Berani by Michelle Kadarusman

Berani weaves together the narratives of three characters, two young teens seeking to make their world better and an orangutan in captivity in a novel about identity, activism and coming of age.

Thirteen-year-old Malia Kusarto lives a privileged life with her mother in Surabaya. Her mother who is from Toronto, Canada,  is a linguistics professor who speaks perfect Bahasa (the national language of Indonesia). Malia's father passed away two years ago and so her mother is planning to return to Canada. This prospect deeply upsets Malia who doesn't want to leave Indonesia where her father is buried and her best friend Putu lives.

Malia attends a private school, Sekolah Menegah Pertama (SMP) with Putu. The school which has students of many religions teaches classes in Bahasa. Malia has to give a presentation on how palm oil agriculture is hurting the native orangutan population in Indonesian through the destruction of their forest habitat. She plans on handing out a "petition to protest the banning of palm-free product labels" to her classmates. However, Malia's mother advises her to tell her teacher, Mrs. Harwono about the petition because the issue is a complex one: some of her classmates' families may be involved in the palm oil industry. Although Malia promises her mother she will do so, she begins handing out her petitions when she arrives at school.

Ari Aruna lives with his Uncle Kus who has a restaurant, Warung Malang which makes his specialty, sop buntut, or oxtail soup. The restaurant has two live attractions: a mynah bird named Elvis Presley who sings Elvis songs and an orangutan named Ginger Spice. His uncle got Ginger Spice when she was a baby, after her mother was killed in the jungle. At first she slept in the house and was cuddled like a baby but when she grew larger and stronger, she was placed in a cage. Ginger is now so large, she cannot fit through the door of the cage and mostly lies around.

Ari is living with his uncle so he can attend the local middle school. His parents are tenant farmers who grow rice, which means they do not own the land they farm and therefore, do not earn very much money. They could only afford to send Ari to school, so his cousin Suni, the better and more eager student and a girl cannot continue her education. Instead, she now works in the rice fields.

Ari is expected to do chores to help out his uncle. He cleans the cages and does the accounting and bookkeeping. When he cleans her cage, Ari avoids looking at Ginger Spice. He feels uncomfortable. He has been chosen to represent his school in a chess tournament being  held at a private school in Surabaya. His friend Faisel has been helping Ari with chess in exchange for coffee and pastry at the Warung Kopi.

The chess tournament is held at Malia's school and on his way into the games room, Ari and his student escort pass by Malia who hands Ari a copy of her petition. The tournament is a success for Ari who has discovered there is prize money. He wins five of his seven games and their team has qualified for the regional semifinals. 

Meanwhile, Malia does her presentation but soon realizes that Mrs. Harwono is not pleased about the petition. She gathers the petitions from the students and asks Malia not to give out any of the petitions to students until she checks with the school principal, Mr. Ahmad. However, Malia reasons that this does not apply to the online version she has set up on the class webpage. But when the petition goes online and goes viral, Malia discovers her actions have come with some serious repercussions to not only herself but those around her.

In Malanga, Ari finds himself becoming more distraught over Ginger Spice's situation. When Ari first reads her petition he is stunned to discover that keeping Ginger Spice is against the law. He feels her situation doesn't apply to the petition. Ari believes what Ginger Spice really needs is a larger cage but when she is attacked by a group of teenagers, Ari reaches out to Malia and together they work to set up the rescue of Ginger Spice. But will the loss of Ginger Spice

Discussion

Set in Indonesia, the novel, Berani explores the lives of two young teens amid the larger problem of the endangered orangutan and the destruction of the native tropical forests that serve as their habitat.

