What The Kite Saw by Anne Laurel Carter

What The Kite Saw is a short picture book that tells the story of how a little boy copes when war comes to his town.

When the tanks rolled into his town, the soldiers took the little boy's father and brother. A curfew was put in place and people were warned they would be shot if they were out on the streets.

That night the little boy cannot stop staring at the empty places where his father and brother would have been sitting. His little sister couldn't stop crying. Both the little boy and his sister slept in their mother's bed.

The next day, when the curfew was lifted, the little boy and his sister played in the park while their mother shopped. Nights passed while the little boy hoped to see his father and brother come home. He drew pictures and told stories. When he saw spotlights on the buildings and heard gunshots and shouts, he imagined people grew wings to escape to safety.

The next during curfew, the little boy had an idea which he shared with his friends. That idea was to make and fly kites. He imagined what those kites might see as they flew over his city.

Discussion

Anne Laurel Carter, in her short Author's Note indicates that this story was inspired by Palestinian children but that it could apply to any child who has experienced war. The beauty and strength of this picture book is not so much the simple story, but the exquisite illustrations that accompany the story. Illustrator Akin Duzakin, who is from Turkey but living now in Oslo, Norway,  has captured a wide range of emotions children might experience in a war zone. Duzakin's illustrations, rendered in soft pastel, with detailing done in crayons and watercolour, offer a haunting portrayal of the terror of war. There is fear, anguish, and worry on the face of the mother, and sadness of faces of the children. Duzakin's earthy, dark palette is accented with reds, yellows and orange, representing the violence of war.

What The Kite Saw is a helpful picture book to introduce the concept of war and how it can affect children, their families and their communities.

Book Details:

What The Kite Saw by Anne Laurel Carter
Toronto: Groundwood Books     2021

The Boy Who Invented The Popsicle by Anne Renaud

Young Frank William Epperson wanted to be an inventor. He enjoyed practicing his cornet, having adventures with his younger brother Cray and learning magic tricks. He was also curious about the world around him. But what he loved most, was inventing. 

In his "laboratory", the back porch of his family's home, he tinkered and experimented. By the age of ten he had created a two-handled hand car that was faster than a one-handled handcar.

Frank loved to experiment with soda waters. He wanted to invent the most delicious soda water drink ever, so he would buy flavoured soda water powders from the nearby corner store. His little brother Cray would help by tasting Frank's concoctions. 

One day Frank was part of a miniature amusement park he and his friends set up. Frank was in charge of the soda water stand. However, something very unusual happened at this time: the temperature dropped below freezing. This was unusual because Frank lived in San Francisco, California, a part of the United States not known for becoming very cold. This led Frank to wonder what his soda drink might taste like if it were frozen. So he experimented by leaving his drink outside during that cold night. 

The next morning Frank awoke to find his drink frozen. He couldn't drink it, but he could lick it! He had invented a new treat. Frank grew up, married his sweetheart Mary Frances and had a large family. He never forgot about that treat he made as a kid. As frozen treats became more popular, Frank returned to his experiments and discovered a way to make frozen drinks on a stick. He had to solve several problems before his treats could be sold. And once he worked out solutions to those problems he then had to figure out a way to market his treats which he called the Ep-sicle. His children loved his treats too, calling them pop's sicle and eventually he changed the name to Popsicle!

Discussion

Now that it's summer, popsicles are on everyone's shopping list. But did you know they were accidentally discovered by an eleven-year-old boy in 1905 when he left his soda water mixture out on the porch? Frank Epperson, who made that accidental discovery, went on to patent his invention but later sold the rights when he needed the money.

Epperson's remarkable story is told in a fun and engaging way, accompanied by the colourful illustrations of Milan Pavlovic. The artwork was rendered in mixed media including pencil, colour inks and digitally. To help young readers understand the science behind the making of popsicles, Renaud has included easy experiments that can be done at home. These experiments explain the concepts involving liquids, mixtures and the effect of salt on the freezing point of water.

Renaud was able to source information for her book directly from Frank Epperson's family, his three surviving children and his granddaughters and grandsons. The author was able to access Epperson's written memoirs, business papers and photographs.Some of the photographs are shared in the detailed Author's Note at the back of the book. 

The Boy Who Invented The Popsicle is treat for those curious about how the popsicle came to be.

Book Details:

The Boy Who Invented The Popsicle by Anne Renaud
Toronto: Kids Can Press Ltd.       2019

Thrive by Kenneth Oppel

Thrive is the final installment in the Bloom trilogy opening where the second book left off. A cryptogen ship has just been shot down by the Canadian military. From the vessel three cryptogens emerge; a flyer with dazzling golden wings, a swimmer and a runner. All the cryptogens are wearing special masks to help them breathe, as Earth's environment is still somewhat toxic to them. After Anaya convinces both sides to stand down, the cryptogens are brought inside. 

