A Thousand Questions by Saadia Faruqi

Eleven-year-old Maryam (Mimi) Scotts has just arrived in Karachi, Pakistan for her summer holidays. (Her mother had lost her teaching job at the Houston Art Institute last year.) Mimi's father left them when she was five-years-old. Mimi's dad is a journalist who travels internationally working on stories. She has followed him online and knows that recently he was working in China. On the flight to Karachi, Mimi decided she was going to "write" to her father about her trip by addressing entries in her journal to her father whom she misses terribly. 

After haggling over the fare, Mimi and her mother take a taxi to her grandparents' home which turns out to "a sprawling white house with a balcony on the second floor and huge windows covered with metal bars." She politely greets her grandparents in Urdu; while her Nana (grandfather) seems friendly and warm, Mimi is intimidated by her Nani (grandmother).

Sakina Ejaz lives with her amma, abba and younger brother Jamshed in a poor neighbourhood in Karachi. She rides every morning with her abba on the back of his motorbike to work at Begum Sahiba's house where she helps her father with his cooking duties. This day the house is expecting guests who happen to be Begum Sahiba's daughter and granddaughter - Mimi and her mother.

After greeting her Nana (grandfather) and Nani (grandmother) Mimi and her mother are taken upstairs by Sakina who is shocked when Mimi talks to her. People don't usually talk to her in Begum Sahiba's home and Sakina doesn't speak English very well. Her poor English is the reason she failed the admissions test to New Haven School. Fortunately, because of her high science and mathematics marks, she has been given another chance at the exam on July 27th. Sakina loves to read and has a small secret reading space in a half room behind their toilet in her family's small house. She's serious about going to school even though she has never attended and she knows her parents need the extra income she earns for their family to survive. But while she practices her other subjects, Sakina struggles to master English. She needs a teacher and Mimi might just be the person to help her.

The next day when Mimi complains about Pakistani fruit being boring, Sakina has her try mango and offers her a deal. Mimi agrees that mango is the most delicious fruit ever. She questions Sakina as to why she has never been to school. Sakina tells Mimi that she learned math, science and some English along with the children who were tutored in the home her abba previously worked at. Sakina makes a deal with Mimi to have her teach her English. 

Gradually the two girls begin to trust one another and become friends. Mimi helps Sakina improve her English while Sakina helps Mimi learn more about Karachi and Pakistani culture. Then Mimi overhears her mother and grandparents talking and learns her father may be working in Karachi. Deeply hurt at her mother's secrecy, Mimi's determination and desire to meet her father only intensify. Meanwhile Sakina's family faces a crisis when her father's diabetes becomes unmanageable and they are unable to afford his medication. This means even if Sakina passes the exam, their poverty may mean she will never attend. Can the two girls help each other achieve their most heartfelt desires?

Discussion

Set in the bustling city of Karachi, Pakistan, the hometown of author Saadia Faruqi, A Thousand Questions is a story about two girls whose misconceptions about each other's lives and cultures are challenged. Through friendship they learn about each other's culture, find what binds them together and work to help one another.

Mimi Scotts, a young American girl visiting her grandparents' home in Karachi appears to have a charmed life with her stylish American clothing and the opportunity to attend school. But Mimi is a girl who has been mourning the loss of her father ever since he abruptly left when she was five years old. We learn later in the novel that he left after being offered "...this really exciting assignment in Iraq, right in the middle of an insurgency. It would have killed my career not to go."  What followed was one assignment after another that Mimi's father felt he couldn't refuse. He abandoned Mimi and her mother. This absence becomes a huge hole in Mimi's life and is deepened when Mimi discovers that her mother has been keeping a secret from her while in Pakistan: that her father is living in Karachi. It's hard to accept Mimi's mother's excuse as to why she kept this secret from Mimi. While it's understandable that she would be angry with his abandonment, nevertheless Mimi has the right and the need to have a relationship with her father, no matter what she may think of her ex-husband. It's this lack of empathy and understanding that makes her the least likeable character in the novel.

