Ebb and Flow by Heather Smith

Ebb and Flow by Canadian writer Heather Smith is about the struggles two young boys encounter when unexpected events happen in their lives.

Eleven-year-old Jett Campbell has been sent to spend the summer with his Grandma Jo (Joanna) on the island after his year on the mainland doesn't go so well. The previous year, Jett's father, Douglas Campbell - a respectable banker who drinks only on holidays, was jailed for killing a father and his three children while driving drunk on New Year's Eve. The fallout from this results in Jett being sent to the mainland, to a new school for the year. But what was supposed to be a new beginning for Jett, turns out to be anything but.

Grandma Jo or 'Cotton-candy Granny' as Jett refers to her, is somewhat eccentric with cotton-candy blue hair and a lime green car. His grandma loves to collect sea glass, bits of glass from broken bottles that have been rounded due to the ocean.

While staying with Grandma Jo it soon becomes apparent that Jett is angry about events that have happened over the past year. He acts out in a destructive way at his grandmother's house. While playing Monopoly, a game he hates, he throws the board on the floor in anger. When his grandma takes him to visit a very poor neighbour, Nelly who has no teeth and smells bad, he steals her glass paperweight. When they are going to paint his room purple, Jett deliberately drops Grandma Jo's treasured glass fish full of sea glass.

In an effort to help Jett move on from what happened over the past year, Grandma Jo begins by having Jett make some superficial changes like dyeing his hair blue and painting his room purple. Their time by the ocean, Grandma Jo's care of Nelly who is poor, and the stories they tell one another allow Jett to think back on what happened.

In flashbacks, Jett reveals the events of the year that was supposed to be a fresh start for him and his mother. Jett falls in with a tough bad boy named Michael (Junior) Dawson. He becomes friends with Junior who is mean and a bully, because Jett knows that having a father in jail will seem cool to a boy like Junior.  As Jett hangs around Junior, he becomes involved in doing more things that are wrong such as swearing, skipping school, ordering ten pizzas in a teachers name, and stealing money at a his classmate Colby McKenzie's birthday party.

Then Jett learns Junior's terrible secret: his mother abandoned him due to Jett's violent father whom he now lives with in a shed at the back of his Aunt Cora's home. Aunt Cora's brother and Junior's Uncle Alf also lives with her. Alf has a developmental disability and is a child in a forty-year-old man's body. While Jett is kind to Alf, Junior makes fun of him, calling him Uncle Retard. Unlike Junior, Jett grows to like Alf. He takes Alf to the library, plays with him and even helps him make cookies.  But when Junior learns something about Alf that could possibly give him the means to runaway from his abusive father, he draws Jett into a plan that leads to serious repercussions for both himself and Jett.

Discussion

Ebb and Flow is a story about a young boy coming to terms with his actions and transitioning from destructive anger to forgiveness and healing with the help of his beloved grandmother.

When Jett arrives at his Grandma Jo's home, his feelings are all bundled up inside of him. He truly believes he is a bad, unredeemable person. With plenty of time on his hands, his thoughts go back to the events of the past year, that spiraled out of control. He remembers at first being kind to Alf, Junior's older cousin who has a disability. Jett describes himself as a person who cared about others when he first arrived on the mainland:
"That was a long time ago,
when I was a good person,
when people with no teeth
made me sad."

He remembers when he first changed, hanging around Junior, and becoming like him. Jett believes these changes are permanent.
"...once you kill your old self
and bury it deep underground
it'll never come back,
no matter how hard you dig."

Jett's destructive behaviour continues at his grandma's home until he breaks down and cries after destroying her glass fish with the sea glass. Here, Smith uses the character of Grandma Jo to tell young readers how adversity builds character, and can mold a person into something stronger and beautiful. Grandma Jo explains to Jett what sea glass is, pieces of broken bottles that have been scoured and rounded.
"It got quite a bashing,
that little piece of glass
It spent years
caught in the ocean waves.
It was tossed around
and beaten down,
until finally
it washed up on shore.
Now look at it --
what was once a piece
of broken glass
is now something better --
it's a gem."
The lesson here is that Jett, after all his troubles, can become something better, rising above what happened in the past year.

While Jett believes he's bad and doesn't deserve to be loved, his grandmother tells him about some of the mistakes she has made and how she regrets those mistakes. These "stories" help Jett process what has happened over the last year. It is her openness about her own life that allows Jett to begin telling her what happened over the past year in a series of three stories. Her lesson is that Jett needs to forgive himself and that the past doesn't define who he is.

Jett's perception of himself and what happened during the past year changes over the course of the summer as he opens up through his "stories". He begins to accept responsibility for his actions, and begins the process of forgiving himself and making amends. 

In his first story, Jett tells Grandma Jo,

"Once upon a time

there was a kid named Jett.

He was a pretty good guy

until he moved to the mainland

and met Junior Dawson.

Junior was bad news --...
Junior made Jett
do lots of bad things."
However, Jett knows his "story" is not really the truth because he's not taking responsibility for what he did.

"Grandma looked right through me.

Great story...

if you like fairy tales."

To help Jett accept responsibility for what he's done, Grandma Jo tells him a "real story" about a choice she made when she was twelve years old. She tells Jett about her choice to buy a coveted pair of white boots for herself instead of helping her own grandmother who then died suddenly, leaving her with bitter regret. Jett is sympathetic, telling her that "Everyone makes mistakes, grandma." It is precisely this lesson that Grandma Jo want's Jett to learn. If he can accept this, then Jett can begin to forgive himself.