Seth has also returned to Deadman's Island. He fills Petra and Anaya in on what happened to him and Esta when they were left behind: Sienna was captured by police,  how Darren stung Seth with his tail causing Esta to force him to jump from the boat after blasting him with sound and how the marine police captured Esta from the boat.

The three rebel cryptogens have been placed into the Vancouver Aquarium's biodome, now "a cryptogenic landscape of high black grass, berry-laden  vines snaking  from buried pit plants, and seed-spitting water lilies floating serenely on a pond so acidic no human would dare swim in it..." The cryptogen ship has also been moved into the biodome. 

Colonel Pearson has Anaya, Petra and Seth communicate with the cryptogens so they can learn what they are planning. Terra, the rebel cryptogen, explains to Anaya that there are not many rebels aboard their vessel of over seven hundred thousand aliens which is now orbiting Earth. She also reveals that there were ten rebel landings on the planet but refuses to reveal the locations of the other landings. Terra tells Anaya that they need to extract the code from the hybrid's blood to make a chemical weapon and that the final invasion is planned in a little over a month so they need to move fast. Once the weapon is made, it can be taken back to the alien ship and released there. This will allow the rebels to gain control of the ship, overwhelm the flyers who are in command and leave, preventing the invasion.

In Petra's communications with her cryptogen, she can't sense the alien's gender and decides to use the pronouns ze and zir (in a nod to the current gender ideology fad). She learns that the swimmer is a scientist who took part in creating the human hybrids and that there are thousands of hybrids on Earth. The swimmer tells Petra that they created the hybrids because they needed them as a safe place to keep the "substance" and also as translators.

As Seth communicates with the flyer, whom he calls the general, he is shown the battle on the cryptogen's planet in which the runner and swimmers are destroyed by the sonic blasts from the flyers. The general was wounded but tended to by runners who saved his life. This experience changed how he viewed the swimmers and runners. When those who treated him were all killed he was disgusted by what had happened and became a spy for the rebel cryptogens. The general was responsible for starting the rains on Earth that led to the changes in the ecosystem and to the human hybrids. He tells Seth that the rebels have come to form an alliance with the humans and fight against the invasion. He also tells Seth that they hid a code inside of the hybrids and they now need it. The code is to make a virus which will permanently destroy the flyers ability to use sound as a weapon. Seth also learns that he will never achieve his dream of flying as his body is too heavy.

Later that day, over dinner, Anaya reveals that Terra told her they can repair their damaged ship's hull but the levitation system is damaged. There is however a ship that crashed sixteen years ago when they first came to Earth, and if they can locate it, they might be able to salvage the part.  

Seth continues to be focused on helping Esta, who Dr. Weber reveals is being held in a detention center in the U.S. She is accused of murdering Dr. Ritter. When Seth protests that she's innocent and that he killed Ritter, Dr. Weber tells him he's considered an accessory to the murder. When Seth expresses his determination to find Esta, Dr. Weber promises to ask Colonel Pearson where she's being held.

Pearson arrives and reveals to the group that intelligence has discovered that at least two ships, one over North Korea and another over the Suez Canal have been shot down. Pearson refuses to tell the Americans anything, for fear of jeopardizing their ability to make the weapon. 

The next day Terra takes Anaya inside their ship to extract what they need from her body to make their weapon. While they are working on making the virus into a weapon, Terra works on locating the crashed cryptogen ship in the hopes they can use its levitation device for their own ship. The crash site turns out to be located in northeastern British Columbia, in a swamp, with the ship underwater. To recover the levitation device, Petra and the swimmer are flown out to the site in a helicopter. But the retrieval proves to be daunting as Petra and the swimmer must fight off giant squids while the helicopter is almost taken down by giant parasitic creatures.

Meanwhile Seth has learned that Esta is being detained at Point Roberts. This leads him to sneak away from the aquarium to rescue her, but he only succeeds in getting himself captured and back into the hands of the cruel Dr. Ritter who it turns out has survived. Back at the base, Terra, with the help of Anaya and Dr. Weber is successful in creating a virus that affects the flyers' ability to use their sound weapon. But are they too late?

The early arrival of the cryptogen invasion force throws all their plans into chaos. As the cryptogens attack new plans are needed if they are to use their weapon on the flyers and give the rebel cryptogens and Earth a chance.

