The Last Train by Rona Arato

The story open in April 1944, as Paul Auslander's father has been taken away to a work camp along with all the other Jewish men. Five-year-old Paul and his ten-year-old brother Oscar live in Karcag, Hungary. Their small town had a Catholic and a Protestant church as well as a synagogue. Everyone got along regardless of their religion. However, their last name means foreigner and Paul's father has often stated that they will always be Jews first and Hungarians second. 

At the synagogue, Paul and his family as well as the other Jewish families are told that they must adhere to a five-o'clock curfew and that their businesses and schools are now closed. They are to go home to await further instructions.

On April 27, the Jews of Karcag were told that they would be moved to an area at the edge of town, creating a ghetto. Along with Paul, Oscar and their mother, their Auntie Bella and six-year-old Kati and four-year-old Magdi would be living with them.

In the ghetto, Oscar's friend Gabor informs Lenke and Aunt Bella  that he has heard that the Jews are being placed on trains. Terrified the two women are determined to remain strong and not show their fear to Paul and the others. The gendarmes order everyone into the street and march them to the town square where they stand for hours in the hot sun without food or water. Eventually everyone is placed into the back of six canvas covered trucks that take them to the Szolnok Sugar Factory. Here a line of boxcars sat on train tracks. After three hungry days, Paul and his family were ordered into the boxcars by the gendarmes and the dreaded Schutzstaffel or SS. 

At the train station in Vienna, Austria, Paul becomes separated from his mother and Oscar. Oscar and his mother were forced into a new boxcar, while Paul ended up in another. Eventually they were reunited at the Strasshof Concentration camp in Austria. There are stripped and hosed down. For two weeks they remained in the cold barracks at the camp, fed stale bread and watery soup. In July 1944 they are taken to Guntersdorf, Austria and trucked to work on a farm growing and harvesting sugar beets. However, by September Anyu, Paul and Oscar's mother becomes ill.

On October 30, Paul turns six years old. His mother however, is growing weaker every day. In December 1944, Paul and his family were transported back to the Strasshof camp. On December 7 1944, Paul and his family along with his Aunt Bella and her two daughters arrive at Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany. Still dressed in summer clothing, Paul and Oscar shiver uncontrollably as they are made to walk to the filthy, rank barracks where this is no stove for heating. Every day they were marched outside to stand for hours in the cold.

One day Anyu saw that Uncle Elemir was in the men's camp. Despite being forbidden to sneak to the men's area, Paul goes to visit Uncle Elemir who teaches him how to whittle. By March of 1945, news that Germany was losing the war came to the camp. In April, 1945, despite the fact that the Germans were losing the war, more and more prisoners were being transferred to Bergen-Belsen. Every day hundreds died of typhus. Paul saw the pits with dead bodies whenever he went to visit his uncle. On April 9, Paul, Oscar and Anyu were put into one boxcar, one of many on a train that travelled slowly with many stops. Outside of Farsleben, Germany the soldiers were setting up machine guns to kill them when suddenly they flee ahead of an American tank.

The American soldiers help Paul, Oscar, Anyu and all the others out of the boxcar. The train has stopped in the middle of a field with a low hill nearby. The American soldiers bring people from the nearby German town to the train. When the Germans refuse to help the Jewish people, the American soldier threatens to kill their mayor if they do not provide the Jews with food, clothing, soap and a place to stay. Anyu was taken to a special hospital in Hillersleben along with Paul and Oscar. They remained there for four months until they were sent back to Hungary by the Russians who now controlled Eastern Europe. 

On the train ride to Budapest, Anyu has recovered along with Bella, Kati, Magdi, and Paul, but Oscar has a bad cough. In Budapest, Anyu and Oscar are taken to hospital as they are both still very ill, and Paul is allowed to stay, only if he has his tonsils out. Apu returns to Budapest

Discussion

The Last Train tells Paul Arato's family's story in a gentle way that still captures some of the fear and confusion his family experienced when their native Hungary was invaded by the Nazis in 1944. Prior to this, Hungary was pro-fascist and had been allied with Germany, supporting its Nazi policies. Until that time, Jews in Hungary were mainly protected from the Nazi's Final Solution policies, although they faced economic and political sanctions. Hungary participated in Hitler's invasion of communist Russia. But when Hitler discovered that Hungary was attempting to broker a peace treaty with the Allied Forces, he invaded and almost immediately began rounding up the Jewish population. This is where Paul's story begins. Paul's story, like that of many Holocaust survivors would remain untold but never forgotten, for years. The Last Train recovers one such story and how it came to be told is worth revealing.

