The Possible Lives of W H, Sailor by Bushra Junaid

Coastal erosion has exposed a two-hundred-year old wooden coffin on the Strait of Belle Isle. The person in the coffin was buried with their head oriented east toward Africa. The man, with good teeth and kinky hair, was young and short in stature. He was also missing his forearm. The coffin also contained a knife and pouch and a shoe. These items had the initials WH engraved on them. Who was this man and what was his story? How did he come to be buried here?

Discussion

In June 1987, a burial site near the small fishing village of L'Anse au Loup on a part of the Labrador coast was exposed. Bones, fabric and wood were exposed. Archeological investigation revealed a coffin containing a skeleton wearing a military uniform, wrapped in a shroud of a wool blanket. There was also a pouch and in the pocket of the jacket was a pocket knife with the initials WH carved into it. The lone shoe had a W carved into the sole.

Working together, an osteologist and conservator were able to determine that the remains were that of a Black man. The presence of a twenty centimeter long wooden marlinspike, a tool used to separate or join together rope, in the coffin suggests that this was a sailor. Investigators believe that WH was possibly a midshipman or the servant of a ship's officer in the early 1800s.

The Atlantic was sometimes called the Black Atlantic for the number of Black people who sailed across the ocean. Over twelve million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic in slave ships. Approximately one-fifth of all sailors in both the merchant marine and the military were people of colour, some enslaved, others free.

In The Possible Lives of WH, Bushra Junaid, wonders about the life of the Black sailor known only as WH. Her poetry narrative is filled with questions about his name, his origin, how he came to be a sailor, lose his arm, and what he saw and felt. In asking these and many other questions, Montreal-born Junaid, an author, artist and curator, takes young readers on a short trip through the earliest Black history of Canada.

Millions of West Africans were captured and forcibly transported across the Atlantic from 1526 to 1867 in what was known as the Transatlantic slave trade. This journey in the Middle Passage, was done in the festering hold of a slave ship, under such terrible conditions, that many did not survive. 

Other Blacks were born on plantations in the Caribbean or in America where they cut sugarcane, picked cotton and planted rice. On these plantations, life was no easier. Junaid, in her Background To Timeline note at the back, writes that "Caribbean slave owners bought enormous quantities of the poorest grade of Newfoundland and Labrador codfish or 'salt fish' (also called 'refuse fish' or 'Jamaica fish') to feed their enslaved workforce." The enslaved were fed poorly, among other things. When Britain was considering abolishing the slave trade in 1791, there was concern that such a move would result in the collapse of the Newfoundland fishery. Little concern existed for the enslaved and their health.

Some enslaved Africans and people of colour, escaped by enlisting in the British or American navy. Some who fought for England during the American revolution, were given land in Nova Scotia. The land was of poor quality, but they stayed, had families and became an integral part of the history of Eastern Canada. All of these are possible origins for the sailor we know today only as WH.

In asking her questions and offering possible answers, Junaid paints "...a picture of what the life of a Black sailor in the later eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries may have been like."  something we know a bit about, from the writings of Black sailors from this era. 

The author has illustrated her story with beautiful artwork done both in traditional media and digital methods.Also included are the following resources: Background:Finding WH, a Timeline, Background To Timeline, References and Resources, photographs of Artifacts Found At WH's Burial Site, and a Teachers Guide.

The Possible Lives of WH, Sailor gives voice to the past, to those people of colour, who either by choice or not, are a part of Canada's history and the making of this country.

Book Details:

The Possible Lives of WH, Sailor by Bushra Junaid
Tors Cove, NL: Running the Goat Books & Broadsides,   2022

Storm of Olympus by Claire M. Andrews

Storm of Olympus picks up where the previous novel, Blood of Troy ended. 