Discussion

Thrive is a fitting conclusion to Kenneth Oppel's Bloom trilogy about human's overcoming an alien invasion. In this series,  the story focuses on a group of human-alien hybrids, bred by a rebel alien faction, determined to thwart their planet's colonization of Earth. The novel is filled with character-driven action scenes including an epic battle between humans, hybrids, rebel cryptogens and the invading cryptogens. The ending is predictable and upbeat, with a final battle between the cryptogens, rebels, hybrids and humans.

Thrive is arguably the weakest of the three novels, with the events almost anti-climatic. Readers know the humans will prevail in the end. And after so many gruesome creatures in the first two books, any new ones the humans encounter seem almost expected. But in Thrive, the three main characters, Anaya, Petra and Seth, finally come into their own, each facing their own fears and challenges. This is especially true of Petra and Seth. 

In Thrive, Petra steps up to do her part to help out. Initially she has been reluctant, still struggling to accept the physiological changes she's experiencing and wanting her old life and her human body back. But with the help of the swimmer and as the situation becomes more dire, Petra rises to the challenge, helping in the recovery of the levitation device, saving the swimmer's life, devising a way to spread the viral weapon when the rebel's plan falls apart, and attempting to rescue the trapped hybrids on the cryptogen ship over Point Roberts.

Seth also commits himself. Abandoned by his mother, Seth has struggled to belong, and is now forced to choose who he will fight for; humans or cryptogens. The commander of the cryptogens tells him the human hybrids were mean to inherit the new earth and that they will thrive in it. He is also told he will fly, something he has dreamed of all his life. But this doesn't fit with what Terra has told them back in the biodome. Unlike Esta, Seth notes the difference in the way the commander and Terra have presented what is happening and he's not sure who he can trust. He also has, in the back of his mind, "the general's sonic message...wanting to be opened." From this message, Seth learns the truth about the cryptogen commander and her intentions for the hybrids. He also learns that he must finally make a choice, a painful one because he learns the truth about the one person he has come to identify with but who is a traitor.

For Esta, there is only one choice, solidarity with the cryptogens. On the cryptogen ship, Seth, Esta, Darren and Siena are given accounts of what happened on the cryptogen's planet that are much different from what Terra has told Anaya . While Esta accepts what she is being told, Charles counters, "Even if we don't know whose story is true...we know one thing for sure. These guys are here to take over our planet. That does not make them the good guys. Are you okay with everyone dying but us?" After the general and the swimmer rebels are captured and killed by the cryptogen flyer commander, Esta tells her fellow hybrids they have to make a choice. She tells them the choice is obvious because the cryptogens are going to win, meaning the hybrids will be safe. And so she acts on what she believes.

Thrive is an exciting read, with lots of battles, gruesome creatures, evil cryptogens and human traitors. Young readers will enjoy the satisfying ending, in what is one of Oppel's best offerings to date.

Book Details:

Thrive by Kenneth Oppel
Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.  2021
405 pp.

Call Across The Sea by Kathy Kacer

Sixteen-year-old Henny Sinding lives in Copenhagen, Denmark with Mor (her mother) and Far (her father).  Henny has grown up on the waters of the channel, learning how to sail before she could walk.Their boat, the Gerda III is "Henny's home away from home."

Far, a naval officer in Copenhagen, is head of the Danish Lighthouse and Buoy Service. It is his job to supply the Drogden Lighthouse, situated at the south end of the channel. Helping on the Gerda are two crewmembers, Otto and Gerhardt who have worked as engineers as long as their father has.

On a warm, sunny day, with Henny steering the boat, Far's attention is drawn to a small boat flying the Nazi flag. The Nazis have occupied Denmark, for the last three years, since 1940 when King Christian X surrendered to Adolf Hitler. He was hoping to spare his country the horrors others had experienced at the hands of the Nazis. Now in 1943, the situation appears to be changing; more Nazi troops marching on the streets and now boats in the channel.

Far doesn't want to catch the attention of the Nazi boat so he orders Henny to cut the engines. This time they are lucky, the Nazi boat does not pursue them and they return to shore safely. On their way home, Henny notices her father is unusually quiet. At dinner Far reveals that the lighthouse staff told him Nazi boats have stopped at the lighthouse and the men have been interrogated by the Nazi police.  They wanted to know who stops at the lighthouse and were considering using it as a base. Mor wonders if the Nazis are planning to take control in Denmark, as they've done in other countries. Mor and Far, like their fellow Danes, are appalled at Hitler's treatment of the Jewish people. Fortunately Danish Jews are respected and their rights are the same as everyone else. 

After dinner Henny is paid a visit by her ten-year-old neighbour, Suzanne Rubin along with Suzanne's two-year-old brother Aron. The Rubins are Jewish. Henny promises to take Suzanne sailing in two days. At school the next day, Henny meets up with her friends, sixteen-year-old Lukas, and Emma and Sophia, twin sisters. Henny is not a good student, preferring sailing to studying. When the bell rings to announce the school day, Henny notices papers that fall out of Lukas' bag, with the Nazi swastika crossed out. But when she asks Lukas what the papers are, he tells they are nothing.