In 2001, students at Hudson Valley High School were assigned to interview local residents and family members about World War II as part of a history class run by teacher Mark Rozell.  He wanted to make history come alive for his students in a more meaningful way and he also believed that history has some important lessons to teach young people. When the students interviewed American veterans they came across an unbelievable story about the liberation of a train holding 2500 Jewish prisoners, many sick, all starving and filthy.

It was during an interview in July, 2001 with Carrol Walsh, who on April 13, 1945, was a 24 year old American tank commander with the American 30th Infantry Division, that Rozell learned about the American liberation of a large transport train near Magdeburg. Walsh had not thought about the train until his daughter urged him to tell the history teacher about it during the interview. Soldiers had uncovered an incredible situation; boxcars jam-packed with starving Jewish prisoners. The historic liberation was recorded in photographs taken by George C. Gross, a friend and fellow tank commander who, unlike Walsh, stayed with the train overnight and into the next day. Gross' unit went to the local German's and ordered them to provide food and lodgings for the Jewish survivors.

Survivors leaving the train.

Walsh also related that he received the 30th Division newsletters and one of those newsletters had published a letter from a survivor of a "death train" asking if anyone was there when it was liberated. It turned out that this was the same train near Magdeburg that Walsh, Gross and also Major Benjamin had liberated. Walsh wrote to the editor and advised them that a better contact would be George Gross.

Rozell then contacted tank commander George Gross who was now living in San Diego, California and working as a professor of English. Dr. Gross had a negative of the most famous picture as well as ten other photographs of the liberation of the train. Rozell was then able to hear Gross' account of his time spent at the train near Magdeburg. The teacher created a website containing the interviews where they sat for four years before being noticed by a survivor from Australia. Since then the website interviews, along with help from 1st Lt. Frank Towers, has been a focal point for reuniting survivors and their liberators in a series of reunions. Many of these survivors had searched for years, in vain, for some information about their liberators and the train. 

This background sets the stage for this tiny but very informative narrative nonfiction book, The Last Train, which has been written for children, by Rona Arato who is the wife of Paul Arato, who was on the Magdeburg Train when he was just five years old.  These trains were called "the last trains" because they contained the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps who were being shunted around in an attempt by the Nazi's to exterminate the evidence of their crimes against humanity.

Arato writes that her husband's story only came out after his son, Daniel, found Rozell's website. Although she knew about Paul's past, he had never told their children, Alise, Daniel and Debbie. It was a haunting memory that she did not press him to divulge. Arato's retelling of Paul's experiences as a young child in the concentration camps is simple yet compelling. The Last Train is not graphic yet convey in some measure the terrible conditions endured, the cruelty of the German SS troops who would murder simply on a whim. This is seen when a young boy, happy that it is his birthday, is shot point blank in the head by an SS officer. Although The Last Train is about a real event, Arato has recreated much of the dialogue based on interviews and research. This has resulted in a well-written, concise account of a little known event in the liberation of Europe.

Paul's immediate family was lucky in that they all survived, although his mother never fully recovered her health and died in 1951. However, most of his extended family were murdered in the Holocaust. Eventually Paul and Oscar escaped communist Hungary, with Paul coming to Canada and Oscar travelling to Australia. Arato has included many photographs both of her family before and after the war, the liberation of the transport train near Magdeburg and the reunion of Jewish survivors and American liberators some sixty years later which help young readers understand this important historical event. 

Image of mother and child: https://teachinghistorymatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/moment-of-liberation1.jpg

Book Details:
The Last Train by Rona Arato
Toronto: Owlkids Books Inc.     2013
142 pp.

SYLO by D.J. MacHale

MacHale is both a well known television producer and children's author, having written the Pendragon series as well as the Morpheus Road trilogy. SYLO, a novel about a group of teens trying to uncover the mysterious situation developing on their island, reads like a well written television script. It's smooth, with thrilling pulses of adventure set at exactly the right points to keep the reader moving along.

