Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez

Seventeen-year-old Carmen Bianchi is a violin prodigy. She's won a Grammy for best classical album and has been on the cover of many weekly magazines - the face of virtuosity in America. For the past four years she's be preparing for the prestigious Guarneri competition. Winning means being awarded one of the richest grand prizes in classical music; fifty thousand dollars, the use of the 1742 Guarneri del Gesu violin for four years, and the opportunity to perform with symphonies throughout the world. Carmen knows she will likely be one of the three musicians to make it to the final round and she desperately wants to win this competition. Winning the Guarneri will make Carmen a superstar. But Carmen has one major obstacle: Jeremy King.

Jeremy King is an eighteen-year-old violinist from London, England. He too is a virtuoso. When Carmen tries to catch a discrete glimpse of him outside the Chicago Symphony Center, he sees her and later sends her a nasty email. From this difficult beginning, Carmen and Jeremy gradually begin a love-hate relationship. However, Carmen's mother, Diana, learns of their relationship, and warns Carmen that Jeremy's motives are not honest. Carmen doesn't trust her mother and continues seeing Jeremy in an act of rebellion.

In the meantime, it is revealed that Carmen has been struggling with prescription drug addiction. While on tour in Tokyo last year, Carmen had a meltdown on stage. Her mother, who is also her manager, arranged for Carmen to take the anti-anxiety drug, Inderal. Although the drug calms her, it has begun to stifle her playing, removing the passion she once had. Soon Carmen finds herself taking the drug not just for performances but also for her lessons with her elderly Russian teacher, Yuri. Taking Inderal makes Carmen feel like she is a fraud, a fake who goes through the motions to make music. In an attempt to recover what she feels she has lost, and after witnessing Jeremy's impassioned playing, Carmen stops taking the Inderal for a period of time.

When Jeremy and Carmen make it to the semifinals, the Guarneri competition becomes much more complicated due to their entanglement and even more so when Jeremy makes an astonishing request of Carmen - to throw the competition and allow him to win because of a difficult family situation. Carmen, who is shocked by Jeremy's request, refuses to see him. When the three finalists are announced and Jeremy is not one of them, Carmen begins to suspect that something isn't quite right. A little investigating on her part, soon turns up the shocking reason for Jeremy's absence in the competition finals. Torn between her desire to win and her desire to do what is right, Carmen has a decision to make. It is one that will affect everyone's future.

Discussion

Virtuosity provides a fascinating look into the competitive world of classical music, and some of the issues young musicians must navigate around as they develop their careers. Martinez was herself a classical violinist and because she is writing about a subject she knows well, this novel is a realistic portrayal of the classical music world. Many young musicians experience extreme pressure from parents and teachers to lay down that perfect performance. In the competitive world of music, performances must be perfect, dynamic and unique - no small thing for a young person. This pressure is in addition to coping with memorizing huge amounts of repertoire, dealing with criticism that can at times be brutal and working through injuries. Some musicians struggle with eating disorders as well as with addictions to prescription medications. Others experience the same sort of self-doubt that Carmen experiences in Virtuosity.

Carmen is a strong, honest character, who faces some hard realities in both her personal life and also her musical career. As it turns out, Carmen's real obstacle proves to be her mother, Diana, who is stifling Carmen by controlling every aspect of her life, and who is also willing to do anything so that Carmen can have the career she never had. Because of this, Carmen is at risk of losing her integrity as a person and also as a musician. She has been doing everything for someone else - her mother and her wealthy grandparents who purchased a Gibson Stradivarius for her. In making the decision she does, she allows herself the time to discover again, why she is playing violin. She has to find out what it is that she truly wants for her life. Those teens who are involved in pursuing a musical career will relate to the themes in Virtuosity. 

Book Details:
Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez
Simon & Schuster 2011
294 pp.

Movie Review: The Iron Lady

The Iron Lady is biopic about former UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, her rise to power in 1979, and her remarkable ten plus years governing a country experiencing both political and economic turmoil. The movie opens with Thatcher,  played by award-winning actress, Meryl Streep, in her old age, frail and suffering from dementia. She cannot remember that her beloved husband, Denis Thatcher is deceased and sometimes doesn't even know herself. She has hallucinations of him living with her and often speaks as if he were in her presence. Margaret cannot bring herself to let go of Denis's clothing.

In a series of flashbacks, viewers are taken through the significant milestones of Margaret Thatcher's life. At age twenty-four, the young Margaret Roberts, daughter of a grocer, made an unsuccessful bid for election as an MP in Parliament. Although discouraged at this "disaster", she is persuaded by Denis, who loves her, to not give up on her ambitions. Denis proposes to Margaret, with the full knowledge of exactly the type of woman she is. "One's life must matter." she tells him, emphatically stating that she will not be the type of wife content to muddle about at home cleaning tea cups.

In 1959, she finally does win a seat in the election as Conservative MP for Finchley. Her strong personality stood her in good staid in the man's world of British politics, where heckling and derision by opposition MP's in Parliament was a frequent occurrence. In 1974, Margaret decided to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party mainly because she wanted to force the party to remain true to its principles. "Someone must force the point - say the unsayable!". She doesn't believe she will win but she does.

As history tells us, Thatcher is elected as Prime Minister in 1979 and the film runs through many of the major crises she experienced as leader of the British Commonwealth; the 1983 strikers, IRA bombings, the Falklands War and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Her rule was characterized by uncompromising resolve and she was soon dubbed "The Iron Lady" by the Soviets who were more familiar with the vacillating leaders of the West.

Discussion

Although The Iron Lady is not a captivating film, and at times is dry, it's impossible not to be amazed at Steep's ability to capture the mannerisms of Margaret Thatcher and effect a brilliant portrayal of the woman who was the first head of state in the West. Streep effectively juxtaposes the youthful Thatcher's strong personality with that of the elderly Thatcher who is shown as a frail, elderly woman, unmoored by the loss of her beloved husband. In the end, The Iron Lady was after all, human - something the film attempts to portray and succeeds.

Streep has a strong supporting cast especially Jim Broadbent as Thatcher's husband, Denis. Alexandra Roach's performance as the young Margaret Roberts was especially well done and the film would have been more encompasing if it had delved into more of young Margaret's life.

To aid in the film's realistic portrayal of the Thatcher era, there is news footage of Thatcher and also specific events that occurred during her years as Prime Minister. This footage defines the cultural setting Thatcher existed within and the magnitude of the problems she faced head on. For those who lived through the 1980's, these clips will bring back many memories.

 The Iron Lady is a film about a one of the most important world leaders in the late 20th century. It is also yet again, a vehicle showcasing the fine acting talents of Meryl Streep.

The Watch That Ends The Night by Alan Wolf

The Watch That Ends the Night tells the story of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912 in verse.

It opens with the undertaker, John Snow, aboard the cable ship Mackay-Bennett, off the Grand Banks, six hundred miles from Halifax, on Saturday April 20, 2012.  John is lying down on the empty coffins to ease his queasy stomach. He prefers the dead to the sea, which is so unpredictable. He bids Captain Larnder good night. In the morning his work will begin.

In Prelude Preparing to Sail, the time between Monday April 1 to Tuesday April 9, 1912 is portrayed, introducing most of the twenty-five narrators beginning with the Rat who follows the food.

Bruce Ismay - The Business Man who conceived of building "three immense sister ships". They would palatial, attracting the world's most wealthy but also those seeking to flee the continent paying for a nice berth. But he doesn't want to focus on life boats, because having life boats on the boat deck - the sun deck as he calls it, would clutter the view of the sunsets at sea.

E.J. Smith - the Captain who plans to go as fast and as straight as he can with Titanic. The ship is big, but he too is not concerned about the only twenty life boats on Titanic. After all, that's four more than required.

Thomas Andrews - The Ship builder. His uncle is the great Lord William Pirrie who is Ismay's associate and who also was involved with Titanic's conception. He learned his trade through a five-year apprenticeship and has overseen the Titanic.

The Iceberg - has seen the passage of time from Abraham and Noah through to the caveman's spear and the woolly mammoth's tusk. It was conceived within Greenland's glacial womb.