The next day Henny takes Suzanne sailing after having done a run to the lighthouse with Far. She meets Mr. Rubin at the Gerda's berth and assures him that she will walk Suzanne home after their boat ride. Out on the water all goes  well until Henny spots a boat flying the Nazi flag moving towards them. Otto and Gerhardt take down the sails and after starting up the motor they head back to shore.

The next day Henny corners Lukas in the schoolyard and learns that he's part of the Danish resistance, passing out pamphlets outlining the evils of the Nazis. When Henny reminds Lukas of the extreme danger, he asks her if she's heard what is happening to Jews in other countries. Lukas challenges Henny to speak out against the Nazis, reminding her that she is friends with a Jewish family who is at risk and as the Nazis appear to be preparing to do in Denmark, what they've done in other countries. He also asks her to keep his secret. 

On her way home, Henny witnesses an elderly Jewish man being arrested by Nazi soldiers. When a young man attempts to intervene, he too is arrested. At home, Henny tells Far and Mor what she saw and they confirm what Lukas told her. The Nazis are attempting to tighten their control over Denmark. 

This leads Henny to consider that maybe it's time she started to get involved. The next day Henny approaches Lukas to tell him she wants to join his resistance group. A few days later, Lukas tells her to meet him later that night outside the train station. Little does Henny know, the important role she will come to play in helping save hundreds of Danish Jews.

Discussion

Call Across The Sea is the fourth and final installment in the Heroes Quartet that focuses on ordinary people who acted courageously to save Jewish citizens from the Nazis. In Call Across The Sea, the focus is on Denmark and the efforts of Henny Sinding, who is credited with saving many Danish Jews. As Kacer acknowledges in her note entitled Who Was Henny Sinding?, Henny was actually twenty-two years old when the events described in the novel occurred. 

In real life, in 1943, Henny was approached by four crew members of the boat, Gerda III. They were Captain Einer Tonnesen, and crew members John Hansen, Otto Andersen and Gerhardt Steffensen. The Nazi's had occupied Denmark since 1940 and seemed uninterested in Danish Jews. But they suddenly decided to round up all of Denmark's Jews and deport them to concentration camps in one night. This operation was leaked to a prominent Dane who then set about helping his country's Jewish citizens.

The Gerda crew had a plan to get these people to safety in Sweden, an unoccupied country, by sea. But to do so would require Henny's help by obtaining permission from her father, who as a Danish naval officer, was in charge of the Lighthouse and Buoy Service. This was not a problem. They also needed Henny's help in bringing those Jewish families in hiding to the boats to be rescued.

With connections to a university-based resistance group, Henny was given a list of people, where to meet them. She set about retrieving these people, who were eventually rescued by boat to Sweden. At least three hundred Jews were secreted to safety on the Gerda III during the month of October by Henny and the crew. You can read more about Henny Sinding  at the Museum of Jewish History.

Call Across The Sea portrays the basic elements of Henny's amazing story in a format that is appealing to younger readers. A map showing the location of Copenhagen, Denmark relative to Sweden would have been very helpful for readers, allowing them to appreciate better the risks Henny undertook to help her fellow countrymen.

Kacer captures the essence of the situation in Denmark in a realistic manner. The Danish people considered their Jewish neighbours to be no different from themselves, and this is reflected in the characters of Far and Mor, Henny, Otto and Gerhardt as well as Lukas. A hint of their courageous resistance is portrayed by Henny, Lukas and other resisters but Kacer also shows that there were some Danes, represented by Henny's classmate, Erik who were not so honourable.

Call Across The Sea is a fitting conclusion to the Heroes Quartet, which featured some lesser known heroes of World War II, who risked everything to help those in their most desperate hour.

Book Details:

Call Across The Sea by Kathy Kacer
Toronto: Annick Press   2021
207 pp.

Voices of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer by Carole Boston Weatherford

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Sunflower County, Mississippi on October 6, 1917. Her parents, James and Lou Ella Townsend were sharecroppers who were paid fifty dollars for producing another field hand. There were twenty-two people in her family.

Fannie Lou began working when she was only six years old. Like the rest of her family, she worked in one hundred-degree heat from dawn until dusk. Her family would pack fifteen tons of cotton in a season, but could not get ahead financially. This was because the scales used to weigh the cotton were fixed so that they never made enough money to pay their debts. The sharecroppers had to pay the owner for seeds, food, clothing and supplies from their wages made in the field."Sharecropping was just slavery by a gentler name. The same folks still had us, had us in chains."