The novel is set on (fictional) idyllic Pemberwick Island off the coast of Maine. The cast of characters includes fourteen year old Tucker Pierce and his best friend, Quinn Carr. Both Tucker and Quinn are transplants to Pemberwick Island. Tucker's family moved from Greenwich, Connecticut after his father who was a civil engineer,  lost his job, while Quinn's parents who are ER doctors moved from Philadephia to enjoy a less stressful work life.

Besides Tucker and Quinn, several other people round out their circle of friends. There's Kent Berringer, a junior who plays middle linebacker on the school football team and whose parents own the nicest hotel, The Blackbird, on Pemberwick Island. Kent is often hostile and bullying towards Tucker who isn't as athletic as the linebacker. Olivia Kinsey is from New York City and has been spending the summer with her mother on Pemberwick Island. She is older than Tucker and attends a prep school in New York. Tucker knows her because she is staying at The Blackbird and he often works on the grounds of the hotel. Tucker also knows cute, but odd, Tori Sleeper, whose father runs a lobster business. Todd is crushing on her but too shy to get to know Tori.

The story opens with a high school football game that turns deadly. Arbortown High freshman, Tucker watches as senior tailback, Marty Wiggins, has the game of his life. But whenever Marty returns to the sidelines, he looks anything but normal. Frenzied and wild might be more apt. Seconds after scoring another touch-down, Marty drops dead. But that is only the beginning of the mysterious happenings on Pemberwick Island.

That same night Tucker and Quinn go for one of their clandestine bike rides around the island and encounter an incredible sight, a strange dark shadow flying near the island's coast accompanied by faint musical notes. But when a brilliant streak of light destroys the shadow in a devastating explosion, Tucker and Quinn, shocked by what they have just seen, report what has happened to the local sheriff. No answers are supplied and inexplicably, the Coast Guard takes over the investigation.

Meanwhile, Tucker knows that there was something strange about Marty's death and he soon learns that Marty took a substance called "Ruby". He finds this out from a stranger, Ken Feit, who was at the football game and who approaches Tucker,  tells him about Ruby and lets him try it. Ruby is a physical performance enhancing drug that works like no other, giving a person the ability to move and react super fast. But Marty took too much and it killed him.

A few days after this, life on Pemberwick Island changes forever. After a second death occurs during the annual Lobster Pot Festival, the island is invaded by a secret branch of the United States Navy called SYLO. Both tourists and residents alike are told that there have been several deaths due to an unknown virus. The soldier in charge of the quarantine and blockade of the island, Colonel Granger, tells people that no one is allowed on or off the island. Not only are troops mobilized on their island, but the entire island is surrounded by warships.

However, Tucker and Quinn begin to wonder if the invasion has something to do with what they saw the night Marty died. Tucker and Tori witness several incidents of SYLO using lethal force against the islanders as well as taking people away. Olivia tells Tucker that she has seen people taken away from the Blackbird Inn. Soon communications with the mainland are cut.  As they begin to search for clues as to what's going on, both Tucker and Quinn struggle to determine who they can trust. It now seems that both their parents have not been forthcoming with them about what they know. And Granger is now after both of them because it seems they know too much.

Yet for Tucker and Quinn, the information they do have only leads to more questions; what is Ruby and is it related to the quarantine? is there really a virus? why are they completely cut off from the outside world? what was the black shadow they saw? why the use of deadly force on anyone trying to escape?

Tucker and Quinn decide that they have to try to escape from Pemberwick Island and let the outside world know what's going on. They formulate a plan to try to escape, and seek the help of Tori Sleeper.

SYLO is a thrilling read that combines adventure, mystery and science fiction. Each revelation in the story leads to more questions, egging the reader to continue onward. The hook pulling readers in is the death of Marty combined with the mysterious UFO sighting by Tucker and Quinn. From there on, there are more questions than answers.

The characters in SYLO, although typical, are well drawn. Tucker is believable as a fourteen year old boy, new to the football team, shy around girls and not certain about his life. He's the opposite of Quinn who is intelligent, outspoken and who seems to know what he wants in life, when he brags to Tucker that he knows he will do something great some day. Quinn was my favourite character. However, Tucker grows during the book, becoming more self-assured and determined.

Tori was intelligent, quick thinking and physically strong. In contrast, Olivia wasn't as practical minded, a softer more typical female character, but strong in her own way.

Colonel Granger, the bad-ass head of the Pemberwick operation, made me think of Colonel Miles Quaritch from Avatar. He's bold, has a short fuse and doesn't tolerate dissent.