The Trojan War is over and Troy has been destroyed. Not only that but Daphne battled her nemesis, Nyx, who warped the mind of her beloved brother Alkaios into attacking her. The resulting battle saw the release of the Titans who had been imprisoned beneath the city by Zeus as punishment for the Titanomachy. Close to death, she was fed an ambrosia seed by Apollo unleashing her immortal powers as the daughter of the titan, Oceanus. Daphne fled the city along with others including Odysseus and his men. Now on Aeaea Island, Daphne struggles to come to terms with all she has lost: her mother, her beloved brother Alkaios, her kingdom and her queen. 

Aeaea is the prison and sanctuary of the titaness, Circe. Daphne is now a titan with the ability to control the sea and the sky. Circe encourages Daphne to use her emotions to call up her new powers, but even the pain she feels over the death of her brother Alkaios fails to work and almost leads to Daphne drowning. Meanwhile on the beach below Circe's cottage, Odysseus and his men work on rebuilding their ships.

Asleep in Circe's cottage, Daphne is awoken by screams. She races down to the beach where Circe and Odysseus are pulling bodies from the waves. One of the bodies is that of Hermes, the messenger god, who is barely alive. Circe manages to save Hermes, removing the poison of Nyx from him.

When Daphne falls asleep that night, Hypnos, the god of sleep, shows her the destruction of the Olympian gods by the Titans. She sees Hera get impaled, a dead Poseidon, the death of Demeter, Persephone and Hades. Apollo, her lover, warns Daphne to leave before she too is killed. Horrified, she watches as Apollo and Zeus are killed by the titans.  Hypnos tells Daphne she can still save them. When she awakens, Daphne tells Circe that the titans have stormed Olympus, killing the gods and have claimed Mount Olympus for themselves. She was unable to save them, but Circe tells her that's because she isn't ready yet to use her powers.

When Hermes regains consciousness, he tells Daphne that she is able to save the gods including her lover, Apollo, because they are not dead but trapped in Tartarus (the Underworld), a sort of purgatory or cage. He tells her must free the gods from the Underworld. Hermes informs Daphne that because of the curse on him, the titans will know where Daphne has fled and they will come to Aeaea. He was a spy in the titan's camp during the Trojan war. He also tells Daphne that Helen of Troy, Lykou, and Hippolyta are safe in Mount Kyllini and that in the seven months that she has been on the island, the titans have attacked Olympus, while Agamemnon's army has conquered Athens, Crete and Salamis. The Spartans have rebelled against Menelaus but likely will not defeat him. 

Eventually Odysseus and his men finish one ship and Daphne and Hermes set sail for Eleusis where they know there is still an entrance to the Underworld. During the journey there, Hermes reveals that Cronus is likely leading the titan army which includes Perses the titan of destruction, Phoibe and  Oceanus, Daphne's father. Daphne will not only have to free the gods from Tartarus, but she must also reclaim Mount Olympus and save the Garden of Hesperides. But can Daphne accept her fate, as the Storm of Olympus, to save those she loves?

Discussion

Storm of Olympus is a book of battles from beginning to end with plenty of gore and death. Andrews draws from Greek and Norse mythology to create a lengthy saga involving a secondary goddess, Daphne while incorporating many other facets of Greek mythology.

The end of the Trojan war has seen the release of the titans from their prison beneath the city of Troy. They waste no time in attacking the gods on Mount Olympus, defeating and imprisoning them in Tartarus. Their ultimate goal is to take over the world. Daphne, now a titan, is the gods' only hope of regaining Mount Olympus. But to do this she must learn to wield her immense powers over sea and sky. With the help of Hermes and the mortal, Odysseus, she journeys to Eleusis, the location of a door to the Underworld. There, after battles with sea monsters and the god Ares as well as titans, Daphne, with the help of the souls of the Underworld including her beloved brother Alkaios and her friend Theseus, frees the gods. Escaping the Underworld takes Daphne and the gods to Lemnos, the site of the resistance's camp and Hephaestus's forge. In an attempt to win the battle against the titans, Daphne is initially unsuccessful in enlisting the help of the gods of Asgard: Odin, Thor, Freyja  and Loki. This, despite her reminding the AEsir, that should the titans and gods succeed in controlling the Garden of the Hesperides, they will come for other gardens including Yggdrasil.

