Girls On The Line by Jennie Liu

Set in Gujiao, China in 2009, Girls On The Line is a novel about life in China during the One-Child Policy and its implications for women, children, families and society in general. It is told through the voices of two young women, Cao Luli and Fu Yun.

The story begins with Luli arriving at the factory complex of Gujiano Technologies Limited, to meet her friend Yun. Luli has just turned sixteen and has aged out of The Institute, an orphanage she has been living at since the age of eight when her grandpa became too sick to care for her. 

Yun also from the same orphanage, had been left on the street as a baby. With a heart defect and four black marks on her face which were considered marks of bad luck she was never put up for adoption. Yun left the orphanage last year and has been working in a factory. Luli had been offered a position at the orphanage, but when Yun wrote offering to help her get work in a factory she decided to turn it down. Now she finds herself alone, outside the factory waiting for her friend.

Luli meets Yun who takes her back to her room in Dorm Number 6, telling her she can share her bunk until she gets her own. Accompanied by Yun's roommates, Hong and Zhenzhen, Luli and Yun go to a restaurant for noodles and pork. However, during their meal Yun gets a phone call and leaves Luli with her friends so that she can meet her boyfriend Liang Yong.

Yun met Yong through her old boyfriend Chen Ming whose father is the foreman for Yun's unit at the factory. Ming was angry when Yun left him for Yong, telling her that Yong is a bride trafficker. But Yun doesn't believe Ming, thinking he is jealous. When she questioned Yong, he told her that he works for a marriage broker, delivering brides to their prospective husbands. This satisfies Yun enough that she willingly goes with him now. They leave Luli, with Yun riding on the back of Yong motorbike. They go back to Yong's apartment where they make love.

In the morning, Zhenzhen takes Luli to see Ming about a job. Luli works on a line "...twisting the plastic-coated wires around the USB cords, then slipping them into tiny plastic bags." Three months pass, endless days with Luli working and saving her money. She doesn't see Yun much as Luli is in a different dorm and after work Yun leaves to see Yong. One day at lunch, Ming reveals to Luli that Yong is a kidnapper. "He is a kidnapper.  Or he helps one. They kidnap girls and women and sell them to men out in the countryside." Luli defends Yong telling Ming that she has been told that he helps drive brides to their new home. She believes that Yun is safe, despite Ming telling her it doesn't mean he doesn't traffick other women.

After lunch, Yun arrives for work, late once again. She's confronted by Foreman Chen who lectures her about being late and then fires her. Luli is shocked for her friend, wondering what she will do. After work, Luli encounters Yun just outside the gates and agrees to accompany her friend to the health clinic. Yun shocks Luli by revealing that she needs a pregnancy test.

At the Modern Women's Health Clinic the ultrasound reveals that Yun is definitely pregnant.The doctor tells Yun and Luli that Yun will have to pay the social compensation fee for having an unauthorized pregnancy in order to get a birth permit and be able to give birth in a hospital. She also won't be able to obtain the baby's hukou - the government registration making the baby an official person able to attend school and get a job.

After several more tests Yun is given the choice of a medical abortion (taking two pills) or surgical abortion which is a vacuum suction under anesthesia. Yun leaves the clinic distraught and undecided but determined to find Yong and tell him. Luli wants Yun to marry Yong and keep the baby. However, Yun remembering her time at the orphanage carrying for babies, doesn't want this. Instead, Yun tells Luli that she will borrow the money from Yong and return to the clinic for the abortion. Luli tries to persuade her friend by telling her what Ming said about Yong being a bride trafficker. Yun runs out of the restaurant, furious but also filled with doubt.

She spends the night outside Yong's apartment where she meets a detective, who is also looking for Yong. He tells her that Yong kidnaps young women and takes them the countryside where they are forced to marry men. The detective is surprised that Yun herself has not been trafficked. Terrified, Yun takes the detective's card and leaves. She has nowhere to go and not enough money for the abortion. Luli can't help her. Her only hope is to find Yong and hope he will pay for the abortion. But will he give her the money? Is he really a bride trafficker? What will she decide to do with her baby?


Discussion

Girls On The Line tackles issues surrounding China's draconian one-child policy including the many social and human rights issues surrounding this policy.

In 1979 China's Communist party under Deng Xiaoping implemented its infamous one-child policy. At this time it was felt that China's huge population, with its anticipated growth, would be a drawback to the country's economic development. The belief at the time was that China would need to reign in its population growth in order to improve the quality of life for its citizens and so a one child policy was implemented. This policy raised the age of marriage to twenty for women and twenty-two for men, it restricted families to one child, although later on this was loosened somewhat to allow a couple to have a second child if the first born was a girl in rural areas. Birth control was promoted and abortion was made easily available.

During this time, Western countries saw China as a huge economic opportunity and were willing to undertake new business ventures in the country which was slowly opening up to foreign investment. In 1979, Stephen Mosher, a Stanford University social scientist received permission to conduct anthropological research in the Guizhou Province. While in China  Mosher traveled to various villages and uncovered the horrific reality of China's one-child policy: forced abortions, harassment of mothers and their families, even torture and jail. Mosher reported Chinese family planning officials ordered forced abortions of full term babies, while unauthorized pregnancies - even first pregnancies were forcibly aborted. Babies being born without the necessary licence were given a poison injection in the head as they were being born, resulting in death up to 48 hours later. Family members of mothers who refused to abort were harassed and threatened, the fathers beaten and imprisoned. Pregnant women refusing abortion were sent to re-education classes and faced continuous pressure until they relented. If the mother went into hiding to have her baby, family members and relatives were harassed and jailed and many had their homes destroyed by zealous family planning officials. Entire villages and factories were punished if a woman pregnant outside the law went into hiding.

China's one-child policy is believed to have resulted in 335 million abortions and prevented over 400 million births. The one-child policy however has resulted in many serious problems for China. It has not produced the economic windfall the Chinese government forecast and in fact may have serious economic consequences for the country. China's working age population began shrinking in 2013 and will continue this trend for many years. Accompanying the decrease in working adults is an increase in workers reaching retirement age. By 2035, thirty-two percent of China's population will consist of retirement aged people with only 2.4 workers to support each retiree. This is not an sustainable economic model.

Decades of promoting one child families has changed how Chinese couples and Chinese society in general view children. Couples no longer wish to have a second or third child, believing that economically they can only provide for one child. They see children as a financial burden. Not only do they not want more than one child, they also prefer that only child to be a boy. This is because the male child traditionally is the one who is responsible for caring for elderly parents, while a daughter is expected to leave her family to be with her husband's family. As a result, sex selection abortion in which girl babies are aborted, has resulted in a skewed sex ration of 114 boys for every 100 girls as of 2017. This skewed sex ratio has had a profound effect socially, resulting in men not able to find wives and in bride trafficking.

In Girls On The Line Lui touches on several of these issues. Her friend, Yun falls pregnant outside of the law; she is too young to be married and doesn't have a birth permit, meaning that she is not allowed to carry the child to term and give birth. In the story though,Yun seems to slip through the cracks, not returning to the health clinic, hiding in the factory dorm, disappearing into Yong's rural village and then returning to the factory dorm where she gives birth. Luli naively believes that Yun can have her baby - an option she very much favours.