When he tells his second story, Jett's perspective is much changed:
"Once upon a time,
there was a kid named Jett
who blamed a lot of bad stuff
on another kid name Junior.
But everything that happened
wasn't just Junior's fault.
Jett kind of liked being bad."
Jett explains that when he was mean to other kids, it made him feel good, "like he was winning at something." Except when he was mean to Alf.

His third story finally sees Jett tell his Grandma Jo how he came to help Junior try to steal Alf's money. He tells what happened exactly as it went down, how he felt caught between two friends, the gentle Alf whom he didn't want to steal from and the manipulative Junior who had to deal with his physically abusive father. Jett wanted to help Junior escape from his brutal father who is physically abusing him. Alf's money would help him do that. Although Jett's intention was good - to help his friend- it was the wrong way to go about achieving this. The consequences were devastating for everyone involved.

It is Grandma Jo's forgiveness towards Jett for breaking her glass fish that allows Jett to forgive himself. And once he begins to accept that people make mistakes, he can begin to make amends. The first thing he does is call Alf and talk to him. From Alf he receives unconditional love and forgiveness. In receiving forgiveness Jett is able to forgive his father and visit him in the penitentiary. And before he leaves for the mainland, Jett also returns Nelly's paperweight telling her he didn't have a reason for taking it, that he just did it. No excuses. Just the honest truth. Making things right, allows Jett a fresh start for junior high.

The novel also points out how offering kindness instead of judgement can make a huge difference in a life. Jett arrives at his Grandma Jo's home believing he is a "villain".  However, time and again, Grandma Jo tells Jett many positive things about himself. She can see the good in her grandson. She tells Jett, "Jett you really are a kind boy" when he gives her a heart-shaped rock he finds on the beach. She repeatedly tells Jett he is smart and clever and that "your soul's a good one." This positive reinforcement helps Jett to change how he views himself. In contrast is Junior's Aunt Cora who doesn't take in the young boy but instead forces him to live in the shed behind the house. When Jett calls Aunt Cora to speak with Alf, he tells her that Junior is not all bad. Jett's message to Aunt Cora is that Junior might have acted differently if she had been kinder. Her response to Jett is that Junior will be bad just like his dad. Instead of loving Junior, she reinforced his feelings of neglect and worthlessness.  "All she had to do was pick him up, but she stepped on him instead." 

Ebb and Flow is a deeply touching story that explores the themes of betrayal, forgiveness, and friendship. Smith's characters are realistic, with both good and bad qualities. Grandma Jo is Jett's safe refuge where he is allowed to face the realities of his actions over the past year. She gently helps him come to terms with what happened, to grieve and then to accept and move on. Jett is realistically crafted, with the good qualities of kindness and the ability to accept others as they are, but sometimes lacking the courage to do the right thing - not uncommon at all for an eleven-year-old boy. Junior perhaps elicits the most compassion, abandoned by his mother, abused by his father, and neglected by the one adult who could have offered him refuge, his Aunt Cora. Smith offers her young readers hope when we learn that he is now living with an aunt.

The novel takes its title from a reference in the story about life involving constant change that we must cope with. When Jett questions Grandma JO as to "Why can't things just stay the same?" she tells him, 

"Because life is like the tides.

In, out.

Back, forth.

Push, pull.

High, low.

You just have to go with the flow, you know?"

Heather Smith is a Canadian author, originally from Newfoundland but now currently residing in Waterloo, Ontario. Although Heather admits she and words did not get along well in the beginning there is absolutely no evidence of that strained relationship in Ebb and Flow.

Book Details:

Ebb and Flow by Heather Smith
Toronto: Kids Can Press      2018
227 pp.

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Ten-year-old Ada lives with her Mam and her younger brother, Jamie in London, England. Ada's mother works nights in the pub below their third floor flat. It is Ada's job to get Jamie breakfast in the morning and tea at night. Ada isn't able to walk because her right foot is small and twisted, so she gets around their flat by crawling. Because of her foot, Ada's mother will not allow her to ever leave their flat. She believes her daughter's crippled foot is shameful and that people will judge her as a parent. She also frequently tells Ada that her foot is her own fault. Ada hasn't been to school and instead is forced to care for Jamie. She is often hungry.

As Jamie gets older he no longer wants to stay in their flat and one day to prevent him from leaving, Ada ties him up. Seeing how upset he becomes, Ada releases him, realizing that she is becoming cruel like her Mam. That day she decides to teach herself to walk, hoping that if she can walk, Mam will be proud. Learning to walk is a painful process but Ada persists, deciding to keep it a secret. When Mam discovers that Jamie has been stealing food, she punishes Ada by forcing her into the cabinet beneath their sink. This is a terrifying experience for Ada because it is damp, smelly, dark and infested with roaches. And now that she's older and bigger, being in the cabinet all night is painful.

In late August, 1939, Jamie tells Mam that his best friend Billy White says that all the children in London are leaving, being sent to the country. London is going to be bombed by the Germans. Mam decides to send Jamie but not Ada, telling her that "Nice people don't want to look at that foot." Later on Ada tells Jamie to make sure he knows the time and place they are to be, because she intends to leave with him.

On a Friday morning, Ada, wearing her Mam's shoes leaves with Jamie. The walk is painful for Ada, but they make it inside the school. At the school Ada meets Stephen White who is surprised to see Ada. He reveals to her that everyone believes she is "simple" and cannot talk and that people feel sorry for her Mam. Stephen gives Ada a piggy-back ride to the train station and by noon Ada is on the train with the rest of the children headed out of London.