Eventually, Daphne along with Zeus and the other Olympians, their mortal and centaur allies engage the titans and their allies, the armies of Menelaus and Agamemnon in an epic battle on Mount Olympus. Daphne is fighting to restore balance to Mount Olympus because she, along with some of the Olympian gods and the mortals, believes the gods/titans have abused their powers. They have used the mortals, causing wars and other calamities for their amusement. Mortals like Clytemnestra, princess of Sparta also believe that the gods allowed Troy to fall, and that they have led mortals "astray with their selfish interests  for too many centuries." 

Once they take Mount Olympus, Daphne must now protect the Garden where Zeus and Poseidon have fled. The AEsir do eventually respond and come to their aid in this final battle, helping defeat Zeus, Nyx and Poseidon. Daphne explains what must happen next:

"A thousand years ago, the Garden spoke to the goddess Hecate and told her to give the Olympians and titans ambrosia, creating the immortals we know today. They were chosen as the Hesperides's protectors, to keep the power from falling into the wrong hands and destroying the world. Some - the titans - went mad with power. Over the centuries, it consumed many of the gods, too." Now the Garden has asked for new protectors, balance and sacrifice. Hecate arrives to help decide who will be the protectors, allowing the Garden to be reborn.

Storm of Olympus is plot-driven, with a wealth of battles, gore and gruesome death, but also sacrifice and heroism. There are so many characters and various monsters in the novel that unless the reader is well versed in Greek and Norse mythology, they may feel overwhelmed. Andrews, to her credit, does attempt to identify characters and beasts within the story. There is a list of characters at the back of the novel but this by no means covers every character or monster involved (for example, Perses, a recurring character is missing). This list should be more extensive, perhaps in order of appearance in the story, and placed at the front of the book. 

A subplot is the relationship between Daphne and her lover Apollo. He is the impetus for her drive to save the Olympians from Tartarus. Seeing his gruesome death at that hands of the titans fuels her rage which leads her to develop and learn to control her power over sea and sky. They are reunited after his rescue from Tartarus and survive many battles. Another storyline is the relationship Daphne has with her brothers, Alkaios who was warped by Nyx and whom Daphne killed, and Pyrrhus who considers her a Spartan traitor. She is reunited with both at various points and they each experience the power of forgiveness.

Not surprisingly, the major character, Daphne is a strong, determined, courageous immortal who risks everything to try to save those she loves. Along the way she learns to trust not only her own abilities, but her friends too.

Storm of Olympus ends happily, after many battles, hardship, suffering and sacrifice. Andrews has crafted a unique story, focusing on a minor figure in Greek mythology, Daphne, beautiful daughter of a river god, loved by Apollo. This trilogy will appeal to those adults and older teens who have a good knowledge of mythology and who grew up on the Greek and Norse myths!

Book Details:

Storm of Olympus by Claire M. Andrews
New York: Little, Brown and Company    2023
470 pp.

Kin: Rooted In Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford

In Kin, author Carole Boston Weatherford tells the story of her family, descended from ancestors brought to America via the Atlantic Slave trade.

As a teenager, Weatherford was uninterested in her past, and more concerned with life in the present. She knew her great-great-grandfather Phillip Moaney had been enslaved but that was the extent of knowledge of her ancestry. Before Alex Haley's mini-series, "Roots" few Black people considered exploring their ancestry back to Africa. With his book and the television show that changed.

At Wye River, a plantation named Wye House includes Long Green, a village of tradespeople, sailors, sawyers and boat builders. At Long Green, enslaved people lived and loved, having both shackles and bonds that linked them. Life is hard: they sleep on bare planks with only one blanket and the food is not good.