However, it's unlikely that Yun would have been so lucky in real life. Some women were able to hide their unplanned pregnancies and give birth to their babies, but in most instances, family planning officials caught up with these women and they were forcibly aborted even as they were preparing to give birth.  It's unlikely Yun would have so easily escaped the notice of family planning officials who often had quotas and kept strict track of women of child bearing age in their areas. The immense challenges Yun encountered - lack of family, lack of money, and lack of maternal health care - do demonstrate just how difficult Yun's situation would be in a society where the birth of babies is so strictly regulated and where illegal births are so brutally punished. The birth of a baby outside the law meant a heavy fine that would take years to pay in addition to money needed for the child's hukou. Reader's can't help but feel deep sympathy for Yun's situation.

Both Luli and Yun are orphans but Luli has a distant memory of living in a family and being cared for while Yun has never known family. It becomes obvious that there is something deeply wrong with Yun, that she is broken, a fact she herself recognizes. She is unable to bond with her baby, Chun and shows little interest in her. Her years of caring for babies at The Institute have made her dislike children immensely and she has no concept of caring for another person. "...The babies and little ones, dull and silent most of the time, suddenly wailing around the mealtimes. I remember Luli picking them up sometimes and cuddling them. The first time I saw her do it, I was so puzzled that I asked her what she was doing. She looked at me strangely and simply said, 'Holding her.' "

It is Luli, who understands what belonging to a family means, and who knows the grim reality of the orphanage where the children receive almost no love, who saves Chun. Luli tries to convince Yun that having a family is a good thing. But Yun feels so trapped and burdened by her circumstances, and is so emotionally stunted because of her experience in the orphanage, that she is prepared to help Yong traffick their daughter. The trafficking of babies is another outcome of China's one child policy with many families "purchasing" a girl baby who will eventually become the wife for their son.

Eventually Luli comes to realize the truth about her friend, that Yun is selfish and self-centered. While thinking about Chun who she believes has been trafficked, Luli thinks, "Yun chose to do this. For money even though I promised to help her pay off the birth fines. For convenience, even though Ma and I would've happily shared the burden of caring for Chun. Yun's world starts and end with Yun...." It is Yong's Ma who tells Yun what she needs to hear, " 'Just because you were an orphan, you think you can live only for yourself. Hurling forward! Just doing what you want all the time!....But what you don't know is that what you want is right here.' She gestures with her hand at all of us. 'People. Family."

Although Yun doesn't quite respond as Luli might want, she does see her friend making an effort to care for her daughter. There is hope for the future.

Due to the mature  content, this novel is recommended for older teens. Girls On The Line offers readers the opportunity to consider how social policies can have unintended consequences both on an individual and national level. The novel offers the chance for readers to explore further China's one-child policy, its drastic effects on family, women's physical and mental health, the effects socially and culturally as well as economically. It also encourages teens to ask questions such as Does a government ever have the right to tell a couple how many children they can have? Have other countries ever had laws regulating who could have children?  What cultural influences did Chinese authorities not take into account when they implemented their one-child policy?

Book Details:

Girls On The Line by Jennie Liu
Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Lab       2018
pp. 224

A Troubled Peace by L. M. Elliott

A Troubled Peace is the sequel to Under A War Torn Sky and tells what happens to Henry Forester when he returns to the United States after serving as pilot, being shot down, travelling through war torn Europe with the help of the French resistance, being captured and tortured by the Gestapo, and escaping in an attempt to return to America.

Henry is back home in Tidewater, Virginia and all is not well. He is struggling with nightmares, flashbacks, restlessness and insomnia. He is often angry and does strange things. Anything can trigger a flashback that leads to him doing something strange. A shot by his father Clayton at a fox triggers Henry into believing he is being hunted by the Gestapo, resulting in him running for miles across the county.
"He wanted the war in his soul to be over. He was home. Why couldn't he get back to normal? And why wouldn't Patsy marry him?" Henry had  planned a perfect proposal, dancing at the tony John Marshall Hotel in Richmond. However, Patsy turned him down telling Henry that he seems angry and scares her.

Henry worries about the fate of those who saved  him and relives events to save those who died along the way. "Henry was not quite twenty and already he carried an old man's worth of regret and mourning." All of this causes Henry to get up every night and walk the lane of the farm so his nightmares won't distress his mother. Everything comes to a crisis one night while Henry is out for a walk with his dog Speed and thinking about the blind loyalty of German troops and the stubbornness of the Nazis as they fight a hopeless battle against the Allies. Remembering his own experiences and how the Allies are now "responding to Hitler's unyielding stance with their own brutality, desperate to hasten the war's end." only increases Henry's internal conflict. Although he starts out walking and whistling a tune, soon Henry is running fast. Unable to outrun his memories he decides flying might help him distance himself from those memories and bring him closer to God.

This leads Henry to steal Old Man Newcomb's Curtiss Jenny, an open-cockpit, World War I biplane. "In Newcomb's Jenny, he'd leave his nightmares in the dust...No bombs, no flak, no fighters, no worries."  In the air, "Henry's soul rang with a long-forgotten joy." Henry, mesmerized by the stars and the Milky Way attempts to take the little Jenny higher and higher until suddenly the engine stalls out. The plane begins plummeting to earth with Henry not reacting to the danger. At the last minute, believing he hears Dan's voice telling him to pull up, Henry manages to save himself, and land the plane, but unable to stop it crashes into the trees. Henry is knocked out, Newcomb's plane is badly damaged. His father, Clayton, not understanding what is happening is furious.

Henry finally admits to his mother and father and Patsy that he "can't forget France. My friends who died. All those missions where I rained death on people, on civilian. All the people who helped me and may have been tortured and killed because of it...because of me. And that little boy Ma. Pierre. I keep worrying about where he is. If anyone is helping him." Although he tries to explain what happened with the plane, Henry knows his father doesn't understand. Nevertheless he accepts that what he did was wrong and the fact that he must pay for the damage done to Newcomb's plane.

However, Henry's mother Lilly understands and advises him that sometimes healing is brought about by helping others. She tells him, "But I don't think you'll rest easy until you know about that little boy. Maybe...maybe you need to go back to France and find Pierre?"

After three weeks at sea, Henry disembarks in Marseille, France. It was Patsy who discovered a way over to Europe for Henry after he was unable to return to the Air Force due to being too thin and too battle fatigued. The newly organized United Nations was providing relief in the form of food, clothing, medicine and livestock to Europe. Henry became a "sea cowboy" shoveling manure, feeding and watering livestock and helping to birth foals on a merchant boat bringing over livestock to Europe. The livestock boat docks in Trieste, Italy but without the proper papers to enter the country, Henry decides to jump ship and gets hired onto a boat sailing to Marseille. Now in France with cartons of cigarettes , tins of Spam and some cash, Henry sets out on a journey to find Pierre and in so doing, find himself.


Discussion

A Troubled Peace is another finely crafted work of historical fiction by L.M. Elliott that provides readers with considerable insight into life in Europe - specifically France, during the post liberation period of 1944-45 and just prior to the end of World War II. Where A Troubled Peace excels is in portraying the effects of war both on a personal level and a national scope.