The train ride proves to be a learning experience for Ada who has never seen grass or trees and is astonished to see a girl riding a pony racing the train. For Ada, the girl on the pony leaves a lasting impression. Finally Ada and Jamie along with the other children arrive at a train station and are lined up so they can be paired with adults who will take them into their homes. Ada and Jamie are so scruffy that no one chooses them.The woman in charge of placing the children and whom Ada nicknames the "iron woman" consoles them and then drives them to a house set amongst trees.

They overhear the "iron woman" and the lady who lives at the house, Miss Smith arguing about taking the children. Initially Ada doesn't care whether Miss Smith takes them or not, until she sees the bright yellow pony poking its head through the bushes. This makes Ada take matters into her own hands and she has Jamie help her back to the house. In the end, the iron lady whose name is Lady Thorton, leaves Ada and Jamie with Miss Smith who is not at all very happy with this turn of events.

They are forced to have baths and it is at this time that Miss Smith discovers Ada's foot was not injured by a brewers cart but instead that she has a club foot. She tells Ada that they will go to see the doctor in the morning. Miss Smith learns that Jamie is ready to go to school but that Ada doesn't attend because of her "ugly foot" and that the children do not know their last name. Ada's only concern is the pony whom she learns is named Butter. The doctor tells Miss Smith that the children have impetigo (a skin infection), that they are very malnourished to the point that Ada is developing rickets (a Vitamin D deficiency) The doctor is also disturbed by Ada's untreated club foot, which Ada learns could have been treated when she was a baby. Miss Smith decides she will write Ada's mother immediately in order to get permission for her to have surgery to correct her foot.

Life with Miss Smith is very different from life with Mam. There is lots of food, baths, and special clothes for sleeping in, called pajamas. Ada is allowed to be outside and play. They learn about soup served in bowls and eaten with spoons, little green things called peas and thin white blankets on the beds called sheets. Then with England at war with Germany, comes the risk of being bombed. While Jamie misses Mam and wants to go home, Ada knows "Home was more frightening than bombs." Ada knows if she goes back home she will run away again. But when Jamie has a tantrum at the train station after his friend Billy White is taken home by his mother, Ada wonders if her mother will be happy with her now that she can walk with crutches. Maybe Mam will see that she's not simple. As Ada's health improves and she comes to trust Miss Smith, Ada begins to realize there might not be any going back.

Discussion

The War that Saved My Life traces the journey of Ada Smith who discovers herself and saves her life and that of her brother Jamie after they are sent out of London to the countryside during the early days of World War II. Born with a club foot, abused by her Mam and malnourished, ten-year-old Ada  has no idea of the outside world.

Ada struggles to understand the world she's been dropped into. It seems that people use words but don't really mean what they say.  For example,  Miss Smith claims she's not a nice person, "but she cleaned up the floor. She was not a nice person, but she bandaged my foot in a white piece of cloth, and gave us two of her own clean shirts to wear."  Miss Smith tells them eggs are "all the food I have", but "All the food she had, she said, except there was butter on the slightly stale bread, and sugar in the tea." Ada notes that "Miss Smith was not a nice person, but the bed she put us in was soft and clean, with smooth thin blankets and warm thicker ones."

Because she can't trust the words people use, Ada doesn't know how to respond to questions, so she often shrugs. When Miss Smith asks if she's hungry Ada's not sure whether to say yes and she wonders, "Did Miss Smith want me to be hungry, or not?" She is in fact very hungry but telling her Mam would not have changed anything. What would telling Miss Smith mean? Ada has been told by Mam that her clubfoot is her fault but Ada has always wondered whether this was true. The doctor's shock at seeing her untreated clubfoot makes Ada feel like she's done something wrong. When the doctor asks her if she's in very much pain, again Ada has no idea how to answer this question; "How much was very much? What did he want me to say?" And when Ada makes tea for Miss Smith who tells her this was thoughtful, she wonders if thoughtful is good or bad?

At first Ada's experiences in the village seem to confirm what she thinks about herself and what her Mam has labelled her. When they arrive in Kent, Ada and her brother are passed over by all the adults. One woman wants Jamie but not Ada. Lady Thorton then takes them to the home of Miss Smith, who initially rejects the two children but is forced to take them into her home.

Ada discovers that her mother has not told anyone about her club foot but instead has told people that Ada is "simple". Ada is not sure if she is "simple".  Mrs. White who arrives to take her younger son home to London, expresses shock and disgust that Ada is living in the village and not in an asylum. Even the evacuee teacher believes that Ada is "not educable", because she cannot read. However Miss Smith does not believe what she hears about Ada and tells her, "You mustn't listen to people who don't know you. Listen to what you know, yourself."

As time passes Ada struggles mightily with how she views herself compared to how Miss Smith and Maggie and Fred Grimes see her because her entire life she's been told she's filthy, stupid  and trash. For example, despite Miss Smith's kindness and generosity, Ada rejects her because she doesn't believe she's worthy of such treatment. She refuses Miss Smith's offer to make her a beautiful green velvet dress. "I had more than I needed. More than I felt comfortable with, really. I was still the girl I'd seen in the train station mirror, still the feeble-minded girl stuck behind a window. The simple one. I was okay with wearing Maggie's castoffs, but I knew my limits."

This feeling reaches a crisis point on Christmas Eve when Miss Smith (Ada now calls her Susan) gives Ada a beautiful green velvet dress she has made. She tells Ada she looks beautiful when she tries it on, but Ada believes she's lying and that she is not worthy of such a beautiful gift. "She was lying. She was lying, and I couldn't bear it. I heard Mam's voice shrieking in my head. 'You ugly piece of rubbish! Filth and trash! No one wants you, with that ugly foot!" My hands started to shake. Rubbish. Filth. Trash I could wear Maggie's discards, or plain clothes from the shops, but not this, not this beautiful dress. I could listen to Susan say she never wanted children all day long. I couldn't bear to hear her call me beautiful."

