A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur

Seventeen-year-old Hwang Boyeon (Iseul)is determined to find her older sister, Suyeon who was  kidnapped only three days earlier by the tyrant King Yeonsan who rules Korea. 

The two sisters had lost their parents when royal soldiers had killed their father, a magistrate and their mother. Iseul and Suyeon had fled to their grandmothers hut. Living with the grandmother had not been easy. Suyeon had taken work but Iseul wanted to preserve her hands and had only complained. The two sisters frequently quarrelled. Suyeon who was very beautiful, was taken when she followed Iseul out of their hut after an argument. King Yeonsan kidnapped married, betrothed women, taking even the noble daughters. So Iseul believes her sisters kidnapping is her fault.

Exhausted, Iseul travels through the part of Gyeonggi Province that is not the king's personal hunting grounds. The once flourishing territory is emptied of thousands of people. Arriving in a small hamlet, Iseul enters a thatched-roof inn, The Red Lantern, where she almost collapses. She is helped by a young woman who seems too kind and too sweet. 

The woman quickly surmises that Iseul is looking for someone and she tells her that the hamlet has a bell that rings to warn the young women that the king is about to pass through. This allows them to hide and avoid being kidnapped. She also reveals that the king travels with hundreds of his most favoured courtesans and that he is on his way to the village.

The rough-bearded man Iseul noticed eavesdropping on their conversation indicates that the king's finest swordsmen and archers guard them. He tells Iseul and her sister would both be killed. The innkeeper identifies the man as Wonsik ajusshi, guardian of the inn. Suddenly a young man, Yeongho, dressed in a red robe and golden sash, rushes into the inn, addressing the innkeeper as Madame Yul and tells her that a murder has just occurred outside the village. He states that the village elder believes the murder is the work of "Nameless Flower", an anonymous killer who has murdered twelve government officials. To prevent the visiting king from becoming enraged, the corpse has been moved to a reed field. Iseul believes if she can catch the killer she will be able to free her sister.

Inspecting the corpse Iseul determines that the man died from a blade to the throat. A red flower had placed on his chest and a bloody message scrawled on his robe. She also finds two wax beads, one yellow, one red, in the dead man's clenched hand. Iseul places the red bead inside her jolit mal (breastband). 

Wonsik and Madame Yul arrive to examine the body. Madame Yul reveals that Wonsik used to work for the Uigeumbu, as an Officer of the State Tribunal, investigating cases of treason. Iseul determines that Wonsik was not involved in her parents case. He tells Iseul that the victim is Young Master Baek, the eighteen-year-old son of the king's close aide, and was recently given a government position. Master Baek went missing three weeks earlier along with his two attendants both of whom died in the attack. 

Wonsik surmises that Iseul is determined to solve the crime to win the king's reward, that she is part of the yangban aristocracy, that her parents are deceased and that she is a fugitive. He tells her she will never succeed in bargaining with the king. However, he does explain that the king's courtesans live in Wongaksa Temple, near Gyeongbok Palace and is are heavily guarded. Every day the women are brought to the Sungyungwan Royal Academy to entertain the king. Iseul would be able to determine if her sister is there by looking over the wall. He knows this because his daughter was there. 

Iseul learns that Wonsik is investigating the murders, not for the reward, but for someone who believes the killings are causing more trouble in the city. With Wonsik helping, Iseul determines that the victim was injured when kidnapped, then starved for weeks. Their investigation is cut short with the arrival of the State Tribunal Officials, leading Iseul to flee into the woods. 

While hiding in the woods Iseul encounters Prince Daehyun, half brother to King Yeonsun. He had been part of the king's hunting party as they travelled through the hamlet. After killing a doe, the king declared that any of the princes who returned without a kill would be executed. So Daehyun is out hunting to prevent his own execution which had been foretold for this day by a shaman.  His arrow grazes Iseul's shoulder, pinning her to a tree by her jacket. However, Daehyun spares Iseul's life, ordering her to remain hidden when a guard approaches. The guard reveals that the king has murdered a dozen people while Daehyun was out hunting. 

Iseul returns to the Red Lantern Inn where Madame Yul treats her wound and tells her to consider the inn her home until she finds her sister but that she will have to help out at the inn. The next day Iseul sets out to find the Royal Academy in Hanyang, the capitol of Joseon, by travelling with a troupe of jesters. She travels with the help Yeongho.  In Hanyang, Iseul is shocked at the prevalence of death and destruction. With Yeongho's help, Iseul is able to enter the academy dressed as a servant and to locate Suyeon. She finds her sister cold and detached. Suyeon tells Iseul to return home and leave her, "There are over a thousand women here who wish to return home but cannot. This is the way of life for us. We are born to be devoured." She also tells her to find Uncle Choi Ikjan, to forget her, and to seek the life she has always wanted. 

As she is leaving the Royal Academy, Iseul impulsively attempts to rescue another girl being kidnapped by a chehongsa officer, stabbing him with a piece of wood and causing a riot. She is pulled to safety by Wonsik and taken to the inn to recover from her arrow wound. After five days of recuperation, Iseul begins helping Madame Yul by harvesting roots and bark in the woods. At the inn, Iseul learns that Wonsik plans to travel to Jamsil village to question the wife of one of Master Baek's attendants. Determined to find Nameless Flower, Iseul races to the village and learns from the widow that her husband described the attacker as "half man, half wolf". Wonsik shows up in Jamsil but admonishes Iseul, telling her she must notice the small things and to not take evidence from a crime scene.

Meanwhile Prince Daehyun learns from Hyukjin that he helped his sister, Sonhui procure kyungpo-buja for Lady Seungpyeong who has been found dead. Hyukjin reveals that Lady Seungpyeong was pregnant at age fifty with the king's child as a result of rape. Daehyun advises Hyukjin to remain silent and his sister not to flee. Prince Daehyun also learns that the girl he met in the forest has been found and he travels to the Red Lantern Inn where he finds Iseul. There he meets up with Wonsik who reveals that Min Hyukjin returned to his home but left immediately. Wonsik found a note in the handwriting of Nameless Flower telling Hyukjin that his sister was fleeing the palace. However, his sister was being interrogated at this time. Wonsik tells Daehyun that Hyukjin was last seen riding into Mount Acha. Wonsik and Daehyun believe that Hyukjin will be Nameless Flower's next victim as the king is due to pass through Mount Acha the next day.

Prince Daehyun and Wonsik leave immediately to try to locate Hyukjin, but are followed by Iseul. Her presence is explained to the prince but he is skeptical that she can succeed in her plan to bargain with King Yeonsan. Daehyun finds Hyukjin hanging from a tree but as he's cutting him down, he is attacked, and witnesses his friend being kicked over a cliff, before being knocked unconscious. Meanwhile, Wonsik and Iseul take shelter from the rain in a cave overnight. During this time, Wonsik suggests to Iseul that the stories she's heard about the prince are not true. 

At dawn, Wonsik is gone but hears the voices of the king's soldiers who have discovered Hyukjin's body, enraging the king. Investigator Gu explains that it was left where the king could see it and that the killer is someone within the palace who know of the king's change of plans to hunt earlier on Gwangneung Mountain. As the soldiers begin to search the area, Iseul stumbles upon a badly wounded Daehyun. Initially she refuses to help him  but he offers to help her free her sister. As the soldiers move up the hill searching, Daehyun and Iseul move quickly and hide. During the night Daehyun reveals to Iseul that he intends to stage a coup - a banjeong - a changing the heavens. 

The thought of bargaining with the tyrant King Yeonsan and trying to solve the mystery of Nameless Flower is daunting to Iseul and so she reluctantly agrees to become a part of the small group beginning to plot the coup with the promise that it will free her sister. For Iseul it will bring about revelations, loss and betrayal. But along the way she will discover the identity of Nameless Flower, save her sister, and find love and happiness with the person she least expects.

Discussion

A Crane Among Wolves is another well-written historical fiction novel that is set during the rule of the tyrant King Yeonsan in the early 1500s in Korea.

Prince Yeonsan was born November 23, 1476. When his father, King Seongjong's first wife, Queen Gongjye died, he took a concubine, Lady Yun, as his second wife and queen, in 1476. She gave birth to the king's heir, Yi Yung. However, Queen Yun was deposed and ordered into exile after striking the king and the incident discovered by the king's mother. Despite attempts to restore her as queen, she was exiled and eventually executed by poison.

Yi Yung grew up believing his mother was Queen Jeongyeon, his father's third wife. He became King Yeonsan, the tenth monarch of the Jeoson dynasty of Korea in 1495. Initially his reign was benevolent; he helped the poor and was a good administrator. However, in 1504 King Yeonsan learned the identity of his biological mother and her gruesome death from a scholar. He showed the king her bloodied robe that Lady Yun's mother had saved. Enraged, King Yeonsan began seeking vengeance, killing two concubines who were involved in his mother's murder, executing those government officials who supported his mother's exile and execution and even punishing those officials who were at the palace on the day of her execution. But his vengeance went much further than just executions.

He closed the royal university and converted it and an adjacent temple into a gisaeng, a place where thousands of kidnapped girls and women were taken to be used by the king. He also displaced tens of thousands of people in the capital, converting the area in to his personal hunting grounds. In 1506, the despotic king was overthrown by soldiers and officials in a coup that resulted in Yeonsan exiled to an island and his half brother Prince Jinseong made king.

This forms the background of the story crafted by June Hur in A Crane Among Wolves. Seventeen-year-old Iseul's parents were killed because her father was at the royal court when the queen was executed. Iseul learns that her Uncle Choi Ikjun of the Chungju Choe clan, gave their names so as to avoid being demoted in rank. With their parents now murdered, Iseul and her older sister Suyeon had to flee to their grandmother's home. It was at this time that Suyeon, who was very beautiful was kidnapped and taken to the king's palace where she was raped and forced into concubinage.