Wye House is the jewel in the Lloyd family's crown. Its Puritan patriarch, Edward Lloyd emigrated from the British Isles to America in 1645. He eventually settled in Maryland colony, and was granted land by Lord Baltimore, Charles Calvert. Wye House states that it is an "agricultural factory" powered by hundreds of Black slaves. The house states:

"I am proof of the wealth

that America's founding families could amass

by enslaving laborers and marrying money...

I witnessed more cruelty than I care to recall

The sin of slavery haunts my every hall..."

The Lloyd's 1781 ledger contains an earliest known ancestor including the name of twenty-one-year old Isaac Copper. The ledger is a record of the Lloyd's property including cattle, farming equipment and slaves: their names, ages, occupations but also infirmities and quality. All are property, even the people.

Weatherford's great-grandpa James Henry Moaney never told her that his father (her great-great-grandfather) Phillip has been enslaved and that his father-in-law, Isaac Copper was also enslaved at Wye House but fought in the Civil War.

A litany of Lloyd's from Edward Lloyd III (who lived from 1711 to 1770) to Edward Lloyd VII (1825 to 1907) speak about life at Wye House and in the Maryland area. Edward Lloyd III is concerned about "the French corrupting enslaved people with promises of freedom" while his son Edward Lloyd IV switches sides during the Revolution. He now owns two-hundred-sixty Blacks. As the Lloyd's influence grows, Colonel Edward Lloyd V (1779 to 1834) becomes  a state senator and eventually Maryland's thirteenth governor and a U.S. Senator. A boy called Frederick listens and learns outside the schoolroom window as Lloyd's children are tutored. 

Edward Lloyd VI (1798 to 1861) owns over four hundred Blacks, worth more than twenty-eight thousand dollars. He trusts his overseers "to wield the lash and report runaways."  Unable to support so many slaves at Wye House, Lloyd moves some slaves south to Mississippi, taking them along as punishment and selling some. Edward Lloyd (1825 to 1907) sees all of his slaves freed as a result of Emancipation. In 1881, that boy called Frederick, Frederick Douglass returns to Wye House where he makes peace with the slaver Thomas who repeatedly beat him.

Frederick Douglass (1818 to 1895) was brought to Wye House by his grandmother when he was six-years-old. He lived with Captain Anthony who he learned was his father. He was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and he was enslaved. He was "a ship caulker, abolitionist, orator, and publisher of the North Star newspaper. After the Civil War, a public servant who rose to become minister of the Republic of Haiti." Frederick Douglass writes about Isaac Copper, a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Divinity, and a confirmed cripple who taught Douglass and other children how to say the Lord's prayer. It is Douglass's written account of Wye House that leads the author  to an Isaac Copper, the man she knew who leaned heavily on a cane. He was not the Isaac Copper who fought in the Civil War but likely his son. The Isaac Copper in the ledger of 1781 was likely born c.1760 or 1763. Weatherford wonders how he came to be owned by the Lloyds in a poem filled with many questions.

From this point on, the life of the children of Isaac and Nanny Copper, other slaves at Wye House are told, including some who flee as the Civil War approaches. And after freedom, it is the Coppers who work at building Black villages during the Reconstruction era, their industriousness and their determination to make a better world for their children and grandchildren.

 Discussion

Kin is author Carole Boston Weatherford's family's story, begun in Africa and told in America. It is a story mostly lost in the mists of time, with just enough hints and records to form an understanding. The setting spans the mid-1600's to the early 1900's, in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore, at Wye House, the state's largest slave plantation and in the Black Reconstruction-era villages of Unionville and Copperville. 

Before Alex Haley's famous "Roots" mini-series, many African Americans never considered tracing their own "roots" back to Africa. For many, their roots go back only a few generations, before the darkness of the past closes in. For Weatherford and her son, they could only trace their family back five generations. And so with what information she could glean from records, library records and historical societies, from databases of slave ships and records from Wye House, Weatherford has pieced together a story, giving voice to her ancestors who were enslaved but who, when freed after the Civil War, played an important part in the founding of several Black Reconstruction-era villages. 