Eventually Mimi confronts her mother about what she has done over the last few years. Mimi challenges her mother."You're just....hiding. That's it. You're hiding from everything painful in your life, not even caring that you don't have the right to keep information from other people." She tells her mother to stop pretending and to acknowledge her pain, that she has "...a hole in my heart where he used to be, and I can't just forget that." 

In contrast to Mimi is Sakina Ejaz who is a servant in Mimi's grandparents' home. Sakina has a mother and a father but her life is hard. Her family has no money for school and she works alongside her father who is cook for Mimi's grandparents. She wants to become a teacher and help others but struggles with deep internal conflict: her desire for an education amidst her responsibility to earn money for her family.  This conflict is especially heartbreaking as it is a very real one for many girls in the developing world, who are either married off young to pay off debt or who must work to support their families. 

At first Mimi sees Sakina as the servant girl in her grandparents' home. But her view of Sakina changes as she gets to know her better. She admires Sakina's maturity and responsibility.  "Her life is so different from mine, I suddenly think. She actually works for a living, contributes to her family, has an opinion about grown-up things." This is in contrast to Mimi's life where everything is provided for her. Mimi's view of Sakina's life changes again when she goes to visit her. She tells Sakina, "I used to think I was better off than you because I had more stuff, but it's not really true." While Sakina has less "stuff" she has an intact family, including a father who is involved in her life. Sakina too has her own misconceptions about Americans. She tells Mimi she's lucky to be rich and living in America but Mimi tells her "Rich? We have no money in Houston. It's only here that we seem rich."

Despite their differences in culture and opportunities, the two girls form a friendship and begin to work together to help each other: Mimi helps Sakina improve her English so she can pass an entrance exam into school and Sakina takes Mimi's journal to her father's office which leads to him reconnecting with Mimi. The story weaves itself between these two narratives: Mimi's desire to find her father once she learns he might actually be in Karachi and Sakina's desire to attend school despite her father's illness and their poverty. Both girls' situations evoke sympathy and this story serves to demonstrate that people everywhere, no matter culture or race experience troubles in life. The message is that we all need to work together to help one another. Faruqi offers a balanced story, having her characters point out that both America or Pakistan are countries with similar problems such as poverty and government corruption, although both are likely worse in Pakistan.

A Thousand Questions  offers young readers a contrast in cultures and shows that with empathy we can bridge the differences that exist between people. The novel ends on a hopeful note, with Mimi and Sakina both experiencing positive changes in their lives and looking forward to continuing their friendship. This heartfelt novel will be enjoyed by middle-grade readers. The author provides a glossary of Pakistani words as well as some information about the city of Karachi in her Author's Note at the back.

 Book Details:

A Thousand Questions by Saadia Faruqi
New York: Quill Tree Books       2020
310 pp.

Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom

Not If I See You First is Eric Lindstrom's debut novel, about a young blind teen who discovers that there are more ways to be blind than just not being able to see. As she discovers this she learns about forgiveness, reconciliation and second chances.

High school junior, Parker Grant lives in the town of Coastview  with her Aunt Celia and her Uncle and her cousins, Sheila who attends the same high school, and Petey who is only eight years old. Parker lost her sight when she was seven years old as a result of a car accident that killed her mother and tore her optic nerves. Then three months ago Parker found her father dead on his bedroom floor. Because a bottle of Xanax was found in his room, the insurance company denied Parker his life insurance benefit and she lost the house to her Aunt Celia. To help Parker adjust to the loss of her father, her aunt and uncle moved in but the adjustment has been difficult for all.

Parker attends John Quincy Adams High School. There used to be another high school, Jefferson, but it closesd, o Adams is now jammed with new students including Parker's long ago ex-boyfriend Scott Kilpatrick. Parker and Scott had been best friends since grade four. In grade eight they became boyfriend-girlfriend. One day during lunch they went to an empty classroom and while they were kissing, unknown to Parker, they were being watched by Scott's friends. Seven boys in all. Parker fled the room and had her dad pick her up from school. Scott tried to explain to her what happened and kept calling her. He tried to tell Parker he was sorry but she refused to talk to him. If he was in the same class as her she ignored him and eventually they both graduated and went to different high schools. Now Scott is attending Adams.

