Sweetgrass Basket by Marlene Carvell

Sweetgrass Basket is a heartrending story of two Mohawk sisters sent to a residential school by their parents with the belief that this is best for them. Instead the sisters discover an institution focused not so much on educating them as in destroying their heritage.

Matilda (Mattie) Tarbell and her younger sister, twelve-year-old Sarah  are sent by train to a school in Carlisle for Indian children. When Mattie was unhappy about this her father told her, "You must go to school.
Life will be better for you.
It is for the best."
Their brothers and sisters were sent to other schools, some closer to home, others further away.

They are met at the train station by Mr. Davis whom Sarah describes as "the blackest man I have ever seen...". There are four other children besides Mattie and Sarah who ride with them in "the strangest, strangest thing on wheels."

Although Mr. Davis assures them they will be fine and will like the school, Mattie and Sarah immediately experience harsh treatment at the hands of Mrs. Dwyer who runs the school. Dressed all in black, with "eyes that look like tiny chunks of coal set into a snowbank muddied by a January thaw." Mrs. Dwyer immediately makes both Mattie and Sarah fear her.  A woman who has a severe and unfriendly face and who constantly taps a ruler in her hand, Mrs. Dwyer elicits fear is almost all the students.

Mattie states the first thing they learn how to do is march, which they do whenever they go anywhere in the school. Mattie is able to read and speak English and her writing is deemed beautiful by Miss Weston, a kind teacher who becomes Mattie's favourite. Although Miss Weston loves Mattie's essay about the sweetgrass baskets her mother used to make, Mrs. Dwyer refuses to allow it to be printed in the school's paper.

While Sarah struggles to adjust, Mattie finds a friend in Gracie Powless from the Onondaga. Their days are filled with work and lessons. The girls are taught by Miss Prentiss how to use a sewing machine: Mattie excels at mending, a skill her mother taught her. Miss Prentiss decides that she will have her do finer work. Meanwhile, Sarah works in the laundry under the tutelage of the kindly Miss Velma. But when Sarah is allowed to rest outside after the heat causes her to collapse in the laundry, she is scolded by Mrs. Dwyer and Miss Velma is sent away.

When Mattie is accused of stealing Mrs. Dwyer's brooch, a chain of events is set in motion that will lead to tragedy and a heartbreaking loss for Sarah.

Discussion

Sweetgrass Basket is a much needed novel about the experiences of Native Americans who were sent away from the their families to residential schools to be "educated". Carvell provides an Author's Note at the very beginning of the novel in which she explains that The Carlisle Indian Industrial School did in fact exist from 1879 to 1918. Located in southern Pennsylvania, it was the first off-reservation school for Native Americans in the United States. Children from many different tribes attended the school, among them children from the Mohawk nation. The author's husband's great-aunt Margaret attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the early 1900's and this novel is based on her experiences.

Set in the early 1900's, Sweetgrass Basket is told from the perspective of two fictional Mohawk sisters, Mattie and Sarah Tarbell, using free verse. In some instances, events are described by both sisters, at other times, their alternating voices carry on the story. Both Mattie and Sarah do not want to attend the school but do so in obedience to their father. However, instead of being treated with dignity and compassion, with understanding and kindness, the young Indian girls are subjected to physical abuse and in some cases even neglect. The Indian children, in a strange environment far from home, find themselves at the mercy of the school matron, Mrs. Dwyer, a dour, cold woman dressed in black.  It soon becomes apparent that the focus of the school is not just to educate them but to wipe out the practice of their own culture and replace it with the ways of the white people.

In the Carlisle school, the children are given new names that are different from the names given to them by their parents. Unlike the other students, Mattie and Sarah both have English names, but they also have Mohawk names. Their father advised them to tell only their English names which they obey.
"He said our Mohawk names are special,
and we should keep them for special times."

The words written above the chalkboard in the classroom, "Labor conquers all things." are eerily similar to the words, "Arbeit macht frei" or "Work sets you free" that will be placed on the gate at Auschwitz 1 years later in Nazi-occupied Poland. The girls are told by Mrs. Dwyer,
"...if we work hard,
we will be as good as white people.
She says this is our chance to prove
we are as good as white people."
Sarah and Mattie and the other Indian girls are made to feel inferior, less than white people.

They are not allowed to bring anything from home that might remind them of their culture. However,  Sarah and Mattie keep the memory of their home alive in their minds, remembering life at home with their parents and their siblings. In secret, they use Mohawk words to describe their world, reminding each other of their heritage. For example, Sarah reminds her sister that as Mohawks they are Keepers of the Eastern Door. Mattie states,
"She said I must always remember that we
the KANIEN'KEHAKA, the Mohawk people,
are Keepers of the Eastern Door,
and that long  ago it was through us
that people were allowed to travel the lands
of the HAUDENOSAUNEE, the Iroquois;
that we allowed all to pass through our lands,
as long as we knew they traveled in peace."

The title of the novel is a reference to the sweetgrass basket that belongs to Mattie. Although they were told not to bring anything from home, Sarah brings a scarf that their mother made for her and Mattie's sweetgrass basket. Mattie had wanted to bring the basket but their father had told her not to bring it. Having "...heard the tears in her heart." Sarah decided to pack the sweetgrass basket with her. When she reveals it to Mattie one day at school, she feels she has lifted the sadness from her sister's heart. After showing her best friend Gracie, Mattie hides the basket in her bottom drawer. It will be a special basket where she and Sarah will keep their womanly thoughts.

The basket becomes a metaphor for Mattie and Sarah's Indian culture. After being accused of stealing Mrs. Dwyer's brooch, Mattie's basket goes missing from her drawer. She is unable to discover who took the basket. After Mattie is accused by Mrs. Dwyer of stealing her brooch and runs away, the basket ends up in the possession of Mrs. Dwyer, who calls Sarah into her office to question her about it.  In a move symbolic of what she stands for - the destruction of Indian culture, Mrs. Dwyer crushes Mattie's sweetgrass basket in the presence of Sarah.

"But as I lift my arms to take it from her,
she pushes her hands together in one sharp
movement, and Mattie's beautiful basket
made from our mother's love
is turned instantly into a misshapen mass
that now looks oddle like a small winter squash
flattened on one side from where it grew....

Mrs Dwyer takes two steps to her right
and drops the object of her scorn
into the waste bin that sits beside a wooden chair..."
The message is clear, the Indian culture has nothing redeemable about it, it is something to be jettisoned in favour of the white man's culture.

Although there is heart-breaking tragedy in the novel, Carvell does leave her young readers with a sense of hope. At the very end, Sarah is given Mattie's basket, saved from the garbage by the kindly Mr. Davis who enigmatically tells Sarah he has fixed her bottom drawer. Puzzled, she checks the drawer:
"There, tucked in among my nightclothes,
there under the scarf my mother made with love for me,
was Mattie's gift from her.

Mattie's beautiful basket.

Mattie's beautiful sweetgrass basket."

The return of the basket signifies hope for the future that their way of life can and will be preserved.

In a delicious twist near the end of the novel, it is Sarah who finds Mrs. Dwyer's brooch, but convinced she will never be believed, she disposes of it. Had Mrs. Dwyer been more understanding, the brooch she cared so much for, might have been returned to her.

Sweetgrass Basket is a well written novel that is both timely and overdue. Carvell's simple poetry is deeply moving, allowing readers to experience the pain, the sense of loss and the anger Mattie and Sarah experience as young Indian Americans who have been suddenly separated from their family and their way of life. Those who read this novel with sensitivity will weep at the fate of Mattie, at the lack of care for these young girls and at the lack of understanding of their way of life. Although we cannot change the past, through novels like Sweetgrass Basket  which explore the Native American experience in residential schools, we can remember it, learn from it and change the future.

Book Details:

Sweetgrass Basket by Marlene Carvell
New York: Dutton Children's Books    2005
243 pp.

Interlude by Chantele Sedgwick

Interlude is a classic story of a boy and a girl thrown together unexpectedly, each struggling with their own problems, who fall in love. The novel opens with eighteen-year-old Mia Cox in her doctor's office. She's there to get tested to determine if she's a compatible match so she can donate a kidney to her younger sister Madison (Maddy). Dr. Mason discusses the risks of donating a kidney and tells Mia that she will know in two weeks.

Weeks later, Mia takes Maddy to her dialysis treatment which she undergoes three times per week. Mia is very worried about her sister who is tired and withdrawn. She is in the final stages of kidney disease which is renal failure.
At dinner that night, Mia gets a call from the doctor's office informing her that she is not a match and therefore not suitable to donate a kidney to Maddy. Mia retreats to her bedroom, completely distraught but also determined. She pulls out an old birthday card sent by her birth mother, Carmen Santalina from fifteen years earlier. Mia and Maddy's mother Carmen, abandoned them when Mia was three years old. Her father moved to from New York to California where he remarried.

With a plan formulating in her head, Mia questions her father as to whether Carmen still lives in New York City. However, he will only tell her that Carmen won't care, even when Mia begs him to at least call her and tell her about Maddy's illness. Furious at her father's refusal, Mia googles Carmen's name to locate her in New York. She is interrupted by Maddy who come to her bedroom and then collapses. Mia screams for her father, the paramedics are called, and Maddy is rushed to hospital.

At the hospital, Maddy is stabilized but weak and she confides to Mia that she knows she's going to die, that a donor will not be found in time. Mia tries to encourage Maddy, who believes it is too late for her. Determined to save her sister Mia goes home, packs a backpack, writes her father a note, and drives to the airport where she books herself onto a flight to New York City. Her hope is to find their birth mother and convince her to donate a kidney to Maddy.

On the flight, a guy about Mia's age, with dark hair and an eyebrow piercing, is seated next to her. He is slouched down in the seat, not talkative, his earbuds in, listening to music. Part way through the flight, Mia notices the distinctive tattoo on his arm. When he picks up an entertainment magazine, Mai mutters about not liking the band Blue Fire and its lead singer, Jaxton Scott featured on the cover. Mia's remark is overheard by him and he questions her as to why she doesn't like them. Mia tells him she believes they have no talent, their image is creepy with the makeup, black nail polish and piercings, and that they are "fakers". The conversation makes Mia curious about the article on Blue Fire. As she's reading it, a closer look at the picture of Jaxton Scott leads Mia to recognize the tattoo on his arm as the same as the one on the man seated next to her. To her embarrassment,  Mia realizes she's sitting next to Jaxton Scott.

