Bartali's Bicycle: The True Story Of Gino Bartali, Italy's Secret Hero by Megan Hoyt

Gino Bartali had pedaled through the crowded streets of Florence, Italy, all his life. Then he began training to enter bicycle races. He cycled along the coast and up steep mountains. Over the span of eight years, Bartali pedaled in races all over Italy, earning trophies and first place ribbons. In 1938, Bartali won the biggest race in the world, the Tour de France. This made him a hero but Bartali considered himself just a cyclist. 

In 1938, the world began to change in Italy and all over Europe.  Eventually, all of Europe was at war. A dictator told that world that Jewish people were not human and must be rounded up and arrested. For Bartali, this idea was shocking since many of his friends were Jewish. His friends were good people and came from many walks of life. His good friend, Giacomo Goldenberg was Jewish. Bartali refused to believe this lie.

War soon came to Florence, Italy. Bartali watched as children were loaded onto trucks, and families were not allowed to work, perform in concerts or even live in their own homes. Bartali decided he had to do something to help these people.

Bartali was summoned by Archbishop Elia Dalla Costa. He was asked to help out by delivering special packages containing fake identity papers to people hiding in cities all across Italy. The new identity papers would allow these people in hiding to escape to neutral Switzerland.

Bartali hid the papers in the hollow bars of his bicycle and acted as a secret courier for the Italian resistance. But he also acted as a distraction at the local train station, allowing the resistance to place Jewish families onto train cars heading south out of Italy to freedom. 

When Bartali learned that the soldiers were searching for his friend, Giacomo and his family, he decided to hide them in his basement. Eventually Bartali was drafted into the Italian militia, meaning he would be working for the enemy. But he used this opportunity to find where prisoners were being hidden. One time he entered the Villa la Selva and walked out with forty-nine English soldiers.

By 1944, Italy was being bombed and his beautiful Florence was a battle zone. But eventually the enemy were defeated, the Goldbergs were free along with the rest of Italy.

Discussion

Few people have heard of Gino Bartali and his work to help the Jewish people in Italy during World War II. That's because Bartali did not believe in speaking about his actions. He felt such heroic actions should remain secret. Bartali told his son Andrea many years later, "...You must do good, but you must not talk about it. If you talk about it you're taking advantage of others misfortunes' for your own gain." It was due to this attitude that the truth of Bartali's work during the Second World War remained a secret until 2010.

Bartali was born in Ponte a Ema, a small village south of  Florence, in 1914. He was the third child in the Bartali family, having two older sisters Anita and Natalina and a younger brother Giulio. When he was eleven years old, Bartali purchased his first bike as a means of transportation to middle school in Florence. Soon he developed a passion for cycling and won his first race at the age of seventeen.

In 1935, at the age of twenty-one, Bartali turned professional and won the Giro d'Italia, a multiple stage bicycle race held in Italy in 1936 and again in 1937. Bartali almost gave up cycling when his brother Guilio was killed in a cycling accident in 1936.  In 1940, Bartali was married to Adriana Bani, in a ceremony celebrated by family friend, Cardinal Dalla Costa.

When Bartali won the 1938 Tour de France, he did not dedicate his win to Italian dictator and fascist, Benito Mussolini who believed that the Jews were an inferior race. That year saw the Fascist Grand Council approve measures that stripped Italian Jews of many of the civil rights. In 1940, Italy in alliance with Germany, declared war on France and England.

Bartali was able to avoid serving as a soldier with the Italian army due to an irregular heartbeat and was assigned to be a messenger. In 1943, Cardinal Dalla Costa, who had been hiding many Jewish refugees in his residence, reached out to Bartali with a plan: he would act as a courier bringing false identity papers and photos to Jews in hiding. The papers would be hidden in his bike frame and his training along Italy's roads provided the perfect cover for this. 

As the war continued and Italy became the battleground between the Germans and the Allies, races were cancelled and Bartali could no longer use his training as a disguise for his resistance activities. He was taken in for questioning, but was freed when his army commander vouched for him. After the war, Bartali continued racing and won the Tour de France once again in 1948. He retired from racing at the age of forty.

Hoyt's picture book describes all of the most important aspects of Gino Bartali's life to the end of World War II including the contributions he made to the Italian resistance's work of hiding and saving Italian Jews. Strangely, Hoyt never mentions Hitler by name, instead calling him a "powerful leader" while German soldiers are labelled "enemy troops". Perhaps this is done to remind us that hatred and racism can come from any country. 

The detailed, colourful illustrations, rendered in pencil and digital colour by Iacopo Bruno give life to the events described in Hoyt's text.

In her Author's Note at the back, Hoyt elaborates on how Bartali's contributions came to be known. Bartali was part of DELASEM (Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants) which was a Jewish and Italian resistance organization. It's Florence network was headed by Archbishop Dalla Costa, Giorgio Nissim who was Jewish, and Rabbi Nathan Cassuto. It was Nissim's diaries, discovered by his sons after his death, that detailed the work of Bartali. The organization was supported by the Catholic Church, specifically by Pope Pius XII. The author has included a detailed list of Sources for further research, a Timeline of events, a note from Lisa Bartali, granddaughter of Gino Bartali as well as an Author's Note.

Bartali's Bicycle tells the remarkable story of Gino Bartali, famous cyclist, whose courage, and belief in helping others, led him to risk everything to do what was necessary and what was right.

Book Details:

Bartali's Bicycle by Megan Hoyt
New York: HarperCollins Children's Books     2021

Rhinos In Nebraska by Alison Pearce Stevens

Twelve million years ago, in ancient Nebraska, short, round hippos, elephants, three-toed horses, many types of camels and oreodonts roamed the grasslands. But a thousand miles away, unknown to these animals, a supervolcano erupted, spewing rock and ash into the sky. Over the next days and weeks, the ash carried downwind of the eruption continued to fall steadily.

