Stealing Little Moon: The Legacy of the American Indian Boarding Schools by Dan Sasuweh Jones

In Stealing Little Moon, author Dan Sasuweh Jones explores the legacy of the American Indian Boarding Schools within .

Chapter One Kill the Indian In Him explores how the Indian residential boarding school school system came about. Jones traces the origin of the boarding schools to the early mission schools set up by the Spanish in the 1600's. This was followed by the establishment of Harvard University by the British and then the addition of the Indian College to bring Christianity to the surrounding Native people." The idea was to expose Indian students to English ways and have them bring this knowledge back to their tribes.

The end of the Civil War and the migration west of "settlers", led to war between the U.S. government and the Indians living on the land. The U.S. government took away the ancestral lands of the Indians and forcibly removed them. But the idea to educate Indian children to white ways, making it easier to assimilate the next generation, came from the work of U.S. Army Captain, Richard Henry Pratt. His successful forced assimilation program on captured Indian warriors, led him to design one for Indian children.

Pratt's first off-registration school was Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which took in only young children and opened in 1879. It was located on an old military base near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Pratt's motto came to be "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." The goal was to mold Indian children so that they "could become part of white society", leaving behind their own cultural traditions, thus solving what the U.S. government had termed "the Indian problem." 

The first group of children were taken from the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations in South Dakota, travelling fifteen hundred miles to Carlisle, arriving on October 6, 1879. The children were "ripped from their families" and entered a strange world that was run like a military institution. "Carlisle required the Indian students to cut their long braids, to take 'American' names, to dress in drab U.S. military uniforms to speak only English, and to march wherever they went around campus...."

Before and after photographs show the changes in the young Indians' appearances. These pictures along with those of "classroom experiences, concerts, sports, and happy interactions with the staff." were used to promote Pratt's project. Chemawa Indian School opened in 1880, taking in children from the Puyallup Indians from Puget Sound in Washington. The number of schools soon mushroomed, with boarding schools in New Mexico, Nebraska, Arizona, California and Kansas. The children were forcibly taken and if families refused, the government withheld rations, clothing and even jailed fathers. Some tried to hide their children but few escaped.

In Chapter Two Little Moon There Are No Stars Tonight, the author tells the story of his grandmother, Little Moon There Are No Stars Tonight and how she came to the Indian boarding school, Chilocco, which played a large part in his own family history. The school that educated the author's family members was built on the banks of the Chilocco Creek, "in the middle of empty, tall grass prairie." One hundred children from the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kowa tribes arrived in 1884. Author Dan Sasuweh Jones' grandmother's family, the Little Cooks, were members of the Ponca tribe. His grandmother's name in Ponca was Little Moon There Are No Stars Tonight but she came to be known as Elizabeth Little Cook. Little Moon's father (the author's great-grandfather) was Sam Little Cook. He was Head Chief of their clan, called the Rain Clan. Her mother was Esther Broken Jaw Little Cook. There were six children in the family ranging in age from four to eighteen. They included daughters Creth, Annie, Fannie, and Elizabeth (Little Moon), and sons David and Henry.

Life before the boarding school for Little Moon was simple and slow. Her family had built a farm and they lived by "...eating foods that were either home grown or harvested."  They had cattle, chickens and pigs. There was no electricity or plumbing. The family was close-knit, practicing their Ponca customs and values. This all changed in 1885, when Little Moon was forcibly taken from her Ponca family by the Indian agent. She was four years old. Sam Little Cook, noticing that there were intruders near his home, ordered his wife Esther to hide their children. However, the Indian Agent was determined that four-year-old Elizabeth was to attend the boarding school. The women accompanying the Indian Agent saw where little Elizabeth had been hidden, took her, and forcibly placed the screaming little girl into the wagon. 

For Elizabeth the trauma was just beginning. She along with the other children in the wagon were taken to the community of White Eagle. White Eagle was set up like a Ponca summer/winter encampment but instead of a semicircle of buffalo-hide teepees, there were wooden homes. The community also had a sawmill, a trading post, and in the middle a three-storey school. Initially this school had been for Ponca orphans, but now children like Elizabeth, who had families, were forced to attend.

Once in the school, Elizabeth underwent a physical transformation to start the process of losing her Ponca identity: her braids were cut, her clothes changed and she was stripped of any personal possession like a small medicine bag. At White Eagle, at least her family could still visit her. But then one day, Elizabeth, along with all the other students were packed off far way to Chilocco. It was 1886, and the school had already been open for two years. Elizabeth Little Cook, formerly Little Moon was the first of four generations of her family to be connected intimately to the Quaker boarding school, either as a student or an employee. Chilocco would forever change Little Moon and her family in ways they did not anticipate and which were to affect the generations to come.

Discussion

Stealing Little Moon is a long overdue book, written for younger readers, about the Indian boarding school era in the United States.  Stealing Little Moon covers four generations of author Dan Sasuweh Jones' American Indian family during what is now referred to as the boarding school era, from 1884 to 1980. During the boarding school era, U.S. government agents forcibly seized young Indian children and transported them, far from their families, to boarding schools. The purpose of his book is to "...tell their stories and those of my own family members." It also "...explores what it was like to be an American Indian child during the boarding school years...as well as the depth and richness of our heritage." 

As he traces his family history through the boarding school era, Jones also provides many details about the schools themselves, the relationship between the American Indians and the U.S. Government, the significant contributions of American Indians to American culture and society, and the struggle for equality, justice, reparation and healing.

He begins by offering readers with background information on the boarding schools. "The network of government schools was designed to wipe out American Indian culture and replace it with white ways...Forced to leave their families to attend the schools, children had to disown their language and rituals and they were brainwashed into adopting white ways. Whether or not they obeyed the rules, the children were abused emotionally and physically by the administrators and teachers. After they returned home and married, many passed on this abuse to the next generation." In effect, the function of these schools was "cultural genocide": stripping "Indian children of their heritage and cultural practices."

Jones outlines the origin of the Indian boarding schools from the Spanish mission schools in the early 1600's to the establishment of the Indian College at Harvard, to bring Christianity to the native peoples of the Americas. In the post-Civil War era, Indians were stripped of their ancestral lands and forcibly removed for European "settlers". The idea to educate Indian children to white ways, making it easier to assimilate the next generation, came from the work of U.S. Army Captain, Richard Henry Pratt. His successful forced assimilation program on captured Indian warriors, led him to design one for Indian children. Pratt's first off-reservation school was Carlisle Indian Industrial School which took in only young children and opened in 1879. His motto was "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." 

Dan Sasuweh Jones' family story is intimately connected to that of the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, built in Indian Territory which eventually became north-central Oklahoma. The purpose of this school and other boarding schools was that of forcing "young Indian children to abandon their heritage." His grandmother Elizabeth (Little Moon), his mother Velma Pensoneau (Full Moon)  and her siblings, Edward, Otilia, Francis and Daniel all attended. Jones' sisters Donna and Esther,  his brother Mike  and his first cousin Charmain as well as many other relatives experienced Chilocco. Although the author did not attend Chilocco, he worked there for many years. Jones shows how with each generation, the boarding schools improved and the experience was less traumatic, but the goal of achieving cultural assimilation was still successful despite many reforms. 

Many parts of Stealing Little Moon are difficult to read. The passage in Chapter Two Little Moon There Are No Stars Tonight describing the forced abduction of four-year-old Little Moon is truly heartbreaking. Jones highlights just how powerless American Indian parents were to protect their children from the Indian agents and how determined the government was to take them, even to the point of starving families and jailing fathers. In Chapter 6 Hateful Things, the acts of unkindness, the punishment and abuse of Indian children for cultural slips, bad manners, disobedience, imprudence and bed wetting are shocking. Jones describes the use of handcuffs, lockup rooms, whips, straps, and even the threat of being sent to the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians. Many survivor stories are recounted. These "...punishments passed from generation to generation. Children who had learned abusive ways at boarding school used them on their own children." In this way, the trauma of the boarding schools passed from one generation to the next.

One very informative and interesting aspect of Stealing Little Moon is the author's in-depth explanation of some Ponca cultural practices and how the loss of them had a profound affect on the Ponca children. When Indian children arrived at a boarding school their hair, which was often braided, was cut. Jones' explains, "The act of braiding our hair is filled with prayer. With each braid we are communicating with Wa KoN Da (God) and asking for mercy, healing, safety, clarity, and forgiveness for our infractions..." Later on he explains, "Through time, many have believed that hair is cut only under high-stress conditions, for instance when a loved one dies. It is a symbol of mourning. Long hair that is cut then disconnects a person from the community for one year, while it grows back. White school administrators may have thought that they were only changing the children's fashion. But for Elizabeth and the children with her, having their hair cut represented death." 