The tragic effects of war on individuals are ably demonstrated through the characters of Henry, Pierre, Claudette and Madame Gaulloise. For those who fought, it is best shown through the character of Henry Forester who returns to America suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, although during the 1940's this was largely unrecognized. Recently returned to the States, Henry is unable to settle back into farm life. His traumatic experiences from the war have left him a completely changed man. At first Henry doesn't realize what is happening to him and he attempts to pick up where he left off before enlisting by asking Patsy to marry him. Henry believes that "marrying Patsy was the way back, back to the life he'd planned before the war, before the missions, before all the killing." But Patsy tells him, "You seem so angry...so haunted. I worry that you think getting married will stop all that somehow. But what if I'm not enough? I don't think I can fix all that. It scares me Henry...You scare me."

Henry describes how he feels. "Was he haunted? For sure. Every day in his mind, he walked the hills and streets of France, imagining the fate of those who'd saved him. He reflew his last bombing raid so that Captain Dan lived. He reclimbed they Pyrenees to save his friend, Billy." Henry doesn't know how to come down from constantly being on alert. "He had entrusted his life to strangers he couldn't understand, and lived off of adrenaline and suspicion, scrounging for food, scrounging for safety, rarely finding either, day after day, week after week, for months. He couldn't figure out how to shed that kind of battle-ready wariness, that kind of split-second instinct to fight, to run. Half the time, he felt like a lunatic race-horse in a start box. Nobody had said anything in debriefing about how to shrug that off."

In an attempt to flee his memories and find some peace Henry steals a neighbour's plane. "This night was about freedom. This night was about baptism -- washing himself clean of death and regrets and disappointment and fear, the beginning life reborn, redefined." But the accident with the plane merely reinforces that something is terribly wrong. In an attempt to heal, Henry returns to France to try to locate Pierre who saved his life.

Henry's journey through France does eventually help him to begin to heal and to provide the closure he needs.  He finds Madame Gaulloise who saved Henry and many other downed pilots from certain death, he reunites with Claudette whom Henry saved from certain capture. He eventually does find Pierre and learns of the shocking fate of the people of Vercors. 

As Henry searches throughout France for Pierre, he inadvertently finds himself in Annecy, the home of Madame Gaulloise. Arriving at her house Henry is at first thrilled that she might be alive and then shocked at her condition. "The invalid, the living scarecrow, was Madame Gaulloise...Henry could see that all that was left of her dark, glossy hair were little tuffs. Sores scarred her temples." Madame Gaulloise's condition is so tenuous after months of starvation that she can eat little food and she is dying of tuberculosis. Only a day after arriving, Madame passes away.

From Madame Gaulloise, Henry learns that she survived by building "a safe fortress with my memories, an inner peace that came from knowing that I had done what had to be done." She advises Henry to read Albert Camus, a French philosopher, who "wrote that man's grandeur lies in his decision to rise above his condition. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted with scorn."  She tells Henry that "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."

It is in the village of Vercors that Henry sees the devastating effect war has on the French people. In Vercors, France, the home of little Pierre and his mother, Henry is shocked by the devastation of a once vibrant country village.
"Beneath him should have been a lush green cup of fields and farms, wildflowers and sleepy cattle, ruled in the center by a little village of creamy houses with cherry pink-tiled roofs that were nestled around a church --its bell ringing out the hour, clear and sweet, rejoicing in another day.
Instead there was silence. A wide field of white crosses...
And where the village should have been --alive with roosters crowing, children yawning over cups of frothy warm milk, mothers humming as they poached eggs -- was rubble...
Henry could imagine the cries, the pleas, the refusals, the machine-gun fire, flames catching hold of timber, houses collapsing."

Henry learns the villagers of Vercors were encouraged to rise up against the Nazi's with promise of reinforcements, only to be left to face them alone. The Germans dropped incendiary bombs on the towns in retaliation, and landed SS troops with orders to exterminate everyone. French paratroopers, waiting in Sicily were never deployed, the people of Vercors sacrificed in a political move by de Gaulle.

While helping at the Lutetia's deportation center Henry begins to heal. "Seeing other people fight to survive, to walk away from the agonies they'd endured, was definitely prodding him to do likewise. " But it is when Henry spends time with Claudette, the woman he talked out of a killing rage, that he finally understands what Madame Gaulloise was attempting to tell him. Claudette explains to him what Camus meant in his short work, Le Mythe de Sisyphe. Sisyphe was a king, condemned to roll a boulder to the top of a hill every day only to see it roll back down. Sisyphe's life should have had no meaning but instead, it is his struggle that gives meaning to his life. This, Claudette tells Henry, is what he must find for himself again and the struggle to do so will help heal him. Henry comes to realize that taking Pierre back to America and helping him rebuild his life will give him a purpose. It is a beginning and one that was suggested by his mother Lilly, months ago. For Claudette, her purpose will be to rebuild her country into something better than what it was - country where women are treated as equals and where there are jobs.

Henry discovers that Pierre Dubois is now an orphan, his mother shot as she attempted to escape Ravensbruck. Pierre, like many abandoned children in Paris, searches the train station for his mother, while living in a cardboard box beneath a bridge near Notre Dame. These are just a few of the examples that portray how the war affected individuals.

Elliot also presents readers with a solid picture of what Paris and France was like in the aftermath of the war. Although liberation has brought relief from the oppression of the Nazi's, France is socially and economically devastated. According to Elliott in her Author's Note at the back, "France was the largest supplier of manpower and finished goods to Hitler's Germany. To win the war, the Allies had to destroy its production of ball bearings, tires and other such items used for Nazi tanks, planes, and ships." This meant bombing factories, supply depots and railways. Bombing these targets often meant significant collateral damage to civilians and left much of France in ruins. Elliot portrays the ruin of France both socially and economically; black marketers who ship meat and cheese in suitcases, empty stores, starving and orphaned children who search for parents at the train stations or at hotels, train stations filled with family and friends waiting for "absents" - that is people deported to concentration camps - to return.

Few novels deal with the immediate post-war period and Elliott's descriptions of the crowds in Paris waiting at the train station for the absents are deeply moving. "But when people recognized a ghostly figure, they burst through the crowd with both cries of joy and horror, gathering their loved one up in kiss-filled embraces. Others rushed forward and then stood woodenly, shocked, bewildered, repulsed."

Elliott also touches on the tenuous political situation in post-war France. The resistance contains many communist sympathizers and the United States government, which worked with Stalin to bring down the Nazis, is now concerned that France will fall under the influence of the Soviets. The author uses Henry's arrest by French police as a suspected black marketer, to portray the work of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in attempting to identify communists and even working with Nazi SS officers to do so.

Henry believes that with the war now won, and peace declared, life will go back to normal. But George Orwell tells him, "The aftermath of war is a messy, brutal elbowing among political ideologies, as different groups that survived the war battle each other for power. They will smile at one another's faces while plotting coups and spying on each other...Peace? Peace is not that easy, that finite, my boy. War ends; then it takes along time to negotiate a real truce. Many times that peace is troubled and contains the embers for the next war, smoldering, just in need of a spark..."

The title of the novel is a direct reference to Orwell's comment to Henry. It is a reference to both the struggle for peace on a personal level as Henry is experiencing and on a national and social level as France and the rest of Europe will be experiencing post war.

A Troubled Peace offers so many themes to explore: forgiveness, the concept of peace, identity, and the struggle to find meaning in life. It is a novel with richly crafted characters, realistic descriptions of settings and events and superb incorporating of historical details that make the immediate post war era come alive.