Kin  is written in verse, featuring many different voices, including several Isaac Coppers whom Weatherford believes are her ancestors: Young Isaac Copper and his wife Nanny, some of their eight children including Marena, Prissy and Polly Copper as well as sons Henry (born 1800) Isaac Copper II (born 1798), and Isaac Copper III who fought in the Civil War and became a founding father of a Black village. 

Other poems give voice to Colonel Lloyd, Daniel Lloyd son of Colonel Lloyd whose companion was Frederick Douglass, Edward Lloyd IV's wife Elizabeth Tayloe Lloyd, house servant Daphne, Chicken Sue who cares for the poultry, the servant Katy who once worked in the Great House Kitchen but now cooks for her people because she's too old. Then there are poems in the voice of  former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Francis Scott Key composer of The Star-Spangled Banner and Harriet Tubman,

Chesapeake Bay, Wye House, the Wooden Case Clock, and the ship The Rachel also lend their voices, all having no say in their involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.  The Rachel laments being involved in the slave trade:

 "I am no vessel for sweet memories...

I bore thirty-seven Blacks into bondage

in the British colonies, having lost but one

Black captive enroute from Antigua

Yet my belly is full of regret..."

The ship mentions it is like the enslaved teenager, Rose who bore Captain Bruff two sons: "I had no more say in carrying cargo than Rose did in bearing those children." .

Each of these poems piece together a part of the story, from the beginnings of Wye House, the generations of the Lloyd family who enrich themselves through the slave trade and move up the social class ladder, the ships that brought the enslaved to America, the enslaved who lived, suffered and worked the plantation, those who ran away sometimes successful sometimes not, the enslaved who fought in the Civil War and who returned free men to rebuild their lives and communities. 

The poems portray life as a slave: the beatings for the slightest infractions, long hours of back-breaking work in the fields, little food, one set of clothing and shoes that once worn out meant going naked, the rape and forced pregnancy of young enslaved girls, and separation of families as children and parents are sold off sometimes for extra money, sometimes as punishment. In contrast, the life a slaveholder like the Lloyds was one of opulence, enriched by the free work of the enslaved. Many poems describe Wye House as one that included beautiful furniture "mahogany table draped in fine lace and set with English crystal, china, and silver", and expensive carriages, saddles and harnesses. The family ate delicious food  and sipped "fine wines shipped from across the ocean".  

Wye House was a house of many mirrors, of all types, that witnessed the goings on in the plantation. Those mirrors saw all the occupants of the house, including the enslaved. Weatherford notes this in several poems including "My Question For the Looking Glasses" and in "Missing Faces" The mirrors are "...forever neutral as generations dart past or pose to ponder reflections." The author also noticed that while the oil paintings, etchings and silhouettes remain as memorials to the Lloyds, there is nothing to remember the generations of enslaved who passed through the house.  In Missing Faces, Weatherford writes, "Absent are the visages of my ancestors" who "hanged the Lloyds' framed conceits," While the decor endures, Weatherford writes, "...But the faces of my kin have vanished. Erased."  And so through her poetry, Weatherford gives voice to some of those enslaved at Wye House, and allows us to see them through the artwork of Jeffery Boston Weatherford.

Carole Boston Weatherford has written a thought-provoking novel-in-verse about slavery in Maryland, at the state's largest slave plantation, imagining what life might have been like for her enslaved ancestors. It's evident from the extensive Bibliography at the back of the novel, that she has done considerable historical and genealogical research. This research, as is often the case, leads only to more questions which Weatherford expresses in her poetry.

What might have given more clarity to the genealogy of the author's family as she understands it to date,  is a cast of characters and perhaps a family tree that outlines her connection to the Coppers. From the novel's poems, Weatherford reveals that her great-great-grandfather Phillip Moaney was enslaved and that his son, her great-grandfather James Henry Moaney, born in 1872, seven years after the end of the Civil War (1865) was born free. His father-in-law was Isaac Copper who was enslaved at Wye House, and fought in the Civil War. For whatever reason, James Moaney never spoke about Isaac Copper being enslaved. Weatherford assumes that the practice of naming children after kin continued throughout the passing generations - a reasonable assumption given the number of Isaac Coppers in the ledgers. This is a custom common to many families.