This new YA series will have great appeal to teenage boys. It's a rollercoaster ride of suspense, with touches of humour, some tragedy, a heart-pounding climax and a hanging ending that leads nicely into the next installment due out March 2014.

Book Details:
SYLO by D.J. MacHale
Toronto: Razorbill, Penguin Group     2013
407 pp.

Documentary DVD: Orchestra of Exiles

Orchestra of Exiles recounts the efforts of  violin virtuoso, Bronislaw Huberman, to rescue the best Jewish musicians from prewar Germany and Europe to form a new orchestra in Palestine. It is a story few people outside the Jewish community remember. The documentary, which is 85 minutes in length, was written and directed by Josh Aronson, who himself is a renowned musician, a concert pianist, married to violinist Maria Bachmann.

Orchestra of Exiles begins by tracing the early musical formation of Bronislaw Huberman who was born into a poor Jewish family in 1882 in Czestochowa, Poland. Bronislaw's father was known for his bad temper but also for his passion for music. 

When Huberman was eight, his musical abilities were very much evident so his father took him to Berlin, Germany to find the best teacher and he began his studies the following year with Joseph Joachim.

In 1894, Huberman was invited to perform at Adelina Patti's farewell party and she gave him an outstanding review. His father stopped his lessons to start Huberman's career and Huberman achieved early fame at the age of 13 when he played the Brahms Violin Concerto in January of 1896. Brahms attended the concert and was so impressed he was moved to tears. Huberman played all over the world including America, Europe and Russia and he was soon acknowledged as a virtuoso.

The devastation of World War I changed Huberman, rousing his political consciousness and making him an ardent Pan-European, that is someone who believed in uniting all of Europe. He cancelled all his concerts for two years to study at the Sorbonne. During the interwar years, in 1922, the Pan-European movement which called for the unity of European states for peace was growing. In 1929, Huberman toured Palestine. He found the Jewish immigrants passionate for music but there was little culture. However, this was soon to change and that change was to be led by Huberman.

Huberman was stirred to action by the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany, in 1933. Hitler initiated his anti-Semitic views by firing Jewish artists, teachers and performers from the cultural institutions in Germany. This meant that thousands of Jewish musicians were out of work. Many with money and foresight left Europe. While others in the Jewish community felt that they could wait the situation out and that the hatred towards them would pass, Huberman understood what was going to happen in Germany and likely all over Europe.

As a result, Huberman cancelled all his concerts in Germany. In 1934, Joseph Goebels, Minister of Nazi Propaganda enacted a law allowing musicians to play in orchestras regardless of their race. Wilhelm Furtwangler who was conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic asked Huberman to reconsider but he declined as a way of protesting the Nazi regime. By 1935, every Jewish musician in the philharmonic was gone. Huberman left Germany and moved to Vienna, Austria. He stated: "I am a Jew, a Pole, a Pan-European and by each of these characteristics I am a dead enemy of Nazism."

Although Vienna was now his home, Huberman was stunned by the indifference of the Viennese when the Jews were attacked during anti-Semitic violence. Huberman realized that with many fine musicians being fired from world class orchestras, this would be the opportunity to bring them to Palestine to form a new orchestra that would bring culture to a people who hungered for it.

In 1936, the most famous musician in the world, Arturo Toscanini refused to perform in Germany and adamantly refused even a personal invitation from Adolf Hitler. When Huberman learned of this, he met Toscanini who volunteered to conduct the opening concerts of the new orchestra in Palestine. It would be an orchestra composed of exiles.

Huberman through his remarkable foresight, knew that Nazism would spread throughout Europe and so he set began to select the best musicians from European countries. He held auditions and selected the best. The Warsaw Symphony was forty percent Jewish and Huberman knew most of them so he decided to hold blind auditions.

As it would turn out, Huberman's predictions proved correct and Nazism spread throughout Europe. Those who were recruited and emigrated to Palestine were saved. Those who were not, disappeared into the Holocaust never to be seen again. Huberman was responsible for saving the lives of almost one thousand Jews. Interestingly the documentary reveals two musicians who left Palestine after being recruited and who returned to Europe only to die in concentration camps.