Another practice in the boarding schools was the forbidding of Indian children from speaking in their mother tongue. Jones writes, "For every people on Earth, language is our identity and our connection to the world...Your own language carried ancient meanings and connections to Earth and all life..." Like many societies, the Ponca had an oral tradition that was a significant part of their culture. "Lost with language would also be their stories. Some stories hold the key to passing down our tribal values and ethics. They tell Ponca children who they are, what we expect from life, and how we interact with one another. They tell us the history of our people and what we believe in...But the greatest connection to our language and our selfhood is knowledge of our mythology...These stories contain many pearls of wisdom, all told in continuing narratives that are funny, tragic, mystifying, dangerous, and beautiful, oh so beautiful." Ironically, it would be an American Indian language that would help the Americans during World War II, the very language they were trying to destroy.

Besides outlining the many abuses that occurred in the American Indian boarding schools, Jones also focuses on the efforts from the 1950's onward to reclaim pride in American Indian identity and to reclaim Indian cultural practices like the Sun Dance which was one outlawed.  Paralleling the Black civil rights movement, the American Indian movement advocated for better education, housing and healthcare, the restoration of stolen Indian land and the repeal of unfair policies and treaties. 

Dan Sasuweh Jones' writing is passionate, rich in facts and details. Although he never attended an American Indian boarding school, the boarding school story is his and his family's: its intergenerational impact extending down from his grandmother and mother and her siblings to his own generation. As with many American Indian families, the struggle to reclaim their cultural heritage and identity has been challenging and ongoing. 

Jones includes many black and white photographs and also many sidebars which offer addition information on important people and events. Features include the Ponca Trail of Tears, Ponca values, the Returned, Runaways, Code Talkers, Red Power is Born, Wounded Knee Massacre 1890 and many more.  Especially poignant are the before and after photographs of various American Indian children. The before photographs show young children, proud and dignified in their traditional clothing with long hair in sharp contrast to the after photographs where an air of sadness permeates their bearing, hair shorn and wearing a uniform.  The Ponca Trail of Tear

Stealing Little Moon is both heartbreaking and hopeful: it is a difficult read. What was done to American Indian children and their families is truly difficult to comprehend but Stealing Little Moon is part of truth telling that will hopefully lead to healing and reconciliation.

Book Details:

Stealing Little Moon: The Legacy of the American Indian Boarding Schools by Dan Sasuweh Jones
New York: Scholastic Focus      2024
284 pp.

Uprooted by Ruth Chan

Uprooted is a memoir about going back to your family's country of origin. 

It is the summer of 1993 and Ruth Chan is spending one last day with her best friends at Canada's Wonderland. In two days, she will be leaving Canada behind and moving with her parents to Hong Kong. Ruth and her friends promise to write each other. Almost all of Ruth's mother's family live in Hong Kong. Ruth visited the city when she was five years old and doesn't have pleasant memories. 

After spending the next day packing up her room, they drop her older brother, Goh  off at his boarding school. With only one year left, it makes sense for him to stay in Canada. On their last night at home, Ruth and her dad have their last "talk-to-talk" in Canada. He wants to tell her about how he came to be born in a barn. It is a story her father's older sister has told many times before. Her father stops his telling despite Ruth wanting him to continue. He tells her that when they continue the story, they will be in Hong Kong. He reminds Ruth that "The unknown is simply a part of life."

After a fifteen hour flight, Ruth and her parents arrive in Hong Kong. Ruth notices everyone looks like her, speaks Cantonese and that it is crowded with long lines for everything. Their new home is an apartment on the fifteenth floor of a high rise. After several days of unpacking and organizing her new bedroom, on day seven, Ruth and her parents go to visit her mother's family. Ruth is overwhelmed at the family gathering. The understands Cantonese but isn't fluent in it. And some of the Chinese customs and values she doesn't know. Ruth feels like she doesn't fit in and hides in the kitchen with the cat.

Ruth's father leaves for his work in China and Ruth starts classes at the German Swiss International School. On her first day she makes a new friend, Bonnie who is from Hong Kong but has been living in Australia for the past three years. But as the days go by, Ruth finds adapting to a different culture and settling into life in Hong Kong is far more challenging than she anticipated.

Discussion

Uprooted is based on Ruth Chan's own experience when her family returned to Hong Kong. She was thirteen years old and had lived in Toronto.  The move meant leaving behind everything familiar and stepping into the unknown. 

Ruth Chan's parents came to Canada to attend university and then stayed. They returned to Hong Kong when she was thirteen-years-old. She attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts after graduating from high school in Beijing, China. There she studied a double major in developmental psychology and studio art. Chan also completed the Arts in Education program at the Harvard Education School. This led her into a temporary career, teaching art to school children in Boston's Chinatown and also in Washington, D.C. Eventually she came to realize teaching was not really the career she wanted and she gradually moved into studio art, illustrating children's books. This led to Chan creating her first graphic novel, Uprooted.  

Uprooted is not just about Ruth's own experience in moving back to Hong Kong but also tells a story within her personal story, that of her father and his family fleeing during the Second Sino-Japanese War. This story has been repeatedly told by grandparents and aunts and Ruth knows it well.  The two stories carry the common theme, that of being uprooted from everything familiar and having to meet new challenges in a new place. Ruth Chan like her grandmother, had been uprooted from everything familiar. Chan weaves these two stories together by having Ruth's father tell her about his family during their sporadic "talk-to-talk" sessions at bedtime, as they leave Toronto and are beginning life in Hong Kong. 

When her father first begins his retelling on their last night in Toronto, Ruth tells him "I know the story, but it feels different when you're telling it this time. Like it's more real or something." In fact it does seem more real to Ruth because she's living leaving her home and going somewhere very different, just as her grandparents did when they left their village and fled into the mountains. 

When Ruth's father's family arrives in the village of Pong Fa, they struggle to find a place to stay. As they find refuge in a barn with a full pigsty, Ruth's grandparents tell their children to be patient, that  "...soon they will find where they belong." Previously, Ruth's grandparents and their family would have found this very uncomfortable, but they were able to find the good in their situation, enjoying the pigs. It is a message for Ruth that she too will find her place and that there are good things in Hong Kong.

In another "Talk-to-Talk", Ruth's father describes how after he was born two months premature, he struggled to live. With not enough food, Ruth's grandmother couldn't nurse him and she was told to let her son die. But her grandmother refused, courageously persevering in feeding him. That baby grew up to be Ruth's father and he now tells Ruth it was his mother courage, perseverance and patience that saved him. These are qualities he recognizes in Ruth.

When Ruth's grandfather chased off bandits determined to steal from his family, Ruth's father tells her he did this despite being very ill. Ruth feels  this was "gutsy", a trait her father tells her she also has. Her father's story of his family's struggle in a new place helps Ruth understand that she's not the first one to experience the feeling of struggling to belong and that it takes courage, perseverance and patience to gradually feel welcome in a new place.

In telling these two stories, Ruth was able "to honor the incredible strength that my Mah Mah, my aunt, and my parents possessed in overcoming all the things that came their way..." and to recognize how her own challenges made her grow into the person she is today. 

In Hong Kong, Ruth encounters unexpected bias in her new home: "...all of a sudden, in Hong Kong, I wasn't 'Chinese' enough because I didn't speak Cantonese well and dressed differently..." She feels "...lonely in a new place, like no one understood me or seemed to care about how I was doing." Ruth feels that both her parents are distracted and unaware of her struggles: her father is working China most of the time, and her mother seems absorbed with reconnecting with her family and friends. However, when Ruth does finally tell her parents that she feels lost, they point out to her all the ways she has changed and grown. Ruth herself comes to realize that she's learning new skills, like becoming more fluent in Cantonese, making new friends such as Bonnie, and more independent as she learns to find her way around Hong Kong.  In fact, she's doing so well that when her older brother, Goh visits for Christmas, she is able to take him around the city just like a local.

Uprooted is a engaging, realistic story about what it's like to move to a new place to live and that it can take courage, perseverance and patience to find where you belong.

Book Details:

Uprooted. A memoir about what happens when your family moves back. by Ruth Chan
New York: Roaring Brook Press 

285 pp.

Up, Up, Ever Up! by Anita Yasuda

Up, Up, Ever Up! is the story of Junko Takei, a Japanese woman determined to be a mountain climber.

Junko grew up under the sakura trees on her mountain, dreaming of climbing. At the age of ten, Junko along with her friends, climbed Mount Chausu. On their climb they encountered hot springs, strong smells, and boulders. 

When she eventually left Miharu for the city of Tokyo, Junko continued to long for the mountains. She was able to join a mountaineering club that accepted women. Each weekend Junko laced on her boots and joined other climbers heading up mountains. In her adventures, Junko met someone who also loved climbing. They married and had a family.

As her family grew, Junko , along with other women climbers planned an expedition to Mount Everest. At this time, no woman had succeeded in climbing the world's highest mountain. 

Discussion

Junko Ishibashi was born September 22, 1939 in Miharu, a town located in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. She was the third youngest of seven daughters. When she was ten years old, Junko developed a love of climbing on a school trip to Mount Nasu (also known as Mount Chausu) in Tochigi Prefecture. Junko loved the mountain landscapes she encountered on the climbs. However, climbing was an expensive sport and one that was male dominated so Junko did not undertake many climbs while a high school student.