The two main characters, Malia and Ari are very different but are brought together by the issue of orangutan conservancy. Malia is part Indonesian, part Canadian and lives a life of privilege and wealth. Her father's family is wealthy as evidenced by his mother, Malia's Oma who is driven around in a Mercedes, her mother is a professor, and Malia attends a private school. However, Malia struggles with her identity: she is considered bule, a foreigner or a campuran the Indonesian term for a person of mixed race. She considers herself Indonesian and doesn't want to leave for Canada. However, when expressing her fear that she won't know who she will be in Canada, her Oma tells her, "Dear girl. You are not defined by where you live or where your parents were born or where you were born. You are defined by what is in your hear, by your actions, your words." She also tells Malia, "...You are what is in your heart, you impact others by your actions and your words. Remember this, my love. Indonesian. Canadian. Girl. Woman. Mother. Grandmother. If you limit yourself to labels you are only putting yourself in a cage."

Malia soon learns that her actions have defined her as someone who doesn't seem to be concerned about others. Her petition, in defiance of both her mother and her teacher has serious consequences: the teacher is suspended and her best friend is also implicated. Malia acted without regard to others and with little understanding as to just how complex the issue of orangutan conservancy is. Malia manages to save face by writing her own letter of apology, recognizing the harm she's done but vowing to continue her work to help orangutans.

In stark contrast to Malia, is another character,  Ari who is Indonesian and whose parents are poor rice tenant farmers. Their family can only afford to send one child in their family to school and certainly cannot afford a private school like where Malia attends. It is this hardship that motivates Ari to do so well in the chess competition after he learns there is prize money to be won. But it also results in an intense inner conflict for Ari who has been chosen over his cousin Suni who is not only the better student but intelligent and loves school. "In elementary school she was the clever one, not me, but I'm attending middle school, not her. I took the only place our family can afford. I stole the one chance she will ever have of continuing school. Instead, she is the one left behind to help tend the rice fields." 

Ari promised to visit Suni who hoped to use his textbooks to keep up. But guilt has stopped him from following through on his promise. It is Ari's decision to rescue Ginger Spice that helps him confront his guilt about Suni and act. After he and Malia work to have Ginger Spice rescued, Ari realizes his uncle didn't want to understand or know the truth about keeping orangutans captive. Similarly, Ari feels he too has been unwilling to know the truth about his schooling. "I have learned it is possible to ignore truths that are right under your nose. You can choose to ignore them, or you can speak up."

This prompts Ari to seek out the school administration and have Suni replace him while he earns enough money to return to school. It is a valiant act. Ari also demonstrates that from chess he has learned that "...there are many ways to reach your goal. There's millions of strategies and moves you can plan ahead in order to achieve what you want...I can be patient...I can play a long game and find my way back to school." Ari explains his position in chess terms and demonstrates to the school administrator his maturity.

There is a third voice in the novel, that of Ginger Spice, the captive orangutan. Orangutans are considered highly intelligent and share ninety-seven percent of DNA with humans. Giving human attributes to an animal - called anthromorphism - might be helpful for younger readers to understand an animal's plight but in some ways it's not realistic because as humans we don't truly know what or how they think. For certain, life in a cage is not natural and orangutans do not belong in cages and humans have the obligation to protect these endangered animals.

In her Author's Note, Kadarusman states that this novel was inspired by the experience her brother had when they were both living in Indonesia years ago. He encountered an orangutan in a cage in a small restaurant in the village of Malang, East Java. The orangutan was eventually rescued from the cage and like Ari's uncle in the novel, did not know much about orangutans. 

Kadarusman who grew up in Australia and now also lives in Toronto, Canada has included a short Author's Note, a Glossary, and some information about orangutans which are considered an endangered species.

Berani is another very well-written and enjoyable novel, offering middle grade readers a number of timely issues to explore.

Book Details:

Berani by Michelle Kadarusman
Toronto: Pajama Press 2022
211 pp.

Our House Is On Fire: Greta Thunberg's Call To Save the Planet by Jeanette Winter

Our House Is On Fire is a children's picture book that focuses on telling the story of teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. Her story begins in the city of Stockholm, where Greta who is quoted as stating "All my life I've been invisible..." is the lonely girl who sits at the back of the classroom and never says anything. After a presentation by her teacher on climate change, Greta who could focus for hours on anything, found her attention drawn solely to this topic.