A Crane Among Wolves is historical fiction that combines both mystery and romance. Iseul believes if she can solve the mystery identity of the killer Nameless Flower she will be able to bargain with the king to free her sister. Nameless Flower is killing those near to the king. As she works with a former royal officer, Jang Wonsik, to solve the murders, Iseul also begins to fall in love with Prince Daehyun who is the half brother of the king and who decides to help her free her sister, while also planning a coup to depose King Yeonsan. Hur incorporates into her novel, many details of King Yeonsan's reign and life in Korea during this era.

The story in A Crane Among Wolves is told by two characters, Iseul and Prince Daehyun in alternating chapters. Iseul undertakes not only a physical journey to discover the whereabouts of her sister Suyeon and free her, but she also experiences an inner transformation that leads to growth and healing. She is initially motivated by guilt as she recalls how self-absorbed and uncaring she has been towards her older sister who always kind to her. Iseul recalls reading Suyeon's journal and being surprised how lonely her sister was, and that she struggled with always having to be the perfect daughter in order to be loved.  Iseul remembers how after the death of their parents, she refused to help Suyeon with chores, determined to preserve her hands and her pale skin, so she could make a good marriage. "My sister had labored for two years after our parents' passing, and I had let her, refusing to ruin my hands. This was not the life I was destined for, I had always said in protest."  Even Iseul's Uncle Choi remembers her as a girl who had little affection for her older sister and who would strike her for even a trifle. Although the two sisters had once been close, as they grew older they fought almost every day. It was during one of these arguments that Suyeon was seen and taken by the king, leading Iseul to blame herself.

Iseul is initially motivated by guilt but also love to find her sister. She discovers that her desire for a life of prosperity is replaced. Suyeon's absence "had stripped me bare, down to the very sinew of my being" and Iseul discovers she truly loves her sister, with a love that left her "...haunted and sleepless many nights..." When she is sees Suyeon in the Royal Academy, "her arms hanging limp by her side" with "the eyes of frightened yet weary girl" Iseul is feels Suyeon is "like a woman murdered". Haunted by her memories, Iseul remembers that Suyeon was a good daughter and kind sister and she becomes determined, despite the reluctance of Wonsik, Daehyun and even her uncle, to free her sister from the king. 

Iseul reveals herself to be a fearless, intelligent young woman, determined not to be confined by the limits Korean society has placed on her. Daehyun recognizes her rebellious spirit. She tells him "It is impossible not to be,...One is imprisoned by a thousand rules as a woman, and no one will explain why such rules exist."  She doesn't let her gender stop her from investigating the murders done by Nameless Flower, either following Wonsik as he travels or taking the initiative and investigating potential leads and new crime scenes. 

She exhibits courage in entering the Wongaksa Temple at great risk to herself to find her sister. She attacks a chehongsa officer, in an attempt to free a young girl being captured for the king. She bravely fights off the chehongsa officers when they try to kidnap her, and wants to stand and fight with Prince Daehyun and Wonsik when they are ambushed in the forest. She re-enters the Wongaksa Temple in a final attempt to help her sister flee during the coup and she bravely confronts Yeongbo in the forest.

Iseul and Prince Daehyun also experience  a transformation in their relationship. Their relationship starts out as one of mutual distrust but gradually evolves. Both carry the demons of regret and remorse over actions that caused harm to those they loved. Iseul believes she is solely responsible for the situation her sister Suyeon finds herself in but Prince Daehyun tells her that it is the responsibility of the king alone.  He reminds Iseul, "...sisters bicker and quarrel...yet when the other bleeds, you bleed too." He explains to Iseul, "That is family. So do not feel guilty for what occurred. None of it is your fault. Let the king, and the king alone carry the weight of all his crimes."

When they first meet in the forest, Iseul is disdainful towards Daehyun as he is part of the royal family that has ruined hers. Iseul doesn't trust him and believes he is cruel and despicable. She believes the stories about him having hunted down and murdered his foster brothers, Prince Anyang and Bongan. However, Daehyun explains to her that Lady Jeong and her sons were like family to him. The two brothers beat their own mother to death but did not know it was her. They were following the king's order. They fled but allowed Daehyun to capture them, requesting that he survive so as to seek revenge.  Iseul comforts Daehyun telling him that he was "simply honoring your brothers' wishes." 

Gradually Daehyun grows to love Iseul and proves this to her by not only saving her life several times, but also by attempting to intervene and prevent her sister from being given as a "gift" to Official Wu. His love for her is demonstrated by him taking the arrow that was meant for her when Yeongbo confronts them in the forest at Yongsan. Likewise Iseul grows to trust Prince Daehyun and love him. At great risk, she has Wonsik's son Gunwu take her to Yongsan District to warn Daehyun about Nameless Flower.

Hur realistically portrays the plight of the young girls and women who have been enslaved by King Yeonsan. Iseul's sister, Suyeon becomes physically and psychologically ill after sexual abuse by the king. When Iseul first finds her sister in the Royal Academy she notes "...there was a look in her eyes I had never seen before. They seemed the eyes of a frightened yet weary girl clinging to the edge of a cliff, her grip slipping, finger by finger." Iseul notes "A bruise the shape of a handprint wrapped around her throat." Suyeon tells Iseul that the girls including herself "...are born to be devoured...This is our fate."  However, Iseul refuses to accept this fate for Suyeon telling her she will free her.

Later when Iseul returns to the Royal Academy prior to the coup, she learns that Suyeon is ill. She is told "She hasn't been herself since she was last summoned by the king." She finds her sister listless, her eyes "empty, hollowed out". Suyeon, later, after having escaped the palace, reveals to Iseul that she helped one of the courtesans who was married and pregnant when she was kidnapped, give birth to her baby, only to learn the king had the woman and her newborn murdered. 

Hur also portrays the difficulties women who have been sexually abused have in re-integrating into society, a problem that still exists today in many societies. Iseul learns that her sister along with  all "...the king's women will be  distributed as gifts to all the government leaders who join us, and your sister will go to Official Wu." When confronted by Prince Daehyun, Choi tells him that "...the truth of the matter is, the girl - Iseul's sister - will no longer have a place in society. She is...the king's whore. She will be scorned for the rest of her life. But what an honor it is to become the respected concubine of a powerful man."  In 16th century Korea, women are mere objects to be possessed and distributed as prizes. 

Iseul refuses to accept this and prepares to enter the Wongaksa Temple disguised as a courtesan to rescue Suyeon, While waiting to enter, she witnesses the suffering of the parents of the stolen girls as they watch their beloved daughters: "...the mob huddling alongside the street...stared at the procession of beautiful women as though witnessing caskets of the murdered. A great weeping of sorrow and fury broke out. They reached past the crush of spears, reaching for their children. They were mothers and fathers who looked like my own, and there were sisters, too, bearing my own reflection."  Many of the courtesans are given to Commander Park after the coup, however, Iseul's sister and some of the women do escape and are helped to reclaim their lives at Madame Yul's Red Lantern Inn. They cannot return to their families or villages as they are considered "tarnished", a term Yul rejects.

The title, A Crane Among Wolves is a reference to two important cultural symbols in Korean society. The crane is a symbol of purity and strength, while the wolf represents power but is also a deadly predator, The crane represents Iseul, but especially her sister Suyeon and the women enslaved by King Yeonsan and his court, who are the wolves. Hur frequently describes these women as being "devoured" by the wolf, King Yeonsan as they are raped and abused, while politely being labelled courtesans. The crane also represents the truth, which Iseul is seeking, while to wolves are those who want to hide or devour the truth. 

A Crane Among Wolves is another excellent piece of historical fiction by June Hur. The characters are interesting and well developed. The character of Jang Wonsik is especially endearing as he helps Iseul channel her impetuous nature into a kind of measured maturity, encouraging her to seek the truth. The romance between Hwang Iseul and Prince Daehyun, gradually blossoms without overwhelming the main story. Wonderfully, the novel ends on a happy and satisfying note for the main characters, despite all the suffering, abuse and murder.

As noted in the Historical Note at the back, the author endeavoured to stay faithful to historical facts, portraying the success of the coup as limited. While King Yeonsan was deposed, the coup failed to help the people overall. And many of the former king's women were enslaved to other men, notably Deputy Commander Park who had a house built to house them. The only complaint is the use of an "f-bomb" by Prince Daehyun, a word likely not in the Korea vocabulary five hundred years ago. Nevertheless A Crane Among Wolves is high recommended.

Book Details:

A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur

New York: Feiwel and Friends     2024

359 pp.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for the reaping ceremony of the Hunger Games. Snow, heir to the house of Snow lives in the war torn Capitol of Panem. Snow, along with his elderly grandmother, his twenty-one-year old cousin, Tigris live "in the penthouse of the Capitol's most opulent apartment building." They are so poor that Coriolanus only has an old shirt of his father's to wear to the upcoming reaping ceremony. This makes him seriously consider phoning in sick to avoid looking shabby and revealing the true state of the Snows.

Coriolanus Snow attends the Academy, a high school that educates the sons and daughters of the Capitol's most prominent and wealthy citizens. Both his parents died when he was five years old: his father General Crassus Snow from a rebel sniper's bullet and his mother and baby sister in childbirth. He is a teaching aide to the Academy communications professor, Salyria Click. She has been advocating on Snow's behalf for him to receive one of the twenty-four mentorships to the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are a war reparation for the loss of Capitol lives by the district rebels as outlined in the Treaty of Treason.  The reaping involves "twenty-four tributes, one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts, drawn by lottery to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death in the Hunger Games." This is the first Hunger Games where the tributes will be assigned mentors, young people from the Capitol. 