The animals on the ancient Nebraska savanna soon found themselves breathing in the ash as they grazed and walked.Smaller animals such as turtles and birds quickly succumbed as the ash suffocated them. Larger animals like the horses, camels and hippos took much longer to die. We know all this because of the most extraordinary record contained in the Ashfall Fossil Beds.

The Ashfall Fossil Beds were first discovered in 1953, although the area was known for the bones found in a specific spot by farmers for years. That spot was called Bone Hill and it was believed that this was where cattle went to die. That's because any bones found, unlike most fossil bones were not mineralized. Farmers thought that meant they were recent.

Donald Peterson and his father James were hired by a farmer to plant rye in fields near Bone Hill. At the base of Bone Hill, Donald and James discovered the skull of an animal eroding out of the cliff face. They decided to contact University of Nebraska State Museum about their discovery and this led paleontologists Lloyd Tanner and Henry Reider to visit the site. They were able to identify the skull as that of a rhinoceras, which once roamed the Great Plains of North America! Although Tanner and Reider made field notes and noted the location of the skull, which they took back to the museum, their notes were eventually lost.

It wouldn't be until 1971 that geologists Mike and Jane Voorhies, who were mapping the area, would discover the jawbone of a baby rhino within the ten foot thick layer of volcanic ash. It was known that rhinoceras roamed what is now Nebraska over thirty million years ago. However, fossils were a rare find.When he returned the next day to remove the fossil, he discovered the entire skull and saw a vertebrae as well.  Jane did not return to the area because it was covered in poison ivy. (They eventually named it Poison Ivy Quarry.) It would be another six years before Mike returned to Poison Ivy Quarry, this time with a small team of paleontologists to help him. They would uncover the complete skeleton of the baby rhino and more skeletons. Over the next few weeks they would remove the skeletons of a dozen rhinos and three horses, taking them to the museum.With the help of John Boellstorff, who worked for the Nebraska Geological Survey, the ash was dated at approximately 10.5 million years, plus or minus 1.5 million years. At this time they did not know the source of the volcanic ash.

The following year, Mike Voorhies again returned with a bulldozer to remove the rock and soil topping the ash layer. Over the next four months, they uncovered fifty-eight rhinos. So began the remarkable discoveries that led Voorhies and other scientists to piece together the catastrophic events that led to what became known as the Ashfall Fossil Beds.

Discussion

Scientist, Alison Pearce Stevens weaves together the fascinating events that paleontologists believe occurred at a watering hole almost 10 million years ago, after the eruption of a supervolcano. Stevens, who has a Ph.D in ecology, evolution and animal behaviour begins the story with the discovery of rhino bones and then goes on to describe the work of Mike Voorhies as he and other paleontologists, students and interns worked to excavate the Ashfall Fossil Beds.

Along the way, Stevens provides her young readers with information about many different aspects of the research. For example she explains how scientists dated the volcanic ash, how evidence from the skeletal remains of the animals indicated they suffered from Marie's disease and what that suggested about how they may have died.

Paleobotanists were able to use seeds in the ash to determine what the environment was like at the time of the eruption. Evidence from diatoms, tiny plant-like algae that form glass shells, helped paleobiologists determine that the water hole filled during the rainy season and dried up when the rains stopped. The distribution of types of animals who died at the water hole helped scientists determine that grazers like rhinos were more affected by the ash than browsers like deer. Michael Perkins, a geologist at the University of Utah had studied ash beds from Utah and many surrounding states. Mike Voorhies asked Perkins to try to determine where the volcano that produced the ash beds in Nebraska was located. 

Stevens shows her readers the many facets of paleontological and geological research and how geologists can piece together an event based on the information fossils, rocks and other features provide. The explanations are simple and easy to understand. There are the black and white illustrations by Matt Huynh as well as some black and white photographs of the Ashfall beds excavated over the years and housed in a special building constructed to protect them.

Budding geologists and those interested in earth history will enjoy this well written, engaging and informative book about a unique event in North American natural history. Stevens has included a Glossary, Author's Note and an Index at the back of the book.

Further information may be found at 

Rhino Resource Center's copy of Mike Voorhies 1978 paper, A Miocene Rhinoceros Herd Buried in Volcanic Ash.

Alison Pearce Stevens article from Science New for Students, Rhinos, Camels and Bone-Crushing Dogs Once Roamed Nebraska. 

Book Details:

Rhinos In Nebraska by Alison Pearce Stevens
New York: Henry Holt and Company        2021
135 pp.

Amina's Song by Hena Khan

Amina Khokar is in the final days of her visit to Lahore, Pakistan with her older brother, Mustafa and  mother. Amina and her family decided to visit Pakistan after Thaya Jaan became ill earlier in the year. Amina is at the Anarkali Bazaar hoping to purchase some gifts for her friends back home in Greendale, Wisconsin. After her cousin Zohra bargains with the shopkeepers for various items, Amina and Mustafa travel by rickshaw to Wazir Khan Mosque where they meet Mama and Amina's uncle Thaya Jaan. Being in the mosque which was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan reminds Amina of her mosque back home and how it had to be shut down for six months after it was vandalized. Thaya Jaan tells Amina's family that people who do bad things are not often evil but misguided.

At her uncles home, in the evening, Amina and Zohra sit on the rooftop terrace. Amina invites Zohra and her brother Ahmed to visit during the winter but Zohra isn't keen to do so, because she feels she won't be welcome there.

When it is time to leave, Thaya Jaan makes Amina promise to show Americans "the beauty of Pakistan".  

As Amina struggles to acclimatize to life at home, she feels her friends aren't much interested in her experiences in Pakistan.

Determined to show her friends and classmates that Pakistan is more than what they hear on the news, Amina decides to focus on Malala Yousafzai. But when her first presentation leaves the wrong impression, Amina struggles to figure out how she can show the beauty of the Pakistan she loves so much.