Olaus Abelseth - The Immigrant who writes Marie Stene in Norway, begging her to join him on Titanic. Eventually he manages to convince a group of Norwegians to join him including his cousin Peter, two neighbours and his brother-in-law, Sigurd.

Jamila Nicola-Yarred - The Refugee who is fleeing Lebanon along with her father and her brother Elias.  They arrive in France only to learn that that ship they booked passage on, has already left. When they try to book on Titanic, her father is told he cannot go because of his infected eye, so he sends on Jamila and Elias to Cherbourg, where they will board Titanic.

John Jacob Astor - The Millionaire who along with his pregnant, young wife, Madeleine, her nurse and his servant are returning from their honeymoon in Egypt.

Margaret Brown - The Socialite. She is in Egypt along with the Astors, and her daughter Helen when she learns that her little grandson, Lawrence Jr. is ill in America. They are returning via the Titanic.

Harold Lowe - The Junior Officer. He is a natural seaman, at ease in rowboats or on large ships. But he knows that most of the "crew" are not much use in a crisis. He tested the life boats, but wonders what will happen if they actually need them.

Frankie Goldsmith - The Dragon Hunter is only nine years old. His brother Bertie died last year from diphtheria. He along with his mother and father and an older lad named Alfred Rush will be travelling to America on the Titanic. Their final destination is Detroit, Michigan.

Harold Bride - The Spark. He is the assistant telegraphic operator, Second to Jack Phillips. Harold is excited that Titanic is equipped with the "most powerful wireless system on the sea."

Charles Joughlin - The Baker. As chief baker, he boards the Titanic in Belfast so he can test the ovens and appliances.

Frederick Fleet - The Lookout. His job is "to watch and say what he sees." By his account, he's a born watcher.

Lolo - The Tailor's Son. This little boy has been taken away by his papa along with his little brother momon.

Louis Hoffman - The Tailor. His real name is Michel Navratil and he has taken (kidnapped)  Lolo and Momon from their mother, Marcelle and her mother. He has used his friend's name to secure a place on Titanic.

George Brereton - The Gambler. He's a cardshark, a trickster who cheats people out at the card table, like the young, wealthy man he just cheated out of a lot of money. This will pay for his transportation to America and to his sister's place in Los Angeles.

With twenty-two of the voices now introduced, the readers meets the final three narrators in The First Watch Setting Out as Titanic travels from Southampton, England to Cherbourg, France on Wednesday, April 10, 1912.

Thomas Hart - The Stoker. After showing his papers, Thomas, or Tommy as he likes to be called learns that his berth is on F deck in the bow. 

Oscar Woody - The Postman who tells the new man, Mr. March that the noise is from the racquet court next door.

Jock Hume - The Second Violin has a girl, Mary Costin back in Dumfries who will soon have his child and whom he will soon marry. But he has two lovely ladies with him, his violins, Eberle and Guadagnini. One of them will be "the voice of his soul".

With all the narrators now introduced, the fateful story of the Titanic is ready to be told through their voices in the remaining six watches: The Last Port, The Open Sea, Frivolous Amusements, Turning the Corner, Whiskers on the Light, and The Watch That Ends the Night. The aftermath of the sinking is told in Postlude: Morning.

Discussion

Alan Wolf's The Watch That Ends The Night is a uniquely crafted novel that tells the story of the Titanic tragedy in both rhyming and free verse, using twenty-three voices of those on Titanic plus two nonhuman narrators, The Rat and The Iceberg. Wolf uses real people from the tragedy - those who were on the passenger list - and successfully builds an engaging storyline for each through verse.  These stories, when woven, together not only tell the larger story of the maiden voyage and the sinking of the Titanic, but also convey a sense of the magnitude of the tragedy on a personal level; the fathers never to be seen again, the lovers lost, the new life in America never to be realized.

The novel opens with a  Prelude which tells of preparations to sail and sets the story for many of the characters and closes with a Postlude; Morning which tells of the aftermath of the sinking. The novel is divided into seven watches, the seventh being "The Watch That Ends the Night", which covers the time the survivors are in the boats and watch in horror, the sinking of the great ship, supposedly unsinkable. 

The many voices include those of immigrants such as Jamila Nicola-Yarred and socialites such as John Jacob Astor and Margaret (Molly) Brown, Bruce Ismay, the director and head of the White Star Line;  and Thomas Andrews, the chief naval architect at Harlan and Wolff ship builders. Also included are many different Titanic crew members including Captain E. J. Smith known as "the Storm King", a stoker, Junior Office Harold Lowe,  wireless operator, Harold Bride; and Frederick Fleet, the lookout. Each  voice offers the reader a different perspective on sailing the Titanic, on life in the early 20th century and on the tragedy. These many voices make the storytelling realistic and appealing.

Added to the human voices are those of the Iceberg and The Rat, who wanders the ship in search of food. The Iceberg is portrayed as a malevolent entity whose purpose is to meet with a ship - seeking out human hearts! We learn its history, from its birth in Greenland, its thousand year existence to its calving off the glacier and its ocean voyage southward.

I am the ice. I see tides ebb and flow.

I've watched civilizations come and go,

give birth, destroy, restore, be gone, begin.

My blink of an eye is humankind's tortoise slow,

Today's now is tomorrow's way back when.....

I am the ice. I've seen the ebb and flow.

I watched as Abraham and Moses spoke.

I watched the prophets met with wine or stone.

I watched as Christ was nailed upon the cross.....

I am the ice. I've seen the ebb and flow.

Conceived by water, temperature, and time,

gestating within Greenland's glacial womb,

I carved out massive valleys as I moved.

At last the frozen river made its way

and calved me with a splash in Baffin Bay.

Since I've traveled southward many weeks,

for now that my emergence is complete,

there is a certain ship I long to meet.

Especially poignant is the voice of the undertaker, John Snow, who sailed on the cable ship, Mackay-Bennett, out of Halifax, Nova Scotia to collect the bodies of Titanic's victims. John Snow's poems capture the horror sailors experienced when they arrived at the site of the sinking.

I turn again to the far-off flock of gulls --

smudges of white floating on the green waves --

and I admit to myself what I knew at the first sight of them:

Those are no seagulls at all. Those are bodies.

More bodies. Each one waiting in a bright white vest.

My God. My God. My God.

Bodies scattered for miles, in every direction.

Bodies as far as my indifferent eyes can see.

Many of the poems use the element of foreshadowing mingled with irony, hinting at the coming tragedy. Wolf also uses concrete poetry with Thomas Andrews, Titanic's shipbuilder, to convey, typographically the sinking of the Titanic. Another poem, with its random words in the center of two pages, suggests the terror and confusion of people as they drown in the icy waters.

Alan Wolf includes detailed notes at the back of the book, on each of the voices/characters, all of which were real passengers on the ship, as well as an extensive Titanic bibliography.

The Watch That Ends The Night is brilliantly conceived, and succeeds beyond measure, in capturing the essence of the Titanic tragedy, one hundred years later,  for avid teen readers and interested adult readers alike.

Book Details:
The Watch That Ends The Night by Alan Wolf
Candlewick Press: Massachusetts    2011
466 pp.

My Mother The Cheerleader. A Novel by Robert Sharenow

My Mother The Cheerleader explores a very specific event in 20th century American history; the desegregation of schools in 1960 in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. This event is recounted through the eyes of thirteen-year-old Louise Collins, who lives with her mother, Pauline, in their boardinghouse, Rooms On Desire.

Life for young Louise is uneventful until desegregation is ordered for the Ninth Ward's all-white elementary schools. In November 1960, four Negro girls are permitted to attend the schools; three are attending McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School, while one of these girls, Ruby Bridges, is enrolled in Louise's school, William Frantz Elementary School. 

This has resulted in the white students being pulled from school in protest and a group of mothers is formed to taunt the little first-grade students as they enter the schools. These mothers are dubbed "the cheerleaders".  But the "cheerleading" that Louise's mother is doing is "so full of foul language that the newspapers couldn't even print the words." And what they say is not really reported on television or radio.