On Christmas Day Ada manages to wear the dress because she knows it will make Susan happy but she states, "I felt like an imposter. It was worse than when I tried to talk like Maggie. Here I was, looking like Maggie. Looking like a shiny bright girl with hair ribbons. Looking like a girl with a family that loved her." But when Jamie tells her she looks beautiful, Ada realizes that she does have family that love her - her brother loves her.

As her view about herself changes, Ada's perspective on her life also changes. She begins to desire more for herself and for her life. Her struggles with teaching Butter to trot lead Ada to reach out to Mr. Grimes. "A month ago I'd been thrilled with Butter, and now I wanted something more." Ada tells Grimes about having a clubfoot and asks him if he can fix her. It's the first time there's a hint that Ada might want more than just to walk around on crutches. She also initially refuses Miss Smith's offer to teach her to read. But once she's tricked into learning, Ada works hard to learn to read and write.She works hard for Grimes and eventually masters riding Butter and even identifies the arrival of a spy on the English coast.

The realization that if her mother had her foot fixed she could have been like Jamie able to run and attend school leads Ada to desire much more for herself. She comes to realize that her disability is not her fault. She could be more. When Ada accepts the truth of her situation, she realizes that she wants to be a normal person. "...And I wanted my foot fixed badly. I was tired of it hurting. I wanted to be like a normal person. I wanted to walk without crutches, and I wanted to go to school, and I wanted to wear shoes on both feet. I never wanted to be locked up again."

The knowledge that her disability is not her fault, that her mother inexplicably did not seek treatment for her and the realization that Mam doesn't love her or Jamie makes Ada want to fight for the right to live a life where she is wanted, loved and cared for. To Ada this is her personal war and she now intends to win it.  

Brubaker Bradley has crafted an endearing character in Ada Smith. Readers will identify with Ada as she struggles to find a place to belong, to make sense of the world around her and to confront her intense emotions about her mother and her disability. Ada works her way through anger and sadness over the fact that her Mam doesn't love or want her. Miss Smith's unconditional love of Ada and her brother Jamie, help her to confront her mother and to escape. At the same time Ada begins to know joy and love, learned from the actions of Miss Smith.

Miss Smith is also a complex, well crafted character who has her own issues. She too has believed what others have said about her and constantly tells Ada that she is not a nice person, despite her actions proving otherwise. Miss Smith sees herself in Ada, different, judged for a characteristic she feels cannot be changed and therefore socially isolated.

The War That Saved My Life has a subtle message about tolerance towards anyone who is different. Although never directly stated, it is hinted that Miss Smith is a lesbian who lived with her friend Becky. She was rejected by her parents who considered her unredeemable. She tells Ada and Jamie, "In my case being redeemed means changing my evil ways and regaining my heavenly crown. It means my parents don't like me..." Miss Smith's situation is compared to that of Ada with her clubfoot and Jamie with his left handedness, all conditions the author considers people to be born with. Unfortunately, there is no concrete scientific proof that same-sex attraction is something a person is born with. Nevertheless, the author's message that all people be treated with dignity and are worthy of love,  is an important one. Becky's treatment by her parents was not charitable nor Christian. No wonder she no longer attends church service. The novel ends on a more positive note with Miss Smith no longer isolated from her village community as demonstrated by the villagers desperately searching through the ruins of Miss Smith's house after it was bombed.

A sequel, The War I Finally Won has just been recently published and details Ada's life after returning from London with Jamie and Miss Smith to Kent. 

Book Details:

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
New York: Dial Books For Young Readers        2015
316 pp.

Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali

Max is born on April 20, 1936, the same day as Adolf Hitler. He chooses that day as it will bring him the blessings of the Germanic gods.Max sees himself as the firstborn of the master Aryan race; he wants to be supple, lean, swift, hard and tough. He wants to hate rather than love. His mother, Frau Inge who is tall, blond and blue-eyed applied to be a Schwester (Sister) and underwent a series of detailed physical examinations. She had to prove she had no Jewish blood in her ancestry. His father was an SS officer who was paired with her.

Max is born in Steinhoring Home, on the outskirts of Munich. His birth, like those of the other babies in the Lebensborn program, is kept secret. Steinhoring was an asylum for mentally ill people but they were "relocated" - exterminated and the home was renovated. At birth Max too undergoes a detailed physical examination by SS-Oberfuhrer Gregor Ebner who, after taking numerous measurements, classifies him as being of the Nordic Aryan race. Max's mother is not allowed to hold him until he has passed the examination.

Max's mother, Frau Inge struggles after his birth as she is encouraged not to use endearing terms and he is often taken away from her. Max notes that there is a sort of "magic cord" between him and his mother that allows him to sense what she is feeling. A week after his birth, Max is christened by Adolf Hitler in a ceremony attended by Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler, Max Sollmann (director of the Lebensborn program), the Fuhrer's personal doctor, Dr. Karl Brandt and his wife Anni Rehborn, Dr. Ebner, along with the mothers from Steinhoring and other Lebensborn homes. Max's mother receives an autographed photograph of them with Hitler and Max is given the new name of Konrad von Kebnersol, a mix of Dr. Ebner's and Herr Sollmann's names.