Just months away from graduation and a stellar student, Coriolanus hopes to obtain one of the coveted Academy prizes given at graduation. A mentorship would help him obtain one of the monetary prizes that would pay his tuition to the University and guarantee a future career. Fortunately for Coriolanus, he is able to attend the reaping ceremony because Tigris returns with his shirt, now dyed cream with black velvet cuffs and collar and tesserae buttons. 

In the massive Heavensbee Hall, Coriolanus along with his fellow students and the faculty watch the televised reaping. Among the attendees is Sejanus Plinth, aide to the gymnasium mistress, Professor Agrippina Sickle. Unlike the Snow family who had invested in munitions in District 13, the Plinths had placed their investment in District 2 and became wealthy, buying their way into the Capitol. With the destruction of District 13, the Snows were impoverished. Dean Casca Highbottom, creator of the Hunger Games, and now overseeing the mentor program, reads out the mentor assignments. To Coriolanus's horror, he is to mentor Lucy Gray Baird. 

Lucy Gray turns out to be a firebrand who causes a commotion at the reaping in District 12. This makes Coriolanus wonder if Lucy just might be the gift he needs to score points and win a prize. Unlike the other mentors, Coriolanus meets Lucy at the train station to give her a rose and is taken along with the tributes to the monkey zoo enclosure. His presence among the tributes is shocking. There Lucy is interviewed by Lepidus Malmsey of the Capitol News. She tells him she is not really from District 12 as her people are Covey, musicians who travel from place to place. Coriolanus is also interviewed as to why he ended up in the cage with Lucy. 

He is then taken by the Peacekeepers to the high biology lab at the Academy where he is met by Dr. Volumnia Gaul, Head Gamekeeper and Dean Casca Highbottom. When questioned, Coriolanus tells them that the purpose of his actions are to engage the audience. While Dr. Gaul is supportive, Highbottom is not and assigns Coriolanus a demerit point, telling him he is at risk of being expelled. 

Coriolanus returns to the monkey house and encounters Sejanus who is attempting to offer the other tributes food, since his own tribute, Marcus will not accept anything. He offers Coriolanus food for his tribute. Sejanus tells Coriolanus that he could have easily been one of the tributes, if he wasn't wealthy and he tries to get out of the mentorship by offering Coriolanus his tribute. Coriolanus refuses, considering Lucy Gray to be the tribute who will help him win a prize. 

At the Academy, most of Coriolanus's classmates congratulate him on his initiatives of the preceding day. Satyria tells him that Dr. Gaul is pleased and that she will praise him to President Ravinstall. But she warns him, he must be careful. The mentors spend the morning brainstorming ways to engage the people of the Capitol to watch the Hunger Games. While Festus wants to punish people who do not watch, Clemensia and Sejanus question why people should watch. Coriolanus however, suggests that they should allow betting on the tributes.

The mentors then interview their individual tributes who shackled and are seated at tables. Coriolanus slips Lucy Gray a slice of bread pudding Tigris has made. Lucy tells Coriolanus about her family and how she and her siblings were cared for after the deaths of their parents. Coriolanus suggests to Lucy that during their interview on television the night before the Games begin, that she should sing. However, Lucy is not interested as she can't see the point of doing so.

After the interviews, the mentors meet with Dr. Gaul who is mentoring the mentors. to discuss the interviews with the tributes. It is at this point that Sejanus Plinth confronts Dr. Gaul regarding the purpose of the Games and the injustice he believes they are perpetuating. Dr. Gaul isn't moved by Sejanus's arguments. Instead, she assigns the mentors a project to write up a proposal on how staking odds on the tributes might work. Coriolanus, Clemensia and Arachne are elected to draft the proposal but it is Coriolanus who actually writes it up. 

However it isn't long before things begin unraveling for the Tenth Hunger Games. First Arachne Crane is murdered by her tribute from District 10 after taunting her with food. Her girl tribute is shot dead by the Peacekeepers for the attack. Then Clemensia is sadistically punished by Dr. Gaul for lying about working on the proposal. Dr. Gaul has her neon coloured snakes bite Clemensia, their genetically altered venom almost killing her and wreaking havoc on her body. This is followed by an attack in the war-damaged arena that leads to the death of both tributes from Districts 1, 6 and 9 and the death of the girl tribute from District 2. In addition, three mentors are hospitalized including Coriolanus. and the twin mentors from District 9 die in the bombings. 

With Lucy Gray having saved Coriolanus's life, rather than attempting to escape, Coriolanus's perspective begins to change. Instead of using Lucy to enhance his own image and prospects, he now begins to work with her to win the games. But winning the Games leads not only to unexpected opportunities but puts Coriolanus on a path of cruelty, murder and power.

Discussion

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes tells the story of Coriolanus Snow, son of the late Crassus Snow, who eventually becomes President of Panem and his fellow classmate, Sejanus Plinth. The two boys are starkly different and it is this difference that leads ultimately to tragedy for both.  

Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus is the surviving son of the once wealthy Snow family, his father Crassus dead and the Snow family now impoverished, having lost their munitions fortune during the war. Suffering starvation and privation during the war, now living in their indebted home, Coriolanus has no way to attend the University unless he can win a prize that will pay his way. In contrast is his classmate, Sejanus Plinth, son of the wealthy Strabo Plinth who owns the Capitol munitions. The Plinths once lived in District 2 but are now residents of the Capitol, eating well and living in a lavish home.  It also becomes apparent that Coriolanus and Sejanus view the war, the Hunger Games, the Capitol and even humanity very differently.

The novel traces the complete corruption of Coriolanus Snow as his desire for power and control gradually lead him to betrayal and serial murder. It is Dean Casca Highbottom who recognizes Coriolanus's true nature early on and as a result dislikes Coriolanus. Many years earlier, Casca and his best friend, Coriolanus's father Crassus Snow, had been working together on an assignment. Casca had come up with the idea of the Hunger Games, mainly as a theoretical exercise which he never intended to be implemented. However, Crassus had gotten Casca severely intoxicated, written up the idea himself and submitted it. It was accepted and the Hunger Games were inaugurated, much to Casca's horror. During the mentorship for the 10th Hunger Games, Casca is not surprised by Coriolanus's approval of the overdone funeral procession for Arachne Crane. He hints to Coriolanus that he is no different from his father, which puzzles the young Coriolanus. He tells Coriolanus as much: "It's amazing how little things change. After all the killing. After all the agonized promises to remember the cost. After all of that. I can't distinguish the bud from the blossom." with Coriolanus being the bud and his dead father, Crassus the blossom.

During the 10th Hunger Games, Coriolanus comes under the mentorship of the cruel, perverse Dr. Gaul as he himself serves as a mentor to tribute Lucy Gray. Coriolanus is indifferent to the fate of the tributes until he becomes a mentor. However some of his classmates feel participating in the games is wrong. Lysistrata tells Coriolanus, "I know it's to punish the districts, but haven't we punished them enough? How long do we have to keep dragging the war out?" To Lysistrata, the party-like atmosphere for the mentors is revolting and she feels she is being used.  This creates inner conflict for Coriolanus who considered mentoring an honor, "A way to serve the Capitol and perhaps gain a little glory... If the cause wasn't honorable, how could it be an honor to participate in it? He felt confused, then manipulated, then undefended. As if he were more a tribute than a mentor."  At this point, Coriolanus doesn't realize he is being manipulated and trained by Dr. Gaul. 

Dr. Gaul sends Coriolanus into the arena to retrieve Sejanus leading him to kill Bobbin in self defense, Coriolanus begins to realize that he is simply one of Gaul's test subjects. While Dr. Gaul considers the experience "transformative", Coriolanus is troubled by it. She asks him to consider "What sort of agreement is necessary if we're to live in peace. What sort of social contract is required for survival?" 

In the Hunger Games Coriolanus attempts to ensure the odds are in his tribute's favour by cheating. He gives Lucy his mother's compact to store rat poison and later on by placing a handkerchief Lucy used into Dr. Gaul's snake tank so they won't attack her when they are released into the arena. He knows he's cheating and his conscience bothers him. He wonders "What else might he be capable of? Well that was it. It stopped now. If he didn't have honor, he had nothing." 

Punished for cheating and sent to District 12 as a Peacekeeper, Coriolanus reconsiders Dr. Gaul's question to him. In the arena there were no laws, no rules, no consequences and survival was the most important thing. For Coriolanus, prevention of chaos means enforcing laws and that requires control. "Without the control to enforce the contract, chaos reigned. The power that controlled needed to be greater than the people -- otherwise, they would challenge it. The only entity capable of this was the Capitol." 

In District 12, Coriolanus begins to further define his beliefs about chaos, control, contract and humanity. He tells Lucy Gray that the Capitol must be strict "...to keep things under control." to prevent "choas and people running around killing each other, like in the arena." "Unless there's law, and someone enforcing it, I think we might as well be animals."  Lucy is shocked by Coriolanus's view and questions him what the price for this "control" might be. Coriolanus believes they give up nothing.

Ultimately, Coriolanus's belief in the Capitol leads him to betray his friend Sejanus who considers him more than a brother. Initially he feels conflicted over using a captured jabberjay to record Sejanus's plans with the rebels.  But this quickly changes to anger and then satisfaction over his actions. "This breaking of the contract. This invitation to chaos and all that would follow." He believes everything would collapse without the Capitol and that they would live like animals. Sejanus's actions are consider treason and he is hanged. But Coriolanus is more concerned about the possibility of being "tainted by association" than for his role in betraying his friend.