She studied at Showa Women's University from 1958 to 1962, earning a degree in American and English Literature. After graduating Junko joined several climbing groups which were for men only. Although some members were not welcoming, Junko was able to climb all the major mountains in Japan including Mount Fiji. 

In 1966 Junko married Masanobu Tabei who she had met during a climb on Mount Tanigawa. She was twenty-seven years old. Junko and Masanobu eventually had two children. In 1969, Junko founded a women's climbing club, Joshi-Tohan Club. She formed the club mainly as a result of how she was treated by men in the climbing clubs. The first expedition the Joshi-Tohan Club undertook was to successfully climb Annapurna III in May of 1970. They were the first women and Japanese to summit the mountain. 

In 1971, the Joshi-Tohan Club applied for a permit to climb Mount Everest but it wasn't until 1975 that the club received a place in the formal climbing schedule. The Mount Everest team of fifteen members was led by Eiko Hisano and used the same route that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay took in 1953. Two of the women were mothers, while many others had professional jobs. They encountered opposition as they raised funds for the trip. They were able to begin their climb in 1975, after years and months of fund-raising and training. On May 4, while camping at 20,000 ft, an avalanche struck, burying Tabei and four fellow climbers. They were dug out by the Sherpas accompanying the expedition. Tabei was injured in this accident but recovered and was able to resume the climb.

Tabei was chosen by Hisano to make the final ascent to the peak, after altitude sickness left the team with only enough oxygen tanks for one woman to make the climb. Tabei along with her sherpa guide Ang Shering, reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 16, 1975. She was the first woman to summit Everest, and only the thirty-sixth person to do so. 

By 1992, Junko Tabei became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits, climbing Kilimanjaro in 1980, Aconcagua in 1987, Denali in 1988, Elbrus in 1989, Mount Vinson in 1991, and Puncak Jaya in 1992. Throughout the 1990's and into the early 2000's, Tabei continued to take part in many all women's mountaineering expeditions. 

In later years, Junko Tabei advocated for  the conservation of mountain ecosystems like that of Mount Everest. She completed post-doctorate studies at Kyushu University with special focus on the mounting human waste being left on Everest and other mountains by climbers. Diagnosed in 2012 with cancer of the peritoneum, Junko Tabei passed away in 2016.

Up, Up, Ever Up! offers younger readers an engaging introduction to the remarkable life and accomplishments of  mountaineer, author, teacher, conservationist and mother, Junko Tabei. Yasuda captures the determination and quiet perseverance of Tabei as she turned her childhood love of the mountains into a lifelong passion. She was able to overcome the resistance of those who told her women did not belong in mountaineering, forging a path, step by step, for those women who would come after. Tabei, who was a modest person and uncomfortable with the fame her accomplishments brought, was able to use her notoriety to help the people of Nepal and to advocate for more responsible mountaineering practices and tourism. Tabei was also one of few women who attended university, at a time when women were discouraged from seeking a higher education. Tabei's motto was "Do not give up. Keep on your quest!"

Portraying Junko Tabei's journey upwards are the lovely illustrations done by Japanese illustrator, Yuko Shimizu. The illustrations for Up, Up, Ever Up! were rendered using "a Japanese calligraphy brush that was specifically made for Buddhist sutra and black India ink to make drawings on watercolor paper." These were then coloured digitally using Adobe Photoshop. Like Junko Tabei, Shimizu's mother also attended Showa Women's University.

Up, Up, Ever Up! is a must-read for young girls as an encouragement to follow their dreams, even when they seem especially impossible! Yasuda has included an Author's Note, a Timeline, a Glossary, and a detailed Bibliography for further reading.

Book Details:

Up, Up, Ever Up! by Anita Yasuda

New York: Clarion Books    2024

Sea Without A Shore by Barbara Rosenstock

Sea Without A Shore explores the unique world of the Sargasso Sea, the only sea without a shore.  It is located hundreds of miles into the Atlantic Ocean and is saltier and warmer than the surrounding ocean.

It seems like an ocean desert except there are rafts of Sargassum, which is not a plant but an algae. It grows stipes and blades and has gas-filled globes which keep the weed on the ocean surface.

The Sargassum grows from a small branch that has broken away and as it does so, tiny creatures come to live on it: "...bryozoans, feathery hydroids and spiraled tube worms" that feed on the microscopic life. There are "rubbery snails, waving anemones and spongy nudibranchs" that stalk and eat. 

The floating Sargassum offers " a place for wandering creatures to explore: pinching crabs, skittering shrimp, buggy amphipods." They scavenge, eating dead and living plants and animals, cleaning up the weeds."  This allows young creatures like "pointy swordfish, stocky jacks, and blunt-nosed mahi mahi to grow as they eat tiny bits of food that falls off the weed."  

The Sargassum also contains strange creatures like "...toothless pipefish, riffling flatworm, and crawling frogfish."  The pipefish sucks up amphipods, while the frogfish lure's it's prey, which it swallows whole.

There is life both above and below but the Sargassum is a home to a diverse community.

Discussion

Sea Without A Shore tells the story of how a new Sargassum seaweed fragment develops a growing community. Author Barbara Rosenstock was motivated to research the Sargasso Sea after encountering tangled seaweed on a beach in the Dominican Republic.

The Sargasso Sea encompasses an area that is two thousand miles long and seven hundred miles wide. It takes it's name from the Sargassum seaweed that is free floating and that reproduces "vegetatively" - that is without seeds or spores. The Sargasso Sea has no land borders. Instead its borders are four ocean currents: to the west the Gulf Stream, to the north the North Atlantic current, to the east the Canary Current, and to the south the North Atlantic Equatorial current. 

In her Research Note, Rosenstock writes that she and illustrator, Katherine Roy met with oceanographers, Dr. Kerry Whittaker assistant professor at Corning School of Oceanography, Maine Marine Academy and Dr. Robbie Smith, curator, Bermuda Natural History Museum,  in Bermuda to research the Sargassum. Bermuda is the only landmass within the Sargasso Sea. The oceanographers took them to the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo to view the ocean life exhibits. They also examined fresh Sargassum to see the various sea creatures that live in the weed.

Based on her research, Rosenstock realized that she could not feature all the life in the Sargasso Sea into one picture book. Instead, she presents a simplified story of this open ocean ecosystem, highlighting both its diversity and how life within the Sargassum is interconnected. Rosenstock employs short descriptive phrases to describe the various sea creatures and these descriptions are accompanied by the beautiful illustrations by Katherine Roy. 

Rosenstock has included an map of the Sargasso Sea framed by the sea life mentioned in the book. Readers can return to the illustrations to locate these creatures as they are mentioned in the picture book. There is also a short Afterword by Dr. Sylvia Earle, a former chief scientist of NOAA, and currently president and chairman of Mission Blue, an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. There are full colour photographs of a cluster of Sargassum and of the Sargassum frogfish, a Research Note by the author, a note on Too Much Sargassum?, and a list of Sources.

The Sargasso Sea is believed to have existed for at least ten thousand years and its continued may depend on future generations knowing and understanding this unique ocean ecosystem.

Book Details:

Sea Without A Shore, Life in the Sargasso by Barbara Rosenstock

New York: Norton Young Readers     2024

Eyes On The Ice by Anna Rosner

Ten-year-old Lukas Burian, his twelve-year-old brother Denys, and six-year-old brother Alexander and their parents, Nadia and Josef live in a three room apartment at the top of a four storey building in Prague, Czechoslvakia. Lukas and his brothers sleep in the livingroom while his parents use the only bedroom. Lukas's father is a journalist who writes articles, all approved by the state, while his mother, who is expecting a baby soon, works in a nursery teaching music and art. Their Uncle Pavel also lives in Prague, sharing a four bedroom apartment with distant cousins. He was an mechanical engineer prior to the communist takeover and now drives a passenger train.

Lukas's best friend is Andrej Svoboda who lives with his parents, Rudy and Marta . Both Rudy and Josef write for the state approved newspaper but both are strongly anti-Communist. Lukas's father gets the banned American newspaper from a street vendor. He hides the paper and an English dictionary under the bathroom sink. 

Lukas, Denys, Andrej and Alex all love hockey. Lukas's favourite player is Czech-born Stan Mikita, while Denys and Andrej like Gordie Howe. They love reading out- of-date copies of Hockey News. After dinner, Lukas and his brothers go to the outdoor rink to skate and practice their hockey skills. Andrey plays real hockey, getting up early for morning practice, before school. As a result, he doesn't come to the arena in the evenings. One night Uncle Pavel brings over hockey sticks and their mother gives them a hockey puck. At the outdoor rink, Pavel tells their father, they are natural athletes. 

Once a week, Lukas and Denys have to attend a Young Pioneers meeting which indoctrinates them in Soviet propaganda. They have to attend every meeting otherwise this will be noticed. During the meetings, they chant slogans that Lukas recognizes as false.