Book Details:

A Troubled Peace by L.M. Elliott
New York: Katherine Tegen Books    2009
289 pp.

Orphan Train Girl by Christina Baker Kline

This edition of the Orphan Train Girl is based on Kline's New York Times bestseller, Orphan Train and is for younger readers. Orphan Train Girl weaves together two stories, one from the past of Irish immigrant Niamh who is orphaned in a fire in 1929 and one from the present of Native America Molly Ayer who is living in a foster home. Both girls are connected by a common thread that includes the loss of family and identity.

Molly Ayer lives with her foster parents, Dina and Ralph  in Spruce Harbor, Maine. One day while at the Spruce Harbor Public Library, Molly tries to steal a paperback copy of The Secret Garden. She is caught by the librarian, Mrs. LeBlanc and her social worker, Lori is called. Lori arranges for Molly to do twenty hours of community service and Dina and Ralph agree she can continue to stay with them. Molly's best and only friend, Jack has the idea that Molly can help clean Mrs. Daly's attic. Jack's mother cleans Mrs. Daly's home and has mentioned that the elderly woman needs help with this task.

Molly meets Mrs. Daly  who goes by the name of Vivian. Vivian is a very direct person and she asks Molly about her life. Molly tells her that she is a Penobscot Indian and that when she was younger she lived on a reservation near Old Town. She doesn't tell Vivian that her father died in a car crash and her mother was unable to cope and eventually she was placed into care. After being shuffled around to various families she ended up with Dina and Ralph. When Vivian reveals that she is an orphan, and she tells Molly vaguely that there was a fire.

Vivian's backstory is revealed in the chapters about Niamh (pronounced Neeve) Power. Niamh arrives in America with her family, on the Agnes Pauline when she is seven years old. Her family is from County Galway in Ireland and they arrive at Ellis Island having left their country because of the potato famine. Niamh's family thought they would find a better life in America but instead they found "the grimy streets of lower Manhattan, a dishwashing job for Da at a pub, and a small apartment on Elizabeth Street for ten dollars a month."

Nine-year-old Niamh's life is changed forever when a fire sweeps through their apartment. Mam wakes Niamh and takes eighteen-month-old Maisie, while Da tries to waken the twins, James and Dominick. But Niamh finds herself alone on the sidewalk. The doctor tells Niamh that her mother has died and that there is no hope for Maisie. With no family to take her in, Niamh is taken to the Children's Aid Society by her neighbor Mr. Schatzman. Weeks later Niamh finds herself boarding a train along with twenty other orphans, chaperoned by Mrs. Scatcherd and Mr. Curran. Niamh is given charge of a little boy named Carmine. Mrs. Scatcherd tells the children that they are on an orphan train which will take them (hopefully) to new homes in the countryside. One of the older boys, Dutchy doesn't want to be on the train as he'd rather be out on the street working shining shoes.  After a transfer in Chicago's Union Station that did not go well, Niamh finds herself and the rest of the orphans in Minneapolis at the Milwaukee Road Depot. Here people will come with the intention of choosing a child to take home with them. Both Carmine and Dutchy are chosen although Dutchy is not happy. He gives Niamh his lucky penny. Niamh then travels to Alban where she is picked by Mrs. Byrne who renames her Dorothy and sets her to work making clothing. It is the first of several terrible homes Niamh will be sent to before things get better.

As Vivian reveals her story it becomes apparent that she and Molly have much in common and what starts out as a boring task to help an elderly woman might actually come to mean much more to both of them.

Discussion

Orphan Train Girl juxtaposes two narratives, one in the present and one set in 1929-1930 amid the final years of the Orphan Train movement. The stories appear to be very separate- in the present day, Molly who has been caught stealing is sent to help the elderly Vivian clean out her attic while the story set in 1929 is about a poor Irish immigrant girl who is sent on an orphan train to find a new family. However it soon becomes apparent that Niamh's story is really about Vivian when she was young.

The Orphan Train Movement was an attempt to help homeless and poor children by moving them out of cities like Boston and New York to farms and homes in the American West. It ran from 1854 until 1929 and sought to relocate thousands of children who were living on the streets of major American cities, often in abusive gangs. It was felt that adopting them into families in the West would give them a chance at rehabilitation and a better future. Initially the children were placed in cattle cars on trains but near the end of the trains, children travelled in sleeper cars with chaperones. Around two hundred thousand children were relocated in this way, many forever losing contact with their families, relatives and communities back home.  In Orphan Train Girl, Vivian would have been one of the last children transported by these trains. 

Although Vivian and Molly seem very different, their lives are very similar. Vivian loses her family and thus loses connection with her Irish heritage while Molly who is half Penobscot, also doesn't have a family to care for her. Both Vivian and Molly experienced being sent to several homes where they were not treated well. Like Vivian, who ended up with the caring Nielsens, Molly too comes to find that Dina and Ralph also care for her and despite several misunderstandings, they affirm that they want her to stay with them. 

Both Molly and Vivian are able to help each other because of their similar life experiences. Vivian, now elderly has come to terms with her experiences as an orphan and is able to help Molly. Likewise, Molly is the first person Vivian has ever told her story to. '"I've never told anyone else about my early life," Vivian continues. 'I didn't even tell the Nielsens. We didn't discuss things much in those days. Nowadays people talk about everything.'"

Of the two narratives, Vivian's story about her experiences as an orphan train child was the more interesting one. Little has been written about the orphan trains and the ordeals orphan children experienced. Kline's novel certainly highlights how poorly these children were treated both by the social system in place at the time and by their "adoptive" families. Little regard was given to the health and education of these children, many of whom suffered traumatic loss and who were dearly in need of some love and care. Instead they were paraded in front of complete strangers who then chose them (if they were lucky). Most ended up on farms doing labor, others were sent into homes But Kline also shows that orphans today also face many of the same challenges. Molly struggles to fit in at school. However once her home situation improves, like Vivian she begins to reach out more and to make friends. Vivian shows Molly that there is hope for her life to get better.

Orphan Train Girl is an interesting read about the little known practice of the orphan trains in the United States. It should appeal to a limited younger audience interested in historical fiction. Older readers will want to pick up a copy of the adult edition of this novel.

Book Details:

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
HarperCollins Children's Books      2017
228 pp.

Stones On A Grave by Kathy Kacer

Stones On A Grave is part of a series of seven books authored by various Canadian writers for young teens. The series, known as the Secrets, can be read in any order. An orphanage, known as The Benevolent Home For Necessitous Girls burns to the ground in June of 1964, leaving all its residents homeless. The younger girls are sent to various families, but the seven oldest girls, Dot, Malou, Sara, Tess, Cady, Toni and Betty are each given information about their past and told they must now make their own way in the world. Their stories are the basis for the seven novels in the series.

Stones On A Grave tells Sara's story. It begins the night of the terrible fire at the orphanage in the town of Hope. Sarah and the rest of the girls who live there make it safely out of the fire. Sara manages to grab her tin box holding her savings. Their matron, Mrs. Hazelton and their teacher, Miss Webster also make it out. The girls are taken to the church where they are told by Miss Webster that because the fire has totally destroyed the orphanage, no one will be able to return and that plans are being made to help each of the girls. The girls spend the night sleeping on the pews of the town church.