Orchestra of Exiles dramatizes Bronislaw Huberman's life through realistic re-enactments. Aronson also portrays, through interviews with the descendants of some of the orchestra's founding musicians, the difficulties Huberman encountered as he worked to select musicians, obtain visas for them, permits to enter Palestine and transportation to their new home. For many it was to be a life or death situation. The documentary also explores the situation in Palestine in the mid 1930's, as strife between the Arab and Jewish nations escalated. There are many interviews with renowned Jewish musicians including Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Zubin Mehta. There is also an interesting story involved Huberman's violin and Joshua Bell.

Orchestra of Exiles came out of the suggestion by a friend of Aronson's, Dorit Grunschlag Straus, whose father, David Grunschlag was chosen by Bronislaw Huberman to travel to Palestine as part of the new orchestra. Grunschlag emigrated along with his parents and two sisters, thus saving them from the horrors of the Holocaust. This documentary is well worth watching and tells a remarkable story about an incredible musician who put his career on hold to fight for what he believed in and to save an important part of his culture.

Image credit: https://www.gramilano.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Bronislaw-Huberman-2.jpg

The Light In The Ruins by Chris Bohjalian

The Light in the Ruins is a novel of mystery and murder set in postwar Italy. The novel opens with the brutal and gruesome murder of Francesca Rosati in her apartment house in Florence. Bohjalian tells the story through the use of three narratives at first loosely connected but becoming ever so gradually interwoven into the revealing climax.

The first narrative, set in italics is that of the murderer who the reader first how he killed Francesca. We then learn that he plans to kill every surviving member of the Rosati family and that he has waited years to accomplish this. With each murder, he plans to cut out the heart of his victim and do something significant with it, as a sort of hint to the motive. Clues to the murderers identity seem to lie in the past and also in his? knowledge of art as he references paintings throughout his narrative.

For example, the murderer decides that when he kills Beatrice he will place her heart atop a corner of the Florentine bridge precisely where Henry Holiday has placed Dante's hand in his painting, Beatrice and Dante.

The second narrative is set in 1943 and essentially tells the wartime story of the Rosati family.  It is told from multiple viewpoints, all the characters involved in the Eighteen year old Cristina Rosati lives with her mother and father Beatrice and Antonio, the marchesa and marchese of the Villa Chimera which is set in the Tuscan countryside, southeast of Siena. The family estate, Villa Chimera, is set in Monte Volta among vineyards and olive gardens. Also living in the villa is Cristina's sister-in-law, Francesca who is married to Marco, as well as Francesca's two children, 7 year old Massimo and 5 year old Alessia. Cristina's other older brother, Vittore, is an archeologist who is based in Florence and who is assisting the Nazi's as they plunder art from local museums and towns. He works at the Uffizi Gallery, the famous art museum.

Cristina and her family are visited by an Italian, Major Lorenzetti and a German, Colonel Erhard Decher who wish to see the Etruscan necropolis on their property. The ruins were discovered in 1937 and after an archeological dig, the artifacts of value including urns and sarcophogi were sent to the museum in Arezzo. Lorenzetti and Decher return again, this time bringing with them Decher's adjutant, Frederich Strekker, a young soldier who lost his lower leg and foot in the Ukraine. Cristina and Frederich share a mutual attraction and become romantically involved against the advice of Frederich's superior and Cristina's sister-in-law.

Overtop of both of these narratives is the third, that of Serafina Bettini, set in the present, 1955, the year the murders are occurring. Serafina is the only woman in the homicide unit in Florence. Chief Inspector Paolo Ficino doesn't want to take Serafina to the Rosati crime scene but given her past he decides she can probably handle it. Serafina was a member of the partisans fighting against both the Nazis and the fascists in Italy. Her two brothers were murdered and with their deaths, having no other family, Serafina joined. In a battle between the retreating Nazi's and the partisans in Monte Volta, Serafina was badly injured by an incendiary grenade, her back, neck and arm burned. She remembers nothing of the time immediately afterwards, except that she was cared for a  nearby villa, but she's certain that is was not the Villa Chimera.

As Serafina investigates Francesca's murder, and then Beatrice's murder, it becomes clear that someone is targeting the Rosati family. As she interviews Cristina and the neighbours in Francesca's apartment house, she becomes convinced that the key to the murders lies in the past, in something that happened during the latter part of the war. With her own memories of what happened to her on Monte Volta during the German retreat mostly lost, Seraphina begins to wonder what really happened at the Villa Chimera eleven years ago.