"The cheerleaders" also draw the ire of writer John Steinbeck, one of Louise's favourite authors. He writes about the cheerleaders in his book, Travels With Charley, a book about Steinbeck's travels across America in 1960 with Charley, his large poodle.  His views on the Cheerleaders didn't really sit well with Louise because, like those opposed to segregation, he too tended to dehumanize those he didn't agree with. "They were not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors, playing to a crazy audience." To Louise, her mother is both a mother and a human being." But Louise believes that what we see on the outside isn't necessarily the full picture. "I don't blame Mr. Steinbeck for writing what he did. He saw my mother and the other Cheerleaders from the outside looking in. From that point of view, I'm sure he thought he was painting a very accurate portrait. However, I saw my mother and her friends from the inside. And I've found that people always tend to look different from that angle, when you can really get in close and get a good look at all the details that hang just below the surface."

And so Louise Lorraine Collins tells the story of her mother, over a period of a few days, and what happens when she meets a friend of John Steinbeck who comes to stay at their boardinghouse. 

Louise had been attending William Frantz Elementary School until November 1960 when little Ruby Bridges, a first-grade student was enrolled. At this point her mother pulled her out of school and she spent the days helping out at her mother's boarding school.  The Ninth Ward is one of the poorest wards in New Orleans, with rough streets without sidewalks and no sewage system. When Ruby Bridges is allowed to attend William Frantz, Louise wondered why she wanted to go to such a terrible school. So instead of going to school Louise is working at her mother's rooming house which is located at the corner of Desire and North Galvez Streets. 

The rooming house, Rooms On Desire, a play on its location at the corner of Desire and North Galvez streets is "just a plain pea-green wood house with white trim, featuring three stories, six bedrooms  A Negro lady, Charlotte Dupree helps Louise's mother run the house, which has one long-time boarder, seventy-six year old Cornelius Landroux. Steinbeck's friend, Morgan Miller, arrives in the Ninth Ward with the intention of reconnecting with his brother. Unlike most of the men who frequent Rooms on Desire, Morgan is a gentleman, confident and "usually comfortable in his own skin and with the world in general." He treats Pauline with respect and Louise with a gentle kindness, often helping smooth things over for her, when her mother is harsh.

Louise who has been pulled from school decides to spend her time "snooping" on Morgan. She wants to know who he is, because he's so different from anyone who has ever stayed at the boardinghouse. However, Louise's snooping reveals secrets she's not prepared for, about her mother, about herself, and about the world.

Discussion

My Mother The Cheerleader is a novel about the integration of schools in the southern United States. Set in 1960, in the Ninth Ward in the city of New Orleans, it focuses on the desegregation of two schools in the city over the period of several days. The events are related by the daughter of a white woman, deeply opposed to desegregation. The main characters in the novel are fictional, but Ruby Bridges, the little Black American girl who was allowed to attend William Frantz school is real.

Despite the United States Supreme court ordering that desegregation be implemented with "all deliberate speed", Louisiana and the city of New Orleans were not willing to integrate black students into white schools. As the state continued to create legal and other barriers to either stall or make integration almost impossible, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, finally ruled the many bills designed to make integration illegal in the state were struck down and on November 14, 1960, schools were desegregated. 

The two schools chosen for integration were located in the very poor Ninth Ward.  White parents protested, and began withdrawing their children from the two schools, just as Louise mentions in the  novel. Shortly after this, a group of housewives, rabidly opposed to integration formed and began harrassing little Ruby Bridges, only six-years-old.

Ruby Bridges spent her first year at William Frantz being escorted each and every day by U.S. Marshals, through the lines of white working class women known as "the cheerleaders" whose sole purpose was to confront Ruby and block her path into the school. Many adults helped Ruby through this difficult time in her life, especially her mother who encouraged her and reminded her of God's love and protection, and her white teacher, Mrs. Henry, who recognized Ruby's dignity and personhood.

Looking back on this event, almost 52 years later, it seems almost incredible that a little 6 year old black girl would need a contingent of federal agents to see that she got to school unharmed. It's hard to believe people held these views but it's even more disturbing that many still do hold onto racial prejudice. My Mother The Cheerleader provides readers the opportunity to try to understand the views people held in 1960 about race and civil rights and does so very effectively. These people were judges, lawyers, teachers, mothers, fathers and children, and just like anyone else living in the United States in 1960. Some were outstanding citizens, while others were just ordinary folk.

The southern white view of desegregation is portrayed through the character of Louise's mother,  Pauline who violently argues with Morgan about why black children shouldn't be attending white schools. Her prejudice, like those of her peers, goes much deeper though and doesn't just include black people. When Pauline is attacked and Louise goes to the home of their black cook, Charlotte Dupree, for help, the reader learns why each race can't help the other, even if they wanted to, even in deadly circumstances, simply because of the class restrictions in place at that time. What would be needed is an act of supreme courage, to go against the conventions of society at that time. And we come to see what happens to those in the segregated South, who believe all men are created equal, and who stand up for that belief. All of these are teachable moments, woven seamlessly into this brilliant story by author, Robert Sharenow.

The author includes many realistic characters in the novel. While some of the characters are stereotypical, (there's the typical "red-necks" and earthy no-nonsense black maid) they are believable. Each person, Pauline,  Louise, Charlotte Dupree, Morgan Miller and even minor characters, are well drawn, having depth.  For example, Louise's mother, Pauline is the stereotypical single mother; lazy, not a good mother to her child, a heavy drinker, and a woman who becomes involved with men. She is loud, self-absorbed, and vain. Yet later on in the novel Pauline is shown to care for her daughter Louise and to have compassion.

There is the wonderful theme of courage throughout the novel, not just on the part of Ruby Bridges, but also in the characters of Morgan Miller and surprisingly, depending on how she is viewed by the reader,  Pauline Collins. Courageous acts come in all sizes and ways.

Readers are advised there are some sexual references in this novel.

Ruby Bridges image is in the public domain:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/US_Marshals_with_Young_Ruby_Bridges_on_School_Steps.jpg

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ruby-bridges

Book Details:
My Mother The Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow
Laura Geringer Books (HarperCollins Publishers)    2007
289 pp.

Starters by Lissa Price

Starters is Lissa Price's debut novel set in an America decimated by war and a deadly sickness. Lissa Price has created a fascinating post-apocalyptic world in her debut novel, Starters.  

America is comprised of very elderly people, Enders, and very young people, Starters. Price's post-apocalyptic world arose after the Spore Wars between America and unnamed Pacific Ocean countries (does she mean China?). Fearing a bio-war, America began vaccinating its citizens, with those considered most at risk, the very young and the elderly, being the first to be vaccinated. When the spore bombs were unleashed earlier than expected, all people between the ages of 20 and 60 died, leaving many children orphaned and uncared for.

Sixteen-year-old Callie Woodland and her brother, seven-year-old Tyler, are two such children, orphaned and living in an abandoned office tower with a friend named Michael. They spend their time hiding from the Marshals who capture unclaimed children  and scavenging for enough food to eat. With Tyler sick, Callie decides to pay a visit to Prime Destinations located in Beverly Hills. She has heard about this company out on the street and knows that she can earn a great deal of money but she needs to know more.

At Prime Destinations, Callie meets Mr. Tinnenbaum, a tall Ender with silver white hair and a deep artificial tan. He explains that the renter or Ender has a cap with electrodes fitted on her/his head which connects them to a BCI or Body-Computer Interface and they are put into a "twilight sleep". Meanwhile the donor or Starter has had a  neuro-chip embedded into their brain connecting their brain to the computer. The Ender (renter) and Starter (donor) are connected via a computer.  After an Ender chooses a Starter, the Starter comes to Prime Destinations and is put under anesthesia and the connection between the two brains is made by the computer. The Renter simply uses her mind to take oer the body of the young teen whose conscious mind is now asleep. The Ender can then use the teen's body for however long the rental period is. The teen-donor remembers nothing of what happened while his/her body was being rented. 

After the rental time is finished the Ender brings the body back to Prime Destinations and the computer connection is shut down. The Ender is taken out of twilight sleep and the Starter or donor has her/his brain functions restored. The neurochip blocks renters from participating in illegal activities. The donor gets the chip removed after three rentals.