The next morning Sara, who is the oldest of the girls at eighteen, decides to go to her job at Loretta's, a diner where she's worked for the past few years. Normally Loretta's wouldn't be open on a Sunday but the owner, Mrs. Clifford has opened the restaurant to those who helped with the fire. When she sees Sara, Mrs. Clifford is shocked and tells her she can manage fine if she needs to take some time off. However Sara wants to work as it keeps her from worrying about what the future holds for her.

Sara's boyfriend Luke comes to the diner. Sara met him a few months ago when she went to the garage where he works to put air in her bicycle tires. Luke noticing her that day made Sara feel special. Mrs. Clifford doesn't like Luke however and questions him about whether he was involved in the orphanage fire. She also tells him she heard that he's been harassing Malou, one of the seven older girls at the orphanage. Luke denies this and Sara refuses to believe what Mrs. Clifford has said, but when Malou arrives at the diner, he ridicules her in front of Sara.

After work Sara goes to see Mrs. Hazelton at her cottage near the orphanage. Each of the girls has come to meet privately with her and Sara is anxious, wondering what Mrs. Hazelton will tell her. Mrs. Hazelton hands Sara two envelopes; the first contains a document from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation that lists information about her birth. Sara learns that she was born in Fohrenwald, Germany, that her mother's name is Karen Frankel and that she is Jewish. Mrs. Hazelton tells Sara that Fohrenwald was a camp for Jewish refugees who survived the Holocaust. She tells Sara that her mother was imprisoned in a concentration camp which was liberated at the end of the war. Her mother contracted tuberculosis which was passed on the Sara. The second document is a medical certificate clearing Sara for travel to Canada and was signed by Gunther Pearlman, a German doctor. Mrs. Hazelton has no information on Sara's father nor how Sara ended up coming to Canada. However, she wants to help Sara as she starts her new life and gives her an envelope containing money to help her get started.

This new information and her conversation with Mrs. Hazelton make Sara realize that in order to face her future she needs to discover her past. And to do that she needs to travel to Germany. It is a journey that will uncover her past and help her plot her course for the future.

Discussion

Stones on a Grave is a well written, high interest, easy read for those who enjoy historical fiction and mystery. The novel is set in the mid-1960's and explores the aftermath of the Holocaust on Germans and those who survived the war. When Sara arrives in Germany she finds Dr. Pearlman initially helpful until she reveals her identity and tells him about her mother. The doctor becomes angry and refuses any further help. Kacer portrays a country struggling to come to terms with what happened and determined to try to forget. The older characters, for example Dr. Pearlman and Frau Klein, who lived through the war, do not want to talk about what happened and do not wish to remember. However, Peter, who represents a new generation of Jewish Germans becomes determined to help Sara uncover her family history. Frustrated at the lack of help she is receiving from Germans, Sara wonders Peter also attempts to explain to Sara the question many people asked themselves after the war, "How could the German people not know what was going on?"

At times some of the plot twists seem contrived, such as when Hedda Kaufmann decides against the rules to help Sara and also when by amazing coincidence she knew Sara's mother. Readers will probably quickly realize the real identity of Gunther Pearlman and also how Sara's mother became pregnant. One aspect of this novel that is particularly well done is Kacer's treatment of the war crime of rape and how it can affect the family of the victim.  Sara learns from Frau Kauffman at the International Tracing Center that her father was not her mother's husband, Simon Frankel but a Nazi soldier who raped her mother in the concentration camp. When Sara first learns this fact about herself, she is very distraught. She flees the center, her mind racing with questions. "How was it that she had traveled all this way to find out about her family only to discover that her father -- her father -- was a Nazi guard? What did that even mean? Was she part Nazi? And what part had come from him? The anger? The irritation? The blue eyes? It was almost too much to imagine."  Sara believes that this is why her mother gave her up, that looking at her meant remembering the rape. Sara decides to leave Germany immediately, regretting seeking out her past.The next day while waiting for Peter, Sara tells Dr. Pearlman that she discovered the truth about her past and that her mother "...must have thought I was a monster."

When Dr. Pearlman, who is Sara's grandfather, realizes how this tragedy is affecting his granddaughter, he decides to reveal the truth to her. He tells her that in fact, while "We were all afraid to look at you, knowing where and how you were conceived" her mother gazed at her with "pure love." "Those first few days after she was hospitalized, she wouldn't let you go. She held on to you as if together you could give each other strength to heal. Even as she grew weaker and we tried to pry you from her arms she still refused to let you go..."  The realization that her mother truly loved her helps Sara come to terms with the fact that she was born from an act of violence and to begin to accept that she is NOT her father. A moving letter from Frau Kauffman about her mother, makes Sara understand that there is much of her mother in her. Like her mother she is spirited and like her mother she dreams of becoming a fashion designer. Frau Kauffman's entreaty that she take what little she knows about her mother and be inspired pushes Sara past her anger and grief towards acceptance.

"Everything was becoming clearer to her. Yes, she would carry the man who had raped her mother somewhere inside her. Every time she looked into a mirror, stared at her blue eyes, she would be reminded of her roots. But she knew now that she was not him, and never would be. She would live her life trying to prove that."

Kacer does incorporate some interesting historical facts into her story. One example is Bad Arolsen, a town in northern Germany where documents from the war have been stored in a special center. Bad Arolsen is the location of the International Tracing Service which was begun in 1946 after the war to locate missing people and reunite them with their families and to let others know the fate of their loved ones. The Nazis kept detailed records of who was sent where. The names of Jews, what concentration camp they were sent to, how and when they died, or if they survived what displaced persons camp they were sent to was recorded in an effort to reunite survivors. Its vast archives were only made available to the public in 2007.   The English website may be found at International Tracing Service.

The book takes its title Stones on a Grave from the Jewish custom of placing stones on a grave.This ancient tradition is explained by Peter as follows: "Well, flowers disappear quickly. The belief is that stones last forever, just like the memory you hold of the one who has died."

Overall Stones on a Grave is a touching story about a young woman who learns the truth about her past and her struggle to come to terms with it. Part of the Secrets series conceived by Eric Walters, this novel is a good read for younger teens. It's unfortunate the cover design, like many good Canadian novels, is unimaginative at best.

Book Details:

Stones on a Grave by Kathy Kacer
Victoria: Orca Book Publishers      2015
213 pp.

The Girl I Used To Be by April Henry

Seventeen year old Olivia Reinhart's life is suddenly drawn to the past when Detective Campbell and Chaplain Farben arrive at her apartment to tell her that her missing father has been located. Olivia's real name was Ariel Benson and her parents were Naomi Benson and Terry Weeks.

Fourteen years ago her mother's body was found in a forest in the Southern Oregon Cascade mountains. The family had gone into the forest to find a Christmas tree when a terrible tragedy unfolded. Her mother had been stabbed nineteen times and had desperately tried to fight off her killer. It was widely believed that her father killed her mother and then drove to the Salem Walmart where he dropped three year old Ariel off. His car was later found abandoned at the airport.

Detective Campbell, who is from the Portland police. tells Olivia that her father's jawbone was recently found by a woman walking her dog. His remains were identified through DNA testing and they now believe her parent's killer probably was the one who drove her to the Walmart. Police are still struggling to determine a motive as robbery had been ruled out because Olivia's parents did not have money. It's likely Olivia was left alive because she was considered too young to tell police what she had seen.