Mia tries to apologize, but Jaxton insists he's not offended and appreciates her honesty. Jaxton tells Mia that he is "taking a spontaneous vacation to New York. Indefinitely."  He has no gig, no girlfriend, no bodyguards or groupies. When Jaxton questions Mia about her trip, at first she is reluctant to tell him her reason for flying to the city, only that she is sightseeing. However, Jaxton can sense that Mia is not telling him the truth and that she's running from something. He reassures her that everything she reads about him is fake, that it is all show.

Mia tells Jaxton about her sister's terminal illness and that her trip to New York is to locate their birth mother who is the only other person likely to be a match. Jaxton tells Mia he is "The screw-up who's running away from  his life." He tells her that his band formed in high school and by their junior year, they had a record contract. On tour he managed to finish his senior year of high school, but there were also parties, tours and playing huge venues. Jaxton insists all he wants to do is write music. When Mia questions him as to why he's doing this if it's not what he wants, he tells her it is difficult to get out of contracts, so this trip is a break to try to figure things out by returning home to his family on Long Island.

After a lay over in Denver, Mia and Jaxton board their flight to New York. Jaxton arranges for Mia to sit next to him, and invites her to really listen to his music. When it becomes apparent that Mia has no where to stay and that she has no idea how to locate her birth mother, Jaxton insists on helping her. But Mia is reluctant to accept Jaxton's help because she really doesn't know him, so to remedy this, he spends some time telling Mia more about himself in the hopes she will feel safer. As their flight nears its destination, Jaxton offers to put Mia up in a hotel overlooking Central Park. Mia balks at this because she cannot afford it but Jaxton insists. As they spend time together, Mia knows she has to stay focused on finding her birth mother and helping save Maddy, even as her attachment to Jaxton grows.

Discussion

Although Sedgwick's novel, Interlude is a predictable YA romance, it is both enjoyable and sweet, with the added bonus of a happy ending. Mia and Jaxton, from very different worlds, each dealing with very serious life problems, are inadvertently thrown together and fall in love. Jaxton has the image of a bad boy rocker in contrast to Mia's clean girl image. While Mia seems to have her life together and knows what she wants, Jaxton is struggling to deal with his rock star lifestyle.  Their time together is seen as an "interlude" in their lives.

The story is told from the point of view of Mia who astutely identifies the situation both she and Jaxton are in. "We're two people running from different things in our lives. One of us is running to save another, the other is running to save himself." Both Jaxton and Mia love music: Jaxton is a song writer and lead singer in a rock band, while Mia is an accomplished pianist. While talking on the plane about music, Jaxton mentions that he loves preludes which he describes as "...the most important part of the song, I think. It has to be distinct. Different  than everything else out there. It's like the hook. Or the tease before the masterpiece, if you will."  But Mia loves the interlude which she sees as the solo in the middle of a song, that gives a break from the lyrics. Their time spent on the plane is the interlude for both Jax and Mia, a time away from the stresses of their lives, where they can just be themselves and not deal with their worries. It is the break for Jax from his rock star life and for Mia it is a break from the worry about finding a donor for Maddy and her illness.

The themes of sisterhood and family can be found throughout the novel. Mia is devoted to her sister as evidenced by her willingness to take her sister Maddy to her dialysis treatments and to stay with her for the three hours it takes to clean her blood. Mia is determined to save her. She is willing to donate a kidney to her sister but when that becomes impossible, Mia impulsively and in desperation, decides to travel across the continent to find their estranged biological mother. Although this isn't successful in the way Mia planned, it does work out in the end.

Sedgwick's story stresses the importance of family. Jax tells Mia, "I talk to my mom at least once a week. My sister Jeigh, usually every day. We've always been really close. I have another sister, but she's a bit younger, so I don't hear from her as much. I love hanging out with her when I go home, though."  For Mia, despite being abandoned by her birth mother at age three, she is very close to her father and her stepmother, Trista. "I can't imagine living my life without Trista. She's been a wonderful mother to me."  Because Mia has such a strong sense of family with her father, Trista and Maddy, she is stung by her birth mother Carmen's complete rejection of herself and Maddy being "family". Carmen tells Mia that Maddy is not her daughter. "I might have been a mother to you once, and I'm sorry for all the pain I caused you, but I was never a mother to Madison. I held her once...She's a stranger to me and she has no recollection of me either. I don't owe her anything." Fortunately for Maddy, Carmen's sister, Ana does not feel this way and decides to undergo testing to see if she is a possible donor.

Sedgwick admits she had to do considerable research into kidney disease and organ donation. Live donor organ donation is somewhat controversial because of the risks to the donor. However, live donor kidney donation is the most common and the most successful of all transplants. Interlude is a light, enjoyable read, with well developed and interesting characters. Suitable for ages 13 to 18.

Book Details:

Interlude by Chantele Sedgwick
New York: Sky Pony Press    2018
275 pp.

Untwine: a novel by Edwidge Danticat

Untwine is a young adult novel about a girl who loses her twin sister in an devastating car accident and her struggle to regain her health and her life.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins, Giselle and Isabelle Boyer live in Miami, Florida with their father, David who is a lawyer and their mother, Sylvie who does the make-up for television. Their parents are planning to separate.The Boyer family is on their way to a school concert in which Isabelle will be playing flute. As strains of Igor Stravinsky's Firebird play on the CD player in their father's SUV, suddenly they are suddenly rammed from behind by a red minivan. Her father attempts to avoid the van but a retaining wall on the passenger side of the car prevents him from doing so. Isabelle, who had just taken off her seatbelt, has her head smashed against the window. As her mother screams, Gizelle and Isabelle hold hands, "...the tightest we have ever held hands in our entire lives."

Gizelle is semi-awake in the ambulance and when she is pulled out of the ambulance at the hospital. She overhears a list of serious injuries and then realizes that they are not talking about her but also about Isabelle. Eventually Gizelle briefly wakens in a small white room with a large glass window and determines that she is in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The first person to arrive is her Aunt Leslie, who is her mother's sister and also Gizelle and Isabelle's godmother. She lives in Orlando where she is a pediatrician.

Standing behind Aunt Leslie is a policewoman who wants to question Gizelle. However, Aunt Leslie tells the policewoman that Gizelle has a very bad concussion and is drifting in and out of consciousness. Aunt Leslie is crying and the policewoman tells her that they believe what happened might not be an accident. Gizelle hears this and wonders what this means.

Although Gizelle cannot respond to those around her, she can clearly remember things that have happened in the past. She thinks about her and Isabella, how her twin is 90 seconds older and still weighs slightly more than her. She also thinks about her best friend Tina Marshall and her classmate, Jean Michel Brun who is her dream crush. Whenever Gizelle regains consciousness she is in a lot of pain. She finds herself in another room, moved from the PICU because she has no serious injuries.

Gizelle continues to awaken periodically and one time is stunned to hear the male nurse call her Isabelle. Gizelle is unable to move her arms or speak. "My whole body can't move. I can't speak, but I can see Aunt Leslie and the glass bricks on the walls."  Even Aunt Leslie believes she is Isabelle. Terribly upset, Aunt Leslie tries to fill Gizelle in on what has happened. Although Gizelle is having difficulty comprehending what her aunt is telling her, she is able to piece together that her parents are in the adult wing of the same hospital and that Isabelle has died from her terrible injuries.

Gizelle's Uncle Patrick arrives at the hospital and shows her photos of her parents on his cell phone so that she can see how they are doing. He also takes pictures of her and shows them to Gizelle. She cannot respond to him but she can see the photos although the cell phone screen bothers her. Gizelle is also visited by a doctor who is leading a group of residents on rounds. She refers to him as the "head duck" and his "ducklings". They continue to believe that she is Isabelle.

Eventually, Gizelle's parents do visit her. She is propped up in the bed, but still cannot really respond, although she can see and hear everything that is going on. Her father has more serious injuries than her mother and is in a wheelchair. It is her mother though who realizes that Gizelle has been mistakenly identified as Isabelle. Shouting to Gizelle's father, Aunt Leslie and Uncle Patrick she insists based on the scar on Gizelle's head and a mole behind her ear.

Another visit by the head neurologist with his students sees him discussing the fact that Gizelle is a twin and that she is young and should be able to shake off this head injury. He encourages her to wake up. Gizelle knows that she needs to wake up but she struggles because waking up means living life without her best friend and twin, Isabelle. It means leaving Isabelle behind.

Discussion

Untwine is a beautifully crafted novel by award-winning writer, Edwidge Danticat. It explores the themes of identity and grief as a young girl copes with a devastating loss.

The story is told by sixteen-year-old Gizelle Boyer who loses her best friend and twin sister Isabelle in a terrible car accident. Gizelle is suffering from a serious concussion and has difficulty waking up. Partly she doesn't want to awaken. "I want to wake up, but I can't. Because waking up might mean leaving Isabelle behind forever." While she's not fully conscious, Gizelle is able to remember life with Isabelle, something she will no longer have. She will also have to face the reality of her parents separating.Gizelle has  vivid and rich imaginings of her sister Isabelle culminating in her imagining speaking with her sister and saying goodbye. "Isabelle is now standing at my bedside with both her hands, her perfect, unhurt hands, resting on the railing of my hospital bed. She's wearing her orchestra uniform, the white blouse, black pencil skirt, and black bow tie, the same one she was wearing in the car...You've really astonished me here," she says, looking down at me in the bed. 'You've been great. Super great. For the rest of your life you keep stunning me. Just keep stunning me.' " Gizelle tells Isabelle she won't live and that she loves her.

However, the head neurologist, Dr. Aidoo believes that Gizelle can recover and he encourages her to fight to wake up. When Gizelle loses her hearing she makes the decision to try to awaken, starting with trying to move her toes. "I'm tired of my silence. I'm tired of having all these thoughts racing through my head. Even if I can't hear them, I to be able to say something." As she struggles to give her family a sign that she is trying to wake up she thinks, "It's a lot harder to  move forward than to fall back. I have to remind myself that no matter how hard it seems, I just can't keep falling back."

Eventually Gizelle wakes up and begins her recovery from her severe concussion.Gizelle's biggest struggle is dealing with being a survivor. At her sister's funeral, Gizelle is unnerved seeing her sister - her identical twin in a coffin. "But even with all of the makeup, she still looks like me. It's like looking at me."  Gizelle knows what she looks like dead because she has her sister to show her. "I know exactly what I look like dead. I look like Isabelle."  Isabelle's friend states what everyone is thinking - "You look just like her." Although others are upset, Gizelle recognizes the truth of the comment. "A few people gasp, but she is telling the truth. An uncomfortable truth, but the truth nonetheless. No one will ever forget Isabelle as long as I'm walking around with her body and her face. My sister is dead and I am her ghost."