After the explanation, Callie decides to defer signing a contract with a bonus, despite desperately needing the money and even in spite of the intense pressure by Mr. Tinnenbaum to sign immediately. She returns back to the office tower she is living in with Tyler and Michael. When their building is set on fire by Enders to smoke them out, Callie and her brother and Michael flee but are chased by the marshals. They have lost their sleeping bags, water bottles and the remnants of family photos. With Tyler sick, Callie makes the decision to return to Prime Destinations. She tells Michael to care for Tyler and that she will return in a few days.

At Prime Destinations, Callie is assigned to an Ender named Doris who is her personal mentor. She is tested in the sports she claimed to be able to do including her ability to shoot a rifle. Prior to renting, every Starter gets a complete body makeover, with all scars and imperfections being completely removed. Callie has the neurochip put in and is given the lunch she thought about, proving that the chip is functioning. Callie is given clothing that has been chosen by her renter and has her makeup done by makeup artist Clara. Doris tells Callie that her first rental will be only for a day and that she is a "lovely woman". When Callie presses to meet her, Doris tells her the exchanges are always confidential. Doris attempts to reassure Callie, telling her that "We do have your best interests at heart..."  Callie also learns that the tall Ender she saw talking to Mr. Tinnenbaum when she arrived yesterday is the CEO of Prime, whom they call "Old Man".

Everything goes well for the first rent but when she requests to leave, Callie is told that it is not an option. The second rental is for three days however after this rental Callie awakens with a four-inch gash on her arm and no one will tell her how this happened. When she learns that her third rental is oing to last of a month, Callie panics. She presses her case with Mr. Tinnenbaum who agrees to allow Callie three hours to go visit her brother.  He assigns a body guard, Rodney to watch over her and her warns her to be careful with her body,  "Because right now, it still belongs to us." 

Tyler is angry that Callie has been gone for seven days. She promises that when she returns, they will have a home once again. Callie finds herself growing more attached to Michael and thanks him for caring for Tyler.

When Callie returns to Prime Destinations, she learns that her renter wants to got that night. Callie is dressed in all black and sent off to her third rent. But during the third rent, something unusual happens. Callie wakes up a week into her rental  to find herself in Club Rune in Los Angeles. Confused, Callie quickly realizes that something is not working right with the renter. Callie begins hearing a voice in her head warning her not to return to Prime Destinations and she realizes this is her renter.

At the home of her renter, Callie discovers that her renter is Helena Winterhill and that her universal ID has been changed from Callie Woodland to Callie Winterhill who lives in a luxurious mega-mansion in Bel-Air. On a date with Blake Harrison, the boy she met at Club Rune, they go horseback riding and visit his great-grandmother Marion.  During this visit Callie  learns that Blake is the grandson of Senator Clifford C. Harrison. Believing she can trust Blake who is not an Ender, she sends him with money to the abandoned office building Tyler and Michael are living in.

Callie blacks out in Helena's car and awakens eighteen hours later in Helena's bedroom holding a Glock 85 with a silencer.  When she is warned yet again not to return to Prime Destinations, Callie decides to check into Helena's background. She discovers that Helena's granddaughter Emma lived with her and died two months ago. Even more disturbing is that Callie discovers the same charm bracelet that Doris gave her in Emma's bedroom. Callie realizes that Emma sold her body to the body bank. 

 At Club Rune, Callie meets Helena's friend, Lauren who is renting the body of a girl named Reece. Lauren reveals that they are using the bodies of teens to stop Prime Destinations from victimizing thousands of teens. From Lauren she learns that Helena is planning a murder but Helena hasn't told Lauren who the target is. Lauren's grandson, Kevin, and Helena's granddaughter, Emma, signed up at Prime Destinations but never returned. They lied and did it to get the body makeovers, not realizing that Prime takes Starters who have no living relatives. This way if they do not return, they have no family who will investigate their disappearance. Some Starters are released to recruit more teens. Callie learns that many Enders besides Lauren and Helena, have lost grandchildren who have simply disappeared after becoming body donors for Prime. Callie finds this all very daunting.

Callie reaches out to Blake who meets her and is very angry. She discovers that while blacked out, Helena took over, and angrily took back the money Callie had given to Blake to give to Tyler and Michael. She asks him again to take the wad of money to them and he agrees to do this. After her meeting with Blake, Callie dumps Helena's Glock and determines from her phone calendar that whoever she is planning to murder it will be on November 19 at 8:00 PM. 

Callie receives a memo from Helena on her phone warning her not to return to Prime. She does not know that Callie knows about her plans.  Once more Callie blacks out only to find herself in the lobby of an office building preparing to kill Senator Clifford Harrison, Blake's grandfather. Callie doesn't know  how Senator Harrison is connected to Prime Destinations. As Callie grows closer to Blake, she is determined to find out why Helena wants to kill his grandfather.

On the day Senator Harrison is scheduled to present at an awards ceremony, Callie finds herself with an assault rifle scoping the ceremony. She suddenly is able to communicate with Helena who tells her that she needs to go through with the assassination. Helena reveals that Callie's biochip has been altered and the stop-kill switch which prevents Renters from killing while they are in a Starter's body has been turned off. Helena wants to stop Senator Harrison because of his connections to Prime Destinations. Harrison is hoping to persuade the president to use Prime to conscript teens for government use. But she also discovers that Prime has a far more insidious design for the teen donors.

Helena and Callie begin working together to try to determine what has happened to her granddaughter Emma. Helena gives Callie money to get a place for Michael and Tyler to stay and asks Callie to visit Institution 37 to talk to a girl named Sara who may know about Emma. In Institution 37 Callie learns from Sara that there is a special program beginning next week where some of the girls will be given special makeovers and important jobs where they will earn money. Only the prettiest Starters will be chosen by the body bank. 

Callie meets Madison at her home and together they watch Senator Clifford Harrison at a news conference in Washington. He announces the Special Circumstances Youth Employment Act in which certain institutionalized and unclaimed minors will be able to now be employed. The first company to do this will be Prime Destinations. So it appears that what Callie was told by Sara is really happening. Then Madison receives a special, private and confidential broadcast from Prime Destinations, as a Titanium subscriber. Chad Tinnenbaum and Doris introduce the head of Prime Destinations, the Old Man whose face is pixelated and voice disguised. He informs his Titanium Premium subscribers that they will be able to try the bodies of different nationalities and  soon be able to own the body of the Starter they rent while their "birth body" is kept safe in the chair at Prime Destinations until it reaches the age of two hundred years. As the owners of their new bodies, they will be able to keep them as they age through the body's twenties and thirties and even longer. 

Callie is now convinced of what Helena has been telling her. And she suggests to Helena that her granddaughter Emma may not be dead but may have been permanently rented.  However, a major setback occurs when Callie discovers Helena has been killed and someone is trying to kill her.

When Helena gone, Callie is now on her own to prevent Prime from gaining control and implementing its evil plan. She meets up with Helena's friend Redmond who initially modified their (Helena/Callie) neurochip. Callie asks Redmond to remove it but he tells her it cannot be removed as it is integrated into her brain. Instead he covers the chip with a magnetic plate to prevent Prime Destinations from tracking her. 

It becomes increasingly difficult for Callie to know who she can trust. No one is who she thought they were: she discovers that Briona is actually Doris and that Lee is Tinnenbaum. After a brief incarceration in Institution 37 for attempting to kill Senator Harrison, Callie escapes and is helped by Madison, the real Lauren who is a 150 year old Elder and her attorney, Mr. Crais. Lauren reveals that she was in the process of claiming Callie and so Prime Destinations has no claim over her. They bring together the grandparents of missing body bank donor teens and hope to enlist the help of Redmond who had altered Helena's chip. However, Redmond's compound is discovered destroyed by a bomb and he is missing. The next day Callie visits Prime Destinations to see the Old Man and offers her life for that of her brother Tyler. While she is bargaining with the Old Man, a team of marshals are arresting the body bank employees. The Old Man escapes via his heli transport. 