Fannie's mother always wore rags so that her children would have proper clothes. Fannie noticed that white people had clothing and food, "while blacks worked and worked and went hungry." When Fannie wished she was white her mother told her "to respect yourself as a Black child, and as you get older, you respect yourself as a Black woman. If you respect yourself enough, other people will have to respect you."

Fannie was only able to attend school for four months of the year, from December to March when she didn't have to pick cotton. They didn't have much food and rarely ate meat. Their home had no electricity, heat or plumbing and there was no money for a doctor either. When her father was able to buy a wagon, mules to pull it and two cows, the livestock was poisoned by a white neighbour.

By the time Fannie Lou was twenty-two her father was dead and most of her brothers and sisters had moved to the north to escape Jim Crow.Fannie stayed behind to care for their ailing mother, now in her eighties. She married Pap Hamer and moved with him to the Marlow plantation where he drove a tractor. Life was hard here too. They never went hungry but they were very poor. Fannie not only picked cotton, she was also the timekeeper. Once again the owner rigged the scales to cheat the black sharecroppers. Fannie would try to use her own scales but this wasn't always possible.

In 1961 Fannie was tricked into having an operation that removed the parts of her body that allowed her to have children. The law in Mississippi could prevent poor people from having children.In 1962, Fannie Lou accompanied her friend Mary Tucker to a meeting about voter registration at William Chapel Church. Fannie signed up along with seventeen others to travel by bus to Indianola to register to vote. Indianola was the home of a violent white group called White Citizen's Council. They were met by barking dogs and armed men. Fannie didn't pass the test which required her to "...read, copy, and explain parts of the Mississippi constitution."

Attempting to register as a voter had serious implications for Fannie: the plantation boss fired her, her life was threatened, and she had to move away from her family and friends. But she retook the test and passed! But freedom to vote came at a price; Pap lost his job and they were once again threatened after Fannie's name was published in the newspaper. Undaunted, Fannie became involved in the civil rights movement, speaking at rallies. She was badly beaten on her way home from a citizenship school in South Carolina in 1963.

The beatings and threats only made her more determined. Fannie became involved in the political process. She ran for Congress, took part in educating black youth so they could participate in civil rights campaigns, struggled to make her voice heard at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic city as vice chairman of the new Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and again at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Although she lost her bid for state senate in 1971, Fannie was proud that fifty-five blacks were elected in Mississippi. Fannie's dream of having her voice heard had been realized in the gains Blacks were making all over America.

Discussion

Voices of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer offers a succinct overview of Fannie's amazing accomplishments in the struggle for civil rights for African Americans. Weatherford includes an Author's Note at the back that offers a few more details about Fannie's life. Fannie's life was terribly hard; she grew up very poor, suffered under Mississippi's eugenic program which found any excuse to sterilize poor black women, and was so badly beaten after sitting in the whites-only section of a bus station that her eyesight, kidneys and leg were permanently damaged. In spite of these hardships, she became a respected and fearless leader in the civil rights movement, cofounding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Hamer worked for integrated state delegations in the Democratic National Party, something that was finally achieved by 1968. 

Voices of Freedom is told from the perspective of Fannie, each page accompanied by Ekua Holmes earthy collages. Fannie's story is one of fortitude and determination  in the face of blatant discrimination and injustice. It is also a story of courage in the face of daunting odds, of a woman who knew African Americans deserved the same rights their white counterparts, and who persevered to see those rights championed.

Book Details:

Voices of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer by Carole Boston Weatherford
Somerville, Massachusetts:  Candlewick Press          2015
45 pp.

Angel of Greenwood by Randi Pink

Angel of Greenwood tells the story of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre through the eyes of two young people. 

The story begins on Thursday, May 19, twelve days before the riot. Angel Hill lives on Greenwood Avenue with her mother and her father who is dying. Angel loves to help people as she's certain God has put her on the earth to help others. Angel helps her mother care for her father, and she helps her neighbours including Mrs. Nichelle who has a fussy baby.

After Angel dances at Sunday school, she attracts the attention of Isaiah Wilson, a boy who has taunted her along with his friend Muggy Jr. 

Angel recognizes Muggy as the real mean one, whereas Isaiah "was kinder...He simply didn't stand for anything. Isaiah went along to get along..." and that leads Angel not to respect him.

From his bedroom window, seventeen-year-old Isaiah Wilson watches a group of sixteen white boys on the other side of the tracks. Angel Hill, walking towards them is accosted by the group and although she initially stands up to them, she flees. Isaiah wants to stand and yell at them, but instead he hides behind the curtains. Angel leaves behind some kind of walking contraption that one of the boys destroys in anger.