Life at Steinhoring is unsettling. Max becomes upset when he witnesses babies being removed from the home by Josefa during the nights. One night after being tenderly hugged by his mother, Max hears his mother being escorted from the home, screaming and crying. This event results in Max becoming sickly as the "magic cord" that existed between him and his mother is no longer there. He also discovers that some of the babies in the nursery have been taken to Ward 15 in the Steinhof Institute in Vienna where they undergo experimentation and are ultimately euthanized. These children, who suffer from minor defects such as harelip (cleft palate), asthma and deafness are called "rabbits". This terrifies Max to the point that he decides to banish all memories of his mother and to force himself to accept the wet nurse.

The process of adopting the babies begins, and while other babies from the nursery are adopted, Max is repeatedly not chosen. One night he is kidnapped from the nursery by a woman who has escaped from a prison camp. This woman, Magda, saw her newborn baby, Maciej shot. Max remains with her for five days as she slowly starves to death. He is rescued in terrible condition. In an attempt to rehabilitate him emotionally as part of an experiment, Max is left alone and not comforted. "Even when I yelled my head off -- my arms outstretched so they'd open the door, so they'd come and hold me, cuddle me, comfort me -- no one ever came. "

Max Sollmann

As Max grows into early childhood, Germany goes to war. Max becomes "the perfect sample product" of the Lebensborn program. The mothers who come to Steinhoring looking to adopt want to cuddle him but are not allowed to do so. When he is four years old, Max is taken to  Poznan Poland where he is used as a lure to help the Nazis steal Polish children. Working with the "Brown Sisters", Max entices other children his age to tell him about their families and where they live. During the nights the SS soldiers visit the children's homes and kidnap them. Eventually Max is sent out with a Polish concentration inmate, Bibiana. The two are very successful and Max begins to bond with her as she holds his hand, hugs him and plays games with him. But when Max tells her that his mother is German and his father is the Fuhrer, Bibiana revolts and she is killed. This deeply upsets Max who struggles to eat and begins rocking himself. But things only go from bad to worse for Max as he is exposed to more and more depraved situations.

Max watches the SS soldiers have sex with the German prostitutes and rape the Polish women. He hides in the back of a truck and watches the SS soldiers kidnap Polish children from their homes. Soon he is recruited to take part in the hunt for blond, blue-eyed Polish children whom the SS can kidnap. After leading a group of children safely back to their mothers, Max cruelly reports them to the soldiers. At a party in his honour, the German prostitutes expose themselves to him and Max gets dangerously drunk on the left over liquor. At age six he is sent to Kalish, the SS Gaukinder Home which is the central district home of the Polish Lebensborn. There he sneaks out during the night to view both the boys and girls as they undergo the Nazi selection process by the doctors at the school. He also witnesses the murder of a boy he befriends. But when a Polish Jewish boy, Lucjan who is renamed Lukas by Dr. Ebner, arrives at the Lebensborn school, Max is about to discover everything he's been taught about people, life and the Third Reich is very different from reality.

Discussion

Max is a disturbingly explicit account of the Nazi's successful program to breed racially pure "Aryan" children for the Third Reich.  Known as the Lebensborn program, it was created in 1935 to increase Germany's declining population. However, only those who were considered  of Aryan descent, or "racially valuable" were recruited to the program. This eugenics program was committed to produce racially superior Germans. As the war dragged on and Germany experienced more and more casualties  the Lebensborn program resorted to the kidnapping of children from Nazi-occupied countries who appeared to be Aryan.

All the horrific details of the Lebensborn program are revealed in this novel through the use of omniscient first person narration of a child. The narration begins when Max is an unborn baby about to be born in 1936 through the war until the fall of Berlin in 1945. Max comes into the world, a die-hard Nazi, determined to fulfill his mission in life as a model Aryan. He's even willing to offer his life at birth should he not meet the Aryan standards. Fortunately for him, he passes and is allowed to be reunited with his mother. Soon Max experiences repeated traumas along with intense Nazi indoctrination that begin to shape him into a cold, calculating child. Can there be any kernel of love and compassion inside such a child? This is the question Cohen-Scali sets out to explore in her novel.

Baptism of Lebensborn child

Max's trauma begins immediately after birth and continues throughout his life. He is measured and examined for defects and soon his mother is removed from his life. This is "scary" for Max who simply wants to lie next to his mother and nurse. 

As babies with defects are removed from the nursery for experimentation, Max has nightmares and fears he will also be taken away and experimented on. When he is kidnapped from the Steinhoring nursery just before his first birthday in 1937 and is rescued five days later in serious condition, Max receives no comfort and is placed in quarantine - "I had to stay alone all day, locked in a room at the back of the building, so my crying wasn't heard." 

When Bibiana, is executed for rebelling against the kidnapping of Polish children, Max gets a "tummy ache" that won't go away. He stays alone and begins rocking himself. He experiences anger over Bibiana's rebellion and even dresses in the rags he used when with Bibiana because they retain some of her smell. 

After helping a few Polish children escape, Max experiences anger that these children have mothers who love them. Instead of helping them, Max decides that one of the boys "must become German" and turns them in. After Max's friend Wolfgang is murdered in cold blood in front of him for not saluting a German officer, he is unable to sleep, has nightmares and begins wetting the bed. Max is six years old when this happens. Without comfort, he uses the distraction of watching young girls being stripped and examined for the program at Kalish. In Berlin he witnesses more shootings, rapes and the murder of his friend.

