots are robots in human form, they can be used by humans for many different jobs in society.

Dot agrees to help Kara and Locke because she wants to be like some of the other Bots who have stories to share about escapees. It soon becomes apparent that Dot has "desires". She is not just a robot. Dot like many bots seems to be something more than just a robot.

Training? Or is it programming? What's inside of Dot that is beyond her control? Everything? She's a Bot. I have to remember that. But there is still something different about her. Is that possible? Can a Bot be more than just circuits and programming? I think back to the hissing cashier at the diner -- a Bot too, but as different from Dot as I was from my brother. Where did their Bot paths diverge on the assembly line? Or was it somewhere after that?....

In this futuristic world, Bots seem to have the desire for more, to be human, to be whole, even to be accepted. This is in contrast to mankind, some of whom in the quest for immortality, are tending towards having a fabricated body. In this respect, The Fox Inheritance continues to explore the question of identity; "Who am I?" and "What is it that makes me?".

Even Locke, the narrator, is trying to figure out who he is. Is he still Locke? His body is different, more muscular and he's much taller than he was when he had a human body.

Overall, The Fox Inheritance is a good novel to explore themes of identity, immortality and what it means to be human.

Book Details:
The Fox Inheritance by Mary E. Pearson
New York: Henry Holt and Company 2011
294 pp.

The Attraction of Jane Eyre

2011-10-06T06:42:00.002-04:00

I just came across this small piece on Jane Eyre by Caroline Moynihan who writes for MercatorNet, an online magazine that is based in Sydney, Australia. Moynihan discusses possible reasons why so many are attracted to this novel and the many movie adaptations. there have been at least 9 English movie adaptations.

To the left, it a new edition of the book with its cover done in the style of book 2 of the Twilight series, New Moon. I don't like this as a cover for Jane Eyre, but it's definitely a marketing ploy to attract teens to the novel.

Here's an interesting tidbit from the article:

There is one thing about Jane, however, that today’s audience might find challenging. She is a very moral young woman. Not in a conventional sense; she has her creator’s vehement dislike of hypocrisy, especially when it is used, as her Aunt Reed and the loathsome Mr Brocklehurst use it, to oppress vulnerable children; and she believes it is more moral, however it looks, to go to India as St John’s sister-co-worker than as a wife in a loveless marriage. When the man she does love, however, turns out to be married (though the victim of deceit) she rejects his proposal to run off to France and live together anyway, though her heart is breaking.

And that is because Jane is not only instinctively virtuous but because she is religious, a Christian (of an ill-defined stamp), on all important points the mouthpiece of Charlotte Bronte, the clergyman’s daughter and Victorian Englishwoman. She not only dreams and draws inspiration from nature, including the best in human nature (Helen Burns, Miss Temple), she consults her conscience, she prays and seeks God’s will in her struggles, she forgives the Reeds their ill-treatment of her. Her story ends with a paean of praise for the “good and faithful servant” of Christ, the man who is not accidentally called “St John” Rivers. But don’t expect to find that in the latest movie.

Now go read the rest of it!

Anything but normal by Melody Carlson

2011-10-05T21:36:00.001-04:00

Anything but normal is the first book of Melody Carlson's that I've read.Carlson is a well known author of teen fiction that explores issues from a Christian perspective. In this book it is the issue of teen sexual activity and teen pregnancy that is explored.

Sophie Ramsay is a 17 year old student entering her senior year in anticipation of having a great year. Sophie met Dylan Morris at the camp they both worked at during the summer. He told her, her spirit and commitment to God were what attracted him to her. And indeed Sophie was committed to God - she had made a pledge to remain chaste until she married. Now at the end of the summer, Sophie feels deep pain and humiliation. Dylan said he would call her when he returned but never has. When Sophie attends an end of summer get together, where Dylan's family is, she realizes by his behaviour that their summer romance is over.

When she overhears her friends at school discuss guys and how Dylan is the type of guy who would respect a girl whose taken a pledge to remain chaste, she feels betrayed. Sophie knows Dylan isn't that type of guy at all. She struggles to come to terms with breaking her pledge and her guilt. But Sophie fell for his smooth talking and now she's a girl in trouble.

At first, Sophie's response to her situation is denial. She will simply pretend she's not pregnant but underneath she feels fear and hopelessness. When she sees an Unwanted Pregnancy ad at the school, she decides to check out the local clinic, even though she knows abortion to be wrong. At the clinic, Sophie wonders how she was not able to get an Advil at school for menstrual cramps without her parent's consent, but now could obtain a surgical abortion as a minor without her parent's knowledge. When Sophie says she wants an abortion, strangely the counselor suggests that adoption is an option. Not able to get an abortion that day, Sophie abandons the idea.

During this time Sophie attracts the attention of Wes Andrews who is genuinely concerned for her and who thinks she's cool and smart. He asks her to the homecoming dance and because he's so nice, Sophie agrees. While no one is aware of her predicament, Sophie manages to snag the coveted position of chief editor of the school newspaper. It is her writing for the newspaper that Carlson uses as a voice for a discussion on teen pregnancy.

Sophie needs to write an op-ed and decides to write a piece on teen pregnancy and how teens should not be sexually active because they are not mature enough to accept the consequences of such activity, namely becoming parents. When the piece creates controversy within the school, Sophie is confronted by the head of the school teen pregnancy center, who challenges her to visit the center. Sophie is surprised that there are so many girls and that they are from all different backgrounds. So she writes an article about the teen pregnancy center that is published on the front page. This further ignites the controversy and moves it into the community. Sophie finds that she must confront her friends' preconceived notions about the girls who get pregnant, all the while hiding her own condition.

Eventually Sophie decides that she can no longer hide her pregnancy. She feels like she is living a lie. She tells her family and friends, some of whom have difficulty reconciling her actions with the person they know her to be. However, when she tells Pastor Vincent what really happened he is appalled by Dylan's behaviour, mainly because Dylan professed to having a strong faith and a reputation that was respectable. In fact, he took advantage of Sophie and was quite willing to let her suffer the consequences of his actions, alone.

Sadly Dylan represents a lot of young men today, men who use young girls and then abandon them. His true character is revealed in the meeting between Dylan and Sophie's families.

Carlson pulls no punches in letting her readers understand some of what Sophie endures - the fear of discovering an unplanned pregnancy, the denial of the situation, the humiliation of being abandoned by a guy who tells you he loves you just to have sex, the embarrassing gynecological exams, the pain of delivery, the feelings of loss and sadness at giving up your baby, the judgement of friends and family. It's all there but not overdone.

Anything but normal deals with many issues including how many girls are pressured into early sexual activity by manipulative boys, the issues of abortion and adoption, birth control, attitudes towards pregnant teens and the role of abstinence in preventing pregnancy.

Overall I felt Carlson succeeded in presenting these issues in a balanced manner. Sometimes Sophie's voice seemed too mature, particularly when she was observing attitudes in the clinic. The clinic worker presenting the option of adoption seems improbable based on research and anecdotal evidence. Health and abortion clinics tend to promote abortion as the only choice.

I plan to read more of Melody Carlson's books. Readers need to be aware that she does write from a strong evangelical Christian point of view. This is not a drawback but it does affect the overall tone of the book.

Book Details:
Anything but normal by Melody Carlson
Grand Rapids: Revell Publishing 2010
254 pp.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

2011-10-03T09:58:00.009-04:00

Alzheimer's disease was an entirely different kind of beast. There were no weapons that could slay it. Taking Aricept and Namenda felt like aiming a couple of leaky squirt guns in the face of a blazing fire....Right now, everyone with Alzheimer's faced the same outcome, whether they were eighty-two or fifty, resident of the Mount Auburn Manor or full professor of psychology at Harvard University. The blazing fire consumed all. No one got out alive.

Dr. Alice Howland is a thoroughly modern, middle-aged professional woman. A brilliant, psycholinguist, she is the William James Professor of Psychology at Harvard University where she studies the mechanism of languages.But something isn't just right.

For Alice it begins with forgotten words during lectures, a moment in Harvard Square where she has no idea where she is nor how to get home, a forgotten trip to the airport to catch a plane to a conference she'd spent the day preparing for, and names on to-do lists that mean nothing to her.

Suspecting that something is seriously wrong, and without the knowledge of her husband, John, Alice goes to see her doctor who refers her to a neurologist. After testing, Alice receives the stunning diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. It is both numbing and terrifying for her. She is 50 years old.

Alice struggles to tell John, who is a cancer cell biologist, because telling him will make it all "real". When she does, his reaction is almost cerebral and clinical.At first reluctant to believe her, John offers Alice no comfort. Instead he tells her he needs to find out more about Alzheimer's.

They decide to have Alice undergo genetic testing, which if positive, would support the clinical diagnosis, but if negative, would not necessarily rule it out. When genetic testing confirms her diagnosis, Alice and John must now come to terms with her disease, what this will mean to them as a couple and individually, and the implications for their three adult children who are at risk. After John and Alice tell their children, two decide to undergo genetic testing.

As part of coming to terms with her illness, Alice must decide what it is that she wants most in the time remaining to her. Alice feels at this point, that her career at Harvard is far down the list and that she would also like to spend more time with her husband and family. She also feels that "...when the burden of her disease exceeded the pleasure of that ice cream, she wanted to die." And so Alice develops a plan to deal with that point in her life.

Told in Alice's voice, Still Alice follows one woman's journey into the world of progressive neurodegenerative disease that is Alzheimer's. It is a journey that at times evokes strong visceral reactions especially when we are shown how painful Alice's loss of memory is to her family. These moments are present enough that they give us a realistic view into the world of Alzheimer's. The heartache of seeing Alice, at times so blissfully unaware of her loss, is countered by the loving response of her family in these moments. But we also experience Alice's confusion and anger when her symptoms flare. Alzheimer's is a disease that won't wait.