Coriolanus murders Mayfair Lipp, the mayor of District 12 to protect himself from being hanged. He rationalizes Mayfair's murder as "Just another form of self defense." Believing that he will eventually hang for her murder, Coriolanus plans to run away with Lucy, only to discover that he's been offered a place at officer school. When he discovers the missing rifle that could implicate him, Coriolanus hunts down Lucy who has fled into the woods after realizing that it was he who betrayed Sejanus. After abandoning Lucy to her fate (it's uncertain if he's murdered her), Coriolanus completes his betrayal of Sejanus by taking his place in the Plinth home as heir and beloved son. "The Plinths paid for everything now: the taxes on the apartment, his tuition, the cook. They gave him a generous allowance as well. This was helpful because, ...university life was expensive when done right." 

In a final act of cruelty, Coriolanus murders Dean Highbottom. He has murdered all who came between him and regaining the Snow family power and wealth. As a student of the poisonous Dr. Gaul, Snow is on his way to the top. In the Epilogue, Coriolanus has come to fully embrace Dr. Gaul's principles - "That our essential nature is violent." and that the Hunger Games proves this because even children, the most innocent will kill. Embracing this and believing it is natural leads Coriolanus to have no conscience in killing Highbottom.

The character of Sejanus Plinth is the conscience of the Hunger Games and the Capitol. His situation is ironic because he is the pacifist son of Strabo Plinth who is a munitions mogul. He is also an excellent sharpshooter who has joined the Peacekeepers naively believing that he can work as a medic and help others. Sadly it prove to be his undoing.

Sejanus, more than any other character, recognizes the injustice of the Hunger Games and that the games are perpetuating war through this injustice. Although other characters such as Clemensia suspect this injustice, it is most fully expressed through the character of Sejanus. Originally a citizen of District 2, Sejanus's father's new-found wealth allowed the family to move to the Capitol, sparing Sejanus from ever having to compete in the Hunger Games. Having lived briefly in District 2, Sejanus understands the games from the point of view of the districts. He is now having to experience them as a mentor to a tribute, one from his own district that he knew growing up.  

He considers forcing children to fight one another to the death inhuman.  He tells Coriolanus, "It's just this whole Hunger Games thing is making me crazy! I mean, what are we doing? Putting kids in an arena to kill each other? It feels wrong on so many levels. Animals protect their young, right? And so do we. We try to protect children! It's built into us as human beings. Who really wants to do this? It's unnatural!"  As a result he tells Coriolanus he can't be a part of the games especially when it involves a boy who he knew when he lived in District 2.  "It's evil. It goes against everything I think is right in the world. I can't be a part of it." 

When the mentors are discussing ways to entice the residents of the Capitol to watch the Hunger Games, Sejanus continues to voice his opposition after Clemensia notes that people don't want to watch children killing one another because it's "sickening". He tells them, "Who wants to watch a group of children kill each other? Only a vicious, twisted person. Human beings may not be perfect, but we're better than that." 

Sejanus confronts the barbaric, cruel Dr. Gaul when she labels the children "rebels" telling her, "Hardly rebels. Some of them were two years old when the war ended. The oldest were eight. And now that the war's over, they're just citizens of Panem, aren't they? Same as us? Isn't that what the anthem says the Capitol does? You give us light. You reunite? It's supposed to be everyone's government, right? ...Well then it should protect everyone....And I don't see how making them fight to the death achieves that." 

Sejanus continues to confront Dr. Gaul later on when his tribute, Marcus escapes during an attack on the mentors during the arena tour. He tells her that they have no right to do what they are doing to the children during the Hunger Games. "No right to take away their life and freedom. Those are things everyone is born with, and they're not yours for the taking. Winning a war doesn't give you that right. "

When mentor Livia remarks that she believes the war is over despite what happened in the arena during the tour, she questions the ongoing Hunger Games,  "And if the war is over, then technically the killing should be over, shouldn't it?"  However, it's clear that Dr. Gaul continues to believe they are at war with the districts and that the war is never ending and she seems to relish this state of affairs. She views the Hunger Games as a means of control, keeping the rebels in check by reaping their children and impoverishing them. 

Collins fills The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes with plenty of foreshadowing for the story told in the original trilogy. There is the mention of katniss, a kind of wild potato that Lucy Gray's Covey people grow for food. The roses which are a signature of Coriolanus Snow in the trilogy have their origin in his family with his Grandma'am growing roses on the roof of their Capitol penthouse. And the origin of the mockingjay which becomes a symbol of rebellion and revolution in the trilogy is more deeply explained in this novel. 

While serving in District 12 as a peacekeeper, Coriolanus encounters the jabberjays and mockingjays at a public hanging. Coriolanus dislikes the mockingjays "on sight".   The jabberjays are mutants that were created by Dr. Gaul to spy on the rebels during the war. Jabberjays are male birds who are attracted to human voices and can be controlled to record human conversation for up to an hour. In the wild they have mated with native mockingbirds, creating a new breed, mockingjays. The mockingjays cannot be controlled nor can they record but can mimic music and song. 

As Coriolanus's irrational response is to kill all the mockingjays whom he considers to be "unnatural". "He didn't mind the jabberjays so much - they seemed rather interesting from a military standpoint -- but something about the mockingjays repelled him. He distrusted their spontaneous creation. Nature running amok. They should die out, and die out soon." 

When Dr. Kay attempts to trap the mockingjays, she is unsuccessful and must resort to using nets. Coriolanus's aversion to them is so great that he organizes a hunt to slaughter as many as possible. And the aversion seems to be mutual. As Coriolanus helps capture mockingjays in the nets for Dr. Kay, "Coriolanus's bird began a tortured screaming the minute he touched it, and when he gave it a squeeze designed to dissuade it, it drove its beak into his palm."  The dislike appears to be mutual. 

On a trip into the wilderness of District 12, Coriolanus notes that the mockingjays "infest" the woods. Further out near the lake, there are no jabberjays, only mockingjays. Out further near the lake, Coriolanus notes "...This elimination of the Capitol birds from the equation deeply disturbed him...He didn't like it one bit." 

In the novel the jabberjay and mocking jay are symbols of the Capitol and the rebels respectively, foreshadowing the rebellion which will play out years later and Coriolanus Snow's part in it. By mating with the jabberjays, the mockingjays have subverted the Capitol, removing their ability to record. Coriolanus, who supports the Capitol and the Hunger Games, comes to recognize that this subversion is indicative of the Capitol's loss of control. Forty-six years later, Katniss Everdeen would become the mockingjay - the symbol of the revolution to overthrow the Capitol. 

Overall, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a fitting prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy with many interesting themes to explore. As with the original series, there is much violence and cruelty in the novel and there is a passing mention of diverse relationships;  it is therefore recommended for older teens.  

Book Details:

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

New York: Scholastic Press     2020
517 pp.

Pearl by Sherri L. Smith

This graphic novel opens in 1886 with the story of Amy's great-grandmother who was an ama, or a pearl diver on the shores of Honshu in Japan. Amy hear many stories about her sosobo especially one where she found a large, perfectly round pearl, the size of her fist. She was able to hold her breath for ten minutes and dive down a quarter of a mile to extract pearls from oysters. The day she found the large pearl, she was seen by a fisherman and they eventually married. She gave birth Amy's grandfather and he in turn had a daughter and a son who became Amy's father. Her father moved to Hawai'i and married her mother, whose family had lived in Hawai'i for four generations.

In 1941, war raged on in half of the world. With her best friend, Amy was able to live her life and deal with the racial discrimination she encountered. When went to the movie theatre, and they spent time together. But then her parents received a letter from family in Japan that her Sosobo was ill. Because her mother had just had a new baby, Henry, they couldn't travel so Amy would have to make the trip to Japan alone. She had never been away from home, nor had she ever visited Japan.

Upon arriving in Japan by ship, Amy found it "familiar, yet strange". She was met by her Uncle Michi, Aunt Hina, and her cousin, Ken. The trip to her uncle's farm just outside of Hiroshima was made by oxen and cart and was long. Amy found life very different in Japan, but the food was somewhat like home. Gradually Amy came to understand her Sosobo's thick accent. 

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, Amy finds herself in a country at war with her own country, the United States. It was at this time that Amy's sosobo told her how she fled her home in the Ryukyu Kingdom on Okinawa when the Japanese invaded in 1879. Although it was difficult, she managed to make a new life on the main island. She tells Amy she must somehow survive.

With Japan now at war, Amy's cousin Ken enlisted and her Aunt Hina reminded her that she is Japanese. But Amy was American. Eventually  war touched Amy's life when it was discovered that she spoke English. She was forced out of her uncle's farm and taken to Hiroshima, a military city, along with other Nisei, or American Japanese. It would be Amy's job to translate American radio communications. But who was Amy loyal to, Japan or America? And how would she survive caught between two cultures?

Discussion

Pearl is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel that explores the issues of identity and belonging. Young Amy is tasked with spending three months in Japan to help her father's family who are dealing with the declining health of their elderly sosobo, or great-grandmother. Amy initially adapts to life in Japan but then finds herself caught up in World War II after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. This change frightens Amy but her sosobo explains that change in life is inevitable and that surviving it is important. 

In Pearl, Amy's Sosobo tells her great-granddaughter how she too faced frightening change and invasion when she was uprooted by the invasion of the Japanese to her island of Okinawa in 1879. Although not much information is provided, this was a real historical event. Okinawa is the smallest of the five large Japanese islands in the Japanese archipelago. It was part of the Ryukyu kingdom which was founded in 4129 by King Sho Hashi through the unification of three smaller kingdoms. Ryukyu had substantial trade with China, Japan and other Asian countries. However, in 1609, Japan invaded Ryukyu and 1879 it became Okinawa. The king was forced to relocate to Tokyo and the monarchy abolished. At this time, the Japanese attempted to abolish Ryujyuan language, religion and other cultural practices. 