In the lobby of Prime Destinations, the Renters have returned having watched Lauren's broadcast that told them to return to the body bank because their chips were having issues. Many are not happy to have to leave their Rentals but all are returned to the Elder bodies and the teens to their Starter bodies. Tyler is found to be hiding at Prime Destinations and with Prime now destroyed, Lauren informs Callie that Helena left her half of her estate: her home and a country home. Callie takes Tyler to live in Helena's home and then goes to see Blake. 

Callie makes a shocking discovery: Blake has no knowledge of who she is nor any memories of Callie. Senator Harrison then reveals that his son was kidnapped by the Old Man so that his father would be forced into cooperating and making the deal with the president for Prime Destinations. With the Old Man using Blake's body he was able to learn of Helena's plans. Senator Harrison asks Callie to never reveal to Blake what happend to him. 

Prime Destinations is destroyed but the Old Man contacts Callie through her neurochip and asks her to join him. She refuses...

Discussion

Starters is a young adult dystopian novel that focuses on a post-apocalyptic America in which the elderly (Enders) use the bodies of teenagers (Starters). Not surprisingly this deeply unethical practice leads to even more abuse. 

Starters is a plot-driven novel with little world building and not much in the way of character development. America is in a post war period, a war that started over three years earlier in the Pacific Ocean. No one was winning the war, not America nor the Pac Rim. They launched genocidal spore weapons at America while America launched their EMP weapons at the Pac Rim countries, disabling their computers, planes and stock markets. The spore weapons killed anyone not vaccinated - those between the ages of twenty and sixty died, including Callie and Tyler's parents. Anyone under the age of nineteen was not allowed to work. This means survivors like Callie and Michael are destitute. They have been living on the streets, hiding in abandoned buildings to avoid the marshals who round up unclaimed children.

Author Lissa Price does and especially good job of explaining the science fiction premise of the novel, one that is reminiscent of James Cameron's Avatar movie in which an Elder can connect to the mind of a teen donor and use that body for a period of time. Everything seems to work fine for Callie's first two rentals but on the third rental, she discovers that she is awake in her own body but living her Renter, Helena Winterhill's life and that Helena is on a mission to assassinate someone. The rest of the novel involves Callie's determination to solve who her renter wants to assassinate and the reason behind such a drastic action.

At the crux of the mystery are the ethical questions that such a practice poses especially when it is revealed that the corporation behind the rentals is determined to make the use of a teen body no longer a rental but permanent. 

The protagonist, Callie Woodland is carefully sketched as a caring, moral person who tries to do the correct thing. Due to the extreme poverty she and her brother are experiencing, Callie is driven to sell her body to the body bank at Prime Directives. It's a statement on how extreme poverty forces women (and men to a lesser extent) to use their bodies to survive. In a previous time it might have been for prostition. In this post-apocalyptic world, it is a prostition of a different kind, young people allowing the elderly to use their bodies to live out their fantasies once more. Athough there are restrictions on the use of the bodies, such as not engaging in risky behaviour, the concept is disturbing. Callie also begins to recognize that Prime Destinations already holds the view that her body belongs to them. When she requests a break before her final rental, Tinnebaum reluctantly grants her request but warns her "Keep this body exactly as it is. Because right now, it still belongs to us."

At first Callie refuses to kill even though her Renter, Helena is determined to go through with the assassination. Callie resists, discarding weapons and insisting that she needs proof about what is happening before acting. It does seem convenient that she comes out of her blackouts just as Helena is about to act. And when the reality of what Prime Destinations is revealed, Callie fights back against what she believes is truly evil - the permanent kidnapping of teens. 

When the CEO of Prime Destinations reveals that the Renters will now be able to keep the body of the teen they are given, Callie is horrified. However Madison sees no ethical issues only possibilities to live out her life as a young woman again with a new, younger body. She tells Callie, "Why not? Of course it's fun to try different bodies, but instead of all the back-and-forth and in-and-out, it would be nice to settle with one and be done."  Howevcr Callie counters, "It's not like picking out a new dress or a car or a house. These are people. Living, breathing teen who have their whole lives ahead of them. But not if you steal it from them." It's clear that Madison hasn't thought through what is happening and what she's participating in. Callie tells her, "...if you are I are permanently in somebody's body, it means that girl will never get a break. She'll never know what it's like to go to college, fall in love, get married, have children. You might have those experiences - again - but she won't."  

The Enders were especially well done and it was clear that Callie and her generation  deeply fear and despise them. Many of the  Enders in the novel are portrayed as self-absorbed, superficial people concerned only with living longer and experiencing as much as possible, preferably in the body of a teenager. They also have no qualms using other people's bodies. However, it is with the help of some Enders such as Rhiannon, Helena and Lauren that Callie is able to stop Prime Destinations and rescue her brother.

While Starters has an interesting concept, its complex storyline meant that some things weren't always clear or explained. Price never really expanded on why the government should or would get involved in using the bodies of teens supplied by Prime. We don't know why the Enders live to be so old. We also don't know the outcome of the war for other parts of the US or for the Pacific countries involved in the war. Readers know very little about the Old Man, his true identity and how he came to be. His use of the snake head when Callie meets him was overly dramatic.  It's possible Price will develop this further in the next book, filling in the details as required.

Starters is a suspenseful, intensely satisfying book that will leave readers anxiously anticipating the next installment. This novel  has a magnificent book cover that was brilliantly designed by Melissa Greenberg.

Book Details: 
Starters by Lissa Price
Random House: Delacorte Press    2012
336 pp.

Remembering The Titanic: Photographs, Books, and Movies

One hundred years ago tonight, April 14, 1912, 23:40PM (ship's time - UTC-3), the RMS Titanic, with 2,224 people on board, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Deemed "virtually unsinkable", the Titanic, at that time, was the largest ship in the world and the most luxurious passenger ship afloat. That the ship sank on it's maiden voyage, that over 1,500 passengers and crew died, this most devastating maritime disaster has been immortalized in 20th century culture through books, movies and music.

My favourite movie, and one which I think best portrays the Titanic disaster, is A Night To Remember (1953), which is based on the book of the same title by Walter Lord. The movie was directed by Roy Ward Baker who used the testimony of some of the survivors.

Walter Lord's book, A Night to Remember is also a well written account of the disaster and remains one of the best books about Titanic. A new book, Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived by Andrew Wilson was published in March, 2012 and considers the profound effect the disaster had on the lives of those who survived. Wilson used memoirs, unpublished letters, and diaries to assess the aftermath of this tragedy.

There are many stories that were well known at the time of the tragedy but today are not well publicized. One such story is that of Father Thomas Byles, a Protestant convert to the Catholic faith. Father Thomas boarded the Titanic to travel to America for the upcoming wedding of his brother William who lived in New York. William and his fiance, Isabel Katherine Russell,  were to be married at St. Augustine's Catholic Church. Father obtained a ticket for second class berth and arranged with Captain Smith to say Mass for those aboard the ship. April 14 was the first Sunday after Easter and Father Thomas said Mass for those on board.

Father Thomas was reading his breviary on deck when the ship struck the iceberg. He went about helping people, especially the third class passengers whom he calmed and administered the Sacrament of Confession. Several passengers related later that Father Thomas twice refused a seat in a boat, preferring instead to offer comfort, confession and absolution to the many passengers who were about to die. At 2:20am when the boat was finally sinking into the ocean, Father Thomas led more than one hundred souls in reciting the Act of Contrition and gave them absolution.

Upon learning of the tragedy, William and Isabel hoped that Father Thomas might be among those rescued, but it was not to be. His body was never found. There is a website devoted to Father Thomas Byles,  who chose to continue his priestly ministry until the very end.

When the wreck of the Titanic was discovered in 1985 by Robert Ballard, the world was awestruck by the first eerie pictures of the silent, broken ship. For those of us for whom the sinking was a historic event,  the scope of the tragedy was again made all too real. Interest in the Titanic was reignited and resulted in James Cameron's blockbuster movie hit, Titanic in 1995. I am not a fan of this movie, which I believe trivializes the disaster with its storyline of two men fighting over a disillusioned and unhappy woman whilst the ship is sinking and over a thousand people are soon to perish. It is a rendition typical of an era in which post-modern culture focuses on mundane, irrelevant themes while ignoring the more noble.