Discussion

Amina's Song is the sequel to Khan's first novel, Amina's Voice. It picks up where the first novel left off with Amina and her family visiting family in Lahore, Pakistan. Amina experiences internal conflict as she becomes more comfortable with life in Pakistan learning to appreciate the city of Lahore and her Pakistani rootse. At the same time, Amina feels lost.

In Pakistan with her relatives, Amina struggles to fit in. "It becomes obvious that I don't quite fit in with my relatives, although the same blood runs through my veins. I don't share their language, their sense of humor, or their memories. When someone busts out with an expression, or a line of poetry, and everyone chimes in with a laugh or comment, I can't help but feel like an impostor, or a shapeshifter who appears to be a regular Pakistani girl on the outside but doesn't know how to act like one."

Amina wants to stay longer in Pakistan and learn Urdu. Her feelings are further conflicted when her cousin, Zohra refuses to visit America because she's "not wanted", leaving Amina hurt.  "She's talking about my country, the one that's a part of me and made me who I am." She reminds Zohra that there is good and bad everywhere. 

Back in America, this internal conflict continues but in a different way; Amina feels that her friends do not appreciate her culture and show little interest in what she experienced over the summer.

As a way to keep her promise to Thaya Jaan, Amina decides to focus on Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai for her class's Living Wax Museum assignment. However, after her first presentation on Malala, leaves her classmates believing that girls in Pakistan have no rights, Amina is embarrassed. Her brother Mustafa points out that people know only what they hear about a country and he reminds Amina how she was afraid to visit Pakistan.

Khan thus sets the stage for the main character to inform her young American readers about some of the contributions Pakistani women have made to their country, demonstrating that Pakistan is more than what they might hear on the news or read on the internet. As well, Amina's Baba explains that each country has its own challenges. "Every culture has shameful parts of its history and groups of people who do things that are wrong. Pakistan is no better or worse."

Khan also portrays some of the struggles an American-born child of immigrants might face, growing up in a culture with very different values. For example, Amina's mother is strict about the clothing her daughter wears to school, not allowing Amina nor her brother to wear clothing that is ripped or has holes. Amina has to convince her mother to buy her a dress for the school dance, refusing to wear the salwar kameez her mother prefers. And when she brings her new friend Nico - a boy,  home, Amina's mother shocks her by asking what his intentions are.

Overall, Amina's Song offers satisfying and positive conclusion to the story of Amina. It follows the typical formula for books about immigrant families, with the main character experiencing conflict over their identity as they struggle to navigate two cultures which usually have opposing values. Amina is a thoughtful, well drawn character who is able to see the good in both her American and Pakistani cultures, thus setting a positive tone at a time when newcomers are viewed with fear.

Book Details:

Amina's Song by Hena Khan
New York: Salaam Reads (An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Div.)    2021
280 pp.

I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day

Edie Green's father is American and her mother is Native American. She knows her father has roots in Germany, England and Wales but she really doesn't know anything about her mother's family because her mother was adopted. But one summer day, while looking for her mom's Popsicle molds, Edie makes an unusual discovery.

While searching the attic for the molds with her best friends Amelia and Serenity, they discover a box containing the photograph of a young woman who looks remarkably like Edie. The eyes, nose and the shape of her cheeks are similar and like Edie she has a gap between her two front teeth. A letter dated December 14, 1973 is signed Love, Edith. Serenity asks Edie if she knows anything about her mom's family. Edie doesn't other than that her mother was adopted. She wonders who the woman in the picture is and why her parents haven't told her anything about this person who looks so much like her.While Amelia believes Edie should keep her discovery of the box a secret, Serenity thinks she should be honest with her mom.

At dinner, Edie asks her parents how they came to name her Edith since it's such an old fashioned name. But her parents don't really provide Edie with a satisfying answer and she believes they are lying to her. The next morning Edie secretly takes the box from the attic to her room, hiding it in her art chest.

After getting her braces, Edie, Amelia and Serenity begin looking through the box. They find private journals, handwritten letters, head shots of Edith and post cards. Serenity notes that all Edith's letters were sent to an address in Indianola, Washington. They also find her full name, Edith Anne Graham. A journal entry mentions Sacheen Littlefeather who rejected an Academy Award on behalf of Marlon Brando. From that entry the girls learn that Edith was inspired to travel to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry. 

Amelia tells Edie that she wants to use Edith Graham as the inspiration for their film project at school. However, this doesn't seem right to Edie, since she doesn't really know who this person is.

A few nights later, Edie and her parents visit her Uncle Phil's home for his birthday party. When Edie is upset and rude towards her parents, Uncle Phil sits down with her outside to talk. Edie tells him about discovering the box and the journal entry she's read. She tells her uncle that she just wants to know who Edith Graham was and why she's named after her. He encourages Edie to talk to her mom about Edith Graham and when she presses him, he is firm in telling her that it's not his story to tell.

After a breakup with her friend Amelia, and after reading more of Edith's letters, Edie discovers part of the truth and decides to confront her parents. This pushes her mother to finally tell her story to Edie, revealing the painful truth about her past and in doing so, allows Edie to embrace her heritage.

Discussion

I Can Make This Promise is a story about adoption, identity and the meaning of family but at its heart is the story of a young Native American girl's journey to uncover her mother's past and her own heritage. In her Author's Note at the back, Christine Day indicates that she has drawn from her own life experience and her own family's history in crafting this engaging and timely novel. Day, like her main character, Edie Green, is the daughter of a Native American adoptee. A member of the Upper Skagit tribe, Day has incorporated many historical events and people into her novel, which makes the story realistic. This also makes I Can Make This Promise a good starting point for readers to research the Native American tribal nations of the Pacific Northwest, as well common practice of forced adoption of Native American children into white families. 