At the start of the new school year, Parker has been assigned a new buddy, Molly who will help her get around the school. Unlike many visually impaired people, Parker does not wear sun glasses but instead wears a scarf wrapped around her head, covering her eyes. Since going blind Parker has a list of eleven rules, the most important being "Rule #1: Don't deceive me. Ever. Especially using my blindness. Especially in public." and "Rule #INFINITY: There are NO second chances. Violate my trust and I'll never trust you again. Betrayal is unforgivable."

After dinner that night, Parker's best friend Sarah calls her and reveals to her that Scott Kilpatrick, "Parker Enemy Number One" was in her Trig class that day and that he may try to apologize to her again. However, Parker simply steels herself and tells Sarah she will just ignore him. 

On a shopping trip to the mall to get a new pair of running shoes, Parker meets a nice sales clerk named Jason Freeborn. Parker is attracted to Jason who is a senior at Adams because he treats her like a normal person. Several days later Parker meets Coach Underhill who explains how she can run using a guide. After doing a trial run on the grass the coach tells Parker that she's fast and that means she will have a hard time finding a guide who can keep up with her.

As the days go by Parker learns that Scott seems to still care about her. When she takes a nasty fall on the field after working with Coach Underhill  she learns from Molly that Scott was one of the first over to see that she if she was hurt. When out on a date with Jason, he tells her that Scott was the one who intervened when two guys were harassing her at school and stole her phone. This leads Parker to text Scott and ask him why he did what he did to her in grade eight and what he was trying to tell her back then. He tells her the truth of what happened in Ms. Kincaid's classroom four years ago. Scott also tells her that he hopes she never forgives him and that he stopped making excuses for what he did. He tells her that he did the unforgivable.

Discussion

Not If I See You First chronicles the journey sixteen year old Parker Grant undergoes during her junior year as she is forced to confront the reappearance in her life of the boy who was her best friend and her first love. She lost that friend because she rushed to judge what he'd done without fully listening to his side of the story. She made the decision to never to forgive him and this decision has a profound effect on her life because Parker loses her ability to trust people.  But while Parker continues to ignore him after he reappears in her life she discovers that he still cares for her. And this makes her question what happened and her decision not to forgive him. Suspecting she might be missing the truth of what really happened that day she reaches out to him and discovers something about herself in the process.

Parker is still angry at her ex-boyfriend Scott Kilpatrick for what happened when they were thirteen years old. When she learns he is now attending Adams, Parker tells best friend Sarah what what he did was unforgivable. "I'll say fuck you Scott Kilpatrick and your sad little story about being a stupid kid. When people do dumbass things everyone has to live with the consequences..."

But a series of events with her new boyfriend Jason, with Scott, with her cousin Sheila and with best friend Sarah make Parker realize that she has become so focused on herself that she has become blind to what is happening in the lives of those around her.  Parker learns from Molly and Jason that Scott has been watching over her and has unknowingly come to help her several times. Unsettled over Scott's concern for her, Parker decides she needs to know his side of the story and she texts him. She discovers that he did not set her up when his friends caught them kissing and that he cared only about her that day, running after her to try to explain. Then Sarah breaks up with her boyfriend Rick but she won't tell Parker much about what happened, leading Parker to realize that they almost never talk about Sarah's life. When Sheila comes to pick up Parker at school she has music playing loudly in the car. This supremely annoys Parker until she discovers that Sheila is doing this to cover up her crying. When she tries to apologize Sheila angrily tells her that the world does not revolve around her and her problems. Parker admits to knowing this but Sheila accuses her of not really understanding. "I hear the words but everything else tells me you don't know. Yeah, you got big problems...You really are blind! You can't see you're not the center of the universe! That other people have lives and things happen to them all the time and you know nothing about it!...You just don't care. Say whatever you want but in your head it is all about you. Except it isn't, Parker. It really, really isn't."

Parker has always acted as though she is sure of everything around her because she feels she can't trust anyone but herself. She recognizes why she does this: she pretends to be sure of everything because the alternative is much scarier. "I know why I'm so sure of everything all the time; it's because I can't stomach the alternative, that I can't be sure of anything ever....the hard truth is clear. I was wrong about pretty much everything that happened in this car ride. And if I let myself think about it, I might be wrong about a lot of other things too.