All of these events, each shocking in its own right, show Max as a victim who struggles to protect himself by denying what's happening and by attempting to take some kind of control over his life. Despite his fear, and believing he is the vanguard of an Aryan nation destined to take over the world, Max views himself as a leader for his peers whom he refers to as his "buddies". He wants to be seen as "made of Krupp's steel." - a reference to the high quality steel produced in Germany by Krupp. As a result, he views any action that enhances the Aryan nation as acceptable in spite of his fear or even natural revulsion. 

After babies are removed from the nursery for experimentation, Max comes to believe this is acceptable for the success of the Third Reich. "I understand now that my buddies' sacrifice was essential in guaranteeing that the Reich's medical science is the finest in the world. Markus, Edith, Klaus, and all the "rabbits" from the other Homes can be proud because they will be contributing to great discoveries: vaccines against tuberculosis and typhus (diseases spread by Jews and Gypsies), medications to heal the wounds of our soldiers at the front...I know now that we make up a chain, every link of which, even the smallest is vital. The weak die so the strong can become invincible." 

The breaking of the bond between himself and his mother initially upsets Max but he comes to view this as making him stronger. "...no more magic cord! It no longer exists. I've cut the umbilical cord once and for all. My memory of Mother is fading...I can't remember her smell anymore, or the feeling of pressing against the soft pillow of her breasts. Soon I'll have forgotten she existed. Besides, I'm going to erase the word mother from my vocabulary."  As Max becomes the linchpin in the kidnapping of elite Polish children in order to Germanize them for the Third Reich, he believes this is necessary, "Such a brilliant idea! A bit like a blood transfusion. New blood for Germany, while weakening the enemy."

However, Max's view of the world is changed by his interactions with Lukas, a Polish Jew who physically is the Aryan ideal. This is a complete puzzle to Max who has been indoctrinated into the belief that all Jews look a certain way. Lukas tells Max that his mother was a beautiful, intelligent Polish woman who was educated and spoke French and German fluently. He was saved from the Jewish ghetto when his parents sent him away to be hidden by a non-Jewish Polish woman. Lukas's life was saved, his father and brother perished in the Jewish ghetto and his mother was sent to Treblinka. Lukas's story confuses Max, who begins to question what he's been told. "Perhaps Lukas's family didn't deserve it? Perhaps an exception should have been made for them? Perhaps there are good Jews? How do you know? At this point in my thinking, I admit that I'm lost..."

Max 's doubt is increased during biology class which is devoted to learning how to identify Jews based on physical characteristics. Lukas who is Jewish has none of the "identifying" characteristics. "But on the other hand, something wasn't quite right. If you wrote Lukas's statistics into the chart the teacher had given us at the beginning of the class, his would be identical to the Aryan measurements. Moreover, Lukas had the green racial fitness certificate. I wanted to tell the teacher everything, that Lukas was Jewish and Aryan -- so he could explain the contradiction to me, once and for all."  At the Napola Max is forced to another realization; "I'm surprised how, Polish or German, Aryan or not, we aren't that different. For the most part, my buddies here are just like the ones I had in Kalish. They have the same faults, especially the six-year-olds. It's hard for them to get up at 6:00 on the dot to go running...Hard to get dressed in a rush...Hard not to fall asleep in class."

Max believes his contact with Lukas is "de-Aryanizing" him. And yet when Lukas is sent to a munitions factory, Max experiences distress both over his absence and the fact that Germany is losing the war, leading him to begin cutting himself. When Lukas returns he is depressed, chain smokes and won't eat. Max cares for Lukas and learns the source of Lukas's turmoil when he tells him about the "Final Solution". "The events of the past few months have shown me that they don't tell us everything at the Napola. Information is filtered, altered. The things Lukas told me before he left for his training, things I refused to believe, have been proven to be true." All of this only deepens the conflict within Max and he begins to understand that he has been a part of something terrible.He decides to keep his bargain with Lukas and to tell his story in the orphanage in Bavaria.

Max is a very different historical novel, written from a unique perspective. Well worth the time if the reader is not familiar with the Lebensborn program. The character Max is fictional, however Lukas is based on Salomon Perel, who was able to pass himself off as Aryan and who survived the war. Max Sollmann, Gregor Ebner, and Johanna Sander were all real life people. The Author's Note at the back details more about these people and the Lebensborn program, as well as providing readers with follow-up material. Prospective readers should know that this book contains explicit sexual content. Because of the graphic violence and sexual content this novel it is recommended only for older teens and adults.

Image credits:

Gregor Ebner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Ebner#/media/File:Gregor_Ebner1.jpg

Max Sollman: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Sollmann#/media/Datei:Max_Sollmann_1.JPG

Baptism of Lebensborn child: https://library.mcmaster.ca/archives/virtualmuseum/mod5-1.html

Book Details:

Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali (translation from the French by Penny Hueston)
New York: Roaring Book Press 2017
421 pp. 

Broken by C.J. Lyons

At first this novel appears to be about a girl who has a serious health problem, however, as the story progresses readers will soon realize that there is more going on in Scarlet Killian's life than just her illness. Something sinister and deadly. The author weaves together several story lines, all with Scarlet at their center.

Fifteen year old Scarlet is attempting her first week at school - ever. She has lived most of her life in hospital, having been diagnosed with an untreatable heart condition that could cause her to suddenly drop dead. Despite the doctors not completely understanding her symptoms, Scarlet has been diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome which is a defect in the calcium pumps that control heart rhythm.

As a result, carries an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) she calls "Phil"  with her everywhere. Too ill to attend school, Scarlet has been home-schooled by her mother, who is a nurse. For Scarlet, this attempt at high school is her one and only chance to live a normal life. She wants a future that doesn't consist of staying at home being constantly monitored by her mother who feeds her pureed foods and vitamin pills as supplements.