The reader also learns a significant amount of information about Alzheimer's disease. Information is sprinkled throughout the book as Alice's family confronts her diagnosis and deals with the many issues that result from her disease - for example, medications and home care. There is much information on current treatments and drug regimens (current to 2008/2009 when the book was written and published). Some readers might find this tiresome, but I believe that this contributes to the novel's overall success.

Since the two main characters, Alice and John are brilliant scientists and two of their children are also in the field of medicine, the discussions are naturally cerebral and scientific. These characters allow the author the liberty of doing inserting a great deal of medical information. When Alice goes in for genetic testing we learn that there are three gene mutations that a person can be tested for - APP, PS1 and PS2. Without going into too much detail, the reader is given some essence of the ramifications of genetic testing for Alice and her husband, and their children. The reader is allowed to formulate their own ideas on the usefulness of genetic testing and what having those results might mean for family members.

I feel that one of the main themes the author, Lisa Genova has touched upon in Still Alice, is that of quality of life in terminally ill persons. Still Alice is a novel that presents the lives of those with Alzheimer's as being worthy and having meaning - even when their world narrows and especially when in the present they can't foresee such meaning in the future. In a culture in which preconceived notions of "quality of life" are benchmarks for assisted suicide and euthanasia, Still Alice offers the idea that we just can't know what life will be like and how we will feel until we get to that point. This is theme is explored in the novel through the actions of Alice both before her disease has progressed and when a crisis occurs.

*spoiler alert*

Not long after Alice has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she decides that when her disease develops to a certain point, she no longer wants to live. She programs into her Blackberry, five very basic questions which she will answer every morning. She decides that when she can no longer answer these questions she will follow the instructions in a file named "Butterfly" on her computer. The instructions are to take an overdose without telling anyone. So Alice has a preconceived notion of what her life will be like, of what her "quality of life" will be like at this point in time. It is something though that she really can't know until she arrives at that moment in her life.

Instead it is other circumstances that propel her to try to commit suicide. John is offered a job at the University of New York, which he decides to take, despite Alice's worsening health. This will mean moving Alice from everything that is familiar to a strange and new city. When his family challenges him on this, he refuses to back down. Alice realizes that she has made many sacrifices for John and she has made it easy for him to love her, but when it is time for his love to become sacrificial he is not interested. She decides she must make the "sacrifice". Fortunately, she does not succeed.

Instead, with the help of her daughters, Alice stands up to John, remains in Boston. her youngest daughter, Lydia stays with her. When John who must know about the "butterfly" file which was on her Blackberry and on her personal computer asks her if she still wants to be here she says yes. As Still Alice demonstrates, when Alice is long past her predetermined "criteria" for a happy and worthy life, she is still happy and feels intense love! She can still find things to live for - her daughters, her grandchildren.

She didn't need to go anywhere. She felt lucky about this. She and the woman she sat with listened to the girl with very long hair play her music and sing. The girl had a lovely voice and big, happy teeth and a lot of skirt with flowers all over it that Alice admired.
Alice hummed along to the music. She liked the sound of her hum blended with the voice of the singing girl.

Genova's use of the butterfly motif both in the naming of the suicide file and in the image of the butterfly on the cover and the butterfly motif on each page of the book is significant to the story and the issue of quality of life. Alice wears a beautiful blue art nouveau butterfly necklace that her mother gave her. When Alice was a small child she cried over the fact that the butterfly, although very beautiful, had such a short lifespan. Her mother however, felt that a short life did not mean a tragic one. The life of the butterfly was still beautiful as it moves from flower to flower. In Alice's mind, she will be like the butterfly - she will have a short life but it will beautiful.

I have to say that I found at first that I liked neither Alice nor John. Alice was too cerebral for me and much too modern. She was a woman whose life work was her passion and who seemed d and John never seemed to show Alice much comfort. However, as the novel moved forward, Alice's disease made them more human and more compassionate. Lisa Genova was adept at portraying the conflict John experienced when offered an exciting new position at a different university and his responsibilities to Alice as a caregiver and husband. But I felt that he largely abandoned his wife to the care of their daughter Lydia. It was Lydia, Alice and John's youngest child and the one who had a difficult relationship with her mother, who had great compassion and care for her mother. Alice's disease brought their relationship back on track.

Still Alice is fantastic book for book clubs, teens interested in reading adult books dealing with specific issues and for those interested in realistic fiction. There are so many issues, especially identity and loss, that can provide fodder for discussion and debate. It was Lisa Genova's debut novel. I may partake of her second novel, Left Neglected, despite Publisher's Weekly's snarky review.

Book Details:
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Toronto: Gallery Books 2011
327 pp.

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry Part 1

2011-09-30T23:15:00.001-04:00

The Great Influenza is Barry's magnum opus, a well-written, impeccably researched, and infinitely interesting work about the influenza pandemic of 1918. The book as the byline claims, tells the epic story of the deadliest plague in history. Divided into 10 parts, Barry begins by outlining the state of science in America in the century prior to the 1900's and moves on to tell the story of how the world, largely unprepared, coped with such a highly infectious outbreak. I will be discussing this book in several posts over the next few days.

In Part I The Warriors, Barry provides a detailed history of medicine and how physicians viewed disease and undertook the practice of medicine up until the late 1800's. By the 1800's enormous advances had been made in many areas of science with the exception of medicine, which was practiced very much the same as it was in the days of Galen and Hippocrates. This began to change in France with the use of objective measurements such as temperature, pulse rate and blood pressure. Some rejected the use of measurements, saying that they turned the human body into an object, but this application of mathematics to medicine allowed doctors to become detectives and to make discoveries about the causes of disease and to design real treatments for their patients.

Part I is a magnificent and interesting account of the attitudes and practices that prevailed within the 1800's medical world in America which was largely behind that of their European counterparts. In the 1800's for example, most medical students could barely write and having a degree was not a requirement for admission to a medical school. There were many medical schools in the country but they hired uneducated doctors. Many doctors had There were no medical laboratories in America, so doctors went overseas to learn the latest techniques, only to return and be unable to practice what they had learned.

The founding of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in 1876, and its medical school in 1893 was an attempt to change this situation. It would be an institution that would change how science was studied in America and how medicine was practiced. Ultimately, by the time the pandemic arrived in 1918, the changes in American medicine as a result of the Johns Hopkins would result in America having the researchers and the knowledge to confront it.

Barry writes in detail how William Henry Welch, a physician who studied chemistry but who himself never produced a significant body of research, was to transform Hopkins into an influential and cutting-edge institution. Welch had the ability "to identify those with the promise to do what he had not done" and to inspire. Because Hopkins combined a medical school with a hospital, graduate students were afforded the opportunity to examine the sick, make diagnoses, conduct laboratory experiments and undertake research. These students then graduated and took this approach with them to other schools, transforming them.

Welch turned Hopkins into a major influencing force in American medicine revolutionizing the way doctors were trained, how medicine was practiced and developing public health. An interesting fact was that Hopkins got its medical school from a $500,000 endowment from a group of women who had founded Bryn Mawr College, contingent upon the new school accepting women!
Throughout this part of the book, Barry sets the stage for America's medical researchers and how they were unknowingly being prepared to uniquely deal with the pandemic.

In Part II The Swarm, Barry eloquently explains the nature of viruses touching on genes and sterochemistry. He discusses the mechanisms involved in viral attacks on cells in the respiratory track and the immune system's response.

The influenza virus has the unique ability to enter a cell, rather than fuse with it and therefore to effectively hide from the immune system. Within 10 hours, between 100,000 and 1 million new viruses have been replicated and release into the body to attack new cells. Unlike other viruses, the influenza virus, which is an RNA virus, is capable of mutating and adapting rapidly - another reason why it is difficult to attack.

We learn what constitutes a normal immune response and what immunity is (a response to a new infection without symptoms). Barry provides the reader with all the basics needed to understand what happens during an invasion by a virus including how the body mounts an attack on an invader, the development of antibodies and the antigens of viruses.

The most interesting parts of this chapter detail how influenza has developed a way to evade the immune response. Two receptors on the virus, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase mutate quickly by shifting into different forms - this is known as antigen drift. It becomes apparent in this chapter that John Barry has an excellent ability to enable his readers to visualize the concepts he is discussing through the use of examples that are familiar and easy to understand. A prime example is his discussion of antigen drift - when mutations occur in the virus so that the immune system no longer recognize the antigen. Antigen drift is what public health experts monitor each year in order to adjust flu vaccines.

Viruses also undergo antigen shift which is more encompassing with radical change in hemagglutinin or neuraminidase or both. In this case, the infection spreads rapidly because few people have antibodies to fight the infection.

Hemagglutinin occurs in fifteen known shapes while neuraminidase has nine basic shapes. Both occur in different combinations with subtypes. Virologists use these antigens to identify the specific virus they are investigating by using H and N combinations. Hence H1N1 refers to a specific combination of hemagglutinin and neuraminidase.

In the next post on this book, we will discuss how America entering World War I created conditions conducive to the development of a pandemic.

Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield

2011-09-28T17:44:00.001-04:00

Tyranny is a graphic novel by artist Lesley Fairfield which explores the struggle of a young woman as she develops an eating disorder. We follow Anna as she enters puberty and begins to feel she is too fat because of the changes her body is experiencing. Her dreams and excitement over the potential of her young life begin to fade as she is consumed by a fear of eating and becoming fat.Anna states

"I felt trapped inside my new body. My imagination worked overtime, and before long, I was tormented and miserable! I was desperate to have my younger body back."