Day's treatment of the painful practice of forced adoption of Nation American children in the United States is told with sensitivity, through the character of Edie's mom as she explains how she came to be adopted. As the author mentions in her note at the back, "The goal of these coerced adoptions was to assimilate Native people into American society at the expense of tribal nations. Almost all adoptees experienced the loss of their cultures, their identities, and the complex relationships that build the foundations of Native societies." As Edie's mother explains to her, "Between the 1940's and 1970's, about one-third of Native children were separated from their families. Until Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978."

The revelation of her mother's past and her own heritage, not only strengthen Edie's relationship with her mother, but also creates in her a desire to learn more about her Native American roots. In Edie, Day has crafted a resilient, determined young girl who finally learns to trust the adults in her life and who learns to value the virtue of honesty. She also learns what makes a good friendship, like the one she has with Serenity who tells her to trust her parents, and that "Parents can be weird....They make mistakes. But they're not trying to hurt you, Edie."

Young readers will be drawn to I Can Make This Promise by the colourful cover and the high interest story, with such a relevant theme involving the Indigenous peoples of North America. This is an excellent debut novel from a promising Native American author.

Book Details:

I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
New York: HarperCollins     2019
266 pp.

Crossing The Farak River by Michelle Aung Thin

Fourteen-year-old Hasina lives in the fictional village of Teknadaung in Rakhine state located in Burma, now called Myanmar. The village is divided into two sections by the Farak River; one side is Muslim, the other is Buddhist. Hasina lives in Eight Quarters District which is the Rohingya part of Teknadaung, with her mother Nurzamal, her father, Ibrahim, and her six-year-old brother Araf, her grandmother Dadi Asmah, as well as her Aunt Rukiah and her cousin, Ghadiya.

One day while outside, they see helicopters fly over their madrassa which is run by Aunt Rukiah. Terrified they all run inside except for Hasina who watches them stunned before she finally runs into the building. No one seems to know who the helicopters belong to.

Four years ago, during the Arakanese War, in Rakhine State everything changed. Many Rohingya in the south were forced to flee during the violence, to Thailand, Malaysia and Australia. Hasina's Aunt Rukiah and Ghadiya are refugees from the south, having fled north to Teknadaung leaving behind Uncle Rashid. Although her Aunt Rukiah grew up in the house Hasina and her family live in, she is now considered a foreigner to the district and illegal, requiring a special passport to travel.

The violence also touched the north part of Rakhine State where Hasina and her family live. Electricity, water and gas were turned off and schools were closed.  Hasina was forced to leave the government Basic Education School which Dadi Asmah paid for. Now she attends her aunt's school.

After things settle down, Nurzamal sends Hasina to take lunch to her father who has a stall in the bazaar. But because she's a refugee without a passport, Ghadiya must stay at home.

In the bazaar, Araf heads to the television located at the front of the bazaar where the Araknese stalls. There a crowd of people are watching as the announcer, speaking in Myanmar (Burmese) calls Muslims, "Chittagonian Bengali Muslims", instead of Rohingya. For Hasina, this is upsetting because it implies that the Rohingya are foreigners from Bangladesh who do not belong in Myanmar. The announcer also refers to them as terrorists. When Araf tells the people in Rohingya about the helicopter, a kindly Arakanese man changes the channel. They head to the back of the bazaar where the Rohingya stalls are.

There she meets Isak, also once a student at the government school. Forced out of school, he works in the Brothers & Sons Puppet Stall. At her father's stall, Hasina, Araf and their father sit down to eat but are interrupted when the teashop owner, U Ko Yin visits.He warns that soldiers will come to Teknadaung. After he leaves, Hasina questions her father about what is happening. He tells her, "Hasina, Sit Tat fight for a single nation. The Arakanese Army fight for an Arakanese nation. ARSA fight for a Rohingya Muslim nation. But there are other Muslims. Where do they fit in? ...If there are over one hundred and thirty-five ethnic groups in Myanmar, and many religions, then what happens if we all fight one another? Surely you can see that we are weaker separately than we are together?"

Over the next weeks, more helicopters fly overhead and police begin to patrol the streets of Teknadaung and walk through the bazaar.Nurzamal forbids Hasina from walking along the main road, and her father's stall is losing money as are all the Rohingya businesses. On the television in the bazaar, Buddhist extremists demonstrate, calling the Rohingya intruders. Eventually Aunt Rukiah closes the school. Police in blue uniforms flood into Teknadaung, confiscating anything that looks like a weapon.

And then one night, Hasina, Araf and Ghadiya are awoken and told to run and keep running. Hasina decides to take them into the forest and hide, to wait for her father and mother and grandmother to find them. As they flee, they see men with torches setting fire to buildings. After three days in the forest, Hasina, Araf and Ghadiya watch as the soldiers trucks leave Teknadaung. When they return to their village, they find their homes in ruin, burned and destroyed. Her father's stall in the bazaar and all the other Rohingya stalls are also destroyed. Even worse, Hasina is unable to locate her parents or her aunt and uncle.

With just her frail, elderly grandmother, Araf, her cousin Ghadiya and her friend Isak, Hasina begins to forge a new life. But they face starvation, the loss of their family's lands, the struggle to locate their family who fled the Myanmar soldiers as well as the dangers of human traffickers.

Discussion

Crossing The Farak River explores the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, formerly Burma through the fictional story of a fourteen year old Rohingya girl, Hasina.  The Rohingya are an ethnic minority group, who live in Myanmar. Most Rohingya, who have lived for centuries in Burma/Myanmar, are Muslim. However, Myanmar which is predominantly Buddhist, does not recognize the Rohingya as one of the country's large number of minority groups. They have been denied citizenship since 1982 and therefore are considered stateless. Most of the Rohingya live in the western state of Rakhine.