Gizelle must now face life without Isabelle. She always thought of her future connected to that of Isabelle's, that they would share their lives important moments. Gizelle feels that her identity as a twin has changed with Isabelle's death. "But what are you called when your twin dies? I want some name other than twinless twin. I want something simple, lyrical sophisticated sounding. Even though I know it would never fully comfort me. I want something beautiful to now call myself." 

Gizelle's friends, Jean Michel and Tina are trying to learn more about the mysterious Gloria Carlton who caused the accident. When they visit Gizelle to tell her about what they have learned, Gizelle notices that Jean Michel has Frida Kahlo's The Two Fridas as a screensaver. Gizelle is stunned because the painting represents exactly how she feels. "How does he know, I wonder, that this is exactly how I've been feeling? Split in half sometimes, and at other times walking, living, breathing for two. Two hearts are beating in my one chest, but it feels like no heart at all." 

The portrait painted in 1939 by the Mexican artist, is a self portrait, showing two Fridas. One is dressed in the traditional Tehuana costume (blue dress and green skirt) with a whole, beating heart and holding a locket. The other Frida is dressed in a white, lacy Victorian dress and has a bleeding, broken heart, the vein running down into her lap, dripping blood. The two Fridas are holding hands, their hearts connected. The painting is a metaphor of Gizelle in several ways. First it represents Gizelle, the whole Gizelle before the accident and the Gizelle who lost her sister. When Tina presents her with "a framed picture, half the size of a postcard. In the red plastic frame is a shrunken copy of Frida Kahlo's The Two Fridas." at first Gizelle wonders which one she is but then she understands what her friend Tina and Jean Michel are attempting to tell her. "It takes me a while to figure it out, but eventually I do. I think he's trying to tell me what everyone's been telling me in one way or another since Isabelle died, that I won't be the bloodless Frida forever, the one day, my heart will be full of life again." 

The Two Fridas might also represent both twins; Isabelle (in the white dress) broken and bleeding and Gizelle in the Tehuana costume, whole and healthy. Isabelle and Gizelle were holding hands when the accident happened. "We were holding hands the tightest we have ever held hands in our entire lives. We were holding hands just as we had been holding hands on the day we were born...We were born holding hands." When the car crashes into Isabelle's car door, Gizelle remembers "My sister was still holding my hand, but now our hands were wet and sticky, and hot."  

The cover of the novel expresses the theme of twins and the death of one twin through the use of two hearts with veins spreading out from them. In keeping with the theme, one heart has as set of veins which become branches filled with blossoms representing the living Gizelle, the other heart has a set of veins which become dead branches representing Isabelle.

Danticat does an excellent job of developing her main character, Gizelle: the reader feels tremendous empathy for Gizelle as she struggles to accept the loss of her twin sister. If there's a weakness in this novel, it is the lack of development of secondary characters, although Gizelle's Aunt Leslie is particularly well done. It is Aunt Leslie who helps move Gizelle forward in the process of grieving.

Untwine is further unique in the bits of Haitian culture woven through the story, making this novel even more engaging read. Despite Gizelle's parents troubled marriage, we never feel like she is left alone to cope as her extended Haitian family is very supportive and she finds comfort in some of her family's customs. Untwine is truly wonderful novel.

Book Details:

Untwine: a novel by Edwidge Danticat
New York: Scholastic Press   2015
303 pp.

Threads by Ami Polonsky

Threads is a parallel narrative, telling the stories of twelve-year-old Clara Clay who lives with her parents in Evanston, Illinois, and thirteen-year-old Yuming Niantu who is an orphan in China. Their lives intersect in a way neither can ever imagine, tied together by the thread of one action. The novel opens with a copy of Yuming's note hidden in a purse on May 16 while she is working in a factory in Hebei Province, in China.

Clara and her parents are still grieving after the death of Clara's older sister, Lola who was adopted from an orphanage in China. Lola, who was abandoned in a cardboard box in Molihua Park in Shanghai, was found by a man and taken to an orphanage where her birthday was estimated to be October 1. Unfortunately, Lola developed acute lymphoblastic leukemia and despite chemotherapy, she relapsed and died.

Clara's narrative opens with her being dropped off at Bellman's department store on July 1 with her "used-to-be best friend", Dahlia. Clara has known Dahlia since they were babies. Their families met through an adoption support group because both Dahlia and Clara's sister Lola were adopted from China. Clara decides she doesn't want stay with Dahlia and she tells her she's leaving. Since Lola's death on May 15, after her long battle with cancer, Clara feels disconnected from Dahlia. She hides from Dahlia and texts her father asking him to come pick her up. They arrange to meet in twenty minutes but in the meantime Clara hides from Dahlia in a booth that has leather purses on display. While waiting for her father to show up, Clara spots an ugly yellow purse on clearance and wondering why it's on sale looks inside. In an inside pocket Clara discovers a piece of white paper and a photograph. Unbelievably the photograph is of Molihua Park in Shanghai where Clara and her family have visited and also where Lola was found as a baby. The note is written by thirteen-year-old Yuming Niantu who is a prisoner in a pink factory along with twenty-two other children. In her note Yuming Niantu asks for help.

Clara's father can't imagine twenty-two children trapped in a factory making purses. At Clara's urging he decides to call the Chinese consulate in Chicago where Susan Zhau takes his call and the information about the note and photograph. She is abrupt with Clara's father, Al and requests that he send the note and photograph to the embassy before hanging up on him. Clara is doubtful the consulate will help but she makes sure that her father makes copies of the photograph and the note. Clara remembers visiting Molihua Park when she was ten and Lola was eleven - more than a year before Lola's relapse. Unconvinced that the Chinese consulate will act, Clare wonders if she might be able to help Yuming herself.

The next morning Clara and her mom take the note and photograph to the consulate and meet Susan Zhau who treats them curtly. When Clara arrives home she begins searching for flights to Beijing and at lunch makes the suggestion to her parents that they plan a trip to China. Her parent's shocked response causes Clara to run out of the house and catch the bus they used to take to the hospital where Lola was treated for her cancer. There, Clara is recognized and comforted by two nurses who cared for Lola. They contact her parents who come to the hospital. After a discussion with Clara, her parents decide to take a trip back to China in the hopes it will help her process Lola's death. But for Clara the trip is about trying to find and save Yuming.

Meanwhile in alternating chapters, Yuming's story is told. It has been six weeks since Yuming placed the note into the pocket of a purse she was sewing. No help has been forthcoming so she knows she will have to find another way to escape the factory. Yuming was living in Yemo Village in Anhui Province with her grandmother Wai Po and grandfather Wai Gong. Her older brother Bolin left to work in the city and eventually her grandmother, and then her grandfather passed away. Three months ago in early April, Yuming sat near the fountain in Molihua Park in Shanghai. She had come to the city to look for her older brother Bolin who last worked at a food stand in the park. However her efforts proved fruitless. While resting on a park bench, Yuming was forcibly taken from the park by an older man and pushed onto a bus with two boys and driven out of the city to the north. The man, Mr. Zhang, told them they are to work in his factory and he also told them what to say if they were questioned. They arrived at a pale-pink factory where they were taken to a basement room and taught how to sew. 

Yuming now sits next to a girl, Jing, who often helps her and who has been in the factory for years. In the three months that have passed, Yuming does nothing but sew and sleep and often dreams about her life in her village. On July 2, two new boys arrive - an older boy named Kai and his younger brother Li. Yuming overhears Kai and his brother talking about escaping. That night Li refuses to go sleep with the younger boys, so Yuming volunteers to keep him company in the barracks. In the morning she tells Kai she knows a way to escape and tells him she is coming with him and Li. Later that week the three of them make their escape. Li pretends he is sick and needs to get to the bathroom. Kai and Yuming help him to the bathroom. The bathroom in the factory is a room without a ceiling and when Jing joins them the four help each other over the high walls and to freedom.

Once out of the factory, Yuming, Jing, Kai and Li race into the forest and continue to run until they reach the safety of a cave. That night they head out of the woods to the nearby village where they break into a store to find something to eat. Jing reveals that she has been at the factory for almost five years, and Yuming learns that Kai and his brother are from a village near Beijing. Kai tells the group that the plan is for them to make money at the tourist sights, in particular the Great Wall of China. With money, Yuming hopes to be able to return to her village.

From this point on the two storylines intersect frequently as Yuming and her friends struggle to survive and steal enough money to make it home, while Clara and her parents travel to Beijing and Shanghai. Clara believes the spirit of Lola is there to guide and encourage her in her quest to find Yuming's factory, while Yuming relies on the spirits of Wai Po and Wai Gong to help her in her quest to return home. 

Discussion

Ami Polonsky has crafted a touching story that captures those tenuous and momentary connections that exist between people, sometimes known but mostly unknown in this life. These connections happen frequently throughout Threads, making it an captivating story while set against the backdrop of forced labour in China.

Yuming places a note inside a purse hoping someone in America will find it and act. In a remarkable coincidence, her note is found by a young American girl with ties to China. But the coincidences do not stop there. When Clara and her family arrive at the Great Wall on July 7, Clara sees a city bus stop with a commotion going on in the back. "Suddenly, four of the windows open and, at the exact same moment, four kids jump out, one from each window. They have identical hair-cuts and are wearing brightly colored T-shirts that are way too big on them." The reader already knows from the previous chapter that Yuming, Jing, Kai and Li are "all wearing oversize, brightly colored T-shirts." Clara is unaware that she is seeing Yuming, and Yuming is unaware that Clara is the person who has seen her note and is actively trying to help her.

As Clara and her parents walk along the Great Wall, they "pass the four kids who escaped from the bus windows. They're jogging down the path, and I hope the bus driver is long gone by now."  As Clara walks along the Great Wall she is remembering when she last visited this famous site with Lola and how they played Rock, Paper, Scissors. Meanwhile Yuming, Jing, Kai and Li are jogging along the Great Wall path, searching for someone. As Yuming is keeping a careful lookout for Mr. Zhang, she notices "...people from many places: the wealthy Chinese families, the South Koreans laughing...the American girl in sun glasses and a baseball cap who seemed lost in thought, playing Scissors, Rock, Cloth discreetly with herself..." Unknown to Clara she has walked right past Yuming and Yuming does not know she has passed the girl who carries her note and picture in her pocket.

A third encounter happens in the city of Sunma during the kite festival. Clara looking for a way to get to the pink factory she has spotted from the gondola, sees "...a Chinese kid run to one of the cabs, say something to the driver, and shove a wad of money into his hand before jumping into the backseat." Unknown to Clara this is Yuming using the last of her money to take the very ill Li to the hospital. But this gives her the idea to use the cab to try to find the pink factory.