One night Lukas is woken up when his younger brother, Alex is trying to hide a toy car. Lukas learns from Alex that their father has a secret hiding spot in the closet, behind a board in the floor. Lukas decides not to check the closet because he doesn't want to know what his father might be hiding. 

Then one night while Lukas and Denys are practicing on the outdoor rink, they are approached by a stranger named Novak, who invites them to train at a nearby indoor arena. They would be coached by a former player of the Czech national team. The two boys agree and on Saturday they meet Coach Peter who drills them on various skills.

At school one day, Lukas is told to stay afterwards as Mr. Hajek wants to talk to him. As he's heading out of class, Andrej warns him not to tell Hajek anything. Lukas doesn't understand. While his classmate Ivan is in the room, Lukas overhears their conversation and learns that Hajek is interrogating him. When it's his turn, Lukas finds himself questioned as to whether his "father likes to write things and hide them away?". He reveals nothing to Hajek who tells him their conversation is secret and not to tell his parents. Later that night, Lukas questions Denys about being questioned and what their father might be hiding. 

Unable to get anything from the children, both Lukas and Andrej's families are targeted by the oko, or state secret police, who are determined to stop their fathers. As the situation evolves into one of life and death, Lukas's family must make the decision to risk everything for the chance at freedom.

Discussion

In Eyes On The Ice, Anna Rosner has crafted a realistic story that captures life in communist Czechoslovakia in the 1960's.

Czechoslovakia became a state in 1918 after declaring independence from Austria-Hungary. During World War II the country lost various portions to Nazi Germany, Hungary and Poland. After World War II, the state of Czechoslovakia was reformed. In 1948, a Soviet-backed coup established communist control of Czechoslovakia, that would last until 1989. Communism had begun to gain ground in the country after 1920, as the communists had a record of working with non-communists and opposing Nazi rule and being seen as one of the country's liberators, along with the Soviet Union, in World War II. Communism did not fulfill the expectations of citizens of Czechoslovakia: life was exceedingly repressive. 

People were not allowed to own properties or businesses: the latter were all confiscated and nationalized. Communists feared the intellectual elite because they could criticize and debate communist policies and ideology: they were not allowed to work in their field of expertise, arrested, imprisoned and purged. Opponents of the communist regime were imprisoned. Priests and monks were sent to labour camps where they were tortured and murdered, their churches and monasteries closed. Censorship was enforced. Rosner portrays much of this in her novel. 

For example, Lukas's Uncle Pavel, once owned his apartment prior to the Communist takeover but now lives in a crowded one. Once "...a mechanical engineer, designing motors for vehicles" he now drives a passenger train. Food is scarce: "Fruit is rationed and buying more than one kilogram is forbidden." To obtain four small oranges, Lukas's mother has to barter pens and paper. There are long lines for fruit and vegetables and Lukas and his brothers often stand in those lines for their elderly neighbours who are not able to do so. Lukas mentions in his narrative that "Most everything we own seems to be missing a part, mended or broken."

Children are indoctrinated and often enticed and brainwashed into working against their own parents. The Young Pioneers group indoctrinates students in Soviet propaganda, something Lukas and his brother Denys are keenly aware of. Slogans like "Everyone is fed and cared for by the state." are known to be lies because Lukas has seen the overwhelming poverty when he travelled to Poland with his father. 

Children are also weaponized by the communist state, to betray the very people who really love and care for them. When Lukas is interrogated by Mr. Hajek at school, he is told "Perhaps you can let me know if you see anything unusual in the houses. It's very important to keep your family safe...And let's not discuss this meeting with your parents." Later on, after Andrej's father is arrested, he is allowed to continue playing hockey only if he provides information on Lukas's father, Josef. When he doesn't follow through on this, he is removed from the team. This shows the overarching reach the Communist party has on almost every aspect of daily life.  

Both Lukas and Andrej's fathers work against the Communist regime: Andrej's father, Rudy writes the pamphlets and Lukas's father Josef, prints them. Anyone involved in such activities is brutally punished as both the Svoboda and Burian families are to learn. Andrej's father has been imprisoned at least once previously and the state agents continue to harass him and his family, frequently searching their apartment. He disappears soon after. Then the StB imprison Luka's father after searching their apartment. 

In an attempt to further manipulate and control the families of dissidents, the oko or state spies often involve them in questionable activities. Lukas, Denys and Andrej are approached by an oko and told if they want to help their fathers, they are to throw a game in an upcoming Soviet hockey tournament. While Andrey outright refuses, Lukas readily agrees. Andrej states, "If we do what he's asking, we'll become liars just like him." He explains that his father would die rather than aid the Communists and he won't help them either. For Lukas and Denys, they must question where their loyalty lies: to the state or to their father? Lukas knows he would do anything to save his father. Although Lukas plays terribly, despite trying his best and they lose the tournament game to the much larger Russian boys, Lukas's father returns home one week later.

Before the Burian family can't even talk about what has happened, Josef searches their apartment thoroughly for listening devices, even taking apart the telephone. He reveals that he has been released for two weeks but must return to prison. Nadia wants to run but Josef tells her if they do, Rudy will be killed. It's only when they learn that Rudy has died in prison that they plan to escape. Their dramatic escape by train is based on a real event that took place in 1951, when a four car train was driven through a barrier, into West Germany. In her Author's Note at the back, Posner reveals that the train's emergency brake was disabled by the engineer, Jaroslav Konvalinka, who was also helped by three other men. 

Eyes On The Ice explores the themes of resistance, loyalty, and freedom. Josef and Rudy are actively working to resist the evil of Communism, even though it might mean imprisonment, torture, and ultimately cost them their lives. The novel shows the difficult choices citizens in Communist countries had to make: to resist what was a great evil or to comply to save self, family and friends. For Lukas, the question of whether to throw the hockey game is one of loyalty to his father and that means agreeing to play poorly. But to Andrej, loyalty to his father means to not acquiesce to the demands of the oko, even if it means the death of his beloved father. 

The author has included a Historical Note that offers some information on Communism in the Soviet Bloc, a map of Europe in 1963, and Discussion Questions. Author Anna Rosner drew on several sources to write her story including the personal anecdotes of someone who lived in Communist Prague, as well as those who lived in Soviet Russia. Eyes On The Ice is a timely novel that offers young readers the opportunity to learn about life under Communism. It's unfortunate that a more engaging book cover was not designed for this well written novel.

Book Details:

Eyes On The Ice by Anna Posner
Toronto: Groundwood Books   2024
193 pp.

Wings To Soar by Tina Athaide

Ten-year-old Viva is with her older sister Anna and her Mummy in a refugee camp in England. Viva is Goan and she speaks English, Portuguese, Swahili and Konkani. Her father is still back in Uganda, at their house in the seven hills in Kampala. He is expected to arrive in England in five days. She's left behind many friends and watched as her best friend, Ella fled their country to Canada. The camp is RAF Greenham, an old military base that is being used by the Americans and the Royal Air Force. 

The camp has a common hall for the Indians to play table tennis and cards, listen to records or the news. There is a library run by Mrs. Robinson and her daughter, Miss Robinson. It is in the library where Viva goes to look for a dictionary that she meets the twins, Mark and Maggie Mackay whose mother is a volunteer at the camp. Viva also meets an American soldier named Leroy who notices her singing songs by the Supremes. He calls her Lil' Diana Ross and encourages Viva to be like her idol.

Viva's father is supposed to arrive at Stanstead Airport in the evening. To welcome him, Miss Robinson, Mark and Maggie make a welcome sign. However, he isn't on the plane and Viva and her family are devastated. She and her sister wonder if he's safe, or has been arrested or even dead. For two weeks planes from Uganda continue to arrive but Viva's father is not on them. Viva sneaks to the American side every night to wait at the gate, shivering in the cold and the rain. Anna tells on Viva but she still manages to sneak out again. Unfortunately, Viva becomes seriously ill with bronchitis and mild hypothermia and spends days asleep, recuperating.

When she recovers, Viva learns that her father checked into Entebbe Airport but never boarded his plane. Anna also reveals that they have to leave the RAF camp. Viva and her family learn from Mrs. Robinson that they will be settled in Southall, a borough in the west part of London. It is sixty miles from the RAF camp in Greenham Common and Viva wonders how her father will find them.

Meanwhile Viva continues to look up new words at the library but she also sees from the newspaper headlines that people in Southall do not want more Asians. This upsets Viva, who believes her sister Anna doesn't care about anything but her books. But Mrs. Robinson tells Viva that books offer Anna an escape.

The government begins moving Indians out of RAF Greenham camp into English towns and villages. Viva, who is Catholic, prays to St. Anthony, asking him to find her father. She doesn't want to go to Southall but wants her family to move to Canada as they originally planned.

As their plans do not work out as intended, Viva faces racism and an uncertain future and must draw on her own kind of courage, her "supremeness" to help herself and her family.