So Anna decides to diet and lose weight. which she does remarkably well. But she can never be quite thin enough. Food is her enemy that will make her fat and ugly. Anna begins to spiral faster and faster into behaviours that are harmful. She weighs herself several times a day, and calorie count, and finds that she is no longer able to eat at all. Soon she becomes too sick to attend high school, drops out and gets her own apartment when her relationship with her parents breaks down. At first things seem to be fine but Anna's eating disorder gets worse. She has no energy to keep a job and becomes physically ill. She ends up in hospital and under the care of a psychiatrist.

Eventually she gets another job and meets some new friends one of which she becomes close to. That girl also has an eating disorder. However, when a tragic event occurs, Anna realizes that she can no longer cope on her own and that she wants her life back. Anna decides she wants to live. She goes into treatment and discovers that she can deal with Tyranny. She learns to claim her thoughts, and to discover who she really is! She begins to fight for her life and for who she really is.

Tyranny is her alter ego, the fear behind her eating disorder, the demon that pushes her to stop eating. Anna learns to confront Tyranny, control her and ultimately banish her. Her life no longer belongs to fear and to Tyranny.

This book is a beautiful concept about a terrible illness, written by a woman who has struggled with an eating disorder for thirty years. Lesley Fairfield's unique illustrations aptly show the dysmorphia that Anna has. This distortion is also reflected in the image of Tyranny.

Eating disorders are the bane of many young women today given the cultural climate of perfection presented in advertising and entertainment. It was my children who have made me realize just how desensitized we can be to this. Every ad showing a woman's body is that of apparent perfection but is in reality a huge distortion of what women actually look like. It is not only models that are part of this myth but also any actress or performer who allows their image to be photoshopped.

This book is a must for all young adult collections.

Book Details:
Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield
Toronto: Tundra Books 2009
114 pp.

Letters To My Daughters. A Memoir by Fawzia Koofi

2011-09-23T20:30:00.004-04:00

Letters To My Daughters is a searing memoir that is an intimate look into the recent troubled history of Afghanistan from the perspective of a young Afghani who is both a woman and the country's only elected female politician. It is intense, thought provoking and and at times heart-rending. Fawzia Koofi's memoir is written in two formats; each chapter is prefaced by a letter to her young daughters Shuhra and Shaharzad, followed by an account of her life and the cultural and political landscape of Afghanistan at that time.
Fawzia was the nineteenth of her father's twenty-three children. Her mother was her father's second wife - he had seven wives but had divorced two so that he could marry two other women. Although her father had many wives, Fawzia claims that it was her mother Bibi jan whom he loved the most and it was her mother who ran the household, who kept the keys to the storeroom and the safe and whom coordinated the cooking for the huge political dinners he hosted.

Her father had recently married his seventh wife, a 14 year old girl who gave birth to a son just three months prior to Fawzia's birth.Her mother who had already had borne seven children when Fawzia came along was distraught at yet another younger wife in the home. Upset at having lost his favour, she prayed for a son but it was not to be. Instead Fawzia was born in a remote mountain shack and left outside to bake in the fierce mountain sun. Finally after a day, her family took her back in and Fawzia's mother vowed that no harm would ever come to her again.

Fawzia's father, Abdul Rahman was a member of the Afghan parliament in 1975, the year she was born. He represented the people of Badakhshan province in the northern Afghanistan. It is one of the poorest areas of the country. Her family lived in the Koofi Valley, for which they are named.

Fawzi describes the rise to power of the Taliban from the ashes of an Afghanistan left in chaos after the defeat of the Soviets by the Mujahideen. While the West rejoiced in the Soviet withdrawal, a brutal civil war raged in Afghanistan between the factions of the Mujahideen. The country slipped into chaos and terror around the capital, Kabul as different Mujahideen struggled for control. This period was a dangerous time for Fawzi's family - her father was murdered and they had to flee their home in Badakhshan and travel to Kabul.

Meanwhile in the south, young men who had studied at the madrassas in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan began to arrive in the southern villages of Afghanistan bringing with them radical Islam, common to Arab countries. The southerners, tired of civil war and poverty, accepted these "angels of rescue"as the young men called themselves.

When a peace treaty was brokered between the Rabbani government and the Mujahideen in 1995, the Taliban influence was growing. Koofi relates the heart-breaking and catastrophic changes that occurred within Afghanistan in 1996 when the Rabbani government fled north and Taliban rule commenced. Instead of rescuing the Afghan people as they initially claimed, the Taliban began to systematically implement laws that drove the country back into the dark ages within months. Women were required to wear burkas and were confined to home, no longer being allowed to attend school. All women in any type of public life were forced out. Men had to wear beards and turbans and many cultural practices such as the traditional Afghan weddings and music were banned.

Koofi accurately refers to this and other actions as cultural vandalism - a very perceptive description of radical Islam's effect on any culture it has ever overrun. Almost overnight, public beatings, stoning and executions became the norm for the slightest violations of radical Islamic code. Televison was banned and radio broadcast nonstop Taliban propaganda. Libraries were destroyed as were the beautiful Buddha statues of Bamiyan.

At this time of her life, Fawzi was in medical school and had to give up her studies. It was not only impossible to attend school, but impossible to go to even to the market unless dressed in "the new uniform of Afghanistan", the blue shuttlecock burka. Women were not allowed to speak to men who were not blood relatives. To do so was to risk arrest, beatings and possibly worse.

Fawzi tells us what this meant to her people:

"And now that the war was officially over, the world also began to move on. The Cold War had ended, and the mighty Soviet Empire was collapsing. The Afghan fight against the Russians was no longer of relevance to the West. It was no longer broadcast internationally on the nightly news. Our civil war was over, and as far as the world understood it the Taliban were now our government. We were yesterday's story.....
But our tragedy was not over. In many way, it was just beginning. And for the next few years, the world forgot us. They were our bleakest years of need."

Fawzia chronicles in detail the cultural annihilation Afghan underwent during Taliban rule and how it affected the people. During Taliban rule she felt Afghanistan was slipping back into the darkness of time. Her family suffered greatly. Newly married to a kindly man Hamid, he was soon taken from her and beaten and tortured, eventually contracting tuberculosis. Eventually Fawzia and Hamid decided to flee northward to Badakhshan where Ahmad Shah Massoud and President Rabbani's forces were fighting the Taliban. Only when Fawzia escaped the Taliban-ruled south did she realize how much she had changed.

Life under the Taliban had changed me in ways I hadn't really understood until now....The Taliban had taken that confident girl and determined teenager and turned her into a diminutive, cold, scared and exhausted woman living beneath the cloak of invisibility that was her burka."

She realized that her attitude towards men had changed. Although interestingly, Fawzia writes that while her father did beat her mother, she felt he respected her. This is definitely a difficult thing for me as a Catholic woman in the West to understand. In one letter to her daughters, she insists that "true Islam accords you political and social rights. It offers you dignity, the freedom to be educated, to pursue your dreams and to live your life." However, I respectfully disagree with Ms Koofi. In every country where Islam is the state religion, women are not treated as full citizens, do not have the same access to education, health care and employment as do men.

There's no doubt radical Islam took it's toll on her too.

There was a huge silence inside me. Until now, I hadn't even noticed it. Little by little, it had grown with each prison visit, each woman I saw getting beaten on the streets and each public execution of a young woman who was just like me.

When the Taliban were overthrown by the American's and Afghanistan began to be rebuilt, Fawzia ran for election in 2005 and became the first woman elected to the new parliament despite the opposition of many of her fellow male politicians. She is the first female deputy speaker of the Afghan Parliament - no small feat for a country that had few basic rights for women only several years ago.

Despite our difference of views on Islam, I admire Fawzia Koofi greatly. She is a brave woman who has incurred great personal risk in order to represent her northern province. Fawzia Koofi seems to me to have considerable personal integrity and a deep love of her country and I believe she desires to help make Afghanistan a place that is safe for her two young daughters and where they can live with dignity. I pray to God that she is kept safe in her work and journey's throughout her country.

I highly recommend Fawzia's memoir, Letters To My Daughters, if you wish to learn about the remarkable people of Afghanistan and wish to understand what it has happened in this turbulent country over the past 30 years. There is no doubt Fawzia is a remarkable young leader in a country desperate for good leaders. She is proof that Afghanistan and other Islamic states need the participation of women in society. She is proof of what these young women have to offer to their countries!

Book Details:
Letters To My Daughters by Fawzia Koofi
Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre 2011
275 pp.

Steampunk. The Art of Victorian Futurism by Jay Strongman

2011-09-20T18:57:00.000-04:00

This beautiful, glossy book is a visual treat for those interested in steampunk, the subgenre of science fiction that encompasses 19th century technology with Victorian and Edwardian elegance. Beautifully illustrated with fascinating and gorgeous photographs and well written, Steampunk is treat to those who are fascinated by this genre.

From the Introduction here are a few quotes to tease your interest:

It's about a fictional place in time and space where Victorian and Edwardian elegance collide with gothic horror and modern science - a sepia-tinted world where My Fair Lady meets The Terminator."

There is also in Steampunk a nostalgic hunger for a period in recent history when much of the world, for the West, was still an unexplored exotic mystery waiting to be discovered and space travel was just a fanciful dream. But, more significantly, (and this is where we put the "Steam" into Steampunk) there is also a longing for an age in which machines were awe-inspiring steam-powered engines and magnificent clockwork mechanisms of gleaming brass, polished wood and shining steel...."