Olivia remembers the episodes on America's Most Wanted about her mother's murder. The first episode helped police locate her when she went missing. After her mother's murder and her father's disappearance, three year old Ariel was taken to live with her grandma who soon died. Ariel was placed in foster care and then adopted when she was eight years old by Tamsin Reinhart who was an orthopedic surgeon in Portland. She changed Ariel's name to Olivia. Olivia was lonely and scared but began acting out because of her anger. Eventually Tamsin gave Olivia up.

Olivia decides to attend her father's funeral in Medford but first stops to see her grandmother's old home. This house will be hers when she turns eighteen; Olivia receives rental income from tenants but the house has been vacant for the last three months. At the home she meets her old neighbour, Nora Murdoch who doesn't recognize Olivia. Nora was friends with Olivia's grandmother, Sharon and she tells Olivia about what happened to Sharon's daughter Naomi and her little girl Ariel. Olivia offers to take Nora to the funeral in Medford. At the service, Olivia sees pictures of her father and meets  some of her father's relatives, although they do not know Olivia is his daughter. In attendance is Sam, her father's ex-girlfriend, her Aunt Carly and her daughter, Richard Lee who was a friend of Olivia's father, his best friend Jason, and Heather who was best friend to Olivia's mother Naomi. Olivia also meets a cute guy named Duncan, whose parents knew Olivia's father. Olivia tells Duncan that she's from Seattle because she wants to keep her identity secret.

Olivia makes arrangements to rent her grandmother's house without revealing her identity, convincing Richard Lee who is the property manager she is able to pay the rent. She also manages to get herself a job at Fred Meyers, a grocery store. At the house, Olivia is visited by Duncan who reveals to her that he knows she is Ariel Benson. This is because of a scar on the palm of her hand due to an accident that involved the two of them when they were children. When he questions Olivia as to why she never told her family at the funeral, she denies she is Ariel and then insists that he not tell anyone her true identity. Olivia is concerned that whoever killed her parents may still be interested in knowing what she remembers and may try to find her. She is certain the killer is someone who lives in Medford.

Duncan then shows up at Fred Meyers and tells Olivia that he understands why she doesn't want people to know her true identity, but insists that she will  need his help to learn what really happened to her parents. Olivia reluctantly agrees to let him help her and together the two begin to dig deeper into what happened that day. It's only when Olivia returns to the site of the murders that things begin to heat up, placing Olivia square in the sights of the real killer.

Discussion

The Girl I Used To Be is a quick read for those who like a murder mystery. Although the story takes some time to ramp up, Henry builds to a heart pounding climax. Readers will likely be able to figure out who the killer is, but Henry rounds up the usual suspects; a mentally ill man, a former girlfriend, and a classmate whose life seemed to abruptly turn around after the murders.

Scattered throughout Olivia's first person narrative are flashbacks to the crime, but none really reveal much - as one would expect from a person who is trying to remember an event that occurred when they were three years old. Olivia is a determined, resilient protagonist who must rethink her past, her parent's relationship and how she thinks about her father whom she assumed was a murderer.  To solve the crime, Olivia in a sense, goes under cover in Medford. People don't remember who she is because Olivia left when she was a child. Her relationship with Nora, friend and neighbour to Olivia's grandmother and mother,  allows Olivia to attend her father's wake unrecognized. A touch of romance is added with the inclusion of childhood friend Duncan who is not fooled and who quickly suspects Olivia's true identity.

A good, easy read for those who like their novels short and sweet.

Book Details:

The Girl I Used To Be by April Henry
New York: Christy Ottaviano Books, Henry Holt and Company    2016
229 pp.

My Name is Blessing by Eric Walters

"We are each given more of some things and less of others."

My Name Is Blessing is based on the true story of a little boy, Baraka who lives in the Mbooni Region of Kenya in East Africa. In the picture book, a little boy named Muthini, which means suffering, lives with his Nyanya or grandmother and her eight other grandchildren. In Kenya, the name given to a person has important meaning and sadly Muthini's name means suffering. He was given his name by his mother because Muthini was born without fingers on his left hand and only two fingers on his right hand. While his grandmother doesn't seem to notice, Muthini bears the taunts and whispers of children and adults alike. When he questions his grandmother about his missing fingers she tells him that he has other qualities that make up for his lack of fingers. He is smart and she tells Muthini he has a big heart.

Sadly Muthini's grandmother is very poor and feeding and caring for nine grandchildren is difficult at best. So one day she comes to Muthini's school and tells him that they are going on a long walk. During that walk Mumo tells Muthini that she cannot care for him, that she loves him but that she is taking him to another home. That home turns out to be with a man named Gabriel. But Gabriel will only take Muthini on one condition. That condition will mean a huge change in how Muthini thinks about himself and his disability and will influence how others think about him too.

The real Baraka also lives in Kenya at a residential school run by The Creation of Hope an organization which works to meet the needs of the many orphans in the Mbooni District. The Creation of Hope was founded by Canadian author, Eric Walters and the Kyatha family and continues to offer assistance to many young people in Kenya, providing them with housing, the necessities of life and most importantly, an education. Readers can also learn more about The Creation of Hope and Baraka from the note at the back of the picture book titled "Baraka's World" There are plenty of wonderful photographs showing Baraka living at the Rolling Hills Residence.

My Name Is Blessing has colourful illustrations done in acrylic on paper by Eugenie Fernandes which bring to life this touching story about how a name can influence how we see ourselves and how others view us. More importantly My Name Is Blessing is a story about the importance of family and how sometimes love is best shown in hard sacrifices made by those who love us.

Book Details:
My Name Is Blessing by Eric Walters
Toronto: Tundra Books       2013

Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan's Rescue from War/ One Step at a Time by Marsha Forchuck Skrypuch

Marsha Skrypuch has written two short books for young readers that tell the story of eight year old Son Thi Anh Tuyet, a Vietnamese orphan who was adopted by a family from Brantford, Ontario. Living in an orphanage in Saigon, in 1975, Tuyet  had been crippled by polio when younger and was suffering from psychological trauma as a result of  her experiences during the Vietnam War.

With the fall of South Vietnam and its capital city, Saigon, to the North Vietnamese communists, the West began to evacuate children and babies from orphanages all over the city. Tuyet was one of fifty-seven babies and children airlifted out of Saigon and flown to Toronto Canada. This flight, on April 13, 1975, was the last to arrive in Canada. The children on this flight were not yet adopted. Last Airlift goes on to describe Tuyet's experience, leaving Vietnam and her new life with John and Dorothy Morris who adopted her into their family. Marsha Skrypuch intended to write Tuyet's story as a novel. Tuyet initially couldn't remember much of her early childhood, but as her memories resurfaced, Ms. Skrypuch decided to tell Tuyet's story instead.

The second book, One Step At A Time, tells about Tuyet's struggle to have her leg, damaged and weakened by polio mended so that she would be able to walk again. Tuyet's surgery took place at the newly opened McMaster University Hospital in Hamilton, ON in 1975. At this time, parents could not stay with their children, and there were no translation services available to a newcomer to Canada,  like Tuyet. Skrypuch effectively captures Tuyet's confusion and fear at being left alone in a hospital for a procedure she didn't understand.
Eventually Tuyet begins to adapt to her new home and family, largely due to having regained the ability to be mobile and also due to the loving care of the Morris family.