Discussion

Wings To Soar is a historical fiction novel set England, from October 1972 to July 1973 during the Ugandan refugee crisis. Ugandan dictator, Idi "Big Dada" Amin ordered the immediate expulsion of about seventy thousand Ugandan Asians, whom he accused of corruption and sabotage, from the country. They were stripped of their citizenship and given only ninety days to leave. The Asians in Uganda had been brought there in 1894 to help build railroads. They stayed in the country and soon were part of the business community and working in the government. Amin believed that they were iin control of the country and taking jobs from African Ugandans. 

In her Author's Note, Athaide, who was born in Uganda but emigrated to England and then Canada, states that sixteen resettlement camps were organized including RAF Greenham Common which was run by the U.S. Air Force. The arrival of so many Ugandans - Asian immigrants - caused social upheaval in England.

In Wings To Soar, Athaide focuses on the refugee experience through the eyes of  ten-year-old Viva Da Silva, a Ugandan Asian who has been forced to flee to England along with her mother and older sister, Anna. Her father remains trapped in Uganda, struggling to make it out before the ninety day deadline. The family's plan is to emigrate to Canada, but they cannot do this until their father arrives in England, meaning that their future is uncertain. Amid this uncertainty, Viva and her family feel fear and and sense of loss while experiencing racism and violence.

 While many English were welcoming of the refugees, many were not. Viva becomes aware of this when she reads the newspapers at the library and when she and her family move to Southall where they experience racial hatred and violence. This feeling of being unwanted and without a home, leaves Viva deeply angry and sad. But Leroy, the American soldier helps to put things in perspective. With a white mom and a black father, Leroy often felt like hiding. His mother told him,

"You get courage

by doing small things

one at a time." 

This helps Viva to find her own "supremeness". She confronts her mother, asking her to tell them the truth about what's going on with their father. And she also find the courage to ask Officer Graham to help find out what has happened to her father, Charlie DaSilva. 

Leroy also gifts Viva with a wing pin, telling her that "When you're down because of your troubles, and you want to fold up your wings, 

"DON'T do it.

Spread those wings wide

                        Soar

                                    high above the skies of gray,

                        Higher

                                    than the storms gathering.

Face life's storms, Viva.

                        Be STRONG.

                        Be COURAGEOUS.

                            

                                        SOAR!"

However, when Viva and her family go to live with the Guptas in Southall, she feels even more overwhelmed because she feels she has no choice and no voice. In the poem, The Colored Girl, Viva expresses how people see her. 

"They don't see me.

All they see is a girl

with skin the color

of dark tea,

with eyes

brown as roasted chestnuts,

with hair as dark as coal.

They don't see me.

They see another refugee

    from Uganda.

        A colored girl."

When a brick is thrown through the front window of their flat, Viva quickly loses hope. But the author also shows that many people were willing to help the refugees through the characters of Mark and Maggie, Leroy and Mrs. Robinson and Miss Robinson. Ultimately, they step up and offer the DaSilva's a safe place to live until the situation with Mr. DaSilva is resolved.

Athaide has crafted a realistic heroine in Viva DaSilva. She is vulnerable, both as a child immigrant and as a daughter missing her father. The hatred she experiences because of her skin colour and her nationality make Viva afraid and humiliated. But she is also determined, resilient and courageous. Viva offers to stay behind to allow her mother and Anna to travel to New York so they can care for their father after he's injured in an accident. And even though she's disappointed at the delay in reuniting with her parents and Anna in the United States, Viva is able to reach out to help another brown girl she meets in the park. That girl, Uma believes she will  never belong because she can't change the color of her skin but Viva tells her that she does belong and that there are people who want her and will help her. To encourage her, Viva gives Uma her treasured wing pin that Leroy gave her, reminding her to soar, to achieve her own dreams.

Wings To Soar is an inspiring refugee story set during a much forgotten historical event, the expulsion of an entire part of the Ugandan population at the direction of a murderous dictator. Although Athaide does show the problems the Ugandan refugees experienced, the story is one of resiliency and hope.

Book Details

Wings To Soar by Tina Athaide
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge Moves       2024

346 pp.

The Brightwood Code by Monica Hesse

Eighteen-year-old Edda Grace St. James had been a telephone operator with the American Expeditionary Forces, on the western front in France, in 1918. Her job was to "...answer the line, match the code name to a number, insert the right plug into the right jack, connect the telephone call." The codes changed every day so every night, Edda and the other girls had to memorize two pages of new codes. Then the next day they would sit down at their switchboards, "and when a caller asked to be connected to Montana or Buster or Wabash," Edda and the other operators would understand that they wanted to be connected to a specific division or general.  

Now back in America, in November of 1918, Edda is working at the Central switchboard in Washington, D.C. Her supervisor, Miss Genovese is not happy with Edda: she has incurred several "infractions" for her dress or not following proper protocol on the switchboard. Edda has been home from France for two months now. The last call of her night shift is a caller who tells her she has to tell the truth before it's too late and ends with the word, "Brightwood". Unable to find out more from the mysterious caller, Edda leaves work very upset.

She returns to her Aunt Tess's boarding house where she has a room on the fourth floor, along with other boarders including a young man, Theo Graybill who has a limp from a hip injury. Theo notices immediately that something is not right with Edda and he presses her to tell him. But all Edda will reveal is that she took a local call that was "odd". He tries to reassure Edda that the call was likely just random as it is impossible to choose the operator on a call. 

Unable to sleep after her shift, Edda decides to purchase new clothing instead of doing her laundry. While Edda is in Hecht's to purchase new white blouses and navy wool skirts, two women run in, announcing the war is over. An Armistice has been signed! This leads to partying and celebration everywhere including at Edda's aunt's boarding house. Intoxicated after drinking champagne, and still deeply upset over the call, Edda finally tells Theo what actually happened that fateful day seven months ago in France.

She explains to Theo that as a Hello Girl, and part of the American Expeditionary Forces, it was Edda's job as an operator to transfer calls between platoons, bases and generals, speaking and translating between French and English. Everything was in codes that changed daily. Ordered to place a call one night to Brightwood, the code Edda believes was for Baltimore's Forty-Eighth Regiment, Edda froze, unable to remember the code. The Forty-Eighth Regiment had advanced beyond the front and were trapped. Thirty-four men perished. The caller to her switchboard used the code, Brightwood and told her to tell the truth. 

Edda decides that she has to return to her home in Roland Park in Baltimore to retrieve a Polk's City Directory. When she calls Aunt Tess to ask her to bring her money to the train station, Edda learns that one of the switchboard operators, Louisa Safechuck has killed herself. However, it is Theo who brings her the money and who accompanies Edda to Baltimore against her wishes.  On the train, Theo confesses to Edda that he shot himself in the leg to avoid going to the front.

In Baltimore, Edda and Theo have a difficult run in with her father, who is dismissive towards Theo and unkind towards Edda. After visiting the home of Charley Dannenberg and meeting his angry father, the two return home. The very next shift, Edda receives yet another telephone call telling her she's the only one who can help them and mentioning Brightwood. Hysterical, her adjoining operator, Helen Gibson takes Edda to the break room where she is offered a chance to do a publicity shoot for the Hello Girls.

Back at her room, Edda tells Theo about the second call and the two sit down to try to determine which families might be the most suspect. But as Edda and Theo continue to investigate the families of the dead soldiers, Edda must finally face the reality of the trauma she experienced and come to  

Discussion

The Brightwood Code is a historical fiction novel set in 1918, at the end of World War I. The story focuses on Edda St. Clair, a former Hello Girl who has returned suddenly from France, traumatized by an event that led to the deaths of thirty-four young soldiers.  The story alternates between Edda in the present, in Washington, attempting to uncover the mystery of the caller and the recent past events that occurred while she was at the front in France.

Believing that she could forget what happened if she left France, and found work in a different city Edda's life unravels. She returns home to Baltimore, her father describing her arrival "...like a ghost, telling us nothing is wrong but of course something is wrong. Her room is a pigsty. She has to be dragged into the bath." She flees from her own homecoming party and is unable to dance with the son of her father's boss. Soon after, Edda flees from Baltimore, to Washington where she is able to find work as a telephone operator with Bell. It is at this point that Edda receives two mysterious calls, mentioning the code word Brightwood and begging her to tell the truth. The past has come back to haunt her and Edda is determined to find out who is behind the calls.

Initially Edda believes that the mysterious caller is someone related to one of the dead soldiers, all of whose names she has memorized, and is asking her to claim responsibility for their deaths. Edda is certain that she is responsible because she failed to do her job. "Of course there are things I left out. But nothing that would excuse any of my behavior...Boys were dying on the front. My job was to answer telephones. My only job was to answer telephones." However as the story unfolds, it is not quite that simple.

Edda believes she must investigate each soldier's family to determine who is making the calls. Theo challenges her as to what she hopes to achieve, telling her, "But what kind of endings do you think you can give?....You can't rewrite what happened, no matter what you do. None of us can. Whatever happened is what happened." Edda tells him, "There has to be something. There has to be some kind of finality. Some kind of way of making peace. It can't be the case that something horrible happens and you just have to live, forever, with this feeling of..." 