But fitting in at school is going to be alot harder than she ever imagined. On her first day at Smithfield High, Scarlet with her AED in tow, manages to attract the attention of two boys; Mitch Kowalski, a member of the football team who immediately sets his sights on Scarlet as a target for his bullying and Jordan Summers who is her lockermate. When Scarlet meets Jordan, she finds herself attracted to him, causing her face to flush and her heart to pound. Scarlet's mom, who works as a nurse at the school,  insists on checking her over and then forcing her to take her vitamins. But Scarlet doesn't take the vitamins because they make her feel flushed and dizzy. Scarlet has discovered through her online searches, that her vitamins high niacin content are probably making her feel this way making her suspicious of the pills.

On her first day, Scarlet meets her peer support group that includes Nessa Woodring and Celina Price with Jordan as their peer mentor. Scarlet's first class is Grade 10 English taught by Mrs Gentry. Gentry has the class studying Tennessee William's, Glass Menagerie. To study further the theme of unreliable memory in the play, Gentry asks her students to keep a memory journal. During class she asks her students to try to recall their first memory and Scarlet realizes that she has few memories; Scarlet can remember books she's read but few details from her childhood.

In flashback, Scarlet does remember when she was thirteen - the year of "Nothing Good" as she terms it. It was during this year that Scarlet became suspicious that her stepmom was not only causing her symptoms but that she suspected she was trying to kill her too. Doctors had no explanation for Scarlet's symptoms and they decided to stop all her medication. This gave Scarlet the idea that maybe her mother was responsible for her illness. But Scarlet ended up back in hospital and almost died - and her idea that her stepmom was responsible seemed ridiculous.

When Scarlet has to leave school suddenly due to an incident involving Mitch who is intent on getting revenge for Scarlet standing up to him, Anthony (Tony) Carrera, a boy in her biology class stops by her home later on to return her textbook and notes. Anthony has been assigned to be Scarlet's partner in a bio project which is due the following Monday. Tony tells her their project is to trace back the medical family history and identify any possible genetic traits and analyze them. So Tony and Scarlet decide to trace back her condition as it is a genetic one.

Although Scarlet is initially skeptical of Tony's motives for partnering with her, she feels attracted to him. Tony is not intimidated by Scarlet's controlling stepmother, something that she also finds endearing. Tony seems to like her and doesn't look at her like she's a "problem patient or a diagnostic dilemma or a freak." Instead he looks at her like she's "the only thing in the whole wide world."

When Scarlet asks her stepmom to download her medical records on the computer, she refuses, telling Scarlet that she's not ready for the information in her medical records. So Scarlet decides to sneak the records from the USB key on her stepmom's keychain onto the home computer. Then as Scarlet begins to peruse those records she makes a startling discovery that she had a twin brother who died very young. The fact that Scarlet's father has never spoken about this troubles her.

In an apparent turnabout, the next day Scarlet's stepmom gives her a paper copy of her medical files, which Scarlet turns over to Tony for their project. Meanwhile at school, Scarlet sees her mother becoming overly involved in some of the students personal lives, misunderstanding situations and causing problems. Tony tells Scarlet that he wasn't able to locate the results of her genetic tests in the medical files that came from her mother. But when Tony begins to question Scarlet about the pills she's been taking, Scarlet begins to realize that something is terribly wrong. A crisis at school suddenly brings everything to a shocking climax, revealing the truth about Scarlet's illness and her stepmother's actions.


Broken is an interesting novel but there are some weak plot points; the biology project seems too advanced for Grade 10 and it's difficult to understand how Scarlet's stepmom could be a full time nurse at a high school and also homeschool her. The entire bullying situation Scarlet encounters at school seems over the top and unrealistic. Situations in the novel, which takes place over the span of five days, from Monday to Friday, seem to escalate quickly - in a matter of hours - making the ending seem hurried and contrived.

Because of the short timeline for the story, Lyon's spends little time truly developing the characters but the reader does get a good sense of who the main characters really are. Scarlet's manipulative and intense stepmother is creepy especially when contrasted with her kindly but absent father. Scarlet is obviously a good daughter who is beginning to question what is happening in her life and who wants more from life than what she has. This turns out to be her saving grace.

C.J. Lyons has chosen an interesting subject upon which to base a novel. The author who is a pediatrician, has seen cases of Munchausen by proxy syndrome and although it is considered rare, Lyon's believes it is more prevalent than reported. Overall, this was an engaging novel that deals with themes of honesty, betrayal, trust and friendship.

Book Details:
Broken by C.J. Lyons
Naperville, Illinois:  Sourcebooks Fire     2013
325 pp.

What She Left Behind by Tracy Bilen

What She Left Behind tells the gripping story of a dysfunctional family falling apart after the father suffers a mental breakdown that leaves him violent and dangerous.

Sara Peter's dad wasn't always like this; violent, angry and abusive. At one time, when they lived in Philadelphia, he was a cop, always smiling and good to his family. But a terrible incident changed all that. He was shot in the leg during an altercation with an Hispanic gang, which left him disabled, unable to work and his partner dead. Life for Sara's family spiraled downward ever after.

In an attempt to start over, Sara's father moves the family back to his hometown of Scottsfield, Michigan, where he now runs the family hardware store. Her father was not the happy man he was before and he became even more unhappy after her older brother, Matt, committed suicide four months ago. After Matt's death, the abuse and violence towards Sara's mom escalated to the point where her mother has finally decided to leave her dad even though he has warned her against leaving.