She was so sure of what happened years ago in that classroom that she never considered maybe she didn't know what really happened. Now suspecting this might be the case with Sarah, Parker decides to talk to her best friend. Sarah tells Parker that Scott still loves her despite the way Parker has treated him.She knows this because of how he looks at her. Sarah realizes that Rick has never looked at her the way Scott still looks at Parker and this leads her to want more out of a relationship with a boy. She tells Parker this because she knows Parker can't see Scott's reactions. When Rick surprises Sarah by being very upset over their break-up Sarah wonders how badly Scott must have felt when Parker dumped him. This is something Parker never thought about because she was so wrapped up in her own feelings. Parker comes to the realization that the person she's always been is not someone who's very good.

When she confronts Scott to admit her mistake she tells him that it seems like "Everyone is a secret. There's no way to know what's in anyone's head." but Scott tells her "People are full of things you don't know but that doesn't mean they're secrets; you just don't know everything yet." When she asks if they can be friends again Scott declines because he believes he has permanently broken Parker's trust, an important characteristic of a true friendship.

Parker tries to convince Scott that she wants to be friends again and that she is able to trust him. However Scott is having none of it because she's a person who doesn't trust and he can't imagine her as someone who does. The Parker Scott now knows is the one who tells a fellow student during one of her "relationship advice sessions" with Sarah that getting back with an old boyfriend won't work,
" The point is...if he wasn't happy before, why would he be happy now? Either he's changed or he's hoping you have. Have you changed?"
"I don't think so."
"He hasn't either, sorry to tell you. People don't change. They just learn from experience and become better actors."

Despite Parker's efforts to convince Scott that she feels differently about him now that she knows the truth of what happened, Scott is unwilling to be more than just friends. Scott also has trust issues. Like Parker who thought Scott was someone who would betray her, Scott believes Parke is someone who would just throw a "friendship away in an instant, and...just bail without even a word." Parker understands that Scott can't trust her because she didn't trust him but she tells Scott that "...trust needs proof." Parker forces Scott to make a choice: either he is her boyfriend and he continues doing the things he's been doing to look out for her, or he is not and he has to stop watching out for her.

Lindstrom has crafted and entire set of realistic, believable teen characters in his novel. Parker Grant is completely blind (something Lindstrom does mention as usual as most people with visual impairment can see some light or shadows) but she's no stereotype. That much is evident from the very beginning of the novel when she is portrayed as a person known for speaking her mind and not caring how others feel. Parker describes herself at the beginning of the novel as "I'm the reigning queen of not giving a shit..."  She's not a nice person. When she is nasty to the boy in Trig class she states, "The silence that follows is the perfect example of the thing I love most about being blind: not seeing how people react to what I say." She has an attitude, she's self-centered and as Trish describes her later in the book, she's a "Blind Bitch".  But Parker's struggles to come to terms with several tragedies in her life make her an endearing character too.

Not If I See You First is a brilliant debut novel for Lindstrom and marks him as an author to watch for in the future.

Book Details:

Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom
New York: Little, Brown and Company      2015
310 pp.

Half a Man by Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo's latest book is about a sailor who was in the merchant navy during World War II and who suffered a catastrophic injury that changed his life forever. The story is narrated by the grandson who is now in his fifties, remembering how his relationship with his wounded grandfather grows through the years.

As a young child, Michael had nightmares about a man with a twisted face who jumps out of a sinking ship that is on fire. The nightmares always happened before his grandfather's visits at Christmas.These visits were not frequent because his grandfather lived on the Isles of Scilly. Unlike other people, and against his parents warnings, Michael would look at his grandfather. Unlike others who were revolted by what they saw, Michael could see past his grandfather's scars.

"I was never revolted by what I saw. If I had been, I could have looked away easily. I think i was more fascinated that anything else, and horrified too, because I'd been told something of what happened to him in the war. I saw the suffering he had gone through in his deep-blue eyes -- eyes that hardly ever blinked, I noticed."