The British occupation and rule of Burma from 1824 to 1948 set the stage for what is happening today (as in so many other countries that were part of the British Empire). Britain also administered India and the area which today is known as Bangladesh. During this time, a significant influx of workers into Burma from India and Bangladesh occurred. The people already living in Burma were not supportive of this influx of people with a very different culture. When Burma gained its independence from Britain in 1948, the Union Citizenship Act passed by the Burmese government defined which ethnic groups were considered citizens. The Rohingya were not included but could apply for identity cards if their families had lived in Burma for at least two generations.

In 1962 a military coup brought new rules to Burma. Everyone was required to obtain national identity cards but the Rohingya were given foreign identity cards. In 1982, under General Ne Win, the situation changed again, when the Rohingya were made stateless by not being considered citizens of Burma. The only way to obtain even the most basic of citizenship was for a Rohingya to prove they had lived in Burma prior to 1948. Few had such papers. 

In 1989, the country's name was changed to Myanmar and in 1990, free multi-party elections were held. The National League for Democracy (NLD)won the election but the military junta refused to acknowledge the results. In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD won the national elections and she assumed the role of  State Counsellor of Myanmar. By this time the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya was international news. 

By this time, the Rohingya had been fleeing Rakhine for decades. In the 1970's they lost the right to freely travel throughout the country, to access health care and higher education.  In 2016, actions against the Rohingya increased dramatically. Rohingya experienced beatings, unlawful arrest and the burning of their villages: the Myanmar government was accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Rakhine. The reports by the Rohingya of rape, murder and the destruction of  hundreds of Rohingya villages had been corroborated by satellite evidence, witness reports and the discovery of mass graves.

Michelle Aung Thin provides young readers with what appears to be a very realistic portrayal of life in a Rohingya village in Crossing The Farak River. This is done through the main character, Hasina whose family, like most other Rohingya are struggling to live a life as normal as possible but who have experienced violence and discrimination. Hasina, her family, and her relatives have already experienced the loss of certain civil rights, such as Hasina's right to attend government schools. The government has simply made the schools so expensive that the Rohingya can no longer afford to attend them. This injustice has greatly affected Hasina who loves math and wants to learn. Her father has experienced discrimination in his business with his stall being placed at the back of the bazaar. Her mother, Nurzamal has changed from a happy, carefree woman into someone "obsessed with doing things the right way." Her Uncle Rashid and Aunt Rukiah and cousin Ghadiya are refugees from the southern part of Rakhine, witnessing horrors that they cannot speak about. Their family is separated with Rashid living in Bangladesh.

Crossing The Farak River also portrays the effects of long-term discrimination can have on an ethnic group. Hasina notes that "...Among the Rohingya, it is only the old people who have been to university." Each successive generation of Rohingya is less educated. Hasina, unlike her grandmother Dadi Asmah has little chance to attend university in Sittwe. 

Aung Thin's story conveys the humanity of the Rohingya people, showing them to be like everyone else, with dreams and the desire to have their own land and to belong. Hasina is a strong, courageous, resourceful young girl who is determined to protect her brother Araf. She risks her life to save both her brother and another boy from being trafficked as slave labour. Readers cannot help but feel deep empathy for Hasina and the injustice of her situation.

Crossing The Farak River whose title refers to the river in Hasina's fictional town, Teknadaung that divides the Buddhist and Muslim Rohingya areas is a well written and evocative novel that will offer young readers a starting point to learning more about the Rohingya, Myanmar and how intolerance can lead to the most inhuman actions.

Book Details:

Crossing the Farak River by Michelle Aung Thin
Toronto: Annick Press      2020
216 pp.

The Girl Who Loved Giraffes by Kathy Stinson

Anne Innis's love of giraffes began with a trip to her local zoo when she was a young girl. Anne was the daughter of Harold Innis who was a professor and Mary Quayle Innis who was a writer. The giraffes so intrigued Anne that she wanted to know all about these unusual animals.

Since she loved reading about animals, Anne set out to find books about giraffes but there weren't any. However in an encyclopedia, Anne learned that giraffes live only in the grasslands and woods of Africa. She was determined to go to Africa to study them. That meant working hard and saving.

Anne saved her allowance and eventually got a summer job. She studied biology at university and earned a gold medal and prize money. Soon she had enough to travel to Africa. All she needed was a place to stay. Anne wrote to thirteen African wildlife organizations and universities outlining her plans. She was rejected by all of them. Undaunted, Anne wrote another letter, this time signing it A. Innis. This meant that the reader would not know she was a woman. Alexander Matthew wrote back telling Mr. Innis he would be able to stay at his ranch and bunk with the cowhands!

Anne set out on her journey to Africa, travelling by train at Toronto to Montreal where she boarded a ship that took her to London. While in England she wrote to Alexander Matthew signing it Anne Innis. Then she boarded a ship to South Africa. Once in South Africa, Anne still had a thousand miles to travel to the Matthew ranch so she bought herself a car. But before setting out she received a letter from Mr. Matthew explaining that he believed she was a man and that she could not stay at his ranch. But after a letter pleading to be allowed to stay, Matthew relented, offering Anne his daughter's old bedroom. After a struggle to get to the Matthew ranch, Anne settled in and began her dream of observing giraffes. Her time in South Africa led her to make many interesting and new discoveries about giraffes.

Although she achieved her dream of travelling to Africa to study giraffes, Anne encountered many obstacles as she attempted to obtain a university teaching position. But she was turned down because she was a woman. She co-authored a book, The Giraffe and she continued through the years to work to help students learn now to write and do research. More than fifty years after her adventure in Africa, Anne was invited to a first ever conference on giraffes. And when giraffologists became concerned about the declining numbers of giraffes, Anne returned to Africa to learn what was being done to save these unique animals.

Discussion

In The Girl Who Loved Giraffes the story of pioneering Canadian giraffologist Anne Innis Dagg is told. Anne's story has been one of extraordinary accomplishments and surprising obscurity and Stinson portrays all of this in this detailed children's picture book.