Many steampunk novels deal with the British military conquering foes using fantastic airships and other unique military machines.

Steampunk as an art movement deals with craftmanship. Many steampunk artists are focused on creating fully functional pieces of art with visible mechanisms in the Victorian style. This is in contrast to modern technology in which the "mechanisms" are micro-circuits invisible to the eye and where function isn't apparent. It just works because it does. This disconnect between man and machine has been increasing with each generation removed from the Victorian age.

"Steampunk not only relishes those possibilities, and attempts to capture them in word and art, but also tries to imagine the innovations of our present and our future as if the Victorians themselves were designing and manufacturing them."

The late 1800's were a time of monumental change in society especially in areas of science, technology and medicine. It was also an era of unlimited possibilities, where science was seen to have the potential to vastly improve the quality of life of mankind and where the limits were only the imagination.

As a subculture steampunk first showed up as a literary sub-genre in science fiction more than a century ago. The works of Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker, and Edgar Allan Poe were the forerunners of the literary movement. These early novels suggested that scientific knowledge could possibly "threaten and ultimately upset the natural order" p.15

Into this era came two streams of thought - that of Jules Verne and the other of H.G. Wells. Jules Verne and H.G.Wells were the pioneers of modern science fiction however, they had different approaches. Verne's novels tended towards the romantic aspect of exploration while Wells dealt more with the potential for catastrophe that technology and science might bring about.

Steampunk is now a subculture that includes art, fashion, design, music and print and that is what this book tries to show the reader. It is a showcase of objects d'art, diagrams and pieces constructed by various artists. Here is one example below:

Automaton (Other), 2006 Mannequin-robot 'torture machines' by Kazuhiko Nakamura

Books I'd Like to Read

2011-09-18T22:01:00.004-04:00

Lately I've been managing to read a few books more representative of my personal tastes, rather than just teen fiction. I love teen fiction and there is a great deal of wonderful teen fiction being written today but deeper and closer to my heart lie books about my Catholic faith and English literature. There are more than a few books on my shelf at home just waiting to have their spines cracked! Here are a few that I'm just itching to get at:

The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought The Light of Science To The Dark Ages by Nancy Marie Brown. This book is about Sylvester II who was pope for four years, from 999 to 1003. Before he became pope, Sylvester II was known as Gerbert of Aurillac and during his time as pope, he was renowned as a mathematician and astronomer. He was the first known mathematician to teach math using the nine Arabic numerals and zero. Brown is one of a handful of authors who are writing books about the scholarly efforts to change the iron-clad idea that the middle ages were the dark ages when the Catholic church snuffed out all scientific endeavour and curiosity.

Catholicism: A Journey To The Heart Of The Faith by Father Robert Barron seems like an incredible book, having received numerous positive reviews by such luminaries as George Weigel, Archbishop Chaput and Raymond Arroyo. Father Barron who heads Word On Fire Catholic Ministries has also completed a 10 part documentary that presents the richness of the Catholic faith in a way never before attempted. Catholicism is Barron's written attempt to accomplish just such a thing, to rediscover the beauty of the Catholic faith which is evidenced in music, art, architecture and print.

“What I propose to do in this book is to take you on a guided exploration of the Catholic world, but not in the manner of a docent, for I am not interested in showing you the artifacts of Catholicism as though they were dusty objets d’art in a museum of culture. I want to function rather as a mystagogue, conducting you ever deeper into the mystery of the incarnation in the hopes that you might be transformed by its power.” –Father Robert Barron

According to several reviews I've read, Father Barron explores every aspect of the faith from Jesus and Mary to the saints and the sacraments in a sort of catechetical manner but in a way that draws the reader into both understanding and desire. The television series which is slated to air in October promises to be similarly breathtaking.

Now for something quite different. Besides English lit I also love to read books about India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China, especially those that explore the role of women in these cultures. When I was a teen and young adult I read most of Pearl S. Buck's books and I feel I should reread these some day. I also love books that tell a great story and True Grit by Charles Portis does just that.

I saw the original movie starring Kim Darby, Glen Campbell and John Wayne as well as the recent remake which was outstanding (and according to what I"ve been told, very true to the book) and the storyline has always been a favourite. Besides, when a book opens with this line,

"People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day."

it just begs for a good reading. The book was reissued around the time the movie came out after being out of print for many years and I bought a copy which has been sitting dutifully on my night-table just waiting to be taken up.

The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khardra and A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam are two other books I loved to find the time to read. The Swallows of Kabul follows the lives of two couples during the Taliban occupation of Kabul, Afghanistan. A Golden Age is a story set in East Pakistan or Bangladesh as it came to be known, during the Bangladesh War of Independence and this novel it tells the story of one family's struggles during this chaotic time in the 1970's.

Firehouse by David Halberstam

2011-09-16T23:47:00.001-04:00

Firehouse by David Halberstam is one of those books that quite honestly, can be termed iconic. I read this book in 2004 and recently found a copy in good shape in a donation pile at our library. I consider it to be one of the best books written on the 9/11 tragedy. It focuses on the loss of life endured at one particular New York firehouse.

Halberstam is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who lived near the firehouse, Engine 40 Ladder 25 on the West Side of Manhattan. Although he lived only steps away from this firehouse, Halberstam had never visited it nor really given it much thought. Firehouse 40/35 was considered "the hidden jewel" of firehouses in Manhattan, New York because of its special degree of cohesion and loyalty.

Asked by Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair to visit 40/35 firehouse and learn about the men who died in the 9/11 tragedy, Halberstam found a story rich in humanity, loss, valour, and courage.

In Firehouse, Halberstam retraces the events of September 11, 2001 both at the firehouse and also at Ground Zero. 40/35 firehouse is staffed by 50 firefighters, in shifts of 11 men. Halberstam recounts what happened to the 13 men from 40/35 who lived and worked at the firehouse that morning and who also responded to the catastrophe unfolding before them. Twelve of those thirteen men would never return to 40/35.

David Halberstam's portrayal of each man is intimate, yet respectful - preserving their integrity and dignity, all the while quietly hinting at their humanity. These were real men, with excellent qualities and yet imperfect as all human beings are. Each one considered firefighting a calling. Each one did his duty even though he knew he would probably not return.

"There is a quick flash of videotape that shows Lieutenant John Ginley, Michael Lynch, Steve Mercado, and Mike D'Auria as the descend the stairs into the lobby of Building Four and head for the lobby of the south tower....They are loaded up with gear, and their expressions are unusually stoic. Their brothers from 40/35 find it almost unbearable to watch the brief clip, because they can imagine what the men already know about their chances of surviving, and yet they are going forward, with no panic or fear on their faces...It is a haunting moment, and the videotape reveals with rare intimacy what brave men look like at the worst moment...."

There's a good deal of information about the culture of the firehouse that an outsider would not know. The friendly competition between the engine and the truck crews, the firehouse humour and the camaraderie between the men are all deftly described, forming a backdrop for the tragedy unfolding.

Firehouse is an essential book that will help future generations understand one aspect of the magnitude of the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001. It is also a book that portrays the courage and the humanity of the men who lost their lives that day, in the service of others.

Book Details:
Firehouse by David Halberstam
New York: Hyperion 2002
201 pp.

The Falling Man Documentary

2011-09-12T22:46:00.003-04:00

They began jumping not long after the first plane hit the North Tower, not long after the fire started. They kept jumping until the tower fell. They jumped through windows already broken and then, later, through windows they broke themselves. They jumped to escape the smoke and the fire; they jumped when the ceilings fell and the floors collapsed; they jumped just to breathe once more before they died. They jumped continually, from all four sides of the building, and from all floors above and around the building's fatal wound. They jumped from the offices of Marsh & McLennan, the insurance company; from the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading company; from Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors -- the top.

Tom Junod

The Falling Man is a documentary based on one of many pictures taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew on September 11, 2001 during the Al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. Following the crash of planes into the towers, horrified spectators watched as people in the buildings either fell or jumped to their deaths - some 90 and 100 floors above the street. Over 200 people died in this manner. It was sight many will never ever forget. Drew photographed some of the people who jumped that day as well as many other images from the disaster. The photograph shown below, is that of an unknown man falling to his death from the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

When Drew's photographs where printed, newspapers had to decide whether or not to print the image of the falling man. The New York Times decided to print Drew's photograph of the unknown man, the image above, on page seven of the first section. Response to the image was both intense and negative. Many people felt that this photograph should never have been published out of respect for the dead man. It was a degree of voyeurism on level never quite seen before. The photograph of the falling man slipped quietly into oblivion. But not quite.

Peter Cheney, a reporter who worked for the Globe & Mail was assigned by his editor to try to discover the identity of the falling man. At first Cheney thought that the unknown man, captured during the 10 seconds it took him to plummet to the earth, was Norberto Hernandez, a pastry chef from Windows on the World, the restaurant located at the top of the North Tower. He based his theory on the image on one of the thousands of missing posters plastered throughout New York.

However,Hernandez family rejected the possibility that the photograph was that of Norberto. After viewing all the frames taken of the falling man, one thing that stood out, was the discovery that underneath his white jacket, which was ripped off him during his descent, was an orange top. Someone, somewhere knew a man who went to work that day wearing an orange top.

Tom Junod's article in Esquire Magazine, in an evocative and heart-rending piece, tells the story of the search to put a name to the falling man. The documentary, The Falling Man was based on Junod's article which you can read on Esquire's website.

The Falling Man is presented below. Please be advised this is not for the faint of heart. Like everything associated with September 11, 2001, it is deeply saddening.