For Amy's sosobo, she faced the challenges of change and made her own life on the mainland. Amy found herself facing the same challenge, with the war between America and Japan. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Amy was recruited and forced to work as a "Monitor Girl", listening in on American broadcasts and forced to translate them, Amy had hoped that the Japanese would come to understand Americans. However, Amy's perspective changed when she learned from her Uncle Michi that America had imprisoned Japanese Americans, including her parents, in prison camps and that her baby brother, Henry had died in such a camp. Her patriotic feelings towards America vanished and she became determined to help Japan. Living in Hiroshima, Amy found herself terribly injured in the atomic bombing of the city. With terrible burns and radiation illness, all she could remember was the message of her sosobo, the importance of surviving.. 

To that end, Amy's determination and resiliency is shown by her recovery from her wounds, and her helping the Americans in the post-war period, during the occupation of Japan. After being refused permission several times to return to the United States, Amy was finally able to do so in 1952. What she found was much more than she had ever anticipated. Just as she had, her family had also survived and thrived. Despite the loss of Henry, her parents now had three more children, and a new home. Amy came to realize that her identity was more than just American and Japanese: she was a survivor, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. She also came to understand that life was a gift not to be wasted.

While Pearl is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel, the sparse storytelling doesn't capture the full extent of the emotions Amy had to be experiencing: the fear and uncertainty travelling to Japan alone to meet family she didn't know and live in a culture that was very different from America, the anger at learning her parents and brother were imprisoned and the death of little Henry, the inner conflict of being both American and Japanese, the joy of returning home and seeing her parents happy and thriving. 

Nevertheless, the message does come across in this exquisite graphic novel: change is inevitable and needs to be embraced. It is survivable and often leads to opportunities and experiences that were never considered. 

Book Details:

Pearl by Sherri L. Smith
New York:  Graphix    2024

133 pp. 

The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin

Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth (Lizzie) Novis is on her way to America. Escorted by Fleetwood, her Gran's estate steward, Lizzie is aboard a steamship at the port in Liverpool. She's to travel to Cleveland to live with her American grandmother, leaving behind England and the threat of invasion by Germany. Gran lives on what used to be called Millionaire's Row in Cleveland. 

But Lizzie has no intention of remaining on the ship. After wearing out Fleetwood by walking him around Liverpool and then telling him she wants to be on deck to wave goodbye at the pier, she races off the steamship and back to London. Lizzie is determined to stay in England with her older brother Jakob and solve the mystery of their mother, Willa's disappearance. They've been told that Willa, who is American, was killed in a bomb blast in Poland. Lizzie has written to Jakob but never received any response. She wants to find out what has really happened to Willa.

After fleeing the ship in Liverpool, Lizzie shows up at the Foreign Office in London where she is picked up by a very annoyed Jakob. She tells him she wants to be in England when their mother returns but Jakob insists that Willa is dead. Willa, who worked for the US embassy, was sent to Poland in late August 1939.  Hitler then invaded Poland and now in May 1940, there is no sign of her. Jakob is certain she was killed during the German offensive. 

Lizzie and Jakob briefly return to their Gran's flat in Mayfair so that Lizzie can pack. The trunk she packed for the steamship was filled with Jakob's rock collection! Lizzie hurriedly packs another trunk and then rushes to Willa's room. While looking for Willa's boots in her closet she discovers a small pale blue leather book under a loose floorboard. Lizzie finds Jakob's behaviour strange; he seems to have accepted Willa's death and she's certain he's hiding something from her. As it turns out, he is.

Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis was studying mathematics at Cambridge. He was recruited in 1938 when the British government first purchased Bletchley Park. Believing war with Hitler was imminent, they wanted a safe location to conduct secret intelligence work. After signing a secrecy document, Jakob finds himself employed by the Government Code and Cypher School! He was put on the government's cryptography team that included people like Dilly Knox, a classics scholar, and mathematician Alan Turing. He cannot tell his sister Lizzie any of this though because it is just so top secret.

Lizzie and Jakob take a train north, out of London to Bletchley.  At Bletchley, Lizzie meets a man her brother refers to as "Colonel" who questions her as to what she knows about Bletchley, which is nothing.  He has her swear an oath of secrecy and gives her a new mailing address of a postal depot. She is to report to Commander Bradley the following day. Jakob takes her to his room at the Shoulder Of Mutton Inn & Pub. There she meets Colin Tilbury whose parents own the inn. He tells Lizzie that his brother is an RAF pilot and that he plans to join up as soon as he is of age. Lizzie notes the smoking man that she saw at the train platform is now in the pub. 

She settles into Jakob's room while he goes off to his mysterious work at midnight. Lizzie is unable to pick the lock on Willa's leather book but she is able to pull a piece of paper out that reveals "...plans for the evacuation of the American embassy in Warsaw and Willa's work to dismantle the office."  She also learns that one of the embassy clerks Willa was to assist, Olivia McQuatters, was friends with her mother. While Lizzie is waiting to see Commander Bradley, she surreptitiously takes the liberty of using his phone to call the American Embassy and learns that McQuatters is back in London. Bradley assigns Lizzie to be a messenger at Bletchley, carrying sealed envelopes to different areas of the compound.

Lizzie is introduced to Marion, a petite girl near her age, who works at Bletchley and who very much wants to go to America. Marion's older sister lives in Florida with a distant cousin. As the weeks pass, Lizzie works at Bletchley while Jakob continues his own work there. He is in Hut 6 with Gordon Welchman. Two new gifted mathematicians, John and Beryl, join the team and are introduced to the Enigma.  Jakob also continues to find himself the interest of William James Jarvis, an MI5 agent. Jarvis tells Jakob that the Security Service wants to know what happened to Willa. He informs Jakob that Willa never left with the embassy staffers she was assigned to help. Jarvis questions Willa's motives, suggesting she might be helping Hitler. This infuriates Jakob. As time goes on, Jarvis becomes more determined to uncover any secrets that Jakob and his sister might be guarding.

Despite pouring over Willa's calendar diary, Lizzie, along with Colin and Marion can make little sense of its contents. In desperation, Lizzie travels to London with Colin to seek out Olivia McQuatters at the American Embassy. On the way there, a letter from Willa's housekeeper, Viola, who is in Scotland, reveals that Gran is furious at Lizzie's deception and that Fleetwood is returning to London to take Lizzie back to America by force if necessary. In London, Olivia reveals to Lizzie that Willa never showed at the embassy when they were leaving. Instead, she saw Willa meeting with three men and their families at a restaurant. 

With Fleetwood hot on Lizzie's heels, and new information about Willa, Lizzie needs to outwit Fleetwood again while solving the mystery of her mother's disappearance. One thing is certain: Willa is alive!

Discussion

In The Bletchley Riddle, authors Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin have collaborated to create a wonderful historical mystery-adventure laced with a touch of humour. The main character is fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Novis, who goes by "Lizzie", the daughter of a Polish-Jewish father and an American mother. The indomitable, irrepressible Lizzie is determined NOT to travel to safety in America during the beginning of World War II. Instead, she is intent on learning what has happened to her mother, Willa who is believed dead after fleeing the Nazis in Poland. 

The novel follows two narratives: that of Lizzie's quest to solve the mystery of Willa's disappearance and her nineteen-year-old brother Jakob, a cryptographer at Bletchley, as he struggles to solve the mystery of the Enigma codes. Lizzie is brought into Bletchley as a messenger, keeping the setting mainly at Bletchley Park. In their Historical Note, the authors note that it would not have been unusual for very young people to be involved at Bletchley. They write, " The Government Code and Cypher School recruited young mathematics students. Messengers as young as fourteen really did run from hut to hut with vital intelligence."  Other aspects of the story are also realistic: "...the town of Bletchley did have an inn called the Shoulder of Mutton..." 

Sepetys and Sheinkin have included many historical figures into their story including Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, Dilly Knox and Cambridge student, John Herivel, who at the age of twenty-one  really did have the insight "...that careless Enigma operators might be giving away the machine's ring settings." The authors also state that one of their main goals was to highlight the invaluable contributions of the Polish codebreakers who worked on the Enigma. Marian Rejewski was able to build an Engima machine without ever having seen one. Along with Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki, they were able to develop ways to decrypt the Enigma codes. With the invasion of Poland imminent they were able to share their work with the British enabling them to eventually break the Enigma. The authors have even incorporated Alan Turing's burial of his silver ingots which he transported in a pram!

This historical detail alone suffices to make The Bletchley Riddle an exciting novel and in particular is the strength of the novel. However, the authors have crafted an endearing heroine in Lizzie Novis. She manages to outwit her crusty American Gran, not once but twice, tricking the poor Fleetwood both times. Her antics and humorous voice add some comic relief to the story. Lizzie is a force of nature, unable to accept that her mother, Willa has died in Poland, and determined to learn the truth about her disappearance. A foil to Lizzie is her steady, intelligent brother, Jakob who as a young mathematician is tasked with helping to break Enigma. His efforts could make or break the war effort of Britain, who faced the Nazi threat alone at this time.  Helping Lizzie is Colin Tilbury, son of the proprietor of the Shoulder of Mutton Inn. Sepetys and Sheinkin offer a twist near the end, that provides readers with a satisfying resolution to Willa's disappearance.

Although the novel is mainly action driven, the authors do take some time to develop the friendship between Lizzie and Colin. Initially, they both have secrets which Lizzie's straightforward manner forces them to share: Lizzie that her mother is missing and Colin that he limps due to a poorly healed leg. With Willa missing, Lizzie is situated to understand and empathize with Colin when his older brother goes missing in action. Eventually the two of them come to the realization that they have a "crush" on one another and the novel ends with the sense that their friendship is blossoming into much more.