On the following Sunday, Isaiah is hauled to Mount Zion Baptist Sunday school by his mother. But far from being bored as usual, Isaiah is entranced by the worship dancing of Angel Hill.

The next day, while walking to school with his best friend Muggy Little Jr., Isaiah is distracted. Muggy's father owns a successful butcher shop in Greenwood and his family along with many others in the district have helped Isaiah's family since his father's death in the Great War. but Muggy's father doesn't have a good reputation in the community, instead he is considered a "notorious double dealer with both his butcher business and his family". He flaunts women and his behaviour has Muggy beginning to have doubts about his father. 

Isaiah knows his friend is not a good person but can't seem to break free of him. He joins Muggy in his pranks, even when he knows those pranks are hurtful and embarrassing to others. During the day, Isaiah follows Muggy out to the back bleacher instead of going to Mrs. Greene's class to write his Latin test.When Isaiah daydreams about Angel, Muggy burns him on his forearm with a matchstick and threatens to tell Angel that Isaiah likes her. 

After English Literature class, Miss Ferris pulls Isaiah and Angel together and reveals that she's starting a sort of mobile library. She has a three-wheel bike and she needs someone to ride it and someone to hand out the books. Miss Ferris offers them the job with a pay of five dollars a week. Isaiah immediately accepts but Angel is reluctant because it means working with Isaiah whom she knows is not a nice boy. 

However, that changes when Donna Mae Bullock, at the urging of Muggy, steals Isaiah's journal one evening. Donna Mae shows up in Isaiah's bedroom to kiss him, but her real purpose is to steal his journal. However, when Isaiah manages to get Donna Mae to talk about herself she realizes what she's done and gets Muggy to return the journal, but not before Muggy reads to Angel the poem Isaiah wrote about her.

Eventually Angel accepts Miss Ferris's job offer and both Angel and Isaiah get to work on fixing up the decrepit three wheel bike. As love blossoms between the two, storm clouds are brewing over Greenwood, and neither Angel nor Isaiah know just how much life is about to change.

Discussion

Angel of Greenwood chronicles the days leading up to the Tulsa massacre of June 1 1921, through the eyes of two teenagers, Angel Hill and Isaiah Wilson as they fall in love. Author Randi Pink initially wrote a story of two Black teens who fall in love in a neighbourhood where it was safe to do so in peace. According to the Author's Note at the back of the novel, her original story was Pink's "My Wakanda"book. However, in a conversation with a friend, Pink learned  that the place she had dreamed of someday existing and had written about, really did once exist in the form of Greenwood, a district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. But Greenwood, a thriving, close-knit Black community that had become known as Black Wall street, was looted and burned to the ground by white rioters. The riot was triggered by events the preceding day in which a black man was arrested in an incident that occurred in an elevator with a white woman. At the end of the looting and burning, thirty-five blocks that comprised Greenwood lay in charred ruins and over one hundred people were dead. Pink decided to set her story against the backdrop of the Tulsa massacre and it's fortunate for young readers that she did so, because Angel of Greenwood is a remarkable novel.

Most of the novel portrays life in Greenwood prior to the riot. Pink does this through the two main characters and the people they meet in their day-to-day lives. The people of Greenwood are hard-working, God-fearing, neighbourly and not unlike people everywhere else and Pink offers a host of diverse characters to flesh out the community. There is Angel Hill, a gifted dancer, whose father is slowly dying from an unknown ailment. Angel is a hard-working girl, who spends time helping others like her neighbour, Mrs. Nichelle by helping her to care for her little baby boy, Michael. There is Isaiah Wilson, whose father died in the Great War, a good student with aspirations of attending college, who writes beautiful poetry. Isaiah seems unable to break away from his friend Muggy Little Jr. whose pranks humiliate and hurt others. Muggy Little Jr., whose father owns the butcher shop, is a bully and struggling to cope with his father's reputation as a liar and a cheat. There is Miss Ferris, the English Literature teacher who channels Isaiah's abilities into poetry and who starts the mobile book library. There is Mrs. Tate whose husband owns the Greenwood pharmacy and whose son Timothy is attending medical school. She has prize-winning junipers but is not known as a pleasant woman. There is Mr. Morris a kind and patient man whose son George now runs their wood-carving shop and Mrs. Turner with her tiny flower shop. Pink's depiction of  Greenwood District and its residents, a community where Black Americans are free to live their lives as they want,  makes reading about the burning of Greenwood all the more painful.