Tuyet's early attachment to John Morris is truly endearing. One family picture with Tuyet's arm draped over her father's knee suggests that Tuyet immediately formed a close bond with the man who was the first father she had ever known. Tuyet was very blessed to have been adopted into such a loving family. Her two younger sisters treated her with kindness and repeatedly reassure her. They introduced her to the strange, new customs of her adopted country, Canada.

These two books will serve as a gentle introduction for younger children to an event known as the Fall of Saigon and also the Vietnam War. Skrypuch's books can also be used as the jumping point for children learning about the Vietnamese refugees who came to Canada in the mid-1970's.

Book Details:
Last Airlift. A Vietnamese Orphan's Rescue from War by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
One Step at a Time: A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way
Pajama Press

The Baby Experiment by Anne Dublin

Set in Germany, in 1703, The Baby Experiment tells the story of a 14 year old Jewish girl, Johanna Richter, who signs up to work at an orphanage. With her father dead, Johanna and her mother try to support themselves by selling their lace in the market but it is becoming increasingly more difficult to make enough to feed their family. Johanna gives a false name, one that isn't Jewish because she knows as a Jew she would never be hired. When Johanna is offered the job, she is told that she must follow one rule absolutely. She must never talk or sing to the babies nor may she hold them longer than is absolutely necessary. Although she thinks the rule is strange and unnatural, Johanna needs this job badly and she accepts the position, without further thought.

Life in Hamburg, Germany during this time is not easy for the Jewish people. They have been prohibited from building a synagogue and rumours are afoot that the Jewish people would no longer be allowed to practice their religion even in private houses. The people of Hamburg have been agitating for the Senate to expel all the Jews in the city and many had moved to safer cities such as Altona and also to Amsterdam in Holland.

When Johanna arrives at the orphanage she learns that the babies are part of an experiment being run by Professor Gottfried Leibniz. Each young woman is assigned a section of the nursery with a number of babies under her care. When a baby cries the girls are to change the diaper and feed the baby but they cannot sing or talk to the baby. The work is tiring and difficult. Soon the babies start dying. Doctor Keller who is the orphanage doctor, tries every remedy he knows to no avail.

One day Johanna overhears a conversation between Keller and Leibniz about the babies and the experiment. She soon comes to understand that the young girls not interacting with the babies is slowly killing them. In effect, they are being asked to emotionally neglect the babies and Johanna cannot do this any longer. Johanna comes to a difficult decision and chooses a drastic course of action. She decides to flee with one of the babies in an attempt to rescue at least one child from death. With the help of Daniel the wagon driver who delivers fresh vegetables and fruit to the orphanage, and accompanied by another young girl, Cecile, Johanna slips out of the orphanage with baby Rebecca.

Johanna's journey is a difficult one, fraught with many dangers. She is aided by a Jewish man who has taken on the appearance and public practice of a Christian, Mendoza. Johanna feels a strange attraction to him. After many adventures, Johanna arrives at her destination knowing she has saved at least one of the babies from certain death.

Author Anne Dublin, lives in Toronto and is an award winning author of historical fiction and juvenile biographies. The Baby Experiment will appeal to younger fans of historical fiction who are looking for something a little different to read. This plot driven short story is well paced and provides young readers with a map to aid in understanding Johanna's journey and the setting of the story. The characters are believable and well conceived.

Johanna is a likeable character who struggles with the ever prevalent discrimination against Jews in Europe at this time. Her deep faith forms the basis for her actions. She is both courageous and intelligent, quick thinking and resourceful. Liked well enough by Cecile at first, when she learns that Johanna is a Jew she changes her opinion almost immediately.

The Baby Experiment touches on a few delicate subjects including human experimentation and prejudice.

Dublin is planning a new historical fiction which is set in 1931 Toronto and deals with the dressmakers strike. This should prove to be another interesting read.

Book Details:
The Baby Experiment by Anne Dublin
Toronto: Dundurn Press    2012
152 pp.

The Tiffin by Mahtab Narsimhan

The Tiffin is an beautifully crafted story about a young boy full of courage, integrity and hope written by Bombay-born Canadian author,  Mahtab Narsimhan. 

The story opens in April, 1982,  with the hint of tragedy about to befall a young unmarried woman, Anahita Patel. She has written a note to her lover, Anurag Parekh, telling him she has to meet him that very night. She placed the note in between two warm chapatis, in his tiffin, a tin lunchbox which is delivered by dabbawallas 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, Amit is sick, Anahita is concerned that her tiffin might get lost or stolen -  almost unheard of. It is a foreshadowing of what is to come. The tiffin must get to Anurag Parekh at Mittal Towers, Nariman Point.  The replacement dabbawalla assures Anahita the tiffin will be delivered.

At Andheri Station, the tiffins are sorted by a group of men under the direction of Vinayak. He is concerned about Amit's replacement, who is now late. He arrives late at the train station, the tiffins are quickly sorted and as the train starts to leave, they are loaded on with the dabbawallas. But Amit's replacement was the last to get on, struggling to pull in the carrier containing the tiffins. As the train passed a telephone pole, the carrier hit it and a tiffin at the very end fell out onto a wooden sleeper. 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 waiter 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, Sethji 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 doesn't like Badri, the new cook who has eyes only for him, while one of the waiters harasses him. Lalan, the dishwasher tries to protect him.   Kunal does have one friend though, and that is the older Vinayak, a dabbawalla who frequents the dhaba for breakfast every day. 

Kunal tells Vinayak he'd rather be a dabbawalla than a waiter, but Vinayak tells him every job has good and bad points. Kunal reveals to Vinayak that he plans on leaving the dhaba. As he goes to serve an order, another hulking customer comments about Kunal's attractiveness and makes a derogatory comment about his mother. This causes Kunal to drop the plates. He challenges the customer, leading Seth to get involved. He smacks Kunal, calls him a liar, and orders him to apologize. However, Vinayak comes quickly to Kunal's aid, telling Seth that Kunal is an honest boy. He tells Seth if he's not fair, he will speak to the Dabbawalla Association about seeking another supplier for the tiffins. Mrs. Seth eventually diffuses the situation but the customer threatens Kunal with revenge. 

The dhaba fills tiffins everyday which will be delivered to their owners at noon. After carrying the tiffins to the entrance, Kunal asks Vinayak if he can help him sort them. Vinayak agrees and explains to Kunal how the number-letter combination on the tiffin works. Vinayak offers Kunal a place of refuge if he should ever need one, telling him his address and that he can get to his chawl within ten minutes. 

The next day begins as any other, with Kunal serving customers, wiping down tables and avoiding the leering customers and their rude comments. Sethji sends Kunal on a delivery to Pandit Road. After making the delivery, Kunal decides to check out the "...gaudy, pink house halfway down... " Mangal Lane - a place all the older boys spoke about. He wants to know why many of the boys want to make the deliveries to Mangal Lane. On his way there, Kunal sees Vinayak drinking in a bar and is surprised. 

Kunal returns from his delivery and shortly after Lalan arrives at the dhaba badly beaten, having been robbed. He tells Lalan that he is leaving for good. This news is devastating to Kunal because Lalan has been protecting him from the advances of the dhaba's cook, Badri. He panics and is outside trying to process what this means, when Sethji catches him and tells him that he will stay an extra hour that night helping Badri clean the kitchen. This further crushes Kunal. 