The Bletchley Riddle is a well-written novel, very suitable for middle grade readers. The ability of the authors to incorporate so much historical detail into the story and to develop the setting in a realistic way, while telling a good story are the strengths of this novel.

Book Details:

The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
New York: Viking     2024

394 pp.

Lion Dancers by Cai Tse

Thirteen-year-old Wei Lee's father, Yuho Lee was part of the Black Tiger Lion Dance troupe that won the championship at the Twelfth Asia International Lion Dance Championships two years ago. Watching his father perform and win made Wei determined to follow his father. But two years later, Wei, a student at Bird's Beak Middle School finds himself a loner, despite being the top student in his grade. He's stuck on the bench during basketball practice. Despite offering to sub, Wei is not allowed to practice. He tells his friend Jun, that he is quitting the basketball team. Jun suggests that Wei hang out more often with their friends but he's not interested, especially when Jun's friends just tease him.

On his way home, Wei bumps into a young man wearing a lion dancer shirt. The man initially denies being a lion dancer but then questions Wei who clearly knows about such dancing. Wei tells him he wants to be a lion dancer but doesn't have a team and asks to join.

On the following Saturday when Jun calls Wei for help with their big essay project, Wei turns her down, much to Jun's shock. Wei is never busy on a Saturday but this time he is - he's going to lion dance practice. When Wei arrives at the temple where the lion dance group has gathered, he is shocked to discover his former best friend, Hung is a part of the ensemble. Hung angrily tells Wei he doesn't belong in the group, but the team members tell him to stop, and welcome Wei.

One of the members, LinWei shows Wei around and he tells her that he used to dance with his father until two years ago. She encourages Wei, telling him that with the Lunar New Year coming, they need new members and that the team is like family. At the first practice, things do not go so well: Wei falls and then is sick to his stomach. While he is recovering, Hyunmin (Min) tells Wei that this lion dance group is called the Southern Phoenix Lion Dance team or the Birds for short. When Wei demonstrates his hei si, the members of the Birds are impressed. After practice, Min questions Hung about Wei. He reveals that he and Wei used to train together on their fathers' old lion dance team. Hung was Wei's tail, where the smaller, lighter Wei was always the lion head. Hung knew that he would never get to be the lion head with Wei around. Hung claims he is just surprised to see Wei again, after he left the other team and stopped being his friend.

At home Hung tells his parents about Wei showing up at lion dancing and that he is planning to stay. They are very surprised but believe Hung to be the best dancer on the junior team. At school, Hung confronts Wei and tells him he's not welcome in the Birds. However, Wei is determined to return every week to practice and to become the best lion dancer. At the next practice, Wei works on basic jumps with Bochen. He is told that they try to pair friends together and also take into account the physical makeup of the dancers. Stronger, bigger dancers are often the tail so they can lift the lighter head dancer.

The first set of performances for the Lunar New Year go well but it is evident that Hung is not willing to accept Wei on the lion dance team. When his mother suggests that it would be disappointing if he is made Wei's tail again, Hung is more determined than ever to make sure Wei isn't part of the team and that he's not made Wei's tail. Eventually Hung's jealousy over Wei leads him to go too far, alienating his teammates and getting himself suspended. Can Wei win over his former friend and become part of the team?

Discussion

Lion Dancers is a graphic novel about a team of lion dancers as they prepare for performance and competition. The story is told in eight chapters, concluding with an Epilogue. Before the first chapter, a page describing "What Makes A Lion Dancer" explains that a lion is comprised of two dancers: the lion head performer and the lion tail dancer, both covered by the lion costume. At the beginning of each chapter a specific feature of lion dancing is explained. Some of the movements described include "scratching", tan bo, and choy cheng.

The main story is that of a lion dance team, the Birds, training in the weeks before the Lunar New Year and the troubled relationship between two of the young dancers, Wei and Hung who have a past together.  Wei and Hung's fathers were lion dancers with the Black Tiger Lion Dance troupe. The boys trained with the Black Tiger troupe, with Wei being the lion head and Hung being the lion tail. Wei's father (and his mother?) died in a car accident on the way to the wedding of one of the lion dancers. Wei was only eleven-years-old at the time. After his father's death, Wei left lion dancing and stopped being friends with Hung, 

The root of the disintegration of Wei and Hung's friendship seems to be Hung's jealousy over Wei being given the position of a lion head dancer. This causes Hung to bully and shame Wei at school for doing lion dancing. He also has the belief that being a lion tail dancer is demeaning. At home Hung's parents place enormous pressure on him, telling him that he is so good he needs to be in every performance. After the first Lunar New Year performances, his mother states, "They wouldn't know what to do without you, Hung. Carrying the team like that." Hung's parents are reinforcing his own belief that he is the most important member of the team, when in fact each person is important because it is a team effort. After a particularly intense performance, before leaving the temple, Wei thanks Hung for subbing in for him as he was becoming exhausted. Instead of graciously accepting Wei's compliment, Hung tells him his dancing was so embarrassing he didn't have a choice and that he did it for the team and not to help Wei. 

Determined to make sure he remains a lion head dancer and not in the tail, and makes the competition team, Hung continues to bully Wei at school too. The situation finally reaches a crisis point when Hung deliberately directs Wei to the wrong venue for a performance. Hung reveals to his teammates what he really thinks about being in the tail - that it is for losers, and how he considers himself the best. Hung's cruel, self-centered outburst leads Wei to try to quit the team, but LinWei encourages him to stay telling him that "....it's not only hard because of the exercise. It's hard because it's teamwork. You also have to learn how to navigate all the different personalities within the team and for some that can be the hardest thing to do." LinWei asks Wei, "How do you respond to this problem, Wei? How you've always responded?"  She challenges him to try a different approach with Hung who it not allowed to perform that day. 

When Hung's parents learn that he tried to get Wei kicked off the team, they encourage Hung to apologize to his teammates. He does so thanking Gian for lifting him when he was a lion head. He realizes just how exhausting this must have been for the smaller boy. But Hung still remains somewhat hostile to Wei, insisting that he is the best chance the team has to win. Wei explains to Hung he doesn't view the tails the way he does: he sees them as the most important part of the pair, doing the heavy lifting. He tells Hung that some of the best lion dancers are tails. In this way, Wei takes the high road, praising Hung for his ability and his strength, something Wei will never have. He also tells Hung he intends to remain on the team. Wei learns to stand up to Hung, and believes in his own abilities as a lion dancer. 

Lion Dancers is a very well done graphic novel, with an solid story that is well portrayed using the graphic art medium. The beautiful graphic panels effectively capture the incredible physicality of Chinese lion dancing, the jumps, lifts, and the motions of the lion head to express emotion.  Most readers outside of Chinese culture likely know little about lion dancing and Lion Dancers offers a good introduction to what is a very significant and impressive cultural element in the Lunar New Years celebrations for millions of Chinese. Young readers are encouraged to check out lion dancing performances on YouTube. Author Cai Tse is a lion and dragon dancer with the Chinese Youth League of Australia. She has been dancing since 2016.

Book Details:

Lion Dancers by Cai Tse
New York: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers 2024
299 pp.

Spooky Lakes by Geo Rutherford

Spooky Lakes by Geo Rutherford features twenty-five strange and mysterious lakes found on planet Earth. The book opens with an introduction to limnology, the study of lakes. "A lake is typically a large body of water surrounded by land." They are found in all regions of our planet and can vary in size, depth, shape, and colour. Lakes can be created by glaciers, dormant volcanoes, earthquakes, meteorites and dams. A second chapter, titled Lake Facts offers seventeen fascinating facts about lakes including that Canada has the most lakes of any country at almost two million!

The lakes profiled begin with Lake Superior, famous for its violent storms, one of which sank the Edmund Fitzgerald in November of 1975. One feature of Lake Superior is its cold, fresh water that is bacteria-free, meaning that shipwrecks often are in excellent condition. It also means that those crew who are trapped within the ships, do not decay and can be seen floating inside.

Lake Karachay in Russia is one example of a lake that is contaminated with radioactive waste from a nuclear facility, making it deadly. The Mayak facility located near the lake, exploded in 1957, spewing highly radioactive material into the surrounding environment. Today the lake is a "...dry nuclear waste storage facility" having been filled with tons of concrete blocks, rocks and dirt. 

Perhaps one of the most fascinating lakes is Lake Maracaiho, located in Venezuela, South America. This lake "...is illuminated by thousands of lightning strikes" almost every night of the year. There can be as many as twenty-eight lightning strikes per minute during the frequent storms over the lake. The geography and climate are the primary factors which result in a large number of storms forming over the lake.

Lake Nyos is a very deep volcanic crater lakes in the African country of Cameroon. On August 22, 1986, over seventeen hundred people, their pets and livestock were found dead in the area adjacent to the lake. It was determined that a massive cloud of carbon dioxide gas, from a limnic explosion, raced down the crater sides of Lake Nyos, killing every living thing in its path including insects.

Lake Vostok can be found more than two miles beneath the ice sheet in Antarctica. However, this lake is not frozen! This is due to the immense pressure of the overlying ice sheet. This means that water remains a liquid at temperatures lower than its freezing point of 32 F. It is also believed that the lake is heated from below by a geothermal vent. The lake was discovered by the Russian military and there is now a Russian research station over it. A borehole was drilled to the lake reaching the water surface in 2012. It is not known if sampling the water of Lake Vostok resulted in contamination of its pristine waters.

These are just five of the remarkable lakes profiled in Spooky Lakes.