"People have to get over wondering who this man was," she (Gwendolyn Briley Strand) says. "He's everybody. We're so stuck on who he was that we can't see what's right there in front of us. The photo's so much bigger than any man, because the man in the photo is clearly in God's hands. And it's God who gives us the grace to go on."

from Surviving The Fall by Tom Junod

Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari

2011-09-11T19:09:00.000-04:00

Author Jo Treggiari offers teen readers a dystopian adventure/romance in Ashes, Ashes, that in my opinion, had great potential but ultimately fails to meet the mark.

Sixteen year old Lucy "Lucky" Holloway is surviving in post-apocalyptic New York City. The world started to fall apart when she was eleven years old. At that time, the first floods came, along with severe storms, hurricanes, tornadoes and then earthquakes. The storms melted the polar ice caps altering the shape of the continents. Many low-lying cities were obliterated. New York City became six or seven scattered islands connected to the mainland by bridges.

Four years after the severe weather began, a smallpox plague began to ravage society. The first wave of the plague killed many people but then it mutated and a second more devastating wave occurred in which most of the remaining population was killed. Only 1 out of a million people survived the second wave.

As the plague intensified, Lucy continued attending school never quite noticing that there were more and more empty desks. She was an outsider in high school, often going unnoticed by her peers. Posters of lists of symptoms appeared all over school. Lucy was repeatedly called to the health office for blood tests. The last time she was called for yet another blood sample, she'd discovered a thick dossier on her. When she was asked about why she had never been vaccinated, Lucy told them it was due to her older brother Alex's fatal reaction to a vaccination.

Lucy lost her superjock younger brother Rob, her brainiac older sister, Susan "Maggie" and both her parents. Eventually, Lucy left her family's home for the shelters in the city. Many of the highrises in New York city were massive concrete cairns containing the bodies of thousands of plague victims. Friendly bombing had turned areas of New York city into rubble. When the shelter she was living at was raided by "Sweepers", government workers searching for plague survivors, Lucy decided to strike out on her own.

She fled into the wilderness of Central Park, taking with her her mother's shawl, her father's hunting knife, a box of freeze-dried food, a bottle of spring water and her tenth-grade yearbook. She made herself a camp in the wilderness and this is where we find her when Ashes, Ashes opens.

However, the course of Lucy's life is changed once again when she goes out on a walk and is hunted by a pack of wild dogs. She is aided in escaping the dogs by a handsome young man named Aidan. He tells her that he's been watching her and that she is being hunted by the Sweepers who send out the dogs to find survivors. The Sweepers are the people who live in the Compound on Roosevelt Island where the smallpox hospital is located. Aidan encourages her to come live with his band of survivors. Although Lucy declines his invitation, when her home is destroyed days later, she decides she has had enough of living on her own and treks to the survivor's camp on Ward's Island.

But Aidan's camp isn't safe either and Lucy learns that there are frequent raids by the Sweepers who kidnap people and infect them with the plague. Lucy, Aidan and their fellow survivors decide to rescue a recent group of kidnapped children only to discover that the situation was a cleverly laid trap to catch Lucy, the sole unvaccinated survivor of the plague.

There's no doubt that Treggiari develops the setting of her story well with vivid descriptions of the destruction wreaked by the climate disasters and the rapid annihilation of the population by plague. Because Lucy spends the first part of the story alone, the first 100 pages or so lack dialogue for the most part. However, the author does manage to portray Lucy's resilience and strength of character in describing how she has survived for over a year by herself. Treggiari also utilizes detailed description and two major events to capture the reader's attention.

The middle section of the book deals primarily with Lucy's struggle to fit into Aidan's camp and details her growing attraction to Aidan. There is a strong development of conflict between Lucy and another survivor, Del who is also attracted to Aidan. I felt the author did a good job of portraying the difficulties survivors would have living in the post-apocalyptic wilderness as well as their fears and hopes.

The ending however, was less satisfying. Although suspenseful, the result was predictable and anti-climatic.

For those who might be puzzling over the book's title, Ashes, Ashes is a reference to a version of Ring Around the Rosy whose origins are traced back to the Great Bubonic Plague of London in 17th century England.

Ring around the rosy
A pocketful of posies
"Ashes, Ashes"
We all fall down!

The rosy red rash was a symptom of the plague, usually a rash with a ring around it. Posies were carried in pockets to ward off the smell of disease which was thought to be the way illness was transmitted. The ashes, ashes refers to the cremation of dead bodies, the blackening of the skin and so forth. Plague survivors in Ashes,Ashes are described as being hideously deformed, with blackened skin and red eyes.

Book Details:
Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari
New York: Scholastic Press 2011
344pp.

Reaching Through Time by Lurlene McDaniel

2011-09-08T23:02:00.000-04:00

Reaching Through Time is a book containing three novellas each with a twist about time. In the first story, What's Happened To Me?, Sarah awakes to find herself in a strange house with a handsome strange young man watching over her. At first she cannot remember her name or how she came to be in this place. The house and its grounds are beautiful but strange, surrounded by a menacing black fence that lets no one in and presumably no one out. Heath de Charon, the strange young man is eerily discomforting. When he touches Sarah, she cannot remember things and while she finds herself drawn to Heath, she is also wary of him. There is some mystery about him she cannot understand. She also can't understand how time seems to pass so quickly. When she goes riding with Heath the first time, Sarah notices the sun setting and Heath tells her that they've been riding for hours. But to Sarah, it seems as though no time has passed. Sarah soon begins hearing voices begging her to come back when she lays down to sleep at night. Who are the soothing, comforting voices calling to her? Why can she not remember them? No matter how loud she yells, they cannot hear her. Why?

The second story,When The Clock Chimes Drake Iverson, a sixteen year old with mild cerebral palsy is looking for a job. Drake and his mother are new to Sanderson, North Carolina where they have moved so his mother can take on a new job. Drake responds to an ad in the local newspaper for a summer student to catalogue artifacts and is hired by a professor, Avery Dennison who lives in a mysterious house with his beautiful daughter Gina. He soon discovers some quirky things about the house. His watch and cellphone won't work in the house which strangely doesn't show up on any map of Sandstone Mountain. The grandfather clock in the front hallway seems to be forever chiming the time incorrectly; sometimes slow, sometimes too fast. Gradually, Drake and Gina become friends and then fall in love. But when Gina becomes terribly sick, her father refuses to allow Drake to take her to see a doctor. Eventually Drake too becomes ill. When he recovers Drake struggles to find out what has happened to Gina as well as learning the history of the house at 13 Sandstone Mountain.

The final novella, The Mysteries of Chance explores the possibilities of time travel and changing the course of a person's life. When Maura enters one her professor's science labs she takes a time travel device and vaults herself over one hundred years into the past - 21st century America. Dylan Sorenson sees her arrive and offers her a place of sanctuary despite not knowing who or what she really is. Maura knows it is only a matter of time before the time police hunt her down. While Maura doesn't tell Dylan the truth about her situation she also comes to realize that he too has his own secret - one that is literally destroying him. When Maura learns about Dylan's past she makes a decision that will forever alter her life and Dylan's too.

For the most part, I really enjoyed each of these short stories even though they were somewhat predictable. The Mysteries of Chance however, did offer the reader an unsuspected twist that was satisfying. Lurlene McDaniel is known for writing novels that deal with life-altering medical conditions and there is some of that in each of these stories too.

My only complaint was the discussion of the condition known as "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) in The Mysteries of Chance. Although a common term today and one used to describe those who for whatever reason are unable to respond or minimally able to respond to stimuli, this story perpetuates the myth that people with PVS are not alive and should be removed from life support. In fact, they are living human beings in a condition that doctors do not really understand. People have awoken from PVS and recovered. Survivors tell of being "locked in" and unable to respond in any way with their body.

Dr. Adrian Owen, a British neuroscientist who is now located at the University of Western Ontario specializes in studying patients who are labelled as PVS. Not only has Dr. Owen been able to communicate with patients in this condition but he believes that someday we might help these people to recover.

You can investigate these ideas further in the videos below:

Reaching Through Time is a great read with a retread for a cover. Fans of Simone Elkeles' Return to Paradise will recognize the cover.

Book Details:
Reaching Through Time. Three Novellas by Lurlene McDaniel
Delacorte Press 2011
228 pp.

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

2011-09-05T21:15:00.000-04:00

...just my mind going blank and thoughts reaching up up up, me wishing I could climb through the ceiling and over the stars until I can find God, really see God, and know once and for all that everything I've believed my whole life is true, and real...Not even half. Just the part about someone or something bigger than us who doesn't lose track. I want to believe the stories, that there really is someone who would search the whole mountainside just to find that one lost thing that he loves, and bring it home.

Once Was Lost follows the life of 15 year old, Samara Taylor over a two week period in early August. Sam's world is unraveling. Sam is the daughter of Charlie Taylor, pastor of one of the numerous churches in Pineview. Her beautiful mother is in rehab after being arrested for driving under the influence. Sam and her father are having a difficult time coping with her absence as well as relating to one another. Sam's father is emotionally distant, doesn't really listen to her and isn't able to maintain the home in any way.

Sam is depressed and lonely, missing her mother and is gradually drifting away from her classmates and her best friend, Vanessa Hathaway. Although Sam is part of her church's youth group, she feels alienated from her peers because of how people relate to her due to her being the daughter of the pastor. Sam notices that she is treated differently and that people behave differently around her. Friends go to parties but don't always invite her. She is also struggling to understand what has happened to her family, especially since her father has never explained to his congregation her mother's absence nor has he talked much about her going into rehab. Her father's inability to show leadership in his personal life is what is truly crushing Sam.