The discovery of the Titanic also allowed scientists to do forensic research on the wreck and this has resulted in new theories about exactly how the ship, considered state of the art in both luxury and engineering at the time, could sink so quickly. An example of the such recent research can be found in scientific journals such as Materials Today with its article, What Really Sank The Titanic.

The discovery also allowed some artifacts from the ship to be recovered and these have been on exhibition this year, in remembrance of the tragedy. We now know that the wreck will not live forever as it is being rapidly consumed by iron-reducing bacteria. What we do have to remember Titanic and to preserve her memory for future generations, is a fascinating archive of photographs from the first part of her maiden voyage.

Father Frank Browne, a Jesuit priest, was an accomplished Irish photographer who recorded the first part of Titanic's maiden voyage, the journey from Southhampton to Cohb, Ireland. His uncle, Robert Browne who was Bishop of Cloyne, gave his nephew a ticket for the first part of the Titanic's maiden voyage. Despite his desire to continue onto New York, Father Browne disembarked at Cohn and his record of the Titanic survives today. You can view his amazing photographs here.

At 2:20 am, April 15, one hundred years ago, over 1,500 people died in a tragedy that could have be averted.

Eternal rest grant unto to them, O Lord.

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

"Every new year Mother visits

the I Ching Teller of Fate.

This year he predicts

our lives will twist inside out."

Ten year old Kim Ha lives with her family in war-torn Saigon, South Vietnam. Her family includes her older brothers Quang, 21 - an engineering student, and Vu who is 18, as well as younger brother, Khoi who is 4, and her mother. Her father, a Vietnamese navy officer, was captured nine years ago while on a mission. Ha's family continue to hope he is alive and will return some day. It is 1975, what will eventually be the final year of the Vietnam War, and for Ha this means celebrating her birthday and waiting for the delicious papayas to ripen. Little does she know how dramatically her life will soon change.

At first, despite her father's absence, the war seems to have little effect on the family. When war finally does come to Saigon, Ha, along with her family make the decision to leave their beloved country and flee via boat. Crammed onto a navy vessel along with thousands of other Vietnamese who do not desire to live under communist rule, they are rescued by the American navy. Their boat is towed to Guam where they are placed in a refugee camp. Eventually the family is sent to South Florida and are sponsored by a man and his wife from Alabama. Despite the good intentions of the couple from Alabama, the transition from Asian culture into what is essentially the American Bible Belt proves to be intensely confusing and painful for everyone.

For Ha, the transition proves to be almost impossible until one day she meets Miss Washington, a neighbour who agrees to tutor Ha and her family in English. However, learning English only adds to Ha's pain because she now understands the insults made by her American classmates. Eventually, as Ha grows to trust Miss Washington, she confides that she has been hiding at school, eating lunch in the bathroom and is being bullied by her classmates. Efforts to make things better only worsen the situation. But, as Ha and her family begin to acquire more language skills, the transition to their new life begins to go more slowly.

Discussion

In her novel, Inside Out & Back Again, Thanhha Lai poignantly captures the essence of what it was truly like for an refugee from Vietnam in 1975. This was a time when the world was a much smaller place and a profound lack of cultural understanding permeated the well-intentioned help offered to Asian refugees in America (and Canada). The prejudice that Ha and her family experience are due not only to racial intolerance but also to ignorance. Settling immigrants in an area of America with very different customs and beliefs, and especially in a part of America known for its staunch biblical beliefs, made integrating into American society much more difficult. In Canada, many Vietnamese refugees settled in Montreal, Quebec, where they at least had the familiarity of the French language.

Some of the intolerance may also have been due to the anger and pain Americans especially felt in the aftermath of losing the Vietnam War. Many Americans were angry at their government and military for the country's involvement in a guerrilla war they couldn't possibly win. Still others were angry at the Vietnamese people, whom they saw as being ungrateful towards the sacrifice made by American soldiers.

In eloquent and moving free verse, Thanhha Lai chronicles Ha's journey from February 11, 1975 until January 31, 1976. The novel's simple poems allow the reader, through the voice of Ha, to experience the raw emotions of hope, loss, and fear, thus making the character very realistic. One such poem captures the joy Ha feels about papayas.

Two More Papayas

I see them first.

Two green thumbs

that will grow into

orange-yellow delights

smelling of summer.

Middle sweet

between a mango and a pear

Soft as a yam

gliding down

after three easy,

thrilling chews. 

April 5

It's hard not to feel a deep empathy towards Ha, whose entire life has been turned inside out. Beside being in a new and strange country, she must also come to terms with the loss of her beloved father, and cope with the frustration of repeating a grade because she is struggling to learn in a new language.

Inside Out & Back Again provides young readers the opportunity to explore the situation immigrants face when coming to a new country. It also provides an opportunity to discuss the Vietnam War, an almost forgotten conflict that consumed America and Asia during the 1960's and early 1970's.

Book Details:
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
New York: Harper Collins 2011
262 pp.

Documentary: Kinshasa Symphony

In Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a remarkable and wholly improbable cultural entity exists amid the poverty and chaos of this troubled Third World nation. That entity is the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste (Kinshasa Orchestra) - Central Africa's one and only symphony orchestra.

The orchestra grew out of the efforts of founder and conductor, Armand Diangienda. Diangienda who is a cellist and also a composer, began fifteen years ago to bring the gift of music to his community with a few instruments which were shared amongst beginner musicians. Some of the instruments were donated, others rescued from the trash and repaired.

These self-taught musicians had to practice in shifts when there weren't enough instruments. The dedication and discipline demonstrated by the members of the Kinshasa Orchestra was evident from the beginning as many came to rehearsals after long workdays, and often had to make long treks into Kinshasa on foot or by taxi. Orchestra rehearsals were challenging but Diangienda proved to be a man with much patience and a deep love of music. Such perseverance has paid off. The Kinshasa Orchestra has performed the music of many composers including Beethoven, Handel and Orloff.

If the orchestra's conductor impresses, so too do the orchestra's two hundred musicians and vocalists, many of whom have risen above difficult personal and social circumstances to learn classical music well enough to perform in an orchestra or to sing in a choir. Their music not only overwhelms and impassions the listener, but the participants themselves.

For many involved in the Kinshasa Orchestra, it is a sanctuary, a reprieve from a world filled with tragedy, war and poverty. As one woman put it, "When I play music, I become myself."

The documentary, Kinshasa Symphony, directed by Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer explores this unique orchestra from three perspectives; the people, the city, and the music. All three have influenced the orchestra's development and its current musical direction.



CBS has done a wonderful segment on the orchestra in its show "60 Minutes". The video may be watched below:



In conjunction with the WDR Symphony Orchestra and Choir from Cologne, Germany, the OSK is working towards the establishment of a classical music school in Kinshasa. It will be fascinating to watch how this cultural force will influence further development of the arts in the Congo, and throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

The Night She Disappeared by April Henry

The Night She Disappeared is young adult mystery writer, April Henry's latest offering. Gabie Klug, Kayla Cutler and Drew Lyle work at Pete's Pizza in Portland. One night Kayla goes missing after delivering a pizza order to a male customer. Her car is found abandoned down by the Willamette River, driver's door open, keys in the ignition, and her purse on the front seat. Both Drew and Gabie feel that Gabie was the intended victim because the man who phoned in the order specifically asked if Gabie, who drives a Mini Cooper, would be delivering the pizza. The police however, don't seem to want to explore this connection much, preferring initially to keep their options open.

As Drew and Gabie try to come to terms with what has happened, they are drawn together into a budding romance. But they are two people from very different parts of society. Gabie's parent's are trauma surgeons and as such, her family is well off, living in a large, well kept home. She's alone much of the time, due to her parent's being on-call, and Pete's Pizza is like a family to her. In contrast, Drew lives with his mother in a run-down, cluttered apartment. His mother is a thief and a meth addict and Drew is her main support. 