The final encounter between Clara and Yuming happens at the Molihua Fountain in Shanghai which is the one thing that ties Clara, Lola and Yuming together. Clara, upon learning that the factory has been located by Chinese officials, feels that Yuming will probably be safe. After spreading Lola's ashes in the fountain, Clara leaves Yuming's photograph on the fountain ledge securing it with a stone. As she walks through the narrow archway out of the park, Clara steps "...aside to let two girls in matching blue sweatshirts pass by. The way their arms are linked, they remind me of Lola and myself-- how we were, and how we could have been -- and I wonder if they're sisters. I smile at them. They both smile back at me."  Earlier, Yuming describes how she and Jing, waiting for their train to Shanghai, buy a package of food and "two matching blue sweatshirts." Unbeknownst to Clara and Yuming, they have met and even smiled at one another. At the end of the novel Yuming mentions looking at her framed photograph of herself and Wai Po and Wai Gong - the one she sent with her note, which Jing found at the fountain. It's also possible that Yuming now realizes that someone has seen her note in the purse.

Although Clara set out on a journey to China to help and unknown girl, Yuming, it is this quest which helps Clara begin to heal from the loss of her sister Lola. Clara realizes that she undertook the quest of trying to save Yuming because she could not save Lola. When she learns that the Chinese authorities are now investigating the factory, she is able to let go of Yuming and accept that she will likely be fine. Returning to the fountain where Lola was found as an abandoned baby, Clara releases Lola's ashes, bringing her closure and acceptance.

"The stone tiers of the fountain shine under a coat of dew. The drops are sparkling like glitter -- like tiny drops of life -- and I step closer to the edge. I stand in the spot where Lola was found almost fourteen years ago, and I think about all the layers of living that are always passing over and under one another like threads in a tapestry."

Although Clara could not directly see these layers and how they pass over and around and under one another, she has come to understand this because of the fountain which is the connection between herself and Yuming. It was where Lola was found and it was where Yuming's picture was taken. And unknown to both girls it is where their lives finally connect for one brief, happy moment. It is these connecting threads that weave the tapestry of our lives.

Threads  that takes recent events of consumers having found notes in merchandise made in Chinese prisons and factories, from Chinese workers asking for help. These notes often mention deplorable working and living conditions in specific factories. The fact that these notes reach people halfway around the world, exposes the global interconnectedness we all have to one another, even if we never meet face to face, even if we don't recognize those connections. 

Polonsky has taken these events and crafted a story that features two young girls, worlds apart whose lives briefly touch and yet they never actually meet.  At the heart of the story is one's girl's struggle to deal with the loss of a sister, while the other girl must deal with the loss of family and freedom.  Ami Polonsky writes in her Author's Note, "Sometimes I lie in bed at night and think about the fact that my life is, in one way or another, connected to every single other life on the planet. It's as though there are invisible threads that bind us all, and occasionally, when I envision these invisible threads, they feel charged with unseen energy. Every now and then, like in the cases of the man in the factory and the woman in New York, and Clara and Yuming, an invisible thread becomes exposed. The energy creates tangible, visible sparks and, from these sparks, come stories."

Threads asks young readers to consider these invisible threads and to try to recognize them.

Book Details:

Threads by Ami Polonsky
New York: Disney Hyperion     2016
pp. 240

Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee

Gemini is a very unique novel that tackles a very different reality, that of conjoined twins. Hailey and Clara are two seventeen year olds who share the lower end of their spinal column as well as their intestinal tract. They are "two complete, full-size people, with two normal, fully functioning brains" who share sensation in the lower half of their bodies. While they may share the lower part of their bodies, Hailey and Clara are very different persons. Hailey is outgoing, with pink hair, a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, edgy black eye makeup and is determined to become an artist. Clara is shy, dressing blandly to avoid being noticed and fascinated by astronomy. Hailey is opinionated but Clara who by her own accounts has "sharp" opinions keeps them to herself.

Hailey and Clara live with their parents in Bear Pass, a small (fictitious) town in California. Their family moved to the town to avoid the stares and curiosity of strangers.  Their parents teach at Sutter College, a private four-year college where their father is a tenured professor in literary theory and British poetry, and their mother is a lecturer. The small town means that most people know them and leave them alone.

When they hear that a new guy is coming to Bear Pass the twins are anxious but in different ways; Clara worries how they will be perceived and Hailey just wants someone interesting. The new guy, Max first appears in their AP English class. He's tall with blond hair, and has moved to Bear Pass from Los Angeles. While Hailey is not interested, Clara most definitely is. The twins learn from Bridget that Max appears to have an interest in astronomy so they along with best friend Juanita scheme to arrange a trip to the Sutter College observatory with Max. Their school is having a Sadie Hawkins dance and Juanita believes an outing to the observatory will give Clara a chance to ask Max to the dance. Meanwhile in art class, which Clara hates, Hailey talks to fellow art student Alek Drivakis whom she finds attractive. Like Hailey, Alek has a bit of an edge; he likes to wear black and his artwork frequently features corpses or fires.

At the Sandwich Shack, Juanita reveals that one of the teachers is pressuring her to apply to Stanford and other high level colleges. However because of costs and her mother's fears and reservations, Juanita plans to attend college locally despite being an excellent student. For Hailey this seems wrong because while she and Clara are stuck attending Sutter College which has about 500 students, she knows that Juanita will be able to obtain a full scholarship at Stanford. Even Hailey is not happy attending Sutter because it means her ambition to attend a good art school will not be realized. While the three are discussing their future plans along with another friend Bridget, Max arrives. Max tells the group that he has moved to Bear Pass from Santa Monica in his senior year because of circumstances involving his father. When Hailey asks Max to join them at the Sutter observatory so Clara can show him the stars, Max clams up and ends up leaving the café in anger.

At home the twins find their mother upset over American conjoined twins undergoing separation surgery in San Francisco. Clara and Hailey's mother believes the parents and the doctors are taking unnecessary risks in order for the twins to live independently. As with her own twins she believes the surgery is wrong. While Clara and Hailey's mother is opposed to them undergoing separation surgery, leaving Bear Pass or even doing day trips, their father is more open and encouraging, offering to take them to San Francisco.  Clara becomes angry at her mother over this, indicating that separating twins is not always wrong. Her confrontation with their mother surprises Hailey who decides that she is asking Alek to the Sadie Hawkins dance and she tells Carla that she should ask Max.

At lunch hour the next day they meet Alek who tells Hailey that he is applying for a summer program at  Golden Gate Arts in San Francisco. It's a three week intensive working with real artists. Alek encourages Hailey to apply and to plan to stay in the dorms. With Alek seeming very comfortable around her, Hailey asks Alek to the dance and he accepts. When Clara meets Max a few minutes later, she decides to make it difficult for him and tells him that Friday is his last chance to come with her to the observatory. Max reluctantly agrees to meet Clara but it turns out that he had planned to watch the Orionid meteor shower at his home. So Max turns the invitation around and invites Clara to his house as well as their friends.

Hailey manages to convince Clara to let her apply for the summer art intensive that Alek mentioned and at least go for the interview. Their meteor-watching get-together which includes Max's friends Josh and Gavin as well as Clara and Hailey's friend, Juanita initially goes well until Lindsey, Vanessa and Jasmine arrive. As Lindsey makes a move on Max and attempts to get rid of Hailey and Clara, Max becomes angry and his mom sends everyone home.

The next event Hailey and Clara attend is Amber's Halloween party which sees Hailey dress up as Galinda while Clara is the Wicked Witch. Max is at the party as the Tin Man and he and Clara make arrangements to go to the observatory at Sutter. Max explains to Clara what happened at his house telling her he was once a special-ed kid and that he has a major stuttering problem. Alek crashes Amber's party to question Hailey about applying to the summer art program. He offers to take her for an interview or to take her portfolio. Like the other social situations, Amber's Halloween party ends badly for the twins. Alek shows Hailey something on his phone that deeply upsets her and Clara overhears a conversation between Max and his friends about the twins that disgusts her.

These events begin to affect how Hailey and Clara view themselves and result in them reconsidering the future they have planned. They embark on a journey of self-discovery that leads them to several momentous decisions.

Discussion

Gemini is a novel about two teens with an unusual disability who struggle to take control of their future and to define themselves outside of their disability. Clara and Hailey are pygopagus twins joined at the base of the spine and sharing their gastrointestinal organs. Their parents, specifically their mother refused to allow them to be separated when they were young, although it appears their father did not completely agree with her decision and still has some doubts. Otherwise Clara and Hailey are physically healthy and thriving. Their family moved to a small town so that they could be protected from people who might want to take advantage of their unusual situation. But this isolation is beginning to bother the more extroverted twin, Hailey who is a gifted artist and who wants to study art at a good university, to travel and experience life more fully. Her quieter sister, Clara, finds Bear Paw just fine and is reluctant to travel anywhere where they might have to deal with many new people or situations. However Clara also finds her situation restrictive as she argues with their mother about how she has made assumptions about what life after separation might be like.

As the twins approach adulthood they must face the reality that friends and school mates will move on from the small town of Bear Pass. They come up against the reality of their situation, something they feel their parents have pretended doesn't exist. Both Clara and Hailey chafe at their parents efforts to portray them as "normal" because they know this is not really true. Carla tells Hailey, "I'm sure it's perfectly normal to have to share the job of putting out silverware because we can't be in two separate parts of the same room...I'm sure it's perfectly normal to always balance off the side of the toilet while your sister is peeing...I'm sure its perfectly normal...to have to spend your entire life in the world's smallest rural community so that no one will stare and point and laugh at you when you go out in public and see actual strangers." 

Hailey also dislikes how they pretend that they are normal but she recognizes why their parents do this because it is the simplest way to cope. "Normal, normal, normal. It's this idiotic mantra around our house. We claim we're normal. We build our lives around that lie. It's why we can't go anywhere, or do much of anything. If we did, we'd come up against the truth." But Hailey, even as a child knew they were not normal. "We were not like anyone else. Who besides us had two minds that understood each other perfectly? That worked in such perfect synchrony that they could operate their four legs and four arms in unison without discussion, giving them twice the strength of a regular child? Not to mention twice the imagination and bargaining power...We weren't normal. We were magical."

Beginning to face the reality that they are two people with different interests and goals in life but joined together leads them to experience some serious conflicts which is new as they usually "just work things out, often with very little discussion." Hailey accuses Clara of not caring about how she might feel about staying in Bear Pass and attending Sutter College which doesn't have the program she needs to further her art studies. "...your head is so crammed with your own problems, if you tried to make room for mine, your brain would burst open at the seams." This leads Clara to reconsider their choices and their future plans. She asks their parents to allow them to travel to San Francisco so that Hailey can interview for the art intensive. Clara does this because she believes that although she's satisfied with their lives and the plan for them, maybe Hailey is not. "All this time I'd been holding onto the idea that the life we'd planned -- or rather, the life our parents had planned for us, and that we'd accepted -- was the best that either of us could hope for. But maybe that wasn't true for Hailey. Maybe it was true only for me."