As Black teenagers coming of age in the early 20th century, Angel and Isaiah want to live their lives like white teenagers in America do, having the same rights as their white counterparts. Their belief as to how to achieve these rights differ.  Isaiah favours the ideas of  W.E.B. Dubois while Angel believes in Booker T. Washington's ideas. The two men, born in the middle of the nineteenth century became influential leaders in the civil rights movement in the early 20th century. However, they were at odds as to how to achieve equal rights for Black Americans. Washington felt that economic independence was key to Black rights while Dubois championed education and civil rights activism. Dubois' book, The Souls of Black Folks was critical of Washington's approach. Dubois eventually was involved in the formation of the NAACP  in 1909 while Washington's influence waned. He died in 1915. 

Besides being a novel about a largely forgotten event of racial hatred, Angel of Greenwood also explores the coming of age of Isaiah and Angel and to a lesser extent, Muggy. For Isaiah and Muggy it is a journey to redemption. 

Isaiah experiences a transformation from a neighbourhood troublemaker to the person he aspires to be. Isaiah is under the influence of Muggle Little Jr., boy with mean streak who delights in playing humiliating pranks on others. Isaiah knows he shouldn't follow Muggy's lead but he can't seem to stop. Isaiah wants to be different but feels his family is indebted to Muggy's family. "What was he to dare do? Challenge Muggy? Never. If he did, there would be hell to pay."

Isaiah hides the things that matter the most to him from Muggy: his love of poetry and books and reading. He hides the fact that he is in the top tenth percentile and that he has a secret plan to leave Greenwood. And for years he's gone along with bullying Angel Hill and many others. But when Isaiah sees Angel dance at church, his eyes are opened and he begins to change. From this point on, his attraction to Angel is the impetus for change.

It is only when Muggy steals Isaiah's journal of poetry and his college letters of intent to Morehouse and Howard, and in effect Isaiah's plan for success, that he is stirred to confront Muggy at his house.  Feeling freed from Muggy and his bad influence, Isaiah wants to be a better person for Angel but the prospect of him having to be responsible for his own behaviour is daunting. "Behave in ways she longed for a man to behave. With Muggy, he was mean. With Angel, he assumed, he would be better, kinder, and more empathetic. But without either, Isaiah was floating along with no leader to lead him. Secretly terrified to lead his own self." 

But Isaiah discovers he is able to lead himself, when Muggy hurts Mrs. Tate by revealing something about her son Timothy. He punches Muggy in the face, knocking the bully to the ground and gaining the respect of the community. This event leads Isaiah to make a serious decision about his life, deciding not to be selfish, lazy or unworthy. Isaiah comes to realize that Greenwood is a "... beacon of hope for his people..." and that he would use this gift to help his own people. From this point on, Isaiah begins to redeem himself, and ironically leads Muggy into doing the same.

For Angel, the journey is also about finding herself. Angel believes she has been put on Earth to help others. But as the days pass, she finds herself increasingly wanting something more for herself. These thoughts are stirred by the offer from Miss Ferris of working on the book mobile. Besides helping her parents, there "...was a selfish longing to get away from it all....When she was very small, Angel dreamed only of taking care of others. For the first time, she wanted a few hours per day to do only the thing she wanted to do."

Both Isaiah and Angel struggle with their separate beliefs as to how Black Americans can achieve full civil rights. They debate the ideas of W.E.B Dubois and Booker T. Washington. While debating why a man would return to bondage and slavery at Miss Ferris' over dinner, their teacher explains what the Black community of Greenwood understand compared to Blacks living in the rest of America and what it means to white America.
"We all get one life to live. One chance to make something beautiful of ourselves or to not, that's what we know to be true here in Greenwood. That's the difference between us and them, nothing else. We are no better on the inside. We simply know a Black life can be transformed from that of servitude to that of unmatched intelligence, resourcefulness, creativity, triumph...It's the immaterial knowledge that we, Black people, can be even better that whites if we want to be. And furthermore, much to their dismay, we don't need them to survive. Everyone should possess this knowledge, but the men who stayed in bondage didn't."

Angel of Greenwood is a remarkable novel, well-written, and offering plenty of themes and ideas to further delve into. The tragedy of the Tulsa massacre forms the climax of the novel. With the centenary of the massacre having just passed, Angel of Greenwood is a timely novel offers readers that opportunity Pink supplies her readers with a wealth of sources used in the writing of her novel, as a starting point. The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 should be remembered not only for the crime it was, but because as Pink writes, "Inside of every Greenwood home burned that day in 1921, there was a story. Few who experienced it are alive today. Many of those stories will never be told..."  Angel of Greenwood does just that.

Book Details:

Angel of Greenwood by Randi Pink
New York: Feiwel and Friends     2021
295 pp.