 As Edda continues to struggle to solve the mystery of who is contacting her, her feelings of guilt and conflict intensify. "I need peace, and I need an ending, and I need to make amends and have amends made to me. And I need to bring my soul back from France. I cannot keep living divided this way, I cannot keep feeling as though I am still in that switchboard room, still in that switchboard room with Luc." 

When Edda meets Charley Dannenberg's father a second time she recognizes the "primal woundedness", the "pain stuffed down" and the "untended grief" he is experiencing because she is experiencing the same. But it's after meeting August Danneman's sister, Eliza, that Edda begins to make sense of what happened to her in France. "Is it possible that I did the best I could with the choices I had? Is it possible that what happened to the boys of the Forty-Eighth was because of something I did, but not my fault? Is it possible that I am to blame, but not to punish?"

When Theo explains how he got out of fighting in the war, he tells Edda that his choice to do anything to get out of the war means he is a coward. But Edda tells him that maybe our choices simply  show "who we were forced to be in the moment that we made them."

Early in the novel, Theo quickly and correctly surmises that Edda's trauma is somehow related to a man named Luc. Edda refuses every attempt to discuss him and it isn't until much later when she remembers the details of that night in the office that it is understandable why this is. Eventually, Edda discovers the person behind the calls and learns that they were not asking her to take responsibility for the deaths of the men of the Forty-Eighth Regiment but to expose a man who had harmed her and possibly many other Hello Girls. These revelations lead Edda to realize that she had been so focused on what happened to the young soldiers, she missed recognizing her own trauma. "I was so focused on the story of the boys who were hurt and lost at war that I missed the story of how I was hurt and lost at war. I missed part of the story. I missed my own part of the story." 

The novel highlights some of the terrible realities of World War I, a war that saw many young men humiliated into enlisting, believing that their honor depended upon doing so. The reality of the war was young soldiers were sent out again and again by generals behind the lines, to face the muck, machine gun fire and gas without any chance of success and little of surviving. As the war dragged on with neither side winning, many people came to see the war as a hopeless endeavor with little regard for the soldiers. Mr. Dannenberg states this to Edda when they meet a second time.  "The truth is that boys like him are expendable. They fought in trenches but the decision about their lives were made over the telephone by people who got to keep their hands clean. That boys like my son never belonged in France, died their because of people like you. Because you were cruel and careless. My son paid with his life, and the people who drove him to enlist, and the people who should have looked after him once he got there -- they didn't pay at all."

The character of Theo Graybill is representative of those young men who were terrified to go to war, who in some way knew the measure of what was happening, but who had no say. " 'I was so scared, ' he continues. 'When my number was called, going was what I was supposed to do. Be a man. Be the first brave man in the family. I wanted to go but I was so scared to go, and I would have done anything not to go. And then I got there and I did. Do anything. I did anything I could do to come home again....' "

The novel also highlights the almost impossible predicament women who have been sexually assaulted faced in the early twentieth century. The conversation between Edda and her supervisor, Miss Genovese portrays the difficulty they faced in reporting Luc. When Edda asks why she didn't report him, Miss Genovese states that it didn't happen to her, that she needed someone who had been harmed by Luc L'Enfant, and that she would have been blamed for allowing the assault to happen to Louisa Safechuck. She knew that Edda was likely also a victim of Luc because of her premature arrival home from France and so she needed to try to get her to report him. And still she wasn't even sure if that was enough.  "It doesn't work to have just one girl's word against a man. You need two. You need twenty...Maybe twenty still would not have been enough. Maybe none of them would have been enough."

The Brightwood Code is a well written and thought-provoking novel that uses the historical fact of the Hello Girls as it's backstory. What starts out as a character trying to solve a mystery, reveals a whole other story, in a twist that is heartbreaking. In spite of all that has happened, the novel does end on a positive tone, with Edda open to developing her friendship with Theo.

The Hello Girls were female switchboard operators in what was known as the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit during World War I. The unit was formed in 1917 and was made up of two hundred twenty three women, most of whom served in France.

Book Details:

The Brightwood Code by Monica Hesse

New York: Little, Brown and Company    2024

321 pp.

Trajectory by Cambria Gordon

It is May 1942 and seventeen-year-old Eleanor Schiff lives with her twelve-year-old sister Sarah and her parents in Jenkintown, a small suburb in Philadelphia. Eleanor's father is a brilliant mathematician who suffered a devastating stroke that left his speech slurred and his body damaged. Eleanor is called out of her father's study where she is pretending to read Life Magazine but is really working on calculus. Her mother wants her to help with the Shabbos meal preparations. Soon her Uncle Herman, Aunt Jona and their seven-year-old twins, Jacob and Lila arrive.

At dinner conversation turns to the events in Poland. Eleanor had been corresponding with her ten-year-old cousin, Batja, whose father, Azriel is a first cousin of her mother and Uncle Herman.  Her uncle tells them that all the Jews in the Stanislau ghetto must wear shite armbands with blue stars of David to identify them as Jews. The ghetto is guarded by the German Schutzpolizei and the Ukrainian militia. The Jewish police guard it from the inside, something that shocks Eleanor's family. The ghetto holds an unbelievable twenty thousand Jews within a few city blocks. Uncle Herman has also heard that there are "selections" or "aktions" where those who are unable to work because they are old or sick are sent to die.

After dinner, while out with her friend, Trudie at Oswald's Drug Store for a soda, Eleanor learns about a MathMeet being held at 11 AM at the Women's Club on Saturday morning. Even though she feels she shouldn't attend the meeting, Eleanor sneaks into the meeting without registering and handily solves all the problems including the last and most difficult one.  However, on her way out, Eleanor is approached by the organizer, Mary Mauchly, who wants to return Eleanor's notebook which she has left behind. Mary notes that Eleanor was the only one able to solve the last problem. Mary who is associated with the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, tells her that the MathMeet is a ruse to scout for women computers for the U.S. Army. She invites Eleanor to join a new team she's instructing but Eleanor turns her down and flees.

The following day, while Eleanor and her mom walk her dad through the Morris Arboretum in his chair, she considers what happened after the MathMeet. Afterwards at home, Eleanor recalls her father's stroke and how she feels responsible for what happened to him. As a result their life changed drastically: no more faculty banquets, no more volunteer work. Their vibrant life lost. Eleanor's unique math abilities were recognized in kindergarten but she ripped up the teacher's note. She has spent her childhood hiding her ability, throwing math tests, trying not to sound too smart or too dumb and quickly earning the nickname "Nervous Nellie". Eleanor felt that because she took away her father's gift she had no right to hers. Thankfully a phone call changes everything. Mary Mauchly tries again to recruit Eleanor, this time telling her the pay is $1400 a year plus overtime. This would be enough money for Eleanor's family to hire a nurse for her father and to buy extra ration stamps.

When Eleanor decides to accept Mary Mauchly's offer, little does she realize that she will contribute significantly to the war effort and finally confront the trauma she experienced years ago.

Discussion

In Trajectory, a family tragedy forms the backstory of a young woman whose remarkable mathematics abilities see her recruited as a human computer to help the American war effort during the Second World War. 

Seventeen-year-old Eleanor Schiff believes she is responsible for her brilliant mathematician-father's stroke when she was six years old. This trauma leads Eleanor to believe that because she took away his math mind she's doesn't deserve hers. This leads Eleanor to nurture her abilities in secret. It isn't until she is discovered by Maud Mauchly that Eleanor decides to use her abilities during the war, as a human computer. 

In the novel, Eleanor's abilities are quickly realized when she is transferred from the Philadelphia Computing Section (PCS), a secret unit of the US Army to the Muroc Army Air Base in California to work on the Norden bombsight which is supposed to guarantee high altitude precision bombing during the day. When her work there succeeds, she is transferred to Pearl Harbor to teach the bombardiers "... how to compute for turbulence and adjust trail and drift accordingly." There she encounters a pilot, Captain Haines who knew her father because he was his math professor in Pennsylvania. This encounter causes Eleanor's intense guilt and self doubt to resurface leading to an emotional and mental crisis. Eleanor's crisis is also tied to events happening overseas in Europe with the Holocaust and the "liquidation" of the Jews in the Stanislau ghetto in Stanislau, Poland. She learns that no Jews survived meaning that her relatives, Azriel, his wife Rosa and their daughter, Batja have been murdered.

Fortunately, Eleanor is able to unburden herself to her parents who reassure her that her father's stroke was not her fault. This resolution is well portrayed by the author and is very moving. Ultimately, with the help of her parents and the army rabbi, Eleanor is able to experience forgiveness and self-acceptance, allowing her to move forward and complete her mission. In the end, Eleanor grows into a more confident young woman, confident in her mathematical abilities and confident that she can contribute significantly to the war effort. 