Set against this backdrop is the disappearance of 13 year old Jody Shaw one day off the streets of Pineview. Jody's disappearance is the last straw in Sam's struggle to believe in a God who cares.

"...Perfect love drives out fear, is what it says in the Bible. Perfect love. And who, my dad included, really knows anything about perfect love? Anyway, if God loves Jody so much, how could he let this -- whatever it is -- happen to her? And what else is he going to let happen to me?"

Sam narrates her story told over the course of sixteen days in diary form. She relates how the town comes together to try to locate Jody with searches and bake sales. This is set against the backdrop of Sam's own personal life spiraling downward as she struggles to cope with the loss of her mother to rehab and her father's possible involvement with his church's youth minister, Erin. Her father seems oblivious to Sam's personal struggles with her faith, and is unable to relate in any meaningful way to Sam.

"What's the point of being a pastor if you can't tell when your own daughter needs helps?"

But as Sam watches her father struggle to cope with the loss of his wife all the while helping a family deal with the loss of their daughter, she comes to realize that maybe it isn't just because he doesn't care.

"Looking at him, I realize for the first time that it's possible he feels as lost as I do. Maybe what I've been thinking of as him being clueless is actually him not knowing what to do."

Once Was Lost is a book about being lost on many different levels. Sam has lost her mother to alcohol addiction and rehab. She has also lost her faith in God who seems not to care about what happens to people. The Shaw family has lost their daughter Jody. But through all these losses, there is restoration. Sam's mother is gradually healing and recovering in her rehab at New Beginnings. Sam's faith grows throughout her Job-like experience.

Once Was Lost is a great book that explores a young teen's questions about faith and God when times are tough and when it seems like there is no hope left. Through the eyes of Sam, we see one person's struggles when the adults around her have made and continue to make bad choices.

Book Details:

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr
New York: Little, Brown and Company 2009
217pp.

In Defiance of Hitler. The Secret Mission of Varian Fry by Carla Killough McClafferty

2011-09-04T22:41:00.000-04:00

Varian Fry was an American citizen who moved to Marseilles France in August, 1940 with the sole purpose of aiding a special group of refugees flee to safety from the Gestapo. Fry had in his possession a list of approximately two hundred artists, writers, muscians, and scientists who were at risk of being captured and either sent to concentration camps or executed. Among the names were Marc Chagall, Heinrich Mann, and Max Ernst.

Fry had been to Germany in 1935 and saw firsthand what Hitler had in mind for the Jews of Europe. He was appalled at the brutal behaviour of the young German people who rioted and smashed the shops and homes of Jewish citizens. During his visit, Varian met with Ernst Hanfstaengl who was the chief of the Foreign Press Division of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. Hanfstaengl told Fry that it was the Nazi Party's goal to remove all Jews in Europe either by deportation or by murdering them. Although Varian wrote a piece for The New York Times detailing the Nazi's plans, most of America remained unconvinced and unconcerned about the Jewish people at this time.

However in 1940 when Germany defeated France and set up a puppet government in Vichy, part of the armistice agreement required "the French government to surrender upon demand all Germans named by the German Government in France" as well as preventing the "removal of German war and civil prisoners from France into French possessions or into foreign countries". Varian knew that this meant people who opposed the Nazi Party, as well as people of Jewish ancestry, were in grave danger. Both political refugees and Jewish refugees had fled parts of Europe previously overrun by the Nazis and come to France in the hopes of leaving Europe for safer countries. Article 19, as the above portion of the Armistice was known, would prevent them from doing so.

Varian Fry along with several hundred other Americans met in the late spring of 1940 and formed the Emergency Rescue Committee. The main purpose of the ERC would be to help well-known refugees escape France. After an unfruitful search for someone qualified to accomplish this task, Varian volunteered to travel to France to set up the organization in Marseilles. Eventually Varian Fry was allowed to travel to France with a detailed list of refugees he should seek out and aid in leaving France. To accomplish this task he was given $3000 which he taped to his leg.

In Defiance of Hitler details Fry's work in setting up the ERC in Marseilles and the difficulties he had during his stay of just over a year. McCalfferty presents the reader with an uncompromising and detailed portrait of Varian Fry and his work in Marseilles, France. We see a man who worked 12 to 15 hours a day interviewing 50 refugees per day. He had to decide who was most likely in danger and which to save. We get a real sense of the danger and the difficulty Fry and his team experienced as well as the effort the refugees had to make to escape from France into Spain and on to freedom.
I had not known about Varian Fry until I saw this book on the shelf in my local library. It's a wonderful book about a man who couldn't stand by and watch while a certain group of people were being hunted down simply because of their beliefs or their heritage. Altough Fry knew that war in Europe had created millions of refugees, the vast majority of whom he couldn't help, he felt that each person he could help was a small victory. Imagine if the world had had many more Varian Fry's.

For further reading, try the following websites: Varian Fry. The American Schindler and the Varian Fry Institute.

Book Details:
In Defiance of Hitler. The Secret Mission of Varian Fry by Carla Killough McClafferty
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux 2008
196 pp.

Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter

2011-08-31T20:41:00.004-04:00

If you are interested in reading about the life of Cleopatra there have been two novels for young adults recently published that will whet your appetite. The first, Cleopatra Confesses, I've previously reviewed. The second, Cleopatra's Moon, although written by a different author picks up at a latter time in Cleopatra's life. Cleopatra's Moon is a book about Cleopatra's daughter by Marcus Antonius, Cleopatra XVII Selene and this is partly what makes this book so unusual.

Told in Cleopatra Selene's voice, Part I of Cleopatra's Moon begins when she is a young girl of seven living in Alexandria-by-the-Sea. Cleopatra's father, General Marcus Antonius has just finished parading through the city to celebrate his victory over Armenia, his eastern enemy. It is one of the last happy moments in her life, shared along with her twin brother Alexandros Helios and her younger brother, Ptolemy XVI Philadelphos. Included in the Royal House of Egypt is Cleopatra's half-brother, Caesarion, the only son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.
We learn that Octavianus, Julius Caesar's successor has declared war on Egypt and Cleopatra XVI personally. Octavianus' sister, Octavia was married by Marcus Antonius to cement a peace treaty. However, Marcus Antonius married Cleopatra XVI and divorced Octavia. This meant the breaking of the peace treaty with Rome. Octavianus has in fact started a civil war with Marcus Antonius for control of the Roman empire.

In Part I the author does a remarkable job of describing the beauty, grace and high degree of culture in Egyptian society that comprises Alexandria during 34 BC. The author tells her readers about Pharos, the magnificent lighthouse that guards the entrance to the harbour,

"We stopped under the striped canopy of the royal entrance to the Library. Attendants came running, bowing first to Caesarion, then to us. One bore a golden vessel with warm lotus-perfumed water to rinse our hands and feet; another took our cloacks and anything else we did not wish to carry.
As we entered the light-filled atrium, white-robed, white-sandaled scholars bustled by, bowing absentmindedly in our direction....

the amazing and vast library at Alexandria open to scholars throughout the known world,

"...I followed her to a more secluded corner of the roof, a deck facing the sea, giving me an astonishing view of Pharos, our Great Lighthouse. Its white marble glinted in the bright sun as immense plumes of black smoke billowed from the fires that burned day and night at its summit. I had never seen our Lighthouse from this height, and the magnificence of its colossal, three-tiered architecture took my breath away. Next to it, the ships moving in and out of our Great Harbour looked like ants crawling past the leg of a giant."

as well as the culture of the Egyptian court. There are detailed descriptions of settings, clothing and fashion, and life within the Egyptian Royal Court.

"I moved into one of the side gardens ideal for private conversations. Date palms ruffled in the breeze, gray and mysterious in the dark. Occasional gusts of wind, rich with the smells of the sea, teased the scents out of sleeping lotus, jasmine, rose, and honeysuckle blooms. I never again smelled a combination so achingly beautiful -- the cool salt of the sea intermingling with the heady perfume of Egyptian blossoms."

Marcus Antonius is portrayed as a loving, kind man, who cares for his family. The royal family is also portrayed as kind, respectful towards each other, thoughtful and educated. Greek, Latin, Persian and Punic are some of the languages family members are able to speak. Cleopatra Selene is portrayed as intelligent, witty and caring. She loves Egypt and is already preparing to someday follow in her mother's footsteps as Queen of Egypt.

Cleopatra's Moon also presents detailed descriptions of Egyptian religious beliefs and practices in magic and there is an especially brilliant passage where the young Cleopatra Selene and her brother Alexandros are exposed to the teachings of the Hebrews in the Jewish temple in Alexandria. In this passage Cleopatra tries to understand the notion of free will that is at the heart of the Hebrew religion and which is in contrast to the Egyptian belief of fate at the hands of their multiple gods and goddesses. Thus begins a struggle within Cleopatra - is she governed by fate or can she choose a different path?

Having set the stage so impeccably, this detail serves to impress upon the reader what Cleopatra Selene loses when her beloved Alexandria is overrun by the Romans. She is eleven years old and her parents, Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra return to Alexandria after losing at Actium and being betrayed by various allies. Octavianus tells Cleopatra she can rule Egypt if she murders her husband, Marcus Antonius which she refuses to do. Instead Marcus Antonius kills himself when he is mistakenly told that Cleopatra is dead. Octavianus imprisons Cleopatra, intending to parade her in triumph when he returns to Rome. She outwits him and kills herself, leaving her children to the whims of Octavianus.