Anne Christine was born in 1933 in Toronto, Ontario to Harold Innis a political economy professor at the University of Toronto and to author, Mary Quayle. While on holiday with her family in Chicago, in 1936, she visited the Brookfield Zoo. There, as a three-year-old toddler, she was in awe of the giraffes. After attending the Anglican boarding school, Bishop Strachan, Anne went on to earn a B.A. in Biology in 1955. As the top student, earning a gold medal, she hoped to travel to Africa to begin her study of giraffes. To that end, she began writing officials in Tanzania (then called Tanganyika), Kenya and Uganda without any success.

While pursuing a masters in genetics at the University of Toronto, Anne learned about Alexander Matthew whose land was home to giraffes. She was able to obtain an invitation to come and study them. Matthew did not know Anne was a young woman. In 1956, at the age of twenty-three, using only the money she had saved herself, Anne travelled to South Africa. As Stinson relates in her picture book, Anne did reveal her gender to Mr. Matthew and after pleading with him, he allowed her to stay at his farmhouse.

Anne spent the next six months observing and recording giraffes. Since no one prior to Anne had studied giraffes, she became a world expert as she discovered many interesting things about their behaviour and physiology.  

Anne returned to Southern Ontario, working to earn a Ph.D, which she accomplished at the University of Waterloo in 1967, and to become a teaching professor (to research giraffes in the summer) which she was not able to obtain. In 1967, it was almost impossible for women to obtain a teaching position at a university in Ontario. Anne encountered many rejections, not because she wasn't qualified, but because she was a married woman. So she taught part time and raised her family of three children.

Anne's life story is one example of how stereotypes and barriers based on gender have impacted women's professional and personal lives. Although Anne was able to push back against these barriers to some degree it would be decades before things significantly changed. Nevetheless, it was her determination and resourcefulness that got her to South Africa, a country with its apartheid system. 

Author Kathy Stinson was able to meet and get to know Anne Innis Dagg as she researched for her book.Stinson first encountered Anne Innis Dagg and her remarkable work with giraffes at a film screening in Guelph. The film, "The Woman Who Loves Giraffes" was offered at the Bookshelf Cinema and was followed by Anne speaking as a guest panelist. Stinson knew then that she had to tell Anne's story. Accompanying Stinson's informative text are the rich illustrations of Francois Thisdale.

The Girl Who Loved Giraffes is an inspiring story of determination and resourcefulness. Imagine what Anne might have accomplished had she been allowed to continue her research on giraffes. Her story highlights the personal and professional cost of sexism and racism. But the story of Anne Innis Dagg is also an inspiration to young women everywhere to pursue their dreams, no matter what.

Book Details:

The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became The World's First Giraffologist by Kathy Stinson
Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside     2021
56 pp.

Sugar In Milk by Thrity Umrigar

When the young girl first came to America she felt so alone.Her auntie and uncle did all they could to make her feel welcome. They painted her bedroom purple and filled it with books and toys.But the young girl missed her friends and her mother and father and her cats, Kulfi and Baklava. While her auntie and uncle were at work, the young girl was left alone in her room. She longed to make new friends and felt overwhelmed with loneliness. One day while on a walk, Auntie told her a story:

In ancient Persia, there lived a group of people who were forced to leave and seek refuge in another country. They built several boats and sailed to India where they begged to be given shelter. However, the local king refused because he felt that his land was too crowded  and because they looked different and spoke a different language. So the king went to the seashore and ordered the Persian travellers to leave. However, because they did not speak the same language, these newcomers did not understand. To show them what he meant he ordered his servant to bring him an empty glass and milk. The king filled the glass to the brim with milk. This was his way of telling them that his kingdom was filled with people and that there was no room for the newcomers. 

The Persian travellers were tired and hungry and disappointed to be turned away. But their leader, who was very wise, had a plan. And that plan involved a teaspoon of sugar.

The wise Persian leader mixed the sugar into the milk without spilling a single drop of milk. His message to the king was that they would live in peace and sweeten the live of the people of India.

The king understood, and joyfully welcomed the Persians. And they kept their promise.

When Auntie was done her story, the young girl's outlook had changed. She began to smile at people on the street and in return they smiled back. It wasn't long before she began to feel less lonely and more like America was her new home.

Discussion

Sugar In Milk retells an ancient Persian legend in the Parsis, descendants of the followers of Zoroaster were allowed to settle in India.

Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion that was founded in the 6th century B.C. The descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian immigrants are known as Parsis.

Iran was conquered by Arab Muslims in 651 A.D. At first they tolerated the Zoroastrian religion but this began to change in the 7th and 8th centuries when various limits were placed on the faith. this resulted in many Zoroastrian's fleeing to the Gujarat region of India. There the local ruler, Jadhav Rana, concerned that his area might become overwhelmed, presented a cup of milk filled to the brim, to the Parsi priest. The message was that there was no room in his country for these newcomers. Undaunted, the Parsi priest put sugar into the milk, indicating that his people could sweeten the country while not displacing those already there. Jadhav Rana agreed to allow the Parsi exiles to settle in the area with certain conditions. They had to wear the local dress, respect his people's culture and learn the local language.

In Sugar in Milk, the lesson Auntie is attempting to explain to the young girl is that she has something to offer to America and that her presence in her new country is like the sugar in the milk: it will sweeten the culture, adding something to it. Accompanying the story are the exquisite digital illustrations which capture the Persian element of the legend. Many of the illustrations, created by illustrator Khoa Le, who lives in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam incorporate images of the peacock or peacock feathers, a prominent motif in Persian art.

Sugar In Milk is a beautiful picture book based on an interesting Persian legend with captivating illustrations that teaches the important lessons of acceptance and understanding.