Hailey believes that it is wrong for their mother to limit their choices in life but she also knows she must work together with Clara to figure out their future. Hailey believes that art school and leaving Bear Pass likely won't happen but she knows there must be a change in their lives. So she decides to do what Clara has suggested and apply to film school at Sutter while hoping that she and Clara can live in a house or in a dorm at the college rather than at home. 

In addition to struggling with making their own decisions about their lives, both girls must now confront how their conjoinedness will affect their ability to date and to marry. Both girls meet boys they are attracted to but struggle with how those boys view them. Clara struggles with her attraction to Max and the fact that he doesn't feel the same.  She wonders how Max really views her and whether it matters. Clara also feels disgusted at herself. "It was me. I was disgusting. A mutant. Had I really forgotten that?" She remembers how her mother has explained they were to think about themselves. "The way we view ourselves has to come from the inside, not from the reflection that we see in other people's eyes." But Clara questions this advice. "But sometimes it seems to me that reflections are all we have. Without them, we could never see ourselves at all. "

At the same time Hailey is also very attracted to Alek. The situation reaches a turning point when the twins begin to assert some control over their lives by insisting that they be allowed to attend the Sadie Hawkins dance. Their mother at first refuses but then relents. Hailey wonders what their mother really believes about them. "Our mom was always carrying on about how normal we were and what normal lives we could lead, but I think we both began to understand that she didn't actually believe this. Or maybe in some ways she did, but not in others."

All of this plus the fact that Hailey wants to attend art school leads Clara to contact a surgeon about their situation and the possibility of separation. Hailey points out to Clara the lengthy recovery time from surgery as well as the possibility that one of them will die. But Clara admits that she is afraid she will be lonely once separated. She tells Hailey that she wants a chance at love and she wants freedom too. But Hailey tells her she isn't giving them a chance to see what they can accomplish.
"You're willing to die for that, Clara? We're only seventeen. We haven't really started our lives yet. We don't know what we can have and what we can make happen. Are we not going to give ourselves a chance?...I mean a chance at life as ourselves, Clara, without tearing ourselves apart."

It is Alek who shows the twins the way forward. From the beginning he tells the twins that he considers them special and he tells Hailey: "Though to be honest, I always thought it must be kind of cool, too. Like, how many people can say there's another person who understands everything about them?" When Hailey asks him if he really wants to be seen with them - two girls joined together and face the possibility that he will be called a freak, as Matt was,  he tells them "...I'd rather be a freak than a coward...What I mean is, I'd rather do what I really want to do, no matter what anyone thinks. And that's exactly what I'm doing."

Hailey's kiss with Alek makes Clara realize that she wants a full(er) life and not just a kiss from a boy. "...I wanted those things, but also a thousand other impossible things, and maybe a few possible ones too...All this wanting inside me was not going to go away. I couldn't turn it off. Something had been flickering to life inside me for years now, and it was growing steadier, and hotter too. If I tried to keep it buried much longer, I was going to go up in flames." What Clara has been wishing for all these years is being separated from Hailey - that she wants to escape Hailey. But Clara comes to realize that her fear of  how others will view them and what will be said is what is holding her back from leaving Bear Pass. Hailey explains to her that their conjoinedness is part of who they are and that they need to accept it and embrace it. That it can be part part of their strength.

Daisy and Violet Hilton

Overall, Mukherjee's novel was a very interesting exploration of an unusual medical condition and the ethical, social and personal issues involved. Her characters felt realistic and the situations the conjoined twins experienced, plausible. The title, Gemini, is a reference to the third astrological sign in the zodiac and refers to the twins Castor and Pollux.

Conjoined twins are a very rare medical condition. While most conjoined twins die in utero or shortly after birth, there have been several famous twins. One set of conjoined twins Mukherjee mentions in her novel, Daisy and Violet Hilton, were pygopagus twins born in 1908. They were abandoned by their single mother. The twins were bought by Mary Hilton who employed their mother, Kate Skinner. Mary Hilton and her husband trained the two girls as dancers and singers and then made them tour as sideshow performers. The twins were well known entertainers for many years starring in vaudeville and burlesque shows but their lives were strictly controlled and their earnings stolen from them.  Recently a documentary Bound by Flesh was made about the Hilton twins.

It's probable that in today's world, Violet and Daisy would have been separated as they were joined at the hip and spine and shared no major organs. Sadly Violet and Daisy died impoverished from the Hong Kong flu in 1969.

Gemini is an interesting novel, well done and will appeal to those who enjoy stories that focus on social and medical issues.

image credit: https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/06/18/the-original-hilton-sisters/

Book Details:

Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee
New York: Simon & Schuster     2016
326 pp.

The Secret Language of Sisters by Luanne Rice

Sixteen-year-old Ruth Ann (Roo) McCabe is on her way to pick up her younger sister Mathilda Mae (Tilly) at the river museum. It's four o'clock on a February Saturday afternoon. The Connecticut River is almost frozen over and Roo wants to get a few pictures of the beautiful scene for her portfolio for a scholarship contest. She desperately wants to attend Yale University, where her father studied years earlier. Roo and Tilly's father died last summer from a massive heart attack.Tilly is waiting impatiently and continues to text Roo as does Roo's boyfriend Newton and her best friend, Isabel.

After taking a few photographs, Roo gets in her Volvo and while driving towards the bridge leading into the town of Black Hall, she picks up her phone and sends a text: "mins away." In the three seconds she's looked down at her phone she finds her car has drifted off the road and into the path of a woman walking her dog. Attempting to avoid hitting both, Roo swerves, causing her car to somersault down the bank and lands on its roof in the frozen creek. Hanging upside down in the car, bleeding, Roo passes out.

Tilly is eventually picked up at the museum by Newton who informs her that Roo's been in a car accident. When Tilly sees Roo in the ER she is conscious but nauseous as well as complaining about her head hurting and her neck feeling stiff.  Suddenly Roo has a seizure and suffers what doctors diagnose as a "brain stem stroke affecting the basilar artery system." Roo's doctors tell her family that she is comatose. Roo's eyes are open and protruding, her face covered in bruises and dry spittle and her mouth pulled back, frozen in a silent scream. Doctors say she is "incapable of emotion" and she's on a ventilator to help her breathe. A newspaper story states that Roo who is not named, is "expected to remain in a vegetative state" and that the accident is being investigated to see whether drugs or alcohol were a factor. This upsets Tilly but Isabel tells Roo's mother that she was taking pictures and that they were texting about this. This leads Tilly to wonder if Roo actually pulled over before texting her that afternoon. Could she have been responsible for Roo's accident?

Unknown to Roo's family however, Roo can hear and understand everything but she is unable to respond. "I commanded my limbs to move, but they didn't. How bizarre. I was trapped, mummified." Roo finds she can't speak and she cannot move her limbs. "Then I realized, No, there are no straps. It's me -- I can't move. I can't speak. I can't get anyone to hear me. I must have looked like a lifeless lump, but inside my mind I was wild, alive, in agony, going crazy." Even worse for Roo is "not having my family realize that I was awake and completely conscious, hearing everything. How could they not know?"

Neither her family nor the doctors are aware that Roo is conscious. Dr. Sarah Danforth, a specialist in pediatric neurovascular disease isn't and neither are her nurses. Eventually Roo begins breathing on her own and is taken off the ventilator. Tilly expects that this will mean a big change in her sister but when she arrives at the hospital, she finds Roo still unresponsive. Dr. Danforth tells Tilly that Roo still doesn't feel emotion. Tilly struggles with guilt because she believes she is responsible for Roo's accident and she asks her sister if she is guilty of causing her accident. But Newton tells Tilly the accident was partly Roo's fault leading Tilly to become extremely angry at him and getting herself placed on probation at the hospital. Roo understands all of this but cannot respond.

Being trapped in her body leads Roo to reminisce her how she and Newton first became friends, began dating, and planned to attend college together. She wonders what she looks like to him now. She also remembers how her father died suddenly last summer on a perfect summer day when he came home and went to lie down before dinner and never woke up. As the days wear on, Roo has time to think about the accident and realizes that she was texting before the accident and that she has done this to herself.

Meanwhile at school, Tilly struggles to cope with her sister's situation. This is further complicated by Isabel who takes Tilly to the place where Roo had her accident and reveals that she has found Roo's missing cell phone. Isabel tells Tilly that she felt guilty because she had been texting Roo when she had her accident so she came out to look for Roo's phone. When she found it she took it home, charged it and discovered that it was not her text that caused the accident but Tilly's text. Roo's last text, "5 mins away" was sent to Tilly. Isabel insists that they need to tell someone and Tilly reluctantly agrees to tell her mother. The two girls meet Martha Muirhead who is the woman who was walking her dog Lucan the night of the accident. Martha tells Tilly that she is just like her sister who was concerned for the her dog. Martha asks Tilly to let Roo know Lucan is doing just fine.

Tilly takes Martha's advice and decides to tell Roo that the dog she hit is now doing fine. But she also wants to tell Roo that she was the cause of her accident. As Tilly is talking to Roo and closely watching her sister's face she makes an astonishing discovery. It is one that completely changes the doctors diagnosis and gives tremendous hope to Roo, her family and friends. Life will never be the same, but maybe Roo has a chance to reclaim some of what she lost in the accident with the help of those around her and the bond she shares with her sister Tilly. And at the same time, maybe Roo's tragedy can save others from the danger of texting while driving.

Discussion

In the novel, The Secret Language of Sisters, author Luanne Rice tackles several themes including distracted driving and locked-in syndrome.

Regarding distracted driving, the message is that texting while driving seems harmless enough but can lead to unimaginable consequences. Rice pulls no punches in demonstrating just how devastating a few seconds of inattention can be. Roo is an accomplished, attractive young woman with a brilliant future ahead of her.  She has a boyfriend, Newton who adores her. She planned to gain early acceptance at Yale and was in the process of developing her photography portfolio for the Serena Kader Barrois Foundation Photography Contest. This award offers a thousand dollar scholarship which would help her get into Yale.; After her accident readers learn that Roo's photographs are especially captivating, making her injury seem all the more tragic. 