Discussion

Spooky Lakes profiles twenty-five unique lakes providing a detailed overview of this geographical feature that is so common on our planet. 

What is a "spooky" take on many unusual lakes, is also a fascinating and fact-filled read.  There are lakes created by glaciation such as Lake Superior, lakes that are extremely toxic such as Lake Nyos. There are lava lakes such Mount Nyiragongo Lava Lake, lakes of pitch or natural asphalt like those in La Brea, Trinidad, lakes polluted from nuclear waste such as Lake Karachay, and lakes created by atomic blasts. There are lakes formed from rock slides like Lake Kaindy in Kazakhstan which features a well-preserved submerged forest. 

Rutherford explains many interesting science concepts in Spooky Lakes. For example, she describes how human bodies come to be preserved in the cold, fresh water of Lake Superior. Readers will learn why some lava flows faster due to a lower silica content. In describing Yellowstone Hot Springs, the author explains how the hot springs are part of a the Yellowstone Supervolcano complex.

There are also many cultural references included where relevant. For example, Pitch Lake in Trinidad is believed to be "...a site of mythical punishment" by the Indigenous Arawah people. The section on Lake Guatavita explains the origin of the legend of El Dorado, the mythical city of gold that the Spanish were so determined to find.

Spooky Lakes is richly illustrated by author Geo Rutherford, who hand-painted them using gouache on watercolour paper. A fun twist to this book is the placement of tiny ghosts throughout many of the illustrations, which the author encourages her readers to look for! The author is an American artist, and TikToker whose mother holds a Ph.D. in geology, hence her first name!

Although the illustrations are colourful and simply wonderful, it would have been interesting to see photographs of these lakes where possible. Nevertheless, Spooky Lakes, with its catchy title, lovely artwork and large format size is likely to engage many young readers.

Book Details:

Spooky Lakes by Geo Rutherford

New York: Abrams Books For Young Readers     2024
96 pp

Radar and the Raft by Jeff Lantos

Radar and the Raft is an account of the remarkable survival of seventeen passengers of a freighter torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1942. Their survival was in part due to the development of radar, a new tool centuries and decades in the making.

Ethel Bell was a recently widowed missionary living in New York City in 1938. She had two children, Robert in third grade and Mary in fifth grade. Despite the recent death of her husband George, Ethel was determined to continue her missionary work in West Africa. The Bells left New York on the Cunard liner, Laconia in June of 1938 and sailed to Abidjan in Ivory Coast. They then travelled to the new missionary post in Bouake. As there was no school there, Mary and Robert were driven seven hundred miles to Mamou, Guinea where they boarded with a French-speaking couple and attended school. 

In August 1939, Robert and Mary returned to school in Mamou, after the summer holidays. In May 1940, France surrendered to the Nazis meaning that most of France and its colonies in West Africa were suddenly under Nazi control. Ivory Coast and Guinea were soon filled with Nazi soldiers.  At this time in the war, the United States was neutral. In an effort to keep it that way, Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact which stated that should the United States enter the war, all three countries would retaliate. This meant that the Bells were safe remaining in West Africa: Mrs. Bell remained in Ivory Coast and the Bell children continued their schooling in Guinea. But with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, the United States entered the war. This meant being an American citizen in Nazi-controlled West Africa was risky.

Mrs. Bell had her children return to Bonake and she began to look for passage out of Ivory Coast. However, she was not allowed by leave by the authorities. Eventually with the help of a French consular official, Mrs. Bell and her children were able to flee to the British colony of Gold Coast (Ghana).  The next step was to return to the United States. Unable to obtain seats on any planes leaving North Africa, she began looking to leave by cargo ship. She was successful in gaining passage on the West Lashaway, a freighter loaded with cocoa beans, palm oil and fifty million dollars worth of Congolese gold! The West Lashaway, captained by Benjamin Bogdan, left Takoradi Harbor on August 15, 1942, sailing south of Ivory Coast, and west of Liberia and Sierra Leone. 

Now that Germany and the United States were at war, U-boats began prowling the waters off the east coast of the country, sinking ships. The U.S. Navy did little to protect merchant shipping until several months into the attacks.

Ten days into their voyage, Captain Bogdan received a message telling him to travel northward towards Saint Thomas in the British Virgin Islands. Bogdan had no way of knowing if this radio message was legitimate. And he did not know that U-boats had recently destroyed nine ships near Brazil and Trinidad. Based on his experience as a captain, he ignored the message.

AT 2:31PM the next day, the West Lashaway was hit by two torpedoes. The Bells with life jackets on, attempted to get into a boat but the rapidly sinking ship pulled them down with it. When they surfaced, they along with some passengers, crewmen and Captain Bogdan had survived. Forty-two survivors were now spread out on four rafts, three of which were damaged. They also had emergency rations that included drinking water, crackers, chocolate and tins of pemmican.

After five days of drifting, Captain Bogdan ordered the four rafts to be separated. After being separated, the rafts quickly drifted out of sight of one another. On September 7, Earl Koonz died and on September 9, Captain Bogdan died from his injuries. It would not be until September 18 at 9:50AM that radar on the HMS Vimy would spot the raft. Initially the crew of the Vimy thought the raft was a U-boat but as they got closer they realized it was a raft crammed with seventeen people. The survivors were found by a device that had been over one hundred years in the making.

Discussion

Radar and the Raft weaves together two stories, one, a story of the struggle to survive on the sea and the other a story of a scientific development that involved some of the greatest scientific minds over a period of one hundred and fifty years. These two stories come together with the rescue of seventeen people on a wooden raft, lost in the Atlantic Ocean.

Author Jeff Lantos engages his readers by opening with the story of widowed missionary Ethel Bell and her two children who move to West Africa just prior to World War II.  It follows them as they manage to escape from Nazi-controlled West Africa as war engulfs the world, their journey across the ocean and then their struggle to survive for weeks in the Atlantic after the sinking of their ship by a German U-boat. 

Interspersed between the chapters of their story is that of the series of scientific discoveries that led to the development and implementation of what is now called radar. It was radar that allowed their tiny raft to be detected, just as they were running out of food and water. Readers are introduced to major scientific concepts as they are discovered over a period of one hundred fifty years and the brilliant scientists who observed the world around them, experimented and had their own struggles to understand concepts that weren't obvious. Lantos explains the science in a readable and easy-to-understand way.

Lantos features Michael Faraday who "proved that a magnetic force generates its own electrical force," and that magnetic and electrical forces are interconnected and move through space. James Clerk Maxwell mathematically proved the existence of electromagnetic fields and discovered the laws of electromagnetism. He built on Faraday's discoveries proving "that we're surround by a second, invisible layer, one not directly accessible to our senses." In the early 1890's, Henry Hertz, a German physicist, "became the first person to radiate and detect an electromagnetic wave."  In 1897, Guglielmo Marconi used an electromagnetic wave to transmit a message in Morse code.  But it was Nikola Tesla, building upon the discoveries and work of all those who came before, who wrote that "the reflection of an electrical wave could be used 'to determine the relative position or course of a moving object such as a vessel at sea."  

Lantos describes just how difficult it was to convince the military that this discovery might actually be useful. The science probably seemed the stuff of fantasy. Tesla couldn't raise the money to further develop his idea but in 1904, German inventor,  Christian Hulsmeyer, created a device (he called it a telemobiloscope) that proved Tesla was correct. However, when he tried to interest the German navy in his invention, he was rejected. The German navy rejected a tweaked version a second time in 1916. Tesla tried a second time to interest the U.S. Navy while Guglielmo Marconi gave a talk reiterating how Hertz's discovery could be used to detect ships and submarines. It wasn't until the post World War I era, that two Americans finally were finally listening and understanding. Dr. Albert Hoyt Taylor and Leo Young would actually show that Tesla was absolutely correct - electromagnetic waves could be reflected and be used to identify objects! 

Radar and the Raft demonstrates how one specific discovery about the natural world, in this case electromagnetic waves could have far reaching implications for daily life. By understanding one aspect of the invisible world, scientists were able to apply their understanding to develop many new tools, the first being, radar. In 1942, this helped in the rescue of seventeen survivors on a wooden raft in the ocean. It led a year later to victory for the Allies in the Battle of the Atlantic, as the Nazis lost too many U-boats to make this form of warfare practical. Lantos shows his readers how one discovery let to the development of many things we take for granted today: microwaves, air traffic control radar, television broadcasting, remote controls, weather radar, cell phones and radar guns, MRI, keyless fobs, GPS, driverless cars and smart watches. 

Radar and the Raft is filled with many photographs relevant to the two stories including photographs of ships, newspaper articles, experimental apparatus, paintings and photographs of famous scientists and even a photograph of the raft as it was first seen from the HMS Vimy. Many of the chapters telling the story of the Bells feature artwork done in watercolor done on Fabriano 5 paper. There is a Cast of Characters at the front of the book and the back matter includes detailed Source Notes, A Selected Bibliography, Image Credits and an Index. 

Readers who enjoy science, survival stories and books about World War II will enjoy Radar and the Raft.

Book Details:

Radar and the Raft by Jeff Lantos
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge      2024

186 pp.

Gold Rush: The Untold Story of the First Nation's woman who started the Klondike Gold Rush by Flora Delargy

The Yukon Territory is located in northwest Canada and is known for its beautiful wilderness, with glaciers and rugged mountains. The summers are short, the winters long and dark. Cutting through the Territory is the Yukon River, its name taken from the Gwich'in word 'Yu-ku-ah", which means great river. Gold can be found in its riverbed. When this was discovered, it started the Klondike Gold Rush.