The Journey That Saved Curious George by Louise Borden

The Journey That Saved Curious George is a children's biography about the little-known wartime escape of Margret and H.A. Rey from France, to Brazil and then America.

Their story begins in Germany where both were born. Hans Augusto Reyersbach was born in 1906 and grew up in Hamburg which is a port city on the North Sea. This led Hans to develop a love for the sea and boats.

Hans also loved animals, which he enjoyed seeing on his many visits to the Hagenbeck Zoo. He also loved drawing and painting and was proficient in many languages.

Margarete Wilson was born in 1914 and she also grew up in Hamburg. She had two brothers and two sisters and her family was also Jewish. Margarete loved books and wanted to become an artist. She would eventually study

During World War I, Hans fought for Germany as a soldier in Kaiser Wilhelm's army. After the war, he attended university and then moved to Brazil. Hans lived in Rio de Janeiro, be he also travelled up and down the Amazon River, selling bath tubs and kitchen sinks in small towns. He enjoyed watching and  drawing the monkeys climbing in the trees.

In 1933, nine years after Hans moved to Brazil, Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany. For Jewish citizen, life became increasingly difficult. Margarete Waldstein decided to leave Hamburg and work as a photographer in London, England. In 1935, she decided to move to Rio de Janiero. Hans Reyersbach was an old family friend from her life in Hamburg. The two artists began collaborating and eventually they married.

Both Margarete and Hans decided to shorten their names: she to Margret and he to H.A. Rey. Several months later, now Brazilian citizens, Margret and Hans travelled to Europe on their honeymoon. They ended up staying at the Terrass Hotel in Montmartre, a suburb of Paris for the next four years!

In the neighbourhood of Montmartre, the Reys spent their time sketching and photographing life in the old village, meeting with friends and writing and illustrating their childrens' books. In 1939, the Reys were working on a children's book about a monkey named Fifi when war broke out in Europe with the German invasion of Poland. At first Parisians panicked and many left the city for the south of France, including the Reys. They stayed for four months at Chateau Feuga. It was at this time they began working on another book about a penguin named Whiteblack.

With the involvement of France in the war, the Reys with their German accent aroused the suspicion of the local French who summoned the police. However once they saw the Reys' work they were satisfied as to why they were living in the village.

The Reys returned to Paris in January of 1940 where they continued to work on their new book. Margret's brother Hans visited them and Hans Rey made the final touches on his book Fifi. They then decided to travel to the Normandy coast, to a town named Avranches. However, the war became more real as Germany invaded Holland and Belgium and then the Nazi army massed on the northern French border. With war now coming to France, the Reys needed to make a decision. As German-born Jews, they were in great danger. They had returned to Paris but now needed to leave the country quickly. Their biggest adventure was yet to begin.

Discussion

The Journey That Save Curious George is a fascinating account of the daring escape of Margret and H.A. Rey from wartime Paris, at the beginning of World War II. Borden undertook extensive research to satisfy her longtime interest in the Rey's wartime journey. This research involved reading through the Reys' letters and notebooks, traveling to the towns and villages the Reys' visited or worked in, as well as reading newspaper accounts. Borden was able to piece together their remarkable journey from Paris, on the cusp of occupation to safety in Brazil and then America. 

Borden sets the stage by providing a brief description of Hans and Margret's lives growing up in Hamburg. The focus moves to their collaboration in Brazil and their early work while living in France. Like many living in the country at that time, war was far off and hope was high that things would not escalate. That was not to be the case and many French attempted to flee south, from the advancing Nazis. But the Reys were in particular danger as they were Jews. 

The story then focuses on their efforts to leave France by any means possible. It was a journey that was to start on bicycles! H.A.Rey was able to build two bicycles from spare parts for himself and Margret which they then used to flee Paris. They took with them some food, a few clothes and the drawings that would ultimately become part of the Curious George childrens books. Unlike many French Jews, they were fortuitous to hold Brazilian citizenship and Brazilian passports. This allowed them to obtain the required visas to leave France for Spain and Portugal, sailing to Brazil and safety.

Accompanying Borden's engaging storytelling is the artwork of Allan Drummond whose watercolour illustrations are reminiscent of the Reys' artwork in Curious George. Borden has also included many photographs of Hans and Margret, pages of Hans' journal, telegrams, correspondence and maps. There is also a Partial Bibliography of Books by Margret and H.A. Rey. 

The Journey That Saved Curious George offers fans of Curious George the interesting backstory about authors Hans and Margret Rey in the appealing format of a picture book with just the right amount of detail and lots of visuals to maintain interest.

Margret and H.A. Rey photograph credit: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unexpected-profundity-of-curious-george

Book Details:

The Journey That Save Curious George by Louise Borden
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company         2005
72 pp.