Sara and her mom make arrangements to pack and her mother tells her that she will pick Sara up the next day at Dairy Dreams. But when Sara's mom fails to meet her, Sara knows something has gone terribly wrong. When Sara returns home that night, her father tells her that her mother has been sent to a training convention in North Carolina.

Although Sara wants to believe her father and even pretends for awhile that what he is saying is true, she knows that something has happened to her mother. Calls to her mother's cell phone go to voice mail, and when Sara calls her mother's workplace she is told that her mother is on holidays for two weeks and that the company doesn't have an office in North Carolina. Sara, understandably unable to function much at school, begins skipping and now begins to actively attempt to find out what has happened to her mother. Has her father killed her mother? Did her mother just abandon her and leave Sara to live with her dad? Has she left to find a place for them to stay?

 The story is told in the voice of Sara over a period of ten days, from Monday to the following week. Even though Sara knows her situation at home is not normal (her father still talks about Matt as if he's alive), she pretends it is. She also tries to pretend that things are normal at school, although it's very evident that she's under some kind of stress. Some of her teachers pick up on this, but Sara is expert at hiding what's going on, and no one digs deeper. Her friend Zach, knows something of her home situation. Zach is like a brother to her and Sara does tell him eventually that her mother is missing. She also meets and begins dating Alex Maloy, a member of the football team. Alex gives Sara's life some semblance of "normalacy" during this time of anxiety.

Meanwhile, Sara comes to the realization that she can no longer hide behind her silence, as she use to do when Matt and her mother lived at home. Her silence was her protection and her father took out his anger on Matt, and then when Matt was no longer around, her mother. That slowly begins to change as the days pass and her father begins to physically abuse her, becoming increasingly violent over the smallest things.

Sara can barely contain her panic as the week goes by and she does not hear from her mom. She begins searching the house for any clues to her mother's disappearance. When she finds the shovel is missing she begins to suspect the worst, but tries to reason away her fears.

"When I get back home, Dad is washing his truck. He's kneeling in the bed of the pickup, scrubbing something with a brush. I try not to think about the missing shovel.
Don't be ridiculous, Sara! If  Dad were trying to cover up evidence that he'd had a dead body in the truck, he would have done that last Tuesday, the day that Mom disappeared.
Right.
The day that I didn't come home until well after dinner. The day I found my dad alone in the dark, smoking."

Eventually Sara finds the the name and number of a storage locker. When she and Zach make an important discovery, Zach wants to call the police but Sara decides to finally speak up and confront her father, leading ultimately to a deadly confrontation.

What She Left Behind seems like a crazy, strange novel. It is contrived to some degree. Sara can't go the police in Scottsfield, because the police officer, Jack Renolds, is a good friend of her father's. This leaves Sara pretty much on her own in terms of who can help her. Instead, she relies on her two friends, Zach and Alex, who both become drawn into the family's dire situation and in the final confrontation.

Many readers might have a hard time understanding why Sara would continue to live with her father. Her home situation is not only creepy, it's downright dangerous. But leaving an abuser is very difficult, as Bilen demonstrates in the novel. Sara is extremely conflicted about her father; she still loves him and remembers him as the father he use to be when she was younger. The flashbacks (written in italics) inform the reader what life was like before Sara's father was injured.

It takes time for Sara to absorb and face the reality of her situation. This is explained best in a flashback, where Sara remembers her father picking out her stuffed dog, a toy she still has. She loves this dog, even though he's well loved and worn.

"'I love him! Thank you so much, Mom!' She smiled and shook her head.
'Don't thank me, thank your dad. He picked it out.'
Even at that age I knew that Mom did most of the shopping, so knowing Dad had chosen him made the stuffed dog extra special. ....


Lately when Dad did something that hurt one of us, I would think about that day and I would remember him the way he used to be. The way I believed he could be again someday.
Somewhere between last Tuesday and today, I stopped believing."

The one aspect of the novel that felt somewhat unrealistic is Sara's blossoming romance with Alex, the unattainable "hot boy" at a time when her mother has gone missing.  I feel that a young teen who suspects that her father has done something awful to her mother, wouldn't have the emotional capacity to be involved with someone else. Sara would be in considerable emotional turmoil especially given the fact that her father threatened her mother. At the same time, people who live in abusive relationships, whether it be physical/emotional abuse or alcoholism, are often experts at maintaining or presenting a facade of normalcy to the outside world. They are good at pretending, which may explain why Sara's teachers didn't pick up on the clues she was giving, writing them down to teenage irresponsibility.

This short novel is a good read for those who love both mystery and suspense. The somewhat predictable but chilling ending is also satisfying.

Book Details:
What She Left Behind by Tracy Bilen
New York: Simon Pulse       2012
237 pp.

Tell It To The Trees by Anita Rau Badami

"...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."

Tell It To The Trees is Anita Rau Badami's newest novel, a chilling,  utterly disturbing story.

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 who is the thirteen-year-old daughter of Vikram and his first wife Harini (Helen) and Memant who is the son of Vikram and his second wife Suman.

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 the history of the Dharma family and the tragic family event that occurred when she was four years old is recounted. 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, in 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 left and was found dead. The circumstances of Harini's death are not revealed but later events lead the reader 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.

Vikram's mother Akka, wise to her son's ways, advises Suman repeatedly to leave, but 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 Memant 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....

Discussion

Tell It To The Trees is an amazing, unsettling and completely riveting novel. 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.

The idea of the children telling their "secrets" to a tree very interesting. Varsha, overcome with both her own guilt 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.