Book Details:

Sugar In Milk by Thrity Umrigar
New York: Running Press Kids     2020

Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna

It is April 17, 1975 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge have seized the city, after five years of fighting the American-backed Khmer Republic. While most cheered the victory believing that it was necessary to free themselves from American imperialism, they were not certain about the future.

Part One Goodbye, Phnom Penh

Cambodia, 1975. General Mey announces that the war is over. After five years of fighting the American-backed Khmer Republic, the Khmer Rouge have seized Phnom Penh.  Khim attempts to leave Phnom Penh Hospital with some medical supplies but he is stopped by soldiers who believe he is a CIA spy. He tells them his wife, Lina is about to give birth and that he needs to get home. When one of the Khmer Rouge soldiers, Comrade Kry sees that he's a doctor he tells Khim to go quickly. When his superior returns, the soldier tells him he released Khim because he was not a spy. The Khmer Rouge soldiers begin to evacuate the city.

Cousin Key stops by to see Vanny and Kongcha and their son Samay. While Key believes that the end of the war means equality and prosperity, Kongcha isn't so certain. He doesn't trust the communists. But Key believes the Khmer Rouge will prove they can govern Cambodia. Kongcha is worried about Vuthy who has come to their home with his family. Vuthy was a lieutenant in the Republican army and is hiding his weapons and uniform in the back yard.

After Key leaves, Vanny and Kongcha's neighbour Mey shows up looking for her husband and daughter. The Khmer Rouge have forced them out of their home, her husband beaten when he tried to reason with them. There was an explosion and then Mey lost track of her family. Meanwhile Kongcha's daughter Lina comes downstairs and tells her father and mother that the Houys next door are leaving because the Khmer Rouge are evacuating the city. Rumour is that the Americans will bomb the city. Kongcha tells her they will wait until Khim returns but will start packing. 

When Khim returns, he tells his family that things are becoming dangerous and explains how he was stopped because he was thought to be a spy.  Kongcha and Vanny along with Reth, Phara, Sokha, Koliane, Khim and Lina, along with Lina's parents, Vuthy and Durmay and her brothers and her sister Chenda and her husband Mori and their son, all leave Phnom Penh. As they drive out, they see everyone else leaving as well, and that stores are being looted. Khim and Lina with her two brothers, become separated from the rest of the group. Reth encounters his math professor, who tells him that the Khmer Rouge's claim that the city will be bombed by the Americans is not true, that instead the Khmer Rouge intend to relocate every one and want to completely reform society. Meanwhile the Khmer Rouge are telling everyone they must use the Monivong Bridge.

The two family groups  travel across the Bassac River and arrive separately in Ta Prom, on the Mekong River. There Khim is recognized by a man whose son he delivered and he offers them a place to stay. That night Lina gives birth to a baby boy they name Chan Veasna. Thankfully Lina and Khim manage to meet up with her parents, Kongcha and Vanny. and .Khim and Sokha return to Phnom Penh to find out if it's possible to return to the city and learn that the Khmer Rouge is asking all senior officials including doctors, managers and engineers to  return to the city. Although Sokha found the Khmer Rouge to be principled people when he was studying in France but now he's not so certain. While in the city, Khim and Sokha witness the Khmer Rouge murdering people. The Khmer Rouge broadcast that everyone else must return to their home villages to return to tilling the soil. 

That night back in Ta Prom, Khim suggests they travel to Battambang where his parents live rather than return to the Phnom Penh. They decide to take apart the cars keeping the wheels and the gas. They cross the Mekong River in three boats, arriving at Rakakong. They stay in the pagoda where there are many soldiers wearing black uniforms, the Khmer Rouge. There they are ordered to report to the pagoda office where they are told to write everything about themselves. The next morning they are ordered by the Khmer Rouge soldiers to get into boats that will take them to Kompong Cham. Kongcha is upset because he and his family do not want to go to Kompong Cham. However, before they get into the boats, a man intervenes, telling the soldiers that they are his family. When Kongcha asks the man why he would do this for them, he identifies himself as Rong who worked at the ice factory. Rong tells them that he intervened because every morning the soldiers leave with a boatload of people who are all former bureaucrats and intellectuals. There are rumours that the boat stops in the middle of the Tonle Sap Lake and returns empty. His nephew saw the boat being cleaned of blood stains. The Khmer Rouge are mass murdering all former bureaucrats and intellectuals.

Khim and his family cross the river and begin their journey to Battambang. On the other side they craft a cart with the car wheels and pull the two carts along the road. They also train their children to lie about what their parents did prior to the Khmer Rouge taking over. And they hide all their valuables and medications. On their journey they come to a village but find everyone dead. They honor the dead and then move on.

By mid-August 1975 Khim's family has reached the river near the town of Kompong Thom. Kongcha meets a former employee named Song who is now a member of the Khmer Rouge but he doesn't know whether or not he can be trusted. In the village of Sandan, they meet Khim's Uncle Vithya. Khim tells him they have been walking for five months and are travelling to Battambang, Vithya tells him they will never be allowed into the village. Instead the Khmer Rouge are rounding up people to send them into the countryside. Kongcha tells Khim and Lina to stay with Vithya, as they are going to try to negotiate with the revolutionaries. They meet Ming Vy, Vithya's daughter Nary, Dany and Phalla whom they met on the way and their cousins Bo and Thy. 

Vithya reveals that he too wants to travel to Battambang and that Bo has a plan. It involves sneaking through the checkpoint between 2 and 4am. However, the plan fails when several other family members don't wake them and Kongcha, Vanny, Khim, Lina, Vithya and his family are left behind. Vithya tries to present a fake permit but the Khmer Rouge do not accept it because it is not stamped. 