Dr. Howarth, a specialist in facilitated communication who will help Roo learn to communicate with the world around her, views Roo's photographs and tells her, "Your photos say so much about you Roo. You have a beautiful soul and a brilliant eye. You capture the perfect instant of beauty and action, and somehow you translate that exact moment, and the feeling that goes with it, to the viewer." Yet in mere seconds, Roo loses all this because of texting while driving. The message is not lost; distracted driving kills and ruins lives.

The second issue to be explored in this novel involves an unusual neurological disorder. Although initially it seems that she's just banged up from the accident, Roo has a stroke and passes out. It turns out that although her doctors believe Roo is in a coma and refer to her as being in a vegetative state ( now more accurately termed unresponsive wakefulness syndrome) she is actually conscious but completely paralyzed and unable to talk.

In Roo's case she cannot blink, but as her sister discovers, Roo is able to move her left eye up and down.
" 'Can you please just,' she began, and I must have been exasperated, because all I could do was look up at the ceiling, a heaven-help-me moment. My eyeball flicked up and down. Tilly stopped mid-sentence, mouth dropping open. And then...
'Roo?'
I'm here!
'Oh God,' she said. 'Did you just look up? Did you just move your left eyeball? If you did, and you hear me, do it again.'
I did it again."

This condition of being fully conscious but unable to move or speak is called locked-in syndrome (LIS). In LIS, a person loses the ability to voluntarily move with the exception of vertical eye movement as in Roo's case or blinking. It is extremely rare and is caused by damage in the brain stem as a result of head trauma or a stroke. Generally it is family who makes the discovery that their loved one is aware and capable of understanding everything happening around them. Sometimes neuro-imaging tools such as functional MRI scans are capable of showing that a person may be conscious but locked-in. If a person is medically stable, LIS patients can live for ten to twenty years, although recovery from LIS is rare.

As Rice showcases in The Secret Language of Sisters, those with locked-in syndrome are able to communicate with the world in a few ways. Roo begins with simple yes answers and then onto using a letter board. Also portrayed in the novel is the use of brain-computer interface technology which at this point appears to be an unusual option for someone with LIS. Because she is capable of moving her eye up and down, this means that Dr. Howarth can develop an operating system for Roo to communicate. He tells her "...instead of your eye movement telling me which letter you want, your brain waves will speak directly to the laptop, and the words will appear." After Roo has a computer chip implanted in her brain she is able to quickly learn how to communicate. It is this new ability to communicate that really helps Roo because she has many issues to deal with as a result of the accident.

First she must come to terms with the fact that she is partly responsible for the situation she now finds herself in. But she is also angry at her sister. "If I hadn't texted Tilly back, that wouldn't have happened; and if Tilly hadn't barraged me with a thousand impatient texts, I never would have reached for my phone."
She is also upset that what happened to her is in the media and her tragedy is being used in an awareness campaign by her mother and that Isabel has changed her portfolio submission to feature her situation. The pictures of how she now looks horrify Roo. Dr. Howarth puts things into perspective for Roo when he tells her, "As much as it hurts, Roo, this story will help others, keep them from texting behind the wheel. You have to know that. People's lives will be saved because of you." Roo also observes a growing attraction between her sister Tilly and her boyfriend Newton, making her angry, "crazed and jealous." Although Isabel and Newton both deny this possibility, Roo is certain of what she sees.

As Roo struggles to cope with significant changes in both her life and the lives of those around her, Dr. Howarth understands, telling her, "It's very hard to let go of things we love most, to accept that life changes." Roo remembers a line from her favourite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, "We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it." Roo has done this with the father she lost last year and now must do it with Newton.

One of the themes The Secret Language of Sisters focuses on is the special bond sisters have with one another. Roo and Tilly had a special bond before her accident. Roo was the big sister, popular, pretty and smart who always looked out for Tilly. After the accident their roles are reversed as it is now Tilly who must advocate for Roo. Tilly who is wracked with guilt over texting her sister, believes that bond no longer exists. Her guilt over the text is also compounded by her growing attraction to Newton, whom she becomes close to and eventually kisses. Distraught over what has happened between herself and Roo, Tilly goes to see Martha Muirhead. Martha feels they have a connection because they both have sisters and they both feel responsible for what happened to them. She tells Tilly that a person has to use their talents to heal and survive and that it is the same with Roo. For Martha and her sister Althea, their love of singing was their secret language. She tells Tilly their bond may be damaged but it is not broken.

When Martha goes to visit Roo she reveals how similar she and Althea were to her and Tilly. She tells Roo that their relationship can't be broken because they are sisters and they speak the same language - they care about each other. "You get to be a sister only because you have Tilly. Without each other, that goes away. You're still beautiful and talented, but you're not a sister. It's the alchemy of sisters, Roo."

Rice ends her novel in an upbeat way, with Roo focusing on the positive, on what she still has and not on what she has lost. She forgives her sister and Newton, understanding that the relationships between her, Tilly and Newton have changed. Like the Martha and Althea relationship, Tilly and Newton realize that maybe because they both love Roo, they were hurting and sought solace in each other. Tilly begins to recognize Slater's interest in her and his support of Tilly draws her away from Newton. Meanwhile Newton demonstrates to Roo that he still deeply loves her and he is not planning to abandon her. He tells her, "You are my north star. Will you try to keep going with me?" He recognizes the girl he loves is still there, "Inside, you're the same as ever, so beautiful and smart, making me keep up with you."  and he makes it possible for Roo to continue to use her talent for photography.

The Secret Language of Sisters is a beautiful novel about the connections sisters share, and about how those connections can endure through even the worst of times. It is also a timely warning about the dangers of texting and driving and how life can change in the span of seconds.

Book Details:

The Secret Language of Sisters by Luanne Rice
New York: Point, an imprint of Scholastic Canada 2016
336

Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan

Love and Other Foreign Words is a delightful book about a young woman trying to understand the nature of love as she experiences her first love and comes to terms with her older sister's upcoming marriage.

Josie can't figure out how someone knows they are in love.  How can she possibly learn the language of love?

Fifteen year old Josie Sheridan has an IQ of 154, making her a genius. Josie lives with her parents in Bexley, a tony suburb of Columbus, Ohio. Her mom is an instructor at The Ohio State University's College of Nursing. She has two older sisters, Magdeleine (Maggie) who is a pediatrician and married to Ross, a pediatric endocrinologist and Katriane (Kate) who is a drug sales representative for a pharmaceutical company.

Josie spends a great deal of her time at her neighbour, Stu Wagemaker's, house which is across the street from hers. According to Josie, sixteen year old Stu is a "love-'em-and-leave-'em type" having had many girlfriends over a short period of time. Stu however insists he is not.

The novel opens with Kate visiting her family for dinner and telling everyone about her boyfriend Geoff. Kate wants her family to meet Geoff whom she is very serious about and arranges for them to come to dinner on the following Friday. Dinner on Friday proves to be a disaster to Josie who takes an immediate dislike to Geoff especially after she discovers that Kate is engaged to be married to this strange man. 

Geoff who is the director of the medical library at Mount Carmel West, doesn't help matters much with his highbrow, intellectual attitude. Intending to impress Kate's parents he introduces himself as Geoffrey Stephen Brill and spends the evening attempting to impress the Sheridan's with his knowledge of a vast array of topics. In a hilarious exchange, Josie proves to be a match for him in terms of intelligence and wit. Josie can't understand the language of Geoff any more than she can understand the language of Kate loving him. He's an insufferable dork and all Josie knows is that she has to make Kate see this.

Josie's father encourages her to give Geoff "more of a chance than this one evening", but Josie is determined to stop Kate's marriage. When she calls Kate to try to talk her out of the marriage, Kate reminds Josie that she is only fifteen and has no real experience with love, something Josie is keenly aware of. She has gone out with exactly three people in her life, including Stefan Kott who revealed to her that he asked her to the homecoming dance because she was tall. 

Josie and Stu, who both have I.Q.'s in the 150's, attend classes at Capital University, nicknamed Cap. They are just finishing their freshman year as part of their high school's Early College Program, meaning they will graduate from high school later but finish college earlier. Their mornings are spent at Cap and they return to Bexley High in the afternoons. Josie has a fascination with language and has declared her major at Cap as Romance languages. She is constantly exploring how people relate to one another in terms of language. The language of high school is Ohmig*d because this phrase is used so much for so many meanings. Now if Kate could only figure out the language of Geoff and figure out how the language of Kate has changed.

In order to gain some experience in love, Josie asks Stu's sister, Sophie, to find her a date for prom. That date turns out to be Stefan. Josie tells Stu that she's having a hard time relating to Stefan. Stu advises her that "Relationships are tricky. You need to speak the same language. Or learn each other's, but that doesn't always work."  They meet a few times and see each other at school but Josie finds herself struggling to connect with Stefan and to learn his language. While they try to see each before prom, Josie's upcoming dinner with Kate, and Stefan's plans prevent them from doing so.

Josie goes to visit Kate at her condo in German Village with plans to shop for a prom dress and spend the evening together. However, the night turns into a disaster starting with Kate telling Josie that she's not only going to have to get contacts for the wedding but also have her ears pierced. And the surprise she planned turns out to be Geoff cooking dinner - a dinner that ends up in his lap, along with a glass of wine. The resulting catastrophe leaves Kate not talking to Josie who insists that it was all an accident.

On prom night Kate does eventually show up before Josie and Stefan leave for the dance. The prom turns out to be a turning point for Josie and Stefan when he confesses to Josie that he could fall in love with her. But when he asks Josie if she feels the same way she has no idea what to say, because as it turns out she doesn't feel that way at all about him. Prom results in two break-ups, Sarah breaks off with Stu and Stefan breaks up with Josie.

Josie and Stu return to classes in the fall, as seniors in high school and sophomores at Cap. Stu has broken up with Amanda Meyers, seeming to prove Josie's assertion about the type of guy he is, while his sister Sophie has broken up with Adam Gibson and is "determined to fall in love with Josh Brandstetter". But when Josie arrives for her soc class at Cap she instantly falls for a new guy, Ethan Glaser who turns out to be the instructor for the course. Despite the age difference (Ethan is 10 years older) Josie is certain what she feels for Ethan is love as they seem to speak the same language. Over the time of the course, Josie discovers that Ethan seems to understand what it's like to be gifted. At the sidelines is Stu whom Josie has noticed has filled out over the summer and grown a beard.

As Kate's wedding approaches, Kate becomes increasingly critical of Josie's appearance which only serves to push Josie even more against her wedding to Geoff.  Even during Josie's sixteenth birthday dinner, Kate continues to talk about her wedding. To help her cope with the changes going on in her life, her dad gives Josie a journal to write down her feelings. Kate and Josie's relationship finally collapses into war when Kate's criticism of Josie in front her bridesmaids, her mother and the seamstress at a fitting push Josie to tears. She tells Kate that she will ruin her day if she doesn't stop leading to an escalating series of threats between the two. During this time Josie begins to work out her feelings for Ethan but also comes to a realization about Stu, who has silently been waiting while speaking her language all along.