Part II tells the story of Cleopatra Selene and her two brothers in captivity in Rome. They are part of Octavianus' household and believe they are under the protection of Octavia, Octavianus' sister. Rome is portrayed as less cultured than Alexandria, with it's dingy, dirty port of Ostia. Throughout Part II, Cleopatra Selene remarks on the contrasts between Egyptian/Greek culture and that of Rome. The Egyptians wear tunics of finely woven linen in contrast to the wool stola of the Roman women. Although Octavianus' home on the Palatine Hill is luxurious, they sleep in rooms which are small, dark and windowless compared to the open sunlit rooms of the royal palace in Alexandria. Cleopatra Selene begins to see that Rome has no real culture of its own - that it steals the culture of the nations it conquerors. It is primarily a military nation committed to plundering and conquering. Cleopatra Selene understands this especially so when she sees the plundered scrolls of her beloved library in Alexandria and is heartbroken when she sees hieroglyphs and obelisks as well as statues of the Pharaohs being carted into Rome.

Throughout much of her time in Rome, Cleopatra Selene tries to determine how she will someday return to Egypt to rule again. During this time she meets Juba, a Numidian Prince who was captured from his homeland as a baby and is now a scholar and who Cleopatra Selene develops a deep affection towards. However, Cleopatra Selene is pursued by Octavia's son, Marcellus, the son of Octavia who tells her that he will marry her and help her to regain Egypt. She is warned by Juba that such an alliance will never be allowed by Octavianus who hates Cleopatra Selene. He warns her that Marcellus is using her and does not love her. When Octavianus leaves on a campaign in Spain the situation in Rome comes to a dramatic conclusion. Cleopatra Selene must decide whether she will accept the fate the gods have destined her for or choose of her own free will to make a new life for herself.

Cleopatra's Moon is wonderfully written, engaging, historically accurate and well researched. Vicky Shecter has done such a great job of making history come alive for young readers. The beauty of Alexandria and the treachery of this era are exceptionally captured by the author. There is a detailed cast of characters at the beginning of the book and there is an excellent Facts Within The Fiction section which details which parts of the book are historically accurate and where the author inserted fiction into her account.

Brilliant! and fans of historical fiction will love one of this years best historical fiction novels.

Book Details:
Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter
Scholastic Books: Arthur A. Levine Books 2011
355pp.

Lark Rise to Candleford BBC TV Series

2011-08-29T15:00:00.000-04:00

I'm off on holidays this week and what better way than to try out a few episodes of the BBC TV period costume-drama series, Lark Rise to Candleford. The series is based upon a trilogy of "novels" written by Flora Thompson about life in the English countryside and focuses on the lives of people of all classes in the poor hamlet of Lark Rise and it's wealthier neighbour, Candleford. The series began in 2008 and was completed this year after receiving much acclaim.

The stories are told through the narrative of young Laura Timmins who leaves her family in Lark Rise to work at the post office in Candleford under the tutelage of Dorcas Lane. Laura is excited to be moving to Candleford for her first job, to learn new ideas and ways and especially so to have her own bedroom. While Dorcas is welcoming and helpful to her protege, many of the residents of Candleford look down upon her as an ignorant country brat.

There are many story lines to follow through the first and second episodes. For example in the first episode the folks of Lark Rise are infuriated that they must pay 3p 6 penny for the delivery of telegrams from Candleford. They are told that it is because their hamlet is outside the "8 mile limit" for delivery. Things come to a head when Victoria Queenie" Turrill receives an urgent telegram but she is unable to receive it because she cannot pay for it. When a second telegram arrives with bad news, the Dorcas, Post Mistress of Candleford feels compelled to visit Queenie to tell her personally. As a result, the hamlet of Lark Rise decide to contest the charges for telegrams. Sir Timothy Midwinter, the fair-minded squire and local justice of the peace, decides that it might be best to measure the distance between the two communities to determine who is in the right.

In the second episode of Series One, Laura narrates two storylines, that of Mrs. Macy's absent husband and the debt troubles of Caroline Arliss whose husband is a sailor and who has left her to manage affairs at home. She is the feisty, strong character in the series and great fun to watch. It also is becoming evident that Sir Timothy and Dorcas are very fond of one another. I learned that Dorcas was Timothy's first love but because of strong social pressure in 19th century Britain, Dorcas and Timothy were not able to marry because they are from different classes.

Fans of British television will recognize many familiar faces, including Ben Miles as Sir Midwinter, Claudie Blakley as Emma Timmins, Brendan Coyle as Robert Timmins, Julia Sawalha as Dorcas, Victoria Hamilton as Ruby Pratt and Dawn French as the raucous and irresponsible wayward Caroline.

The series has a beautiful pastoral setting to it and is for the most part an enjoyable look into English life in the late 1800's. Part soap opera and part drama, it's pure clean fun. Lark Rise to Candleford is void of sex, violence and crassness which dominates most media today.

So far I have immensely enjoyed the incredible millinery creations worn by dressmaker-sisters Ruby and Pearl, the outrageous Caroline Arliss and the steady performances of Coyle and Sawalha. Olivia Hallinan's performance as Laura is outstanding with her expressiveness and innocence perfect for this piece. Her only difficulty seems to be with her accent which sometimes slips into an Irish brogue. C'est quoi?

I'm looking forward to watching more in the series this week.

Jane Eyre

2011-08-26T14:24:00.001-04:00

The most recent reworking of Jane Eyre is a delightful succinct offering to fans of 18th century English literature adaptations to the screen. Directed by Cary Fukunaga, the movie opens with Jane fleeing Thornfield Hall and lover Edward Rochester and being stranded on the moors. She makes her way to the home of the Rivers, and is taken in by St. John Rivers, her cousin and Mary and Diana Rivers who are St. John's sisters and also Jane's cousins. During her stay with them she reflects back upon her life and it is this reflection that forms the greater part of the film. In this way, director Fukunaga focuses the movie on the story of Jane and Edward.

Mia Wasikowska's portrayal of the intelligent and moral Jane is simply amazing. Wasikowska as Jane, tries to hide her emotions as the proper and prim Jane, but in doing so portrays what she is really feeling. It is this aspect of her portrayal that makes Wasikowska the definitive Jane. Her horror at discovering that Rochester is already married is palatable because it is played with quiet intensity by Jane.

Michael Fassbender is the tempestuous Edward Rochester and he too does a good job of capturing the essential character of Rochester.

This adaptation of Jane Eyre also features Judi Dench, a staple in many BBC productions, as his housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax. One thing we do see in this movie is the caring relationship between Mrs. Fairfax and Jane, especially when Jane returns to the burned out Thornfield Hall and meets the housekeeper who then tells Jane that she needn't have run away because she would have helped her.

With it's themes of religion, love, forgiveness and madness, Jane Eyre is a movie to be enjoyed. This cinematic offering is a little rushed because unlike the 2006 version which was a miniseries, it must offer a detailed and involved storyline over the course of a mere two hours. We don't get to see the transformation of Mr. Rochester from a gruff, reticent man to the warm master of Thornfield in love as Bronte did in the novel.

My preference is still for the 2006 version which starred Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson. We get more of a sense of what Rochester was suffering though with his mad wife who was tricked upon him and the sense of desolation and hopelessness he experienced. There is also a more charged atmosphere between Edward and Jane as their forbidden love blossoms.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend this movie to those who love Pride and Prejudice, North and South and so forth and who want a quick dose of an English lit movie.

Want To Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman

2011-08-24T20:37:00.001-04:00

Want To Go Private? explores the danger of online sexual predators through the experience of fourteen year old, Abby. Abby is preparing to enter high school along with her best friend Faith whom she's known since second grade. While Faith is excited at the prospect of attending a new high school and meeting new friends, Abby is scared.

The first part of the story is told in Abby's voice. As Abby struggles to cope at school, she feels lonely and isolated. She feels she is growing apart from Faith and that her family increasingly doesn't understand her. Her father is always working and never seems to have the time to be with his family. As a result, Abby turns increasingly to her new online friend, "Luke Redmond" whom she meets on a teen chat site. Luke makes her feel special, treats her like an equal and tells her that she is beautiful. We watch as he gradually "grooms" Abby, creating trust and building a rapport with her all the while trying to alienate her from family and friends. He tells her that her best friend Faith is not really a friend when she tells Abby's parents that she fainted during auditions. As Abby becomes more and more involved with "Luke", she passes off social events and her grades begin to slip. But as is typical of online predators, their conversations become more and more sexual in nature, desensitizing the young girl. Eventually "Luke" manages to get Abby's address, sends her a cell phone and gets her to send him a picture of her - topless. After a fight with her mother, Abby decides to meet "Luke" and leave home.

The second part of the novel deals with Abby's family's attempts to recover her. The story is told from the points of view of several characters including Abby, her sister Lily, her best friend Faith and a boy who likes Abby named Billy. At this point in the story, we see how Abby's family and friends struggle to understand how she could leave home and get into a total stranger's car. Littman eloquently captures the anger and fear everyone feels. We learn how difficult it can be to track online predators and the particular problems law enforcement face in the race against time to save these young people.

The final part of the book deals is told from Abby's perspective. We relive bits of her experiences with "Luke", her rescue and her attempt to process what she has been through in counseling. It is interesting to see how Abby now views herself and sad to see her loss of innocence and her struggle to regain some of her identity. Prior to Abby's encounter with "Luke" she is a naive, innocent and immature girl. Afterwards the trauma she has experienced has created mistrust of people, especially men and she experiences lowered self worth.