Bohjalian weaves each of the narratives to its inevitable conclusion; the 1943 narrative reveals what really happened in the closing days of the Italian campaign, as the Germans retreated through Italy, pillaging and murdering, sparing neither the Rosati family nor their beloved villa. The 1955 narrative reveals both the connection to the 1943 narrative and the identity of the murderer.

The author effectively captures the horror of war; how most people did what they had to in order to survive, how some fell into a forbidden love sometimes because they could see the good in others, and how not all who were enemies were bad people. Bohjalian masterfully demonstrates many times throughout the novel how an event can appear differently to different people depending upon their perspective. For example, the Rosati's didn't like the German's coming to their villa to view the Etruscan ruins, yet the villagers assumed they were German collaborators.

Although there are plenty of major characters in the novel, certain ones stand out. Fredrick Strekker is the kind German soldier who although having done his duty on the Eastern Front, doesn't really believe all the Nazi ideology he's been fed. In contrast to Strekker is Colonel Decher who is a brute of a man, both arrogant and impulsive who commits an act of mass murder and covers it up with cowardice. Cristina Rosati is the lonely young woman still trying to cope with the loss of a first (and eternal) love, years after the war. Seraphina, the hardened former partisan turned detective, has a vulnerable side that her gay roommate, Milton tenderly ministers to. Her physical scars reflect the depth of her emotional ones.

Well-written, suspenseful, fans of Chris Bohjalian will enjoy this historical mystery.

Book Details:
The Light In The Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
New York: Doubleday Publishers    2013
320 pp.

The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman

"Peace is the milk of birds."

This novel is a truly heartrending fictional account of the terrible situation endured by the people of Darfur, especially its women in 2008.
 
Milk of Birds contains two narratives, that of Nawra bint Ibrahim, a fourteen year old girl in a refugee camp in Darfur and Katherine (K.C.) Cannelli, a young girl struggling academically in her first year of high school. Their stories are told in a series of letters exchanged between the two girls, which highlight their profoundly different life experiences and culture. Each girl also has her own story which informs the reader of the reality of their lives.

K.C. lives in Richmond, Virginia with her mother and older brother, Todd. Her father and mother are divorced and he has remarried. She is still trying to come to terms with what has happened to their family.

K.C is having difficulty in school. Her marks are poor and she has trouble concentrating. Her mother signs her up to be a part of the Save the Girls nonprofit organization working with refugees from Darfur, Sudan. They send a donation each month, part of which goes to the girl in a refugee camp who then sends letters back to her sponsor. Save the Girls matches a girl refugee with a sister in America so they can correspond. 

K.C. is matched with Nawra bint Ibrahim who is living in a refugee camp in Darfur. The two girls are to correspond, but K.C. gets four letters from Nawra which she doesn't respond to. K.C. doesn't respond, mainly because she has difficulty writing but also because of a kind of indifference. ...Life sucks for this Nawra person.  But what am I supposed to do about it? I can't even pass the practice test in world geography."  K.C. reveals to Nawra  that she is the oldest in her class and was held back in school when she was younger. While Nawra isn't able to go to school, K.C. wishes she didn't have to. School is hard for her and it seems to take her a long time to finish assignments. Finally her mother decides to get K.C. tested to see if she has a learning problem.

As K.C. continues to write to Nawra and receives her letters, she begins to understand just how difficult Nawra's life is and she wants to do something. Contact with Nawra expands her world, shows her that people everywhere have problems and helps put her own problems in perspective.

Eventually KC decides that she wants to form a new club at her school, The Darfur Club, to educate people on the situation in Sudan and to raise money to buy fuel-efficient stoves and donkeys. For K.C. it's about making a difference. With Mr. Nguyen as their faculty sponsor, K.C. and her best friend, Emily and her classmate Parker (whom she is crushing on) organize a major project to raise money for the refugees, to buy them things that will make their lives easier and help them get a new start. This project highlights one of K.C.'s strengths - that of thinking outside the box.