Pete, owner of the pizza store, decides that no women employees will be delivering pizzas and as a result, the store schedule is reworked. For Drew who relies on the shifts at the pizza place for his income, this is a disaster. Gabie steps in and agrees to let him use her car to deliver pizzas. It is this action that will have positive ramifications later on.

When someone phones in a tip about a white pick-up truck having been seen in the vicinity of the river and second tip comes in identifying a young male, Cody Renfew , the repercussions are deadly. Police focus on Cody without much further investigation into the crime and the suspicion results in terrible consequences for him. With police convinced now that Kayla is dead, despite the lack of a body, and little evidence, Drew and Gabie are determined to find their lost friend. It takes Drew, out on a delivery in Gabie's Mini Cooper, who unwittingly provides the bait that leads to the novel's breathtaking climax.

Discussion

April Henry uses many characters in The Night She Disappeared to tell the story; Kayla, Drew, Gabie, Gavin (a diver, which isn't evident at first), "John Robertson" who is the kidnapper, and Todd and Jeremy (two kids who discover Kayla's car). This works surprisingly well because Henry keeps the storyline simple. "John Robertson" is suitably creepy and disturbing as the villain in the novel. He's not happy with the girl he got, especially since he really wants Gabie and still plans to grab her.

There are significant holes in the story-telling though: the police seem to ignore the fact that the perpetrator had initially targeted Gabie, and in the end conclude that Kayla, after 13 days, is dead. In real life, this simply wouldn't happen. With only circumstantial evidence, most of it quite weak, and no body, the police somehow arrive at this conclusion, resulting in Kayla's family  having a funeral service. Most family's wouldn't give up this easily and if they found the police efforts lacking, would be working hard to find their own leads. So this aspect of the novel was unrealistic, unbelievable, and wasn't  necessary to the novel's storyline.

Despite this plot weakness, The Night She Disappeared,  is a book that will appeal to younger teens interested in a good suspense novel. The plot is simple, there's an element of first love and conflict between the two main characters, and a crime to solve. It's also a short read that is fast paced, with added pieces of information to draw a reader in. There are police reports, pieces of evidence from the victim, lab reports, web information and 911 transcripts, all of which engage the reader and make the storytelling feel somewhat authentic.

Book Details:
The Night She Disappeared by April Henry
New York: Henry Holt    2012
229 pp.

Rachel's Secret by Shelly Sanders

It is 1903. Fourteen-year-old Rachel Paskhar is a Jewish girl who lives in the village of Kishinev with her father Gofshar, her mother Ita and her older sister Nucia. On this cold winter day, she is skating on the River Byk with  her friends, Chaia Berlatsky and Leah and their friends, Yoram and Meyer.  Rachel meets up with fourteen-year-old Mikhail Rybachenko when she trips over a branch. She doesn't want to skate with her friends who have been spending more time with their boyfriends than with her. 

Mikhail suggests that maybe Chaia is thinking of marriage but Rachel believes that is ridiculous as they are much too young to be considering marriage. However, Mikhail tells her that his mother was married at sixteen and his grandmother even earlier. Rachel responds that she wants to be a famous writer and marry someone she loves and only have she has travelled the world. As they continue to argue, suddently Mikhail pulls Rachel into an embrace and kisses her. This shocks Rachel who admonishes him.

They encounter fourteen-year-old Sergei Khanzhenkov who also likes Rachel and wants her to skate with him. However, Rachel is not interested. She remembers how they collided a few days earlier and Sergei caused her to drop a bag of flour. He made no offer to replace the flour. So when Rachel refuses to skate with him, he angrily leaves. Rachel and Mikhail continue to skate until Rachel's older sister, Nucia calls her to go home.

Meanwhile as Sergei  and Petya walk home together, they discuss their Jewish neighbours. Petya, whose father is mayor of Kishinev, relates how people complain to him about how crowded Kishinev is because of all the Jews coming to the town. Sergei wonders if Mikhail's father knows that he is interested in Rachel who is a Jew and he tells Petya that his father believes the Jews are taking all the jobs and that they will eventually control Kishinev. But Petya feels that the Jewish shops do good work. 

Sergei lives with his mother Tonia and father Aleksandr,  his Aunt Carlotta, and his younger sister, eight-year-old Natalya. His father is a police officer who expects Sergei to also soon become a police officer and marry. However, Sergei doesn't want this for himself and decides he needs to tell Mikhail that they must leave Kishinev sooner than planned. Meanwhile as Mikhail skates, he thinks back on the conversation he had with his grandfather earlier that day: how he wanted to attend university and travel, not begin working in the factory as his grandfather wanted. His grandfather wants him to work in his factory that processes tobacco but Mikhail believes he can find work in St. Petersburg. 

At the river's edge, Mikhail meets his Uncle Vasily and his cousin Philip. Some previous quarrel had resulted in Vasily and Philip not being welcome in Mikhail's grandfather's home. Vasily is drunk and quarrelsome, revealing that he lost his position at the factory. Mikhail is tripped by Philip resulting in him crashing to the ice and hitting his head. He offers to intervene with grandfather on Vasily's behalf but Vasily tells him that won't make a difference. If Mikhail is gone, then Vasily's father has no one but him to run the business. Mikhail pleads for his life but Vasily stabs him in the chest and repeatedly in the back, arms and legs, killing him.

Meanwhile, halfway home, Rachel realizes that she has left behind the new red shawl her mother made for her. She runs back to the river and locates it by the bench near a grove of trees. But while there she hears the familiar voice of Mikhail and peering through the trees she witnesses Mikhail's brutal murder by his uncle. Terrified, Rachel flees home, falling and dirtying her skirt. At home she is so distraught she can't eat and is consumed by guilt, wondering if her friendship with Mikhail was responsible for his murder. Nucia also reveals that Rachel was skating with Mikhail, resulting in her mother admonishing her for being seen with a gentile. 

At school the next day Sergei is puzzled by Mikhail's absence until a policeman reveals that blood was found on the ice of the River Byk and that Mikhail is missing. Sergei is questioned by the policeman but doesn't reveal that Mikhail was with Rachel. Later that night Sergei learns that Mikhail's body has been found far away in Dubossary. When he shows his father the next day where he last saw Mikhail and reveals that he was with Rachel, his father tells him to stay away from Rachel, that she is bad luck. Sergei questions his father as to why he and the other policemen are so focused on the Jews. As he is walking past the grove of trees, Sergei finds Rachel's red shawl that she was wearing the day she was skating with Mikhail. He quickly retrieves it, hiding it from his father. 

Rachel is so distressed over Mikhail's murder that she doesn't attend school for several days. Her father Gofsha, who works as a shoemaker's assistant, arrives home with the news about Mikhail's murder and how his body has been found in Dubossary. Her father questions her, and while Rachel desperately wants to tell him what she saw, she is afraid he won't believe her and that the police will know that she saw the murder. Gofsha tells Rachel's mother Ita, that they are not to go out alone and not beyond lower Kisinev where they live as there is talk that a Jew may be responsible for the murder.

At her school, the Jewish Gymnazyium, her friends Chaia and Leah reveal that their families will not be attending shul tomorrow because of the rumours being spread that Mikhail's murder was committed by a Jew for his blood. At Shabbos with her family and Mr. Talanksy and his son Sacha, Mr. Talansky tells Rachel's father that the gentile newspaper, Bessarabets is blaming Jews and calling them parasites. When news of Mikhail's murder spreads, the Russian community begins spreading the lie that Mikhail was the victim of a blood libel. Fed by anti-Jewish propaganda from the local newspaper, racial hatred ignites and seethes in the town of Kishinev. People have already been blaming the Jews for many things as the area has a history of prejudice against them.