After watching films and doing hours of reading on climate change, Greta began to focus on the many horrible natural disasters that were taking place in the world.

Greta became so concerned about climate change that "She barely ate or spoke." and she decided to do something. She went on strike from school and sat with a sign in front of Sweden's parliament. Every Friday, Greta would go on strike from school. After all, "What use is school without a future?" Soon she was joined by other students and their school strikes were noticed and spread. Eventually, Greta was invited to speak at the United Nations climate talks in Poland and at thethe World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She wanted the world to panic as she was.

Discussion

Our House Is On Fire is piece of alarmist nonfiction in the format of what appears to be a benign picture book for children. It pretends to tell the story of Greta Thunberg, but is a piece of propaganda promoting climate change ideology to our youngest citizens, without context, fact or balance.  It is something parents should be aware of and that their children may be exposed to in school.

Greta Thunberg is presented as a lonely child who is largely ignored by her classmates until she learned about climate change from her teacher. There is no mention that Greta was a mere eight-years-old when her obsession with climate change began.  In Our House Is On Fire, Greta is said to have focused on an entire list of climate catastrophes; "She saw ice melting into the sea, disappearing. She saw mighty winds and torrential rains howling across the lands. She saw coral reefs, deep down in the sea, pale as ghosts, bleached by the warming waters. Greta saw living creatures everywhere, struggling to stay alive. Greta saw floodwaters covering houses and people and animals. She saw cities swallowed under rising oceans. She saw the smoldering sun scorch the earth, leaving it bone dry. She saw blazing wildfires, racing through the forests." 

Clearly Greta was a young girl obsessed and terrorized by these events, unable to process them or place them within the larger context of our planet's ecosystem. For example, tsunamis are rare, blizzards are a normal part of winter weather as are hurricanes in the summer. Forest fires such as the ones that were burning in the Amazon jungle in the summer of 2019, are part of the natural ecosystem and its rejuvenation process. There is no explanation of the role of media in all this. Media bias has focused on "sexy topics" such as that relating to the Amazon jungle while no mention was made by the media of the forest fires that also occur annually in Africa.

This obsession left Greta sad and unable to eat or speak. To her, the future was bleak and full of despair. There is no mention of the fact that Greta Thunberg, in light of her behaviour, was then diagnosed with Aspergers, a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties with social interaction, as well as the tendency to obsessively focus on one topic . One wonders where her parents where to calm her fears and help her put events like natural disasters into perspective. Instead, they fed her fears, becoming vegan and giving up air travel, something that cost her mother her opera career and likely has had little if any impact on world CO2 levels.

With "...each day more unhappy than the next..." Greta began to act on her fears. She went on a school strike and eventually spoke at world events. She told people, "I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day...I want you to act as if the house was on fire." Greta blamed all adults for what is happening.

Filled with these alarmist sentiments, Our House Is On Fire, ostensibly a biography, presents a very simplistic approach to a complex problem. There is no context to the issue of climate change. Instead children are presented with numerous scenarios of natural disasters some of which have never happened (such as cities being swallowed by rising seas) in a way that may be frightening and overwhelming. This picture book plays on children's fears in very destructive and manipulative way. It tells children they cannot trust their own parents to care for their future. It never mentions that each generation has done things that the next sees it might do better. There is no balance because there is no balance in Greta's approach either.

It's impossible to talk about Greta Thunberg without mentioning climate change. But such treatment should be honest, open and realistic. It should not work to alarm young children in the hopes of making them act out of panic. Greta wondered what good attending school would be. She need only have looked to young Boyan Slat who is working to clean the oceans of plastic waste with his invention. With her despairing, frantic and panicked message, Thunberg is no model for young children to aspire to.


Book Details:

Our House Is On Fire by Jeanette Winters
New York: Beach Lane Books       2019