In complete contrast to K.C's life of physical ease and comfort, is Nawra's struggle to live with even a bit of dignity in a world torn apart by war, greed and fear. Nawra lives in a camp for displaced refugees (Internally Displaced Persons - IDP) after fleeing from the janjaweeds (outlaws hired by the Sudanese government) who murdered everyone in her village, Umm Jamila. Only Nawra and her mother, who is in such shock she is mute, have escaped. Nawra finds herself pregnant as a result of rape, dishonored and like "spoiled meat". The camp is crowded, dirty and smelly. There is little food and poor sanitation. Still the refugees know that life must go on and a school is formed for the children.  There she meets a young girl, Adeeba  from a well to do family, who is educated, but also now a refugee. Together the two girls help one another.  "When a tree leans, it will rest on its sister." 

When the Save the Girls representatives show up, Nawra is encouraged to join, so she can have some extra money. Nawra who cannot write, dictates her letters to Adeeba, who acts as a scribe.  As we read the two girls' correspondence, it becomes apparent that despite the cultural divide and the geographic distance, both K.C. and Nawra have some similar problems.

Like K.C., Nawra's family is"broken", but not by choice, but by violence and murder. For K.C. she understands how Nawra feels "spoiled" or as K.C. puts it, "defective"  with her inability to do school work. Like K.C., Nawra also has difficulty writing but it is because she is illiterate. Despite the huge cultural differences as evidenced by what each girl writes about, both girls can find something in their letters that resonates with them. Nawra encourages K.C. to persevere and to respect her mother, while K.C. is deeply touched by Nawra's struggle to simply survive and she encourages her to keep going. Both girls stories end with a measure of hope and both begin to find their own way in their world.

Discussion  

The Milk of  Birds  begins slowly but Whitman is simply setting the stage. Readers are encouraged to persevere because there is an important story to be told and it is worth reading. Whitman did a great deal of research in order to create Nawra's voice and make it authentic. She also educates her readers through Nawra's narrative but also by using K.C.'s mom, who gives her daughter some background information on how things came to be in Sudan.

Nawra is from Dafur which is located in southern Sudan. At the time of the events in the novel, Sudan was divided into two regions: the north which is predominantly Muslim and the south with a Christian and animist population. Civil war resulted when the Sudanese government based in Khartoum in northern Sudan, led by General Omar al-Bashir decided to impose a Muslim state on the mainly Christian southern region. 

The predominantly Muslim Darfur region is characterized by two ethnic cultural groups: ethnic Africans who live a pastoral life and Arabs who are nomadic herders. Armed militia groups of ethnic Arabs who came to be known as "Janjaweed" would follow up after government attacks, burning villages and systematically raping women. This genocide resulted in at least four hundred thousand deaths. The purpose of the genocide was to rid Darfur of Black and non-Arab people. The ongoing war has resulted in thousands of people who have been displaced by the war, forced into refugee camps. In 2011, Southern Sudan became a new country.  The Milk of Birds is set against this backdrop of war, genocide and trauma.

There are many issues explored in this novel including rape, female circumcision, AIDS, forced marriage, the concept of honor in Sudanese Muslim families, the role of men and women, identity, education for girls, learning disabilities, environmental destruction, and global social responsibility. While that might seem like far too many, really all these issues at inter-related, especially in the African state of Sudan, and in Nawra's culture. And the this issues are often only obliquely mentioned but yet they are interconnected.

For example, the issue of AIDS and rape are related, not just because a woman can contract AIDS from rape, but also because of the belief by the men in Nawra's culture that sex with a virgin can cure them. Although there is only a mention of this in passing in the novel, this is a prevalent belief that medical field workers must counter. It leads to the violation of very young girls. Rape is also often used as a weapon of war, to destroy a society, weakening family bonds, and demoralizing and marginalizing women.

Although there is quite a bit of violence in the novel it's not done in a graphic way, but told simply using Nawra's understated narrative. The beautiful cover only enhances the prospective reader's desire to open the cover and learn more. 

Book Details:
The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman
Toronto: Atheneum Books for Young Readers    2013
363 pp.

A Soldier's Secret by Marissa Moss

Marissa Moss has written a captivating account of the true story of Sarah Emma Edmonds, a Canadian girl who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Moss's account is well researched

Sarah Edmonds fled her home in New Brunswick, Canada when her father, an abusive man, arranged the forced marriage of Sarah to a much older farmer. Sarah did much of the work on her father's farm, as her brother was weak and sickly, with the expectation that someday she would take over the farm. However, when she saw the life she as being sold into, Sarah fled. The circumstances that led to her running away are told in a flashback later on in the novel.