Discussion

Readers will find the first half of Love and Other Foreign Words filled with humour before the novel gets down to more seriousness in the second half as Josie attempts to determine what love is and come to terms with her sister's marriage. 

Josie and her friends struggle to understand the nature of love while coming to the realization of some truths about love. For example, after Emily Newall breaks up with Nick Adriani and then days later, reconciles with him, she tells Josie that love and hate are very similar and that you can feel both at the same time. Josie puzzles over Stu dating girls for a short period of time only to inexplicably dump them, until later in the novel she learns why it is that he does this. When Josie finds herself attracted to Ethan, at first she believes this is love or could lead to love but later on, in a truly heartrending conversation with her sister, Josie begins to doubt that what she feels is love. That is confirmed when Kate cruelly sets up Ethan with her best friend Madison Orr,  partly in an act of revenge and partly to show Josie that he is too old for her and that what she feels is a crush.

As Josie ponders what she feels for Ethan and what Kate and Geoff have, she comes to realize that people know they are in love when they speak the same language. Josie realizes that Kate and Geoff speak the same language and it does not include her. This is hard for her to accept because she feels left out. She also comes to the conclusion that people who are good friends and who are in love have a special language. Josie realizes that these are people we can "connect with on that deep level of language that doesn't just allow us to be ourselves with each other but allows us to be understood, even when we're not saying anything."  Silence -- awkward or comfortable -- is a language too. Awkward silence screams, 'We have nothing in common.' Comfortable silence proves just how much we do." 

McCahan has created a lovely cast of characters in this novel; real, engaging and each very different. Josie is a clever girl who is feels deeply insecure about losing her sister to a man she barely knows, and who is beginning to ask some questions about love. She wants to break up Kate and Geoff because she feels that he's wrong for her, but more importantly that he will change her relationship with Kate and change the Sheridan family dynamics. Josie is afraid that Kate is replacing her with Geoff, but later on Kate assures her that she is not but that Geoff is much like Josie, which is why she loves him so much.

The most unlikeable character in the novel was Kate. Wedding planning turned her into a bridezilla, manipulative and mean. What was particularly nasty was Kate's criticism of her younger sister's body and looks. Kate determined that in order for her to have the perfect wedding, Josie needed to get contacts, get her ears pierced and possibly get her hair cut. Kate's lack of consideration towards her sister whom she supposedly is very close to is appalling and deeply hurts Josie.
"Done," Kate says, "I mean, her glasses are cute for every day."
"Oh, sure, but not a wedding."
"Well, not my wedding. They'll look ridiculous," Kate says. "I'm working on getting her ears pierced now. And the padded bra" -- she points at my reflected bust -- "was the best I could do for her figure."
"Are you aware that I am three feet away from you and not deaf?" I ask them both as I twist around, furious, and interrupt my seamstress's work.
"Josie, we're just talking," Kate says.
"About all of my ridiculous flaws. I know. I heard."
"No," Kate corrects me a bit more harshly than I think I deserved. "About my wedding and how my bridesmaids, including my sister, are going to look so that no one looks ridiculous."

When Josie tries to tell her sister that she is not critical of her other bridesmaids, Kate adds further insult by saying she doesn't have to be. Sadly Kate and Josie's mother does very little to rein Kate in, allowing the situation between the two sisters to grow increasingly hostile and setting the stage for an all out battle later on. Brides are allowed to determine the dress and shoes their bridesmaids will wear and the bouquets they will carry. They do not have the right to insist that bridesmaids get contacts, breast implants, nose rings or whatever else to make their wedding "perfect".  Kate's words come back to haunt her as it is Josie who defines "ridiculous" at Kate's wedding. Overall, this was an interesting if brief exploration of wedding culture and the insanity it can bring into families when the focus is lost on superficial things.

One thing that felt odd about Kate and Geoff's relationship was that Kate who lived only fifteen minutes from her parents home, never brought Geoff to meet them until she was engaged. This might be understandable if Kate lived halfway across the country but that wasn't the situation.  And even then, most couples would travel home bringing their partner to meet their family. This seemed strange, especially given that Kate's family was described as a close one.  Kate could have prevented much of the alienation Josie felt if she had brought Geoff to meet her family sooner. Josie would have gradually come to know Geoff, eventually realizing that he was a pretty decent fellow. As it is, she does eventually come to this conclusion but only after much heart break. Josie realizes that Geoff understands her more than she originally thought - that's why he was able to counter some of what Josie did to Kate.

The ending was wonderfully done. After what Kate put Josie through for her wedding, it's satisfying that Josie manages to outwit both Kate and Geoff and make Kate's remark about how no one was going to look ridiculous come back to bite her! Touche! Well written, humorous and at times deeply touching, Love and Other Foreign Words is a great read about sisterhood, love and boys!

Book Details:
Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan
New York: Dial Books         2014
pp. 331

All These Lives by Sarah Wylie

Most people think the biggest sacrifice, the greatest act of love you can give is to die for someone. And probably it is.
But sometimes it is the opposite.
The biggest thing you can do for someone is to live.

Finally a Canadian novel with an interesting cover that might actually appeal to Canadian readers!

Danielle (Dani) Bailey is twin sister to Jena who has cancer. Jena's leukemia has not responded to treatment and she needs a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately, Dani is not a suitable marrow donor and all she can do is simply watch her sister suffer and perhaps draw closer to death.

When she was younger, Dani survived both a serious car accident and a serious chest infection, Dani's mother has always told her how she was "the girl with nine lives." Later on, her Uncle Stephan tells Dani about the history of the nine lives myth - that when a cat loses one of its nine lives, that life is released into the universe to be caught by another. This misguided and very strange belief that she has nine lives, leads Dani to engage in behaviours she hopes will rid herself of her remaining seven lives, allowing Jena to grab one and be well again.

When Dani isn't trying to harm herself, she is busy being sarcastic to everyone, embarrassing cute Jack Penner whose family is also dealing with a difficult situation, auditioning for a toothpaste commercial, and ticking off Candi and Spencer, two people she truly dislikes at school.

But every time Jena's health takes a downturn, Dani decides to do something that will cause her to come close to dying. Her mother soon recognizes that Dani needs help and sends her to a therapist. Of course, Dani isn't co-operative and is her usual sarcastic self to the therapist. But it is when she commits an act that almost leads to her death, that Dani realizes that she must face her greatest fear, which is not of her sister dying but of living to see her suffer.

Discussion

Sarah Wylie's debut, All These Lives, is a strange, heart-rending account of a young girl struggling to cope with her twin sister's incurable cancer. What makes this novel so intriguing is that the focus of the novel is not on the character with the disease, but on her sister and family.

In Dani, Wylie has crafted a character who is disagreeable, but also tragic. Dani's constant sarcasm is irritating but it's also part of Dani's limited way of coping with her sister's illness. Readers will probably develop a healthy dislike for Dani, but by the end we begin to appreciate just how difficult her family's circumstances are. Part of her problem is the way her parents are also coping. Dani can't ever talk about "IT", her sister illness, because in her family this is a topic to be avoided at all costs. "Even now, it's still hard for him to say it. I don't blame him. It's an icky word. Why couldn't whoever was in charge of naming things call cancer "sugar" and sugar "cancer"? People might not eat so much of the stuff then. and it's so much more pleasant to die of sugar."

Another part of Dani's inability to cope is that fact that despite being a twin, she cannot donate the one thing her sister needs most - bone marrow. This leaves her feeling devastated and frustrated, and determined to help her sister in the only way she knows.

All These Lives offers a unique treatment of young people and cancer, is well written, evenly paced, and a good first novel for Canadian author, Sarah Wylie. Readers might also like to contrast this novel with  The Fault in Our Stars by John Green which also deals with young people coping with a terminal illness.

Book Details:
All These Lives by Sarah Wylie
New York: Margaret Ferguson Books 2012
248 pp.

Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart

It is the late summer of 1876 and the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia is on. Seventeen-year-old Katherine's twin sister Anna died this past February 6th and she is convinced it was her fault. So one hot September day, Katherine sets out for the exhibition determined to end her life.  

After the death of Anna in February, Katherine had taken to walking the ridge along the river or the heights of St. George's Hill, trying to find the courage for what she plans to do. Meanwhile her father and mother appear to have gone on living, having breakfast served by their cook, Jeannie Bea and reading their morning papers. Her father who works at the Philadelphia National Bank, is constantly looking for trends and indicators for the future, while her mother is preoccupied with women's rights, and tea and crackers. There was no investigation in to Anna's death.

Katherine has waited on their front porch for her mother to come home from one her many ladies' meetings, or outside her bedroom door hoping for the chance to tell her what happened. "Let me tell you what has happened, she has tried to say. Blame me so that you might forgive me, so that I might forgive myself." 

But her mother simply insists that the past remain in the past and that they look to the future. Katherine knows that when she is gone, life for her parents will simply go on as before.

So on this day Katherine has chosen the Colosseum as the place "she will fly and soon feel nothing." She enters the Colosseum at 4PM and takes the Otis elevator to the balconied tower. There are stairs to cliimb higher, but also a set of  then windows above the cyclorama that lead out onto the roof. From there it is a straight drop onto the street. "The smack of absolution."  Once out on the roof, Katherine now has to wait until five o'clock when the crowds leave.

When a hawk perches near her and stares at the window, Katherine realizes that Bennett, her sister Anna's lover has followed her. He's been following her for months. With one leg out the window he tells her not to do what she's planning, that this is not what Anna would want. He pulls her through the window ending her attempt.

Katherine and Anna had been born twenty minutes apart, with Katherine the younger of the twins. They both had ginger hair and green-gray eyes. Anna was more inquisitive, and the one who seems to indulge in risky behaviour. Katherine always was on guard,  They attended Girls' High and Normal School on Sergeant Street where there were classes in algebra and Shakespeare. Anna liked to pass notes to Mary Phelps at the back of the class. Then last April something changed.