Part Two  Do Not Worry

They are arrested and Khim and Vithya's families are sent to a village to be "re-educated according to the principles of Angkar." Song who is assigned to help relocate those not from the countryside, takes them to his village of Roneam. In the camp they are told to forget the past, to forget cognac and expensive clothing. They will write the country's history by plowing! They are told that Angkar knows what is good for them, that Angkar will lead them to victory. For each member of the family, their life in the village is terrible. Lina tells Khim she wishes this were just a bad dream. Vanny's mother, Ma Som is declining in health, while Reth, Sokha, Koliane and Phara all struggle under the terrible conditions and awful food.

In the village of Roneam, children are indoctrinated against their parents, the adults from the cities are made to work in the rice fields, and there is almost no food except watery rice gruel. Men denounce each other, and disappear, either killed with axes or fed to crocodiles. 

Part Three A New Beginning

In 1978, as the situation in Cambodia becomes dire, the Vietnamese decide to invade and quickly occupy the country. Khim and others do not know what to do, whether they can flee or join the opposition forces joining up with the Vietnamese. Eventually Khim and Lina learn that the opposition forces have liberated their area. When the Vietnamese bring in rice, Khim is reunited with an old university friend, Samrong who tells him that his entire family has died. 

In March, 1979 in Phnom Penh, Khim is offered work at a hospital and a bag of rice, and he also is given the address of Kongcha's family. Samrong takes Khim, Lina and Chan to visit Khim's family in Battambang. At the local hospital, Khim meets his cousin Dani who is a nurse. She tells him she lost her entire family and he learns from his cousin Thim, that his father has died. He decides to accept the governor's offer of a job in the hospital. 

Shortly afterwards, Khim receives a strange parcel from Thailand containing a pair of shoes that are too small, a T-shirt that is too big and a spool of thread. Eventually Khim finds a note in the spool that tells him that his mother, brothers and sisters are in a camp in Thailand and that he and his in-laws are the only ones missing. His uncle tells him that Cambodia is still too unstable and that there is war with the Vietnamese. He urges him to cross into Thailand with the help of two smugglers, Sanko and Athol who are waiting at Mongkol Borey. 

Khim obtains a travel pass and manages to get to Mongkol Borey with the Vietnamese. There he meets up with his family. However, it takes the help of an old friend from medical school, now a warlord to get Khim and his family across the Thai border.

Discussion

Year of the Rabbit tells the story of one family's experiences under the Khmer Rouge as they imposed communist rule throughout Cambodia. The country had been a colony of France, finally achieving independence in 1953. At that time Cambodia was led by King Norodom Sihanouk. Although Cambodia was neutral in the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong's use of Cambodia as a haven for its soldiers and its supply lines, led the United States to bomb the country from 1965 to 1973. 

In 1970 a coup d'etat by Lon Nol, removed Sihanouk and led to the start of the Cambodian Civil War. Eventually the Khmer Rouge, initially supported by Sihanouk in the early part of the war, would win, overthrowing Nol and taking control of the country in 1975. Under their leader, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge established a totalitarian regime: the cities were evacuated and the population forced into the countryside to work on farms. Ethnic minorities, intellectuals and former government officials as well as anyone who opposed the Khmer Rouge, were mass murdered. It is estimated almost two million people were killed. Eventually the Khmer Rouge were ousted by the Vietnamese who invaded the country in 1978. Elections held in 1981 did not provide stability as the government was not recognized internationally.  In 1991, a peace agreement resulted in Sihanouk heading up a coalition government.

Year of the Rabbit is the story of author Tian Veasna's family's struggle to survive during the brutal Pol Pot regime. He was born in Cambodia, in 1975, three days after the Khmer Rouge came to power. In 1980, he moved to France and after graduating from Strasbourg's Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in 2001 he returned to Cambodia to teach art. He wanted to portray what his family experienced in 1975 and so he returned to Cambodia many times to record the memories of family members.

There is no doubt that Tian Veasna's family's story is an important one that must be told, but using the graphic novel format may not have been the most effective means to do so. The story is complex with many characters and it was difficult at times to determine the identity of the different family members in some of the comic panels, as the story unfolds. However, the family tree at the front of the novel helps immensely as do the maps showing their journey and the pages explaining some of the Khmer propaganda, the structure of the Khmer government, and events such as the Vietnamese invasion.

Year of the Rabbit captures the terror of life under the Khmer Rouge. Veasna portrays many situations in which the Khmer Rouge brutalized their own people including Khim and Lina's family members. After fleeing Phnom Penh, Khim and Sokha witness a Khmer Rouge firing squad executing people. On their way to Battambang, Khim and his family enter a village where everyone has been murdered.  When they are relocated to the village of Roneam, the Khmer Rouge single out anyone with an education or who worked for the government. These people are then taken away to be murdered. Living conditions in the rural villages are terrible, with little food and hard labour in the fields. The prisons are even worse, where inmates are chained together and soil themselves. Lina's father, Kongcha dies in a prison where these conditions overwhelm him. No one knows for sure who they can trust and people denounce one another. Vithya denounces someone but when the man successfully proves he is mistaken, Vithya is thrown into a pit to be eaten alive by crocodiles. 

Despite the horrors, the account is filled with the many small miracles Khim and Lina's family experience. For example, when they are at the pagoda, a man who once worked for Khim intervenes, claiming Khim and his family are relatives. The Khmer Rouge relent and do not force the family into boats that would have taken them into the lake to be murdered. And ultimately, when the Khmer Rouge are deposed, Khim and Lina and many surviving family members are able to leave Cambodia and start new lives in other countries, although their experiences haunt them.

Year of the Rabbit is a novel that needs to be read by young readers. Besides a story of survival, resiliency and courage, it holds lessons in tolerance, acceptance and warns future generations what can happen when we stop striving to live in peace with each other and when we see differences as reasons to hate.

Readers may want to learn more about Cambodia and the Pol Pot regime: 

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum: https://tuolsleng.gov.kh/en/

Yale University's Genocide Studies Program: Cambodian Genocide: https://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/cambodian-genocide-program

Book Details:

Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna
Drawn & Quarterly     2020
376 pp.