One afternoon while Sergei is in Chuflinskii Square with his parents and Natalya, they witness a well-dressed Jewish family being harassed and beaten by Russian peasants. No one intervenes to help the family. Natalya tells Sergei that everyone including her friends and the teachers are talking about Mikhail's murder and the blood ritual. As the situation worsens, Rachel is harassed by a shopkeeper then attacked by a group of teenage girls who kick and punch her. She is rescued by Sergei who drives the girls away and offers to walk Rachel home. He apologizes to her for causing her to drop the bag of flour. Sergei asks her why the Jews are believed to commit "blood libel" and Rachel explains that when the bread they make for Passover, matzah is old or wet, a red mold develops. This is the source of the ugly rumour. Sergei also encourages Rachel in her determination to be a writer, telling her that his sister who is smart should have more choices.  As they begin to develop a friendship, Rachel finally confides in him about Mikhail's murder. Sergei attempts to tell his father what he knows about Mikhail's murder in the hope that the real culprits will be arrested and the Jewish community exonerated, but his father refuses to act until he hears from the Governor.

Nevertheless, the damage has already been done. Violence and hatred are unleashed against the Jewish community in Kishinev in the form of destroyed homes and businesses and the massacre of fifty one innocent people. Rachel must come to terms with the losses she suffers and Sergei must deal with the part his own father had in the violence against their Jewish neighbours.

Discussion

Rachel's Secret takes readers on a journey inside the 1903 pogrom of Kishinev, Russia. The book was inspired by the experiences author Shelly Sander's grandmother endured as a survivor of a pogrom in Russia. Many of the characters in the book are real people who lived through the events Sanders describes including Ita and Gofsha Paskar, Chaia and Hosea Berlatsky, Sergei's father Aleksandr Khanszenkov, Bishop Iakov and a few others. The novel describes events over the time frame of March to May of 1903.

The Kishinev pogrom was a real event that occurred in the town of Kishinev on Easter Sunday at noon,  April 19, 1903. Kishinev at this time was part of the Russian Empire, having been annexed from Moldava in 1818. About half the population of Kishinev were Jewish in the late 1800s. While Jews owned many businesses and factories, most Jews lived in poverty, attending their own schools, As mentioned in the novel, the Bessarabets, a Russian newspaper regularly published anti-semitic and inflammatory articles about the Jewish population. 

The pogrom was triggered not only by the anti-semitic propaganda published in the newspapers but also by the murder of Mikhail Rybachenko, a Ukrainian boy, in the town of Dubossary located north of Kishinev, and the suicide of a Jewish girl. The horror began at noon with the harrassment of Jews in Chuflinskii Square. As Sanders describes in her novel, many of the Christian homes and businesses had crosses chalked on them, or icons in the windows, protecting them from the mobs that began to roam looking for Jews. They descended upon the Jewish quarter, smashing windows, demolishing property, looting, raping and murdering. The local police stood by and watched as Jews were beaten, mutilated and murdered. The pogrom ended three days later with murder of thirty-four men and seven women, almost five hundred wounded and two thousand homeless. The local population was unrepentant over what had happened. And it would be repeated two years later in 1905.

In Rachel's Secret, Shelly Sanders has written a balanced fictional story based on the horrifying events of 1903. The Jewish community are shown as being peaceful and integrating as much as they are allowed into Russian society, speaking both Russian and Yiddish. The novel's three main characters, Rachel Paskar, Mikhail Rybachenko, Sergei Khanzhenkov are friends drawn into horrific events beyond their control. Rachel is a witness to the murder of Mikhail that sets in motion the pogrom of 1903. The pogrom is described through the eyes of Sergei, who watches the raging mob, while his father, chief of police does nothing.

The three main characters are well developed and believable even though one of them, Mikhail, has only a minor part in the story. They are realistic because like most teenagers in the 20th century, they want more than what tradition has to offer the young of a new century. Rachel wants to marry for love but only after she has travelled and become a writer. Sergei doesn't want to be a police officer but instead wishes to travel and become an artist. Mikhail also wishes to leave Kishinev to attend university rather than take over the family's tobacco business. 

Rachel is strong, sensible heroine who like all young people wishes for a better future. She is overwhelmed after witnessing the brutal murder of Mikhail, a boy she likes. Initially, Rachel questions if she is responsible for his murder. "Rachel feared that Mikhail's uncle had seen them together, that maybe she was partly to blame for the stabbing." She is haunted by these thoughts."Seeing Mikhail killed made Rachel wonder if their friendship was to blame, because he'd ventured outside his world and into hers, because he'd cared about her more than he should have." 

Rachel is also consumed by fear and guilt and she desperately wants to tell someone what she witnessed so the perpetrator can be brought to justice. But she knows this is not what will happen should she speak up. "She desperately wanted to tell her father what she'd seen but was afraid he wouldn't believe that a police officer was responsible. He might think she'd been mistaken, that it wasn't an officer at all, and insist on going to the police. Then the man who'd killed Mikhail would know she had seen him and come after her."   Later on Rachel writes in her diary accusing herself of cowardice and improper conduct. "If only I could have stopped Mikhail's uncle, she wrote in Yiddish. For as long as I live, I will regret my actions, my cowardice....I regret also my friendship with Mikhail. I see now that it was wrong, that people from two different worlds do not belong together." 

Eventually Rachel tells her sister, who advises her to keep this secret forever but as she comes to trust Sergei, she tells him as well. At the trial of Mikhail's killers, when it appears they may not face justice due to the lack of a witness, Rachel takes the courageous step of coming forward and giving her account of what she saw that winter day. "She could not bring Mikhail back, but at least she'd made sure the people responsible were punished. Truth had finally conquered evil." 

It is Rachel who takes the initiative and writes to her paternal grandparents, Bubbe and Zeyde asking them to help. They respond with much love and send Rachel and her family three train tickets to Vladivostok, encouraging them to travel to Shanghai and onto America. It is a life-changing choice, all due to Rachel's quick thinking.

Through the characters of Sergei, and some of the minor characters such as Father Petrov, Sanders shows that not all Russian Christians were so prejudiced towards the Jewish people. Sergei is smitten with Rachel, an attraction that is forbidden in both their cultures.  With Mikhail now gone, Sergei finds the courage to approach Rachel and to try to mitigate some of the harm directed towards her and her family. Unlike his fellow Orthodox Christians, Sergei is struggling with how his friends, family and the Christian community treat their Jewish neighbours. When he and his friends are skating for the first time on the river after Mikhail's murder, Sergei finds himself defending their Jewish neighbours. Both he and Petya find the stories of blood libel ridiculous, but their friends Nikolai and Theodore believe that there are too many Jews, and because they are so successful in their businesses, they should be driven out.  When his friends attack a Jewish woman and her two children, Sergei tries to talk them out of it and even attempts to have Petya help him stop the attack. However, when Petya refuses, Sergei runs off, "disgusted by his inability to help."

Sergei becomes very aware of the hypocrisy being shown by his fellow Christians. When he is given a gingerbread cross at the Fast Fair, Sergei notes that it tastes dry. "He stared at the cross and became queasy. This icon was the most sacred symbol of their faith. It represented all that was good and noble. Yet the talk about blood and killing Jews went against everything the icon stood for. " 

This leads him to try and stop the rioters in Rachel's courtyard and to help a young traumatized boy named Menahem. After the riots he continues to visit Menahem at the hospital and at the orphanage. And later, he confronts his father in front of the mayor and Governor von Raben for his prejudice and lack of action. Again and again he challenges people for their prejudice towards their Jewish neighbours ;the shopkeeper who sells him tobacco and even his own mother who doesn't understand the involvement of her husband, Sergei's father in the pogrom. Sergei transforms from the timid schoolboy into a courageous teenager, willing to call out evil when he encounters it and willing to help others.

As with Sergei, not all Christians participate in the brutality. Father Petrov attempts to stop the mob, explaining that "Jewish people don't eat any meat that has blood in it."  Sacha Berlatsky reveals to Rachel afterwards, that he and his father, along with other Jews, survived because a gentile family hid them in their home.

Rachel's Secret is a well written novel about a real event, the first pogrom of the 20th century. In that regard, the 1903 pogrom in Kisinev was harbinger of events to come in Russia and Eastern Europe. This novel should be required reading for middle grades to help young readers understand how prejudice grows and is often learned from misinformation, envy and lies. The author has included a Historical Note and a Glossary at the back. A map showing the location of Kishinev in 1903 Europe would have been very helpful for younger readers.

Book Details:

Rachel's Secret by Shelly Sanders
Toronto: Second Story Press 2012
245 pp.