Anna had revealed that the boy at the bakery on Walnut likes her. Whenever they came to the bakery, he'd give Anna something extra, sweet rolls or a slice of coconut pie. So that afternoon in April, while their father was at lunch at Union and their mother was hosting a butter sculptor, Anna had decided not to attend her lesson at Miss Louise's School of Elocution. After sending Jeannie Bea to let the school know she asked Katherine to accompany her to Crowell & Granger, then to the tailor as DeWees. Anna states that she has a gift for Bennett, however, Katherine reminds her that her father hopes to marry her to Alan Carver. But Anna is not interested in Alan. At Crowell's, aided by Mrs. Childress, Anna choses material for new dresses for their seventeenth birthday. And afterward, Anna had visited Bennett in the bakery. Katherine realized that night that Anna had fallen in love with Bennett, the baker's boy.

Once again Katherine decides to make another attempt to end her life. With her mother off to yet another meeting at Mrs. Gillespie's, she leaves her home on Delancey and takes the streetcar to the Trans-Continental Hotel. Katherine follows a young girl with a white bird in a cage and ends up at the Operti's Tropical Garden where Guiseppie Operti and his orchestra will be performing that night, and where the girl's father plays the clarinet. The young girl lets her white bird, named Snow out of its guilded cage to fly around the beautiful space that is painted with gorgeous frescoes. Katherine returns home.

On September 9, Katherine finds herself at the Centennial's south gate above the Schuylkill River and wanders through the exhibition until she reaches the west entrance and is exhausted. Katherine remembers the events of last August during the summer before Anna's death in February. Their father announced that they would be vacationing with the Carvers during the third week of August at Cape May. Anna was not happy about this as she wants nothing to do with Alan Carver, the boy her father is set on having her marry. Katherine and Anna quarrelled as Katherine attempted to get her sister to stop lying and to tell their father what's been going on. Anna doesn't do this even as Katherine diverts Alan's attentions by dancing two valses with him.

Still seated at the Centennial Exhibition, Katherine recalls a particular November day. The two sisters had gone out to do shopping errands that morning after breakfast. But they also stop at the bakery where Anna has Katherine stand watch as she goes in and spends time with Bennett. While she is standing by the door, a young man named William stops by wanting to enter the bakery. William peers into the window and he and Katherine see Anna and Bennett kissing. Ashamed and overhearing Anna tell Bennett that she is forever disappointing Katherine, she leaves and goes home alone. It is at this point that Katherine decides to leave Anna to herself: she spends time with someone else at school, she walks  home alone and doesn't speak to her sister for weeks.

But it is the events of New Years Eve that finally make Katherine reach a decision regarding Anna. Katherine decides that she can no longer save Anna. "That night Katherine gave up trying to talk sense into Anna. That night she did not try to argue her twin sister out of her gargantuan joy; she did not try to save her. It was then that Katherine decided to begin to look the other way on purpose, but this time without anger, without the intent to prove a point. She decided to stop protecting Anna, so that she might love her more truly."

It is this decision that Katherine believes makes her responsible for Anna's death. She stopped watching out for Anna. Still intent on ending her life, it is a series of events that September day at the Centennial Exhibition, meeting Bennett, comforting the little girl who has lost her bird Snow, and meeting William that help Katherine face the reality of Anna's accidental death and how living her life is the answer to her unspeakable loss.

Discussion

Dangerous Neighbors is a historical fiction novel about the coming of age of twin sisters set against the backfrop of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadephia. 

The Centennial International Exhibition was held from May 10 to November 10, 1876 in Philadelphia. The exposition was located at the Fairmont Park along the Schuylkill River. Instead of one large building there were five main buildings along with numerous smaller exhibition buildings that featured different nations. Katherine visits the Colosseum, a round building which exhibited a cyclorama entitled "Paris by Night". It was an immersive oil painting that extended from floor to ceiling to create the illusion of being in Paris. The Colusseum building also featured a tower that exposition visitors could climb.

Kephart ably describes the fair and gives modern readers a sense of the setting with the modern up-to-date novelties on display at the fair across the street from Shantytown with its prostitutes and hucksters and the squalor of its wooden shacks. "The wonders of the world slide past. Parisian corsets cavorting on their pedestals. Vases on lacquered shelves. Folding beds. Walls of cutlery. The sweetest assortment of sugar-coated pills, all set to sail on a yacht.....   At the intersection of the main aisle and the central transept is a palace of jewels: Tiffany, Starr & Marcus, Caldwell. ...See these cinnamon colored cameos; this diamond necklace; these perfect solitaires; these black, white, and pink pearls...."

The novel also incorporates the Shanty Town fire that occurred in Philadelphia on September 9, 1876. The fire began in an establishment on Elm Street across from the Centennial International Exhibition. Although Philadelphia had banned the construction of wooden buildings, Elm Street was filled with restaurants and hotels. The fire spread from the Broadway Oyster House to surrounding buildings very quickly.

The novel opens with Katherine attempting to jump from the Colosseum building at the Centennial International Exhibition. Katherine is wracked with guilt over her twin sister Anna's death in February. Anna died in an accident while skating on the Schuylkill River.  Their relationship has been frought with tension and dysfunction.  Although Katherine was the younger of the twins, somehow she had taken on the role of the older, protective twin, always watching out for her more self-absorbed, reckless and impulsive sister. With their parents seemingly disengaged and absorbed in their own lives, it fell to Katherine to be watchful and on guard. She felt responsible for her sister. Katherine was "responsible for interrupting Anna's drift towards the perilous, for fixing the fences and defining the borders, the edges, the ends. Anna listened to Katherine when it was important, because Katherine's talent had never been beauty; it was saving, rescue." 

Unable to save Anna that past February, Katherine is experiencing intense guilt. As she spends time at the Centennial Exhibition Katherine has time to remember the months leading up to the accident. The April prior to her death, Anna had become interested in Bennett, a boy outside her social class who worked at the bakery on Walnut. When Katherine learns of Anna's attachment she warns her that their father has Alan Carver "in mind" for her. And so when they go out on a shopping trip that ends in a stop at the bakery, Katherine goes along "To make sure that nothing unforgiveable happened in the pitch of an adventure."  That night Katherine realizes that "Anna had fallen in love with Benett: Katherine had lost her."  

During their vacation at Cape May, Katherine found herself caught in the middle. Her father suspects something isn't quite right with Anna but Katherine, caught in the middle, feels she cannot reveal her sister's secret. "She wanted to confess the truth and be done with it."And so when they are alone Katherine attempts to point out their father is doing what he believes is best for her, but Anna is having none of it stating that it is all a charade and that  "They've put me on the auction block"  Katherine  reminds Anna that she has been forced to be responsible for Anna and that she should have been honest about what was going on with Bennett. Katherine begs her to tell father about Bennett, stating "But you have to tell Father about Bennett, Anna, and soon. Promise me that. You've turned us both into liars." Katherine tells Anna that she is being unfair to their parents, to Bennett, and to her by putting her in the middle.  Although Katherine feels abandoned by Anna, she loves her sister too much to do the right thing and tell their parents. 

However, after Cape May Anna continues to lie, sneaking out even during the night to see Bennett.This continues throughout the fall and even during New Years celebrations, and finally to the day the two sisters go skating on the Schuylkill River. The circunstances of Anna's death are not revealed until well into the novel. While Katherine is enjoying learning how to spin on ice skates, Anna skates towards the dam and falls through the thin ice, Bennett unable to save her.

After Anna's death, Bennett has been attempting to talk to Katherine for months, even writing letters to her, but she has spurned all his attempts. His concern for Katherine leads Bennett to save her from the first attempt to end her life.  Eventually Katherine and Bennett meet a second time, on September 9th in the Main Exhibition Hall. She accuses Bennett of not saving Anna and of stealing Anna from her. She is referring to the loss of Anna well before she died and their secret Katherine is now forced to keep forever, of Anna and Bennett. He tells her that he could not save Anna and that she is not responsible for her sister's death. Faced with this reality, Katherine's identity is shattered. "For if Katherine isn't needed for anything, if she is no longer responsible for Anna, who is she now? What can she give?" 

As she reflects after Bennett leaves, Katherine realizes that she had to let go of her sister, in order to keep at least some part of Anna's heart. She remembers,  "By October, Katherine understood that she had this choice: either settle her debts with her sister, or lose her altogether. There could be no more fighting about Bennett. No more accusations, either way...She would leave Anna and her lies and her Bennett be, for the return of at least some fraction of Anna's heart."  This was very difficult for Katherine because she has been so enmeshed with watching out for Anna's recklessness. It is why she feels so guilty over her sister's death.

After the fire, when Katherine is searching for William the young man who finds lost animals and whom she has seen before near her home, she comes to the realization that Bennett really tried to save Anna, that he would have gone after her but they wouldn't let him. She knows she must forgive both him and herself. As she's searching to make sure William is safe after helping rescue animals from the Shanty Town fire, Katherine encounters the little girl who is looking for her bird, Snow. When the little girl asks Katherine what will happen if Snow isn't found, Katherine tells her, "Then you will always have Snow in your heart..."  Katherine has stumbled upon the realization that in moments of desolate loss, one needs to go on living. That in living, the memory of Anna will live on too. "Anna in her heart, she thinks. Katherine living, staying alive, so that Anna lives within."

The novel takes its title from a phrase Katherine's father offers during their stay at Cape May. While talking about Anna, Katherine's father tells her that the world is changing and that Anna doesn't understand, "that there are among us dangerous neighbors." Katherine wonders if the baker's son is a "dangerous neighbor".  Later on she twice sees a young man, with "wheat-colored hair" and eyes "...the color of a river at night". The young man is not from her social status: she's seen him capturing a pig in a neighbor's yard and then sees him again outside the bakery. He speaks to Katherine but he has no business speaking to her. "He was from another side of town. He was from another place. Dangerous neighbors, her father has said... Katherine studied him, decided against deciding he was handsome, though he was --- undeniably he was." At the end of the novel, Katherine decides to act on her attraction to William - a man who seems respectful and whom she admires because he rescues things that are lost. 

Although the novel focuses on the emotional turmoil of the surviving twin Katherine, her parents are remote, secondary characters,  a common feature in young adult novels. Katherine and Anna's parents seem self-absorbed and almost completely disengaged from their daughters' lives. There appears to be no repercussions to Anna's rude treatment of Alan Carver and Anna appears to come and go without her parents even remotely aware of her activities. And her visits to the bakery and even kissing Bennett in the store seem unrealistic - one wonders where was the baker?

While Dangerous Neighbors is an intriguing novel, its structure is somewhat confusing. Instead of chapters the novel might have been better divided into Present and Past. The reader doesn't know how Anna died until near the end of the novel, although there are hints that it has to do with the river. Nevertheless, Kephart manages to convey the dysfunctional relationship between the two sisters and the intense guilt and self-reproach that Katherine experiences. Dangerous Neighbors has at it's core themes of loss, guilt, and redemption. Dangerous Neighbors is a good, short read for teens looking for something different.

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