At first she did odd jobs but when she arrived in Hartford, Connecticut she was able to get work as a Bible salesman for a book seller by the name of Mr. Hurlbut. When the war starts, Sarah who now goes by the name of Frank Thompson enlists and becomes Private Frank Thompson in Company F, Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry of the Army of the Potomac.

Frank is assigned a tent with Damon Stewart and together the two of them train in city of Washington. Sarah has lived as a man for three years prior to enlisting but being in the army proves to be more challenging because she will be living with men in close quarters. However, Frank manages to hide her feminine attributes by binding her breasts and making sure she is not seen relieving herself or changing her clothing. She makes sure she belches and passes wind, scratches her crotch and tells ribald jokes, all to make herself appear more masculine.

Frank and Damon, as part of the Army of the Potomac march to Centreville, Va to meet the Confederate Army in what will be the first battle of the Civil War. They join General Samuel P. Heintzelman's Third Division and fight in the first Battle of Bull Run which turns out to be a rout by the Confederates. For Frank Thompson it is a terrible initiation into war, as thousands of Union soldiers are killed or wounded. Frank works as a nurse, assisting doctors in the hundreds of amputations, treating patients with dysentery and comforting the dying.

Sarah Edmonds as Frank Thompson

In a field hospital at Washington, Frank meets Jerome Robbins from Matherton, Michigan. They soon form a friendship that for Frank develops into a blossoming friendship and then unrequited love. But when Jerome asks his sweetheart in a letter to marry him, Frank confesses to Jerome her secret identity and her love for him. Jerome is horrified and disbelieving. Frank expects him to turn her in, but Jerome doesn't and keeps Frank's secret. Through the next few years, Sarah in her role as Frank Thompson struggles with her love for Jerome, knowing he will never love her and that he is not attracted to her in any way. She is careful not to touch him or to share her feelings with him again.

Frank has many adventures while a soldier, working as a nurse, a mail carrier, an orderly carrying messages during battles and also as a spy. As Frank Thompson, she also takes part in battles and carries out her duties with great courage. During the Virginia Peninsula campaigns in the Virginia swamps, Frank contracts "swamp fever" or malaria which eventually grows worse over time causes her to desert the army to get treated.

Discussion

It was amazing to read how resourceful and intelligent Sarah was as she remained undiscovered as a woman soldier for several years. It was only when she fell desperately ill with malaria that she had to relinquish her identity as a man and live again as a woman. Her love of horses and skill as a horseman, her master of disguises, and her quick thinking make her an endearing hero(ine). What was interesting was Sarah's view of being a woman in 19th century America. She found everything about the role of women in society to be stifling. She wanted adventure and the freedom to choose her life, the man she would marry, and even what to wear. To live the way she wanted,  cost her dearly as it meant giving up her family and sometimes led to her feeling very lonely. She saw the men of the army as her true brothers and her family and she resolved to help them after the war was over.

Moss has written a very informative account from the perspective of  Frank Thompson that gives the reader a great sense of what it was like as a soldier during the Civil War. Moss portrays the horror of the battles, how the soldiers viewed the war and why they were fighting, how battles were fought, and the roles of men and women in 19th century America.

Sarah Edmonds as a woman.

The back of the novel contains a section entitled The Story behind The Story which  tells about Sarah Emma Edmonds and what happened to Sarah after she left the army. Moss used Jerome Robbin's diary as well as letters and journals of other soldiers who served with Frank Thompson to recreate this incredible story.  Unbelievably, there were over 400 women who dressed as men to fight in the Civil War. Most of these were following relatives or husbands into the war. Sarah Emma Edmonds also published her own memoir in 1864 titled, Unsexed, or the Female Soldier.

There is also a section on Union Army Officer Biographies and a Civil War Timeline, and a Selected Bibliography.

Fans of historical fiction will truly enjoy this well written and researched novel.

You can read a good summary of Sarah Edmonds' life at the Civil War Trust website:https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/sarah-emma-edmonds

Image credits:
Sarah Edmonds as Frank Thompson: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Emma_Edmonds#/media/File:Sarah_Edmonds.jpg

Sarah Edmonds as a woman:  https://www.nps.gov/people/sarah-emma-edmonds.htm

Book Details:

A Soldier's Secret: The Incredible True Story of Sarah Edmonds, A Civil War Hero by Marissa Moss
New York: Amulet Books     2012
387 pp.