Gordon also includes a lovely side story of a blossoming romance between Eleanor and a pilot named Sky. Although Sky is seriously wounded in a plane accident, the novel ends on a positive note with the promise of more to come for these two characters.

Gordon weaves many historical details into her story. For example when Eleanor is reading the headlines in the Philadelphia Inquirer, she learns about how the racists attitudes common in America at this time, are influencing domestic and wartime policy. When she sees the headline, First Negro Division Forms at Fort Huachuca, Eleanor wonders, "Why do Negroes need their own division in the army? Aren't we all fighting for the same cause?" Another headline, Los Angeles Japanese Americans Relocate to Santa Anita makes Eleanor realize, "That's the stables where they race the horses Uncle Herman likes to bet on. It disgusts me the way they're ripping all those people from their homes and tossing them together in dirty, cramped quarters. Like the Germans are doing to the Jews." 

When Eleanor is going through her security clearance she has to deal with sexist remarks from the men who ridicule her "Don't get P-W-O-P."  meaning don't get pregnant without permission. Eleanor notes "Ever since FDR signed the bill into law establishing an army women's corps, the newspapers have been full of stories by male reporters worried that females in the military will wreak  all kinds of sexual havoc on poor unsuspecting servicemen. Petticoat army, they call us. Wackies, too." 

There are a few weak areas the novel's storyline. One of them is Eleanor's efforts to hide her ability to do math when she is very young. In the novel, Eleanor is in kindergarten when her gift to do math is discovered by her teacher. Excited, her teacher places a note in Eleanor's lunch bag for her parents but Eleanor destroys the note so her parents won't know that she has the same gift as her father.  Somehow her parents never learn of her math abilities. Did Eleanor's kindergarten teacher never follow up when there was no response to her note? Did Eleanor's parents never meet her kindergarten teacher or any other teacher in elementary school?  There also seems to be some confusion as to how old Eleanor was when this traumatic experience occurred. In Eleanor's mind it was prior to kindergarten but later on in the novel when she is talking with Rabbi  Richmond, it is revealed that she was six years old where her father had his stroke.  

Overall, Trajectory is a well-written story and one of the few historical novels offered for young adult readers this year.

Book Details:

Trajectory by Cambria Gordon

New York: Scholastic Press     2024
285 pp.

Safiyyah's War by Hiba Noor Khan

Eleven-year-old Safiyyah wants to travel and explore the world. She loved spending afternoons in the library where Madame Odette would bring out the right maps for Safiyyah to explore the places she was interested in. Places like Jerusalem, Manila, Harare or Manaus in Brazil. Often this led Safiyyah to lose track of the time and arrive home later than she should have. This would lead her mother, Yemma to worry, ever since autumn last year when the war began.

When she arrives at the mosque, Safiyyah sits down beside her grandma, Setti in the mosque courtyard. Setti advises her to use each breath she is given wisely and the knowledge she gains too from her reading of maps. Safiyyah's grandmother had moved to Spain from Algeria when she was a teenager. Safiyyah's great-grandparents had farmed large fruit orchards in Algeria. When they moved to Andalusia in Spain, they brought with them orange, lemon and cherry trees. Setti loved oranges and they brought back found memories. From the taste of an orange she could tell where it was grown.

Soon Safiyyah's mother arrives and takes her back to their apartment in the mosque complex to help prepare dinner. They are expecting her father's friend Ammo Kader for dinner. At dinner Baba tells them that the Germans have crossed the French border at the Ardennes. While they don't know what this will mean for them as Muslims, they do know it will not be good for their Jewish friends.

Baba works at the mosque, while Ammo Kader is the rector, liaising with politicians. Ammo Imam is also involved, helping to run the mosque smoothly. Safiyyah often attends their Saturday morning meetings. Baba hopes one day Safiyyah will attend college and he sees her involvement in the mosque affairs as preparation for this. At the meeting the discussion turns to the war and what might happen. Baba had fought for France in the First World War and had lost his hearing in his left ear. But the brutality had also affected him too. 

On Saturday afternoon, Safiyyah travels to the sixteenth arrondissement with Baba to see her best friend Isabelle. Because Isabelle's father works in the French government, her parents know important ministers and ambassadors. Normally Isabelle's mother was dressed with makeup and her hair in a chignon, but on this day she is still in her dressing gown, talking on the telephone in a panicky voice. Isabelle's nanny, Nounou took the girls to the park. There Isabelle reveals that her family is leaving Paris, going south to their chateau in Provence. Isabelle has no idea how long they will stay at the chateau and she also tells Safiyyah that they may flee to England if things worsen. Although Isabelle and her family are not Jewish they are frightened. Safiyyah is devastated by this news.

After Isabelle leaves Paris, Yemma and Baba take Safiyyah and her younger sister, Fatima to Baba's sister's house to visit their cousins. Sixteen-year-old Tarek, who has just finished high school and who wants to be an engineer, announces that he is enlisting. This shocks everyone. When they return to Paris Safiyyah goes to the library to ask for Madame Odette's help locating a book for Monsieur Cassin. He is an elderly friend of Baba and Ammo Kader who Safiyyah delivers medication to once a month. Monsieur Cassin is a botanist, researching plants in India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia and has just finished writing a book. But he needs a specific book to finish his appendix on insect species. Madame Odette promises to help locate this book. Safiyyah also learns that the librarians are packing books to send to soldiers in the war. However, other books such as special volumes and rare collections are being packed to be sent into the countryside, hidden from the Nazis.

By June 1940, the situation rapidly changes. Safiyyah is no longer welcome in Baba's office for his weekly meetings. While Safiyyah is on her way to bring a book to Monsieur Cassin, Paris is bombed by the Germans. Safiyyah is caught in the bombing but survives and is help by the elderly scientist. Safiyyah, her parents and the mosque work to help the people of Paris and the refugees flooding the city, giving out food and water.

Eventually Safiyyah learns that her friend Isabelle is safe with her parents in England, at her grandfather's cousin's home in Dover. While she misses her best friend she makes a new friend in a young refugee, Timothee who is in Paris with his father. Her family help Timothee and he soon becomes an important helper in what soon happens.

With the arrival of the Germans and the implementation of a curfew, life changes even more. Safiyyah leaves school for several weeks. Then Monsieur Cassin is attacked, his completed book manuscript stolen and his apartment wrecked by the Nazis. Incredibly Safiyyah is able to rescue most of his manuscript from the Nazi soldiers and she and Baba return to help him. However, Baba is far from pleased with Safiyyah who he considers to have placed herself in terrible danger stealing Cassin's manuscript from the Nazi soldiers. However, she confronts him about what she has noticed: that he is exhausted and troubled, out late at night and that the librarians, Madame Odette and Claude have been at the mosque.  Eventually Safiyyah learns the reason behind all of the strange things she's seen and soon finds herself drawn into helping those most in danger, the Jews of Paris.

Discussion

Safiyyah's War is a historical fiction novel that is centered around the help provided to French Jews by the Grand Mosque of Paris during the Nazi occupation of France. 

The Grand Mosque of Paris was built between 1922 and 1926 to honour the sacrifice by mainly Algerian Muslim sharpshooters during World War 1. Like the character, Setti whose grandparents left Algeria for France, many Algerians immigrated to France after World War I. These Muslims were Kabyles and they eventually would join the French Resistance in 1940.

During the Second World War, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the founder and rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris provided refuge and Muslim identity cards to Jews. At this time, France had a large population of Sephardic Jews. They looked similar to the French Algerian Muslims,  spoke Arabic and had similar traditions, including not eating port and male circumcision. While the mosque was a place of prayer it was also a place where people could find a calming quiet, take food and rest. 

It wasn't long after occupying Paris and the northern part of France that the Nazis and their Vichy collaborators began rounding up Jews. There is some confusion as to who was involved, if it was Benghabrit or individual Muslims and the extent of the help offered by the Grand Mosque. According to Benghabrit, he offered sanctuary to French and Algerian Jews in the mosque's apartments occupied by Muslim families, and he also created false identity papers. The sewers of Paris were used as escape routes to the Halles au Vins on the Seine River where they were hidden aboard empty wine barrels on ferries and barges. They were then taken out of Paris to Spain or the Maghreb (northwest Africa). The exact number of Jews aided cannot be confirmed with estimates of dozens to just over one thousand. There is also some evidence via personal testimony of Ashkenazi Jews being saved as well.

It is this history that forms the back story of Safiyyah's War. In the novel, Benghabrit is referred to as Ammo Kadr. According to Noor Khan, the name of the imam who was "the soul of the mosque's Resistance activities" is lost to history and is simply referred to in the story as Ammo Imam. Noor Khan has incorporated many details of the mosque's resistance activities into the story including the underground tunnels, the use of the wine barrels and the bell system to warn Jews of a Nazi raid.  Also many historical figures are represented such as master forger, Adolfo Kaminsky who is "the kind man", Noor Inayat Khan an Indian aristocrat who became a British spy who is represented by the character Madeleine and Madame Odette and Claude who represented the librarians who provided books for the Jews in hiding as well as the saving of rare books and those books the Nazis deemed worth burning. As well many details of life in Paris especially during the bombing of the city and the influx of refugees from northern France.