Want To Go Private? is very explicit in recounting exactly what online sexual predators do to groom a young girl and what can happen to that girl when she's been taken. Because the content is so explicit, in some ways, this defeats the purpose of the book since it seems like such a book would be geared towards younger teens aged 12 to 14 and therefore should have content that is age appropriate these teens. On the other hand, teens do need to know exactly what they might encounter online and where crossing the line happens. Really, the rule of thumb should be, if you don't know the person in real life, you shouldn't be involved with that person in any significant manner.

There were a few things in Littman's novel that I took issue with but the main thing I didn't like was the reference that the Abby's predator had been molested by a Catholic priest. To be honest, this annoyed me greatly. There has been a great deal of press about the Catholic sexual abuse cases but generally men who have been molested by the Catholic priests tend predominately to molest other males. There are many Catholic writers who also take issue with the main stream media's portrayal of these Catholic priests as pedophiles when in fact they are homosexuals.

Want To Go Private? is a shocking, visceral read that is best suited to older teens who need a reminder that in an online world where people commonly have hundreds of "friends", caution and common sense is the perogative.

You can read more about Want To Go Private? here.

Book Details:
Want To Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman
New York: Scholastic Press 2011
332 pp.

A Tiger's Heart. The Story of a modern Chinese Woman. A Memoir by Aisling Juanjuan Shen

2011-08-22T22:54:00.001-04:00

As the title of this memoir states, this is the story of one woman's struggles to rise out of grinding poverty and circumstance in China during the latter part of the 20th century. Shen began writing her memoir in her second semester at Wellesley College in Boston as a way of dealing with her past. The title is a reference to the author being born in the year of the Tiger and being "nothing but trouble" - "a tiger coming out of it's den".

Aisling Juanjuan Shen was born in 1974 in Shen Hamlet, a small rice farming village in the heart of the Yangtze River District. She grew up there with her parents and her younger sister, Spring. Aisling was determined not to have the poverty and back-breaking work in the rice paddies that made up her parent's life. She studied hard and received her associate degree and became a teacher - the only option open to the daughter of poor peasants in China. She was assigned to Hope Middle School in the town of Ba Jin in Wujiang County but it didn't take Aisling long to determine that she did not want to spend the rest of her life living there. So she signed a contract giving her her freedom for 3 years while the school would collect her pay and have her pay a five thousand yuan annual penalty.

"Since 1949, when New China was founded, every governmental worker had been guaranteed an unbreakable iron bowl into which the government put just enough food to keep your stomach full. Most people chose to stay on the dry land, with their bowls. You might find gold and silver in the ocean; but if you couldn't swim, you would be lost."

Shen headed south first to the city of Guangzhou where she lived with Wang Hui, a teacher she met in Ba Jin. When this relationship fails and she cannot find a job making a substantial amount of money, Aisling Shen decides to leave for LongJiang and finds a job at LongJiang Enterprises Group working as a secretary. Throughout the remainder of the book, we follow Shen as she moves from job to job, city to city throughout southern China, gradually becoming a part of wealthy Chinese society in Xiamen. Her life consists of daytime shopping and barhopping at night. But through all this Aisling Shen is deeply unhappy and disturbed.

Both Aisling's family background and the vast changes to society in Communist China contributed greatly to how she lived her life and the decisions she made. By her own account, her father was cold and withdrawn towards her. They rarely talked to each other and he considered her useless. Likely because of her own poor relationship with her father, Aisling slept with many men as she struggled to leave behind her life of poverty and become self-supporting. She slept with married men and was the mistress to several men, all the while not really understanding what motivated her to pursue bad men. All she knew is that she wanted to be loved and wanted companionship. Eventually, she learns more about her past from her mother and is able to put together the pieces that help her understand herself better.

Her description of her abortion after a one night stand with a married man is particularly heartrending. Shen didn't want the abortion but did so because despite China's doing away with the Old China, a pregnant unmarried woman was considered a "broken shoe". She tries to convince the man to let her keep the baby and that she "didn't really want to end this small life inside of me." Interestingly, Shen never connects the abortion and it's trauma with her promiscuous behaviour afterwards, despite the fact that she mentions the abortion changed her forever.

"In the poisonous silence of those lonely nights, I saw that I was splitting into two people. By day, I was an elevated and upright teacher; but when the sun went down, I became an anguished, angry girl who just wanted to destroy everything, including herself."

Shen's descriptions of shady business transaction are a window into the graft and corruption in a China emerging on the world economic market. The communist system replaced Old China with a system just as class driven as the past. Shen documents how difficult it is for young people to work their way out of poverty to a better life.

Readers interested in modern China will find A Tiger's Heart both fascinating and tragic.

Book Details:
A Tiger's Heart. The story of a modern Chinese woman. A memoir. by Aisling JuanJuan Shen
New York: Soho Press 2009
309 pp.

Forget Me Not by Anne Cassidy

2011-08-21T00:19:00.000-04:00

Stella Parfitt has just graduated from Kimble High School and is ready to begin a new phase of her life. She lives with her mom, Teresa (Terri) Parfitt, in the small town of Epping in the Epping Forest District of Essex, England. Stella plans to get a job in an office and her own place eventually. In the meantime, she tries to keep her mother, who seems emotionally unstable and who is perpetually in bad relationships, on an even keel.

When Forget Me Not opens, Stella's mum arrives home drunk at 2 am in the morning after being out with an exboyfriend. Later that day, they learn that the youngest child, Jade of the Henderson family who live down the street has been taken from her cot during the night. Stella's world begins to unravel when the police show up at their door wanting to question her mother. Stella discovers that her mother harbours a huge secret - that twenty years ago, Terri was implicated in the disappearance of a 15 month old baby, Lizzie Gilbert. Lizzie was never found and Terri, who was 18 years old at the time, was never charged.

When Stella and Terri's neighbours learn of her involvement in the Gilbert case, they become hostile and threatening towards them, necessitating their move to a safe house by the police. Stella stumbles upon a clue that leads her to suspect that she knows very little about her mother's past life and to question her mother's sincerity and truthfulness about the recent disappearance.

Forget Me Not tells two stories; the current story focuses on the events surrounding the disappearance of Jade Henderson and how this affects Stella and Terri and is told in the voice of Stella. The past is voiced by Terri who relates the events leading up to the disappearance of Lizzie Gilbert and ten years afterwards. In this way, the reader learns what happened to Lizzie before Stella does.

Forget Me Not is a remarkable book in many ways. First of all, it provided me with a window into a segment of British society - the lower middle working class that I believe is very accurate but disconcerting. Most, if not all the characters in the book are disagreeable and unlikeable. They make bad choices, are amoral, and appear do whatever feels best for them, often ignoring the possible consequences to themselves and others around them. Yet they are typical of the way many people live today in our post-modern Western culture.

The portrayal of Lizzie Gilbert's mother, Jackie, a single mom with three children, all with different fathers, is particularly disturbing. At the time of Lizzie's disappearance she has taken up with yet another man, Kirk, and is pregnant by him. Kirk is a slimy, creepy character, who shows no interest in the welfare of Jackie's children who may be abusive towards little Lizzie. It's a typical situation of a certain type of single mother - the woman who is emotionally needy and who makes bad choices when it comes to relationships. As a single mother myself, I KNOW how hard it can be to raise a family by oneself. Many single mothers are amazing and do a great job. But many single moms are also typical of Jackie.

Stella's mother, Terri doesn't contribute much in the way of improving the image of single mothers either. We learn from her past that she had a thing for older men when she was younger and makes a terrible choice that has disastrous consequences for her, for many years to come. Because she has not dealt in a honest manner with the Gilbert kidnapping, she has not allowed anyone to get close to her. She is always protecting her secret. But part of her lack of any real meaningful relationship with any man is also due to the poor behaviour of the men she has been involved with both as an 18 year old and onwards. Stella also notes that her mother seems to be two people; a well dressed business woman by day, and more like an immature adult in jeans and clunky jewelry by night.

Stella Parfitt is a more complicated character. In some ways she is very much like most of the other characters in the book. Although she goes to Mass, she's a typical example of a young poorly catechized Catholic. Like her relationship with God, her relationship with Robbie is very superficial. She considers him immature but it's obvious she pursued him because she was infatuated with him and at one time thought he was cool. When he shows a lack of interest in sex, Stella decides to dump him. Stella also doesn't seem to have many girlfriends and seems to be a loner.

However, Stella does have some redeeming character qualities. It's quite evident her life has been hard. She knows nothing about her father and very little about her mother. It is sad to see how she often takes on the role of the adult in her relationship with her mother caring for her both emotionally and physically at times. And in the end, she is also her mother's conscience, prompting her to finally do the right thing and tell the truth about the Lizzie Gilbert disappearance.

The married couple, Maggie and Steve Ryan, whose children Terri babysat when she was a teenager, appear to be the typical urban couple with a few kids. Steve however, is yet another male who is selfish and concerned only about himself. He uses Terri and then doesn't man up and help her when she needs him most.

The very liberal attitudes towards many aspects of life are seen throughout the novel. For example, maybe it's a European attitude, but it was interesting to see this couple suggest that Terri finish a half bottle of wine one night while she's babysitting. I can't think of any couple I know ever suggesting this to a babysitter. It would be considered highly inappropriate and irresponsible.

Cassidy does a great job of keeping the exact circumstances of both Lizzie and Jade's disappearances a mystery to the reader. I went through a number of scenarios regarding Terri's involvement in Lizzie's disappearance before finally learning the truth about what happened.

This is a well written book that offers some great discussion points on mother-daughter relationships, single mothers, and modern society.

Book Details:
Forget Me Not by Anne Cassidy
Toronto: Scholastic Canada Ltd
236pp.