Sent out on a delivery, Kunal knows he cannot return to the dhaba and so he makes the decision to flee to Vinaya's chawl. When he arrives at the old man's room, he realizes Vinaya has been drinking. Kunal asks to stay with him for a few days and if Vinayak can get him work as a dabbawalla. But Vinaya tells him it's not so easy. After Vinayak falls asleep, Kuna returns to the dhaba to retrieve his mother's green bangle and the money he believes Sethji owes him in wages.  

Kunal returns to the dhaba, steals about three thousand rupees from the till but is caught by Sethji,  who viciously beats him and locks him up. Mrs. Seth comes and tells Kunal he must leave quickly because Sethji is planning to sell him to Abdulla, known as 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, Vinayak comes to take Kunal away but he is determined that Mrs. Seth tell him about his mother after she reveals that she should never have helped his her. Although he initially leaves with Vinayak, Kunal runs back, insistent that Mrs. Seth tell him what she knows. She gives Kunal a letter his mother, Anahita Patel, a financial analyst in the downtown area, gave her. Gurpreet Seth tells Kunal that she tried unsuccessfully to track his mother down. Suddenly Sethji storms into the room, but as he attempts to reach Kunal, Gurpreet slams the door giving Kunal time to flee. From the letter, Kunal learns that the Seth's took in Kunal  temporarily to help his mother as she tried to locate Anurag. When she never returned, he was left to his fate, and became a virtual slave in the Seth dhaba. 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. He believes the only way to achieve this is to find his mother.

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. Will he succeed in what seems to be an impossible task and find the family he so desperately desires?

Discussion

The Tiffin is a novel that explores the concept of family amidst the backdrop of extreme poverty in India. Kunal is a boy who has spent the first twelve years of his life believing he is an orphan only to learn that his mother left him with Mrs. Seth, with the intention of returning to get him. Something happened to prevent her return. Once he learns the truth about his birth, Kunal becomes determined to find his mother, in the hopes she will want him. Both Mrs. Seth and Vinayak warn Kunal about trying to find his mother, telling him she has abandoned him and will likely not want him. His determination to find his mother blinds him to the family he has.

Kunal wants to become a dabbawalla so he can find his mother. He knows from the letter that his mother's tiffin was likely lost and that she left him with Gurpreet while she tried to find his father. The revelation of the lost tiffin leads Kunal to believe this is the key to finding his mother. To do that he needs to become a dabbawalla and then once he finds her he won't need these people anymore. Being a dabbawalla is a means to an end - to find his mother and be a part of a family. "He did not belong to their family and they hadn't included him in their celebrations. With any luck he'd have someone of his own, soon. Then he wouldn't need any of them, or Vinayak, ever again. "  It is at a meeting of the Association of Dabbawallas that Kunal hits on the idea of the notes in the tiffins. He will need to be a dabbawalla to do this, however, Kunal is initially rejected by the dabbawalla community who do not accept anyone who is not a Maharashtrian. A heroic deed by Kunal leads to all the dabbawallas helping him in his quest to find his mother, by printing out notes to be placed in the tiffins that will be sent to the financial district. 

As Kunal becomes single-mindedly focused on locating his mother, events play out between him and Vinayak in such a way that Kunal comes to realize that he already has the family he so desperately wants. It was Vinayak who "had taught him to read and write by smuggling an alphabet book and writing paper to him, and always looking out for him. " Vinayak reveals to Kunal that he too suffered a loss twelve years ago - his wife and son who were killed in a rickshaw accident. Despite the possibility that his mother has been located, Kunal agrees to stay with the elderly dabbawalla.

Kunal realizes this was the right choice when he returns to Vinayak's chawl to find a young woman waiting outside. Kunal knows this is likely his mother, but she says nothing and does nothing. "Say something, he thought. Say what I've waited twelve years to hear. The thudding of his heart was loud in his ears and he willed it to soften. He didn't want to miss a word. But she said nothing."  Instead, she asks for directions to the train station and quickly leaves. It is not the meeting Kunal was expecting. There is no room for Kunal in her life in contrast to Vinayak who has made room for him. He realizes this is what Vinayak had been trying to tell him about his mother - that she may not want him back. 

Nikhil not realizing that Kunal has just seen his mother, offers to take him to the Mittal Towers in the morning to see his mother. Kunal refuses. "His mother's face swam before his eyes, crumpled with pain yet, strangely, devoid of love. He remembered the deep satisfaction in Vinayak's when Kunal had accepted his offer to stay." He tells Nikhil he already has a family - with Vinayak. While it's not the ending the reader is hoping for, it does offer the opportunity to explore the concept of what makes a family. For some it might not be a biological parent but those who truly care. 

It's interesting that Nikhil discovers Kunal's mother at the Mittal Towers, which is where Anurag Parekh lived thirteen years earlier. This suggests that Kunal's mother may still be with Anurag, and that perhaps the reason she cannot take her son back, is not that she doesn't love him, but that maybe Anurag doesn't know of his existence. In the letter to Gurpreet Seth, Anahita states that her  mother sent her away to have the baby when she learned she was pregnant. It's possible that Anahita has a life now with Anurag and that taking in a son she abandoned may cause her problems.

Narsimhan has crafted an engaging novel with a realistic cast of characters: honest, innocent Kunal,  cruel Sethji who views Kunal as a slave, kindly Vinayak who offers Kunal refuge, and the hardworking dabbawallas who are committed to delivering thousands of lunch tiffins exactly on time every day.

The Tiffin offers young readers a rich portrait of life in poor Bombay. The author describes the sights, sounds and smells of life in the slums of the city. Descriptions of large black rats, the stench from the sewers and sweaty bodies, the beggar children whose legs have been amputated to make them more pitiful, the trains crowded with people sitting inches from the electrical wires are just some of the images Narsimhan offers. In Andheri Station, Vinayak and Kunal are pushed along by streams of people. "Vendors pushed gaudy plastic combs, cheap watches, and newspapers under their noses. Beggars ran to and fro harassing commuters for money, blessing and cursing them in the same breath. The smell of rancid oil and burnt milk hung in the air."  

Also included is a portrayal of the work of the dabbawallas, who rush to the train station with their carriers full of tiffins, each labelled, to be sorted by destination. This is hard work, which must be done exactly to maintain the near perfect record of never losing a tiffin. Not many North Americans know about tiffin lunches, although some restaurants now offer this service. The tiffin is used in India and some other areas of southeast Asia. It is a tin lunch box which at least two separate compartments for storing food. The food can be made hot and will keep warm for up to three hours. Wives of workers often make their husband's lunches or they can be supplied by a restaurant. The tiffins are then delivered by tiffin wallas, usually by train to all parts of the city with incredibly efficiency. Lost tiffins are rare.  Mahtab Narsimhan's novel is a great way to introduce an important aspect of Indian culture to Canadian readers.

Narsimhan grew up in Bombay and lived there for twenty five years. Now living in Toronto, Canada, she is an accomplished author who began her writing career in 2004. This novel is highly recommended for young teens.

Book Details:
The Tiffin by Mahtab Narsimhan
Toronto: Cormorant Books     2011
192 pp.