The land that makes up the Yukon Territories is the ancestral home to fourteen First Nations which are organized into two clans: the Wolf and the Crow clans. A Wolf can only marry a member of the Crow clan and vice versa. The First Nation peoples lived a life hunting and gathering. They comprised eight language groups including Gwich'in, Han, Kaska, Upper Tanana, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone, Tagish and Tlingit. 

In the summer of 1896, Shaaw Tlaa, a young woman from the First Nation Tagish and Tlingit peoples, was travelling with her husband. Her name meant "Older than Old".  Shaaw Tlaa, also called Kate, was married to George Carmack, a white American prospector. As a member of the Tagish Wolf clan, Kate knew and respected the land. She knew which plants could be eaten and which were used for their medicinal properties. Along with her brother Keish (Skookum Jim Mason) and her nephew Kaa Goox (Dawson Charlie), Kate and her husband were searching for gold. Some say Kate found gold, other stories are that Keish did. Whoever was the first, the claim was registered in George Carmack's name.

News of a gold strike at Bonanza Creek spread rapidly throughout the Yukon Territory. Soon prospectors flooded the area, working to extract good from the creek. In 1897, gold fever soon struck throughout the world, as some returned to places like San Francisco and Seattle, very rich. 

Discussion

Gold Rush offers a fascinating account of the Klondike Gold Rush from the perspective of the women who were involved. Although the story starts off with the discovery of gold possibly by an Indigenous woman, it is also a story of women entrepreneurs, miners, and business owners. Delargy profiles four amazing women in Gold Rush.

Martha Black ran a sawmill and quartz mill on the Yukon River. Belinda Mulrooney was an entrepreneur who opened a store and a restaurant in Dawson as well as a very grand hotel, called the Fairview. Nellie Cashman, was an experienced prospector well before the gold discovery at Bonanza. She set out on an expedition to the Klondike. To fund her mining claims, Nellie ran a series of boarding houses in Dawson. She had a mine that yielded one hundred thousand dollars in gold! A huge fortune at that time. There was Bessie Couture who owned two restaurants in Skagway, Alaska. Each of these women did not accept that claim that the gold trail was "No Place For Women". Instead, they proved they were more than equal to the task of life on the trail. Just how incredible the accomplishments of these women were, is demonstrated by the fact that "...Of the 100,000 stampeders who set out for the gold fields, around 70,000 either turned back or perished." 

Gold Rush also offers a portrait of life in the Far North during the Gold Rush. Delargy outlines the considerable supplies miners and stampeders required to survive on the trail. The various routes to the gold fields are shown on a map, including the White Pass Trail and the most famous, the Chilkoot Trail. The latter had been used as a trade route for hundreds of years by the Tlingit people. With it's fifteen hundred steps at a thirty-five degree incline, it was a major obstacle to be overcome by stampeders.

Delargy describes how miners extracted the gold nuggets from the river sediment and rocks, using the sluice box system. To reach gold found deeper, mine shafts were constructed. The Klondike Gold Rush lasted until 1899 when gold was found in Nome, Alaska. Gold Rush also explains the effects the gold rush had on the First Nations of the Yukon, the destruction of their ancestral fishing and hunting grounds, the loss of their culture, and the exposure to new diseases.

Although the title of this book is the "Untold Story of the First Nation's Woman Who Started the Klondike Gold Rush", in fact it is mostly about other women involved in the gold rush. Kate Carmack's life, despite the gold find, was not one of ease. Her marriage broke up, she lost custody of her daughter, Graphie, and returned to the Yukon to find her Tagish village gone. 

Gold Rush is an informative, engaging book on the Klondike Gold Rush, the story richly enhanced by the author's ink and watercolour illustrations.

Book Details:

Gold Rush: The Untold Story of the First Nation's Woman Who Started the Klondike Gold Rush by Flora Delargy

Beverly, MA:  Wide Eyed Publications      2024

75 pp.

Lost At Windy River. A True Story of Survival by Trina Rathgeber

Lost at Windy River is the reclaimed survival story of Ilse Schweder. Ilse was thirteen-years-old and living at Windy River, a northern trading post with her father Fred, her older brothers Charles and Freddy, her sister Mary, and her younger brothers Norman and Mike. Her father Fred had come to Canada from Germany and was a fur trader. Charles was a respected northern guide who was also a fur trapper and sled dog trainer. Freddy was also a skilled trapper and an expert dog-team driver. Mary was skilled in animal skinning and food preserving. Ilse was an accomplished outdoorswoman. 

Four years earlier, Ilse's mother had passed away and then two years ago Ilse and her two sisters had been taken to a residential school. It was after her older sister died at the school and selling their farm near Winnipeg,  that Ilse's father brought them north to live at the Windy River Trading Post. 

One winter the Schweder family began a trip around their trapline. It would take them three days to complete the eighty mile loop. Accompanying Freddy and Charles were the two younger boys Mike and Norman, and Ilse who was along to train the small dogs. Mary would stay behind with their father. 

They set out on a sunny, cold winter day passing "George", a pile of stones that resembled a human man. This was also called a caribou boundary, "...used to direct herds of caribou where hunters want them to go." Animals would pause to look at the stone man, allowing hunters the chance to aim and shoot. 

At the first stop, Freddy, Charles and the two younger boys went to check the first set of traps while Ilse rested and reminisced about the time they moved to the far north. Her brothers returned, telling Ilse a three-toed wolverine ate one of the foxes. Then they set off for the Sandy Hill Camp, one of eight stops along the trapline. After a night there, Ilse and her brothers prepared to continue on. However, Charles noticed the heavy clouds low on the horizon, the strong winds that indicated a storm was brewing. Because of this, Charles decides to continue on to the trapline camp at Kazan River while Ilse, Freddy and the two younger boys are to finish their tasks and then head home. Before leaving they make Charles extra dog food and mend parts of the shelter.

Although the younger boys begged Freddy to leave earlier for home, they don't start their journey until a few hours later. To make Ilse's sled lighter and easier for the smaller dogs to pull, Freddy placed all the supplies and Mike into his sled. He felt if they travelled quickly, they would make home before the storm hit. 

However, the storm came on fast and fierce, with whiteout conditions. Ilse's smaller, unexperienced dogs couldn't keep up with Freddy's sled. Her dogs pulled one way and then the other and she fell behind. To help keep Ilse in sight, Freddy attached a rope to the two sleds. It worked for a time but then broke once and then a second time. Soon Ilse was on her own. Freddy arrived back at Windy Post without Ilse, deeply distraught knowing that Ilse was out in the storm alone. Fred tells his son, they will go look for her in the morning. But for Ilse, soon without her dogs and any food, the struggle to survive on the barrens is just beginning. 

Discussion

Lost at Windy River is the story of author Trina Rathgeber's grandmother, Ilse Schweder who survived for nine days, lost in the barrens, in northern Canada. Ilse's Cree name was "iskwew pethasew" which means "Woman of the Thunderbird".  Ilse's remarkable survival story had been told by various authors, including Canadian author, Farley Mowat in his book, People of the Deer. In her Author's Note, Trina writes "It had always bothered Ilse that the writer Farley Mowat, who her father met on the train to Churchill, wrote an account of her story in the book People of the Deer and made mention of her family in others. He spent time camping outside their trading post too, always scribbling in his notebook. Today Ilse would be happy to know that her story has been reclaimed in a way that was true to her experience."  Her family also knew bits and pieces of this remarkable story: Trina first heard the story when she was about seven years old, with family members often stating that her story should be written down. Trina was able to interview her elderly grandmother, looking at past articles and photographs and even the blanket she used to protect her eyes while out on the snow. Ilse who was born in 1931, passed away in 2018 at the age of eighty-seven.

Although Rathgeber initially wrote her grandmother's story as a novel, she was convinced to use the graphic novel format as a way of engaging younger readers in this reclaimed Indigenous story. Lost at Windy River is that graphic novel, well written and delightfully crafted: the illustrations by Alina Pete and the coloring by Jullian Dolan are beautiful and appealing. Rathgeber presents her grandmother's as a story she reclaims by telling it to young students at a school. At the end of her telling, Ilse has some wise words for these students, explaining how every experience makes us who we are and how the north, "the land of the little sticks" is a piece of heaven 

Lost At Windy River highlights the inner strength, resourcefulness, determination and courage Ilse Schweder showed while lost on the barrens. She remained calm and used her wealth of Indigenous knowledge she had learned over the years to survive. For example, Ilse built a snow cave out of hard packed snow to keep her warm during the nights. She knew she had to keep her caribou clothing, which kept her warm, dry. However, when she fell through the ice, Ilse pressed the fur into the snow, which absorbed the water and dried it. She ate spruce sap that she found, which was a source of Vitamin C. When she began to realize she was suffering from snow blindness, she made makeshift snow goggles from a blanket.

Ilse was eventually saved when she wandered close to Ragnar Jonsson's camp. The Swedish born trapper had a reputation for being very honest and was well respected in the north. He came to Canada in 1923 and spent sixty years as a trapper. When he found Ilse, she was near death and suffering from frostbite. He immediately recognized the seriousness of her condition and did what he could to help her and get her back to her family. Ilse eventually reunited with Ragnar many years later. He passed away in 1988. 

Lost At Windy River will appeal to young readers between the ages of 9 to 12. While there is an Author's Note and a page devoted to small photographs of Ilse and a newspaper article, a more detailed biography section in the back matter would have added much context to Ilse's story. It is hoped that Author Trina Rathgeber will consider publishing a more detailed biography of her grandparents and great-grandparents, with a focus on life in Canada's Far North and the Indigenous peoples who live there. Lost At Windy River feels like just a taste of what could be a very interesting account of Indigenous life and culture. 

Book Details:

Lost At Windy River. A True Story of Survival by Trina Rathgeber

Toronto: Orca Book Publishers      2024

90 pp.