The novel places Safiyyah's family at the heart of the mosque's resistance with her father learning how to forge identity cards, hiding Jews within the mosque and taking them through the treacherous tunnels to the Seine. It doesn't take the main protagonist, Safiyyah long to uncover her father's clandestine activities and end up in the thick of things. She is a well crafted character, intelligent, compassionate, and full of courage. As Noor Khan writes in her Historical Note, "All those living in the mosque would have been involved in the Resistance activities in some way, no matter how small their efforts may have seemed. Safiyyah represents all the unlikely heroes whose names aren't memorialized and whose stories aren't sung and praised, but whose courage and actions change our world forever."

In a scene earlier in the novel, Safiyyah's grandmother, Setti advises her to choose the "path of light". Safiyyah loves to explore the world through maps. Knowing this, Setti tells her that often maps have led people to do terrible things, wars, oppression and colonization. She advises using the map of the heart to choose the path of light.

Safiyyah's War is a much needed novel about a forgotten piece of history.  The author states in her Historical Note that she wrote it "...to be a humanizing, unifying force in an all-too-often bitterly divided world." Besides being a well-written and engaging story, it is for this reason that Safiyyah's War is highly recommended, especially for classroom selections.

Book Details:

Safiyyah's War by Hiba Noor Khan
New York:  Allida     2023
329 pp.

Spying on Spies: How Elizebeth Smith Friedman Broke The Nazis' Secret Code by Marissa Moss

Spying on Spies tells the story of a remarkable woman cryptographer, Elizebeth Smith Friedman.

Elizebeth was the youngest of ten children in a Quaker family. She grew up on a dairy farm in Indiana. An inquisitive person, Elizebeth wanted to attend college, something only one other sister had done. As her father refused to pay for her studies, Elizebeth managed to convince him to lend her the money and charge her interest. She studied languages, literature, history, and philosophy.

In 1915, Elizebeth found that her degree in English did not open opportunities for her. After year as a substitute principal, she decided to try to find work in Chicago. There, a chance meeting at the Newberry Library changed Elizebeth's life forever. She had gone to the library to view Shakespeare's First Folio, which was on display when the librarian questioned Elizebeth about her interest in Shakespeare. Hearing that Elizebeth was looking for a research job, she arranged a meeting that very day with a wealthy Chicago businessman, George Fabyan. This man believed that Shakespeare's plays contained a secret code proving that they were authored by Sir Francis Bacon.

Fabyan boldly insisted that Elizebeth visit his estate and she took up his offer to work on his project. She moved to his estate, called Riverside, where he lived with his wife and the other researchers. There she met the only person near to her in age, a young man named William Friedman. They soon spent most of their work and free time together.

Elizebeth struggled to believe in the work she was doing for Fabyan. When she and William presented strong evidence against any code existing in the Shakespearean text, both Fabyan and Elizabeth Wells Gallup, the head researcher, refused to believe them.

With the start of World War I, Fabyan saw a need for people to crack the secret codes spies might be using so he invited code experts to meet his code team at Riverbank, The War Department, impressed with Elizebeth and William's abilities, began to use Fabyan's cipher team. Soon Riverbank was receiving envelopes full of coded messages and ciphers. One decoded cipher revealed that Germany was working with Mexico to foment a war with the United States as a distraction from the war in Europe.  This indicated that the United States needed it's own decryption unit and Elizebeth and William became that unit. 

Initially Elizebeth and William did all the code-breaking, solving messages by Hindu groups in the U.S. who were working to target England. India wanted independence from Britain at this time so it made sense that they would try to work against the country that had colonized them. A second Hindu group was also decoded. These groups used specific books for their codes.

Working together so closely resulted in a strong bond of mutual respect between Elizebeth and William despite their very different backgrounds. They married in May of 1917 in Chicago. Because they were so accomplished at their work, the Army wanted them but Fabyan interfered, determined to keep them at Riverbank.  In 1918, William, having learned that the War Department actually wanted him, "...enlisted as an officer in the Radio Intelligence Unit in the U.S. Army Signal Corps."  He passed the physical exam which he had strangely failed earlier, and was sent to France in 1918. Elizebeth was unable to enlist so she was stuck in America until William returned home in  April of 1919. 

Although Elizebeth and William reluctantly returned to Riverbank, eventually they  decided to leave. With the start of Prohibition in 1920, they accepted a job offer from the Army. By 1921, Elizabeth and William had moved out of Riverbank and began working for the U.S. Signal Corps in Washington, D.C. William began to study machines such as the German Enigma, used to encipher messages. Elizebeth took a job as a cryptographer with the U.S. Navy after quitting the Signal Corps but quit after six months and then gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter Barbara. In 1926, she had a second child, John.

In 1931, Elizebeth  headed up her own team, at the US Treasury, consisting of three men and two women, had her own office and was the "cryptanalyst-in-charge". Her work involved solving codes and ciphers of criminals and smugglers, especially involved in illicit alcohol sales during Prohibition. She also testified in court.

With the approach of war and the beginning of World War II, Elizebeth began working on Nazi spy messages, especially those in South America. It was during the war that Elizebeth's incredible abilities were to play a significant role in helping the Allies win the war. 

Discussion

Spying On Spies is an engaging and informative account of master cryptologist, Elizebeth Smith Friedman. Her remarkable life spans the first part of the twentieth century including World War I, Prohibition, and World War II. Author Marissa Moss writes in her Author's Note that she wanted to tell Elizebeth's story because her accomplishments were overshadowed by her husband. Most of her work was classified and it's only recently that contributions and accomplishments of Elizebeth Smith Friedman have come to be rightfully acknowledged. 

Moss's account of Elizebeth's life and career as a cryptographer describes the obstacles she faced as a young woman in the first half of the 20th century. Despite her superior abilities, which were repeatedly proven, Elizebeth faced significant obstacles and her abilities were often not recognized. The main obstacles were the  social conventions, expectations and attitudes towards women at this time. Elizebeth's parents believed she belonged in the home as a wife and mother, but her inquisitive mind wanted much more. She showed determination and fortitude in forging ahead with her education, managing to convince her father to lend her money to study at a six percent interest rate!

When she obtained her advanced education, Elizebeth realized her degree did not afford her the same opportunities as it would have for a man. But undaunted, she managed to obtain a position working on codes for a wealthy businessman that was eventually to lead to her life's work. During World War I she faced the obstacles of not being able to enlist in the US Army like her husband could, nor to even vote. At the end of World War I, despite being considered a military cipher expert, Elizebeth was better known as the wife of William Friedman. She was often hired, not on her own merits, but because the US Navy wanted her husband. She had to contend with a press who viewed her in very traditional terms, not as an intelligent woman but as " a pretty young woman in a frilly pink dress." 

Moss demonstrates how Elizebeth's work was so crucial to the United States during World War I and World War II. For example, during World War I, Elizebeth, along with William was able to solve a cipher from the German diplomat, Arthur Zimmerman. Known as the  "Zimmerman Telegram", it revealed that Germany was attempting to incite Mexico to attack the United States and so distract them from the war in Europe. During World War II, Elizabeth decoded a message which revealed Germany's plan to sink the RMS Queen Mary carrying over 8000 soldiers. From the messages, Elizabeth knew the U-boat locations and the ship was able to safely transit the Atlantic Ocean.

Her work was vital to the U.S. understanding what was happening in South America during World War II.  Many Germans had  fled to South America after World War I. There were Nazi spies in Argentina as well as throughout South America. The U.S. wanted to avoid a Nazi takeover of South America. After the June 4, 1943 coup in Argentina, in August of that year Elizebeth was able to decipher a message which revealed what Germany and Argentina were planning or South America: " a block of South American countries" that Argentina and Germany would rule. They could then move on to attack North America. 

Because her and William's work was so top secret, their contributions have remained hidden for decades. It is only recently with the release of some of the material taken from from their home and from the George C. Marshall Research Library by the NSA (National Security Association) that  the amazing work and abilities of Elizebeth Smith Friedman has come to light. 

Readers interested in codes and ciphers and in recent works about Enigma and Alan Turing will enjoy Moss' biography on the incredibly gifted Elizebeth Smith Friedman. She solved the "Red" Enigma used by the SS at the same time as Turing and Bletchley Park but did it without the help of a computer, demonstrating her remarkable abilities as a cryptanalyst. 

Moss has included a short Author's Note, a Glossary, a chapter titled What Are Codes? What Are Ciphers? which has copies of the Zimmerman telegram and the unsolved Voynich Manuscript, a very detailed Timeline which includes many black and white photographs of Elizebeth, William and their children, and Notes for sources for each chapter, and an Index. 

Book Details:

Spying On Spies: How Elizebeth Smith Friedman Broke The Nazis' Secret Code by Marissa Moss

New York: Abrams Books For Young Readers    2024

224 pp.