Although Michael asked his parents about how his grandpa was wounded, they were reluctant to tell him much about what happened or about his grandmother whom he never met. Michael began visiting his grandpa in the Scilly Isles when he was twelve. His grandpa's world was much different from busy, noisy London; he spent his time fishing and reading. As the years went by, in the quiet time spent together Michael forged a strong bond and a deep understanding with his grandpa that led to his learning the truth about what happened during the war and in the years afterwards.

Discussion

Half a Man is a touching story about a family in desperate need of healing and forgiveness. The story centers on the importance of how we "see" others and of accepting people as they are. The hurt in Michael's family began when his grandmother Annie, was unable to see past her husband's terrible wounds. Grandpa tells Michael that Annie came to see him in hospital but things were different. "Right away I saw she didn't look at me the same, didn't speak to me like I was normal, like the nurses did. She still loved me, I think, but all she saw was a monster man." When he returned home, grandpa found that Annie still would not look at him. This deeply hurt Michael's grandpa and Annie's inability to accept him for who he was after the war, led to deeper problems. This inability to see grandpa was passed onto Annie's daughter - Michael's mother and eventually to Michael's father. They mistakenly believe that looking at grandpa was rude and upsetting to him. The only person able to look was Michael. At first Michael's looks were secret glances. These furtive looks turned into longer stares at grandpa's face and his missing fingers. At first Michael was scared when he looked at his grandpa's face, but as he grew older, the fear disappeared and he came to recognize the suffering. This acceptance leads Michael's grandpa to open up to him about what really happened to him many years ago - something he has never told anyone. Like anyone else, regardless of whether they have a disability or not, grandpa wanted to be seen and accepted.

Michael's grandpa too struggled to accept what happened to him. He admitted to Michael that he drank too much and said things that he shouldn't have, leading Annie to leave him. He tells Michael, "I don't blame her, not anymore. No one wants a monster for a husband. No one wants half a man, and that's what I was, Michael, half a man. That's what I still am."

Therefore, Half a Man is also a story which explores the lasting impact war has on those directly involved and on their families - often into the generations that follow. Morpurgo's gentle story-telling conveys the sense of loss experienced by grandpa's family when he returns home so terribly wounded. As grandpa struggled to recover from his catastrophic wounds he discovered the one thing he desired most - his family, taken from him. His beloved wife, Annie, who could have been a source of comfort and healing, was unable to look at him. Their struggles to cope with the aftermath of the war led to Annie abandoning him, taking their little girl who was Michael's mother, with her. The result was a family completely broken: Michael's grandpa was consumed by hate and Michael's own mother grew up angry at her mother for taking her away from her dad.

It is left up to Michael to bring about his grandpa's wish for the family to reconcile - specifically his wife and daughter. This happens at grandpa's funeral.

Michael's grandpa mentions that it was Dr. McIndoe who put him back together in the hospital. "It was him that did it, put us back together, and I'm not talking about the operations. He was a magician in the operating room, all right. But it's what he did afterward for us. He made us feel right again inside, like we mattered, like we weren't monster men."

Dr. Archibald McIndoe was in fact a real person. At the time of World War II, there were only four plastic surgeons in Britain and Dr. McIndoe was one of those. Dr. McIndoe was stationed at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead (where Michael's grandpa was treated). There he founded the Centre for Plastic and Jaw Surgery to treat mainly RAF causalities of World War II. Dr. McIndoe developed new ways to treat the horrific burns suffered by RAF pilots and championed the rehabilitation and reintegration of these terribly disfigured men back into society.

In 1941 he formed the Guinea Pig Club which consisted mainly of recovering RAF patients. McIndoe believed that the disfigured airmen should be fully reintegrated into society at a time when many who saw these men in public were horrified and demanded they remain hidden.  McIndoe died young, at age 59 in 1960, but his legacy lives on in the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation which works to develop new ways to treat burns and soft tissue injuries. Morpurgo's Half a Man is dedicated to Eric Pearce, "one of the very last of McIndoe's 'Guinea Pigs.' "

You can read more about the amazing Sir Archibald McIndoe on the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation website.

Half a Man is a story simply told, beautifully illustrated by Gemma O'Callaghan's prints.

Book Details:

Half a Man by Michael Morpurgo
Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press   2005
53 pp.