Kin: Rooted In Hope also portrays one of the consequences of slavery: the loss of family roots that often cannot be reclaimed. Our heritage connects us to the past, to our culture, our beliefs and our identity. Knowing our past helps us to understand who we are and develop resiliency as we see how ancestors dealt with difficult life situations. For Weatherford, knowing that her ancestors were significant contributors to life for Blacks in the Reconstruction Era was likely encouraging and a source of intense pride. Despite the hardship they had endured, they built something good out of slavery and the ruins of war. They formed a sense of community and connection that continues to this day.

The beautiful artwork, done on scratch board adds considerably to the story, capturing the many emotions of various characters and embodying  the darkness of slavery. The cover art is exquisite, the purple background suggesting royalty and the title in gold, as many of the enslaved came from what was known as the Gold Coast of Africa, including many African kings. Kin: Rooted In Hope is a book that asks its readers to pause and think about those that came unwillingly before, ripped from land and home, and yet persevered, bringing a rich cultural to what would become America. 

Book Details:

Kin: Rooted In Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford
New York: Atheneum Books For Young Readers     2023

202 pp.

Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods by Grace Lin

Chinese Menu explores the stories, myths and fables behind the many foods that make up Chinese cuisine.

First up is a chapter on Chopsticks. Lin admits to using chopsticks incorrectly, that her parents from Taiwan, never really instructed as to how to hold them. She uses chopsticks to eat but holds them "wrong", as her older sister likes to remind her.  In this chapter, several stories about how chopsticks came to be invented are told.  In the introduction, Lin writes that chopsticks were probably used as cooking tools during the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1100 B.C.) or Western Zhou dynasty (1100 to 771 B.C.). They were made of bronze and were much longer so they could be used in deep pots and hot oil.

The great Chinese philosopher, Confucius encouraged the use of chopsticks over forks and knives, which he believed were reminiscent of weapons. A man of peace, he felt this was not good dining protocol. So forks and knives were replaced by polished chopsticks. Around 400 B.C., a population boom meant a need to save cooking oil. To do this, vegetables and meat were cut into smaller portions and chopsticks made eating these smaller pieces easier. Eventually chopsticks became rounded, shorter and commonplace.

Lin identifies some the superstitions around the use of chopsticks and recounts several of the stories surrounding chopsticks. For example, do not place chopsticks near the cups, uneven pairs mean possible bad luck and do not place them upright in food! There are many stories about chopsticks including how Yu the Great or possibly the beautiful but selfish Daji, companion of Emperor Zhou may have invented them. Do chopsticks detect poison?

In Chapter 2 Tea, Lin explores the central place tea has in Chinese culture and identity. Tea was first cultivated by China, where different varieties were grown. Tea ceremonies are important as they can serve to honour elders and be rituals of contemplation and respect. In this chapter the author highlights some of the stories that are often told about how Dragon Well Tea, Jasmine Tea, Oolong Tea (often served at Chinese restaurants) and White Hair Silver Needle Tea (a medicinal tea) came to be. Lin also shares one of the many legends about how the tea plant came to be cultivated, a story that is connected to the founding of Zen Buddhism in China.

Chapter 3 explores appetizers. A traditional meal in a Chinese home is usually comprised of soup, rice and three or four hot dishes. However, in Western society meals are organized differently with appetizers, side dishes and desserts. So Chinese immigrants designed their restaurant menu's in this way, but also mindful of the American palate. Instead of tofu, jellyfish and seaweed, they chose street food common in China such as meat kebabs and festival foods like dumplings and spring rolls.

In this chapter Lin tells the story of how the first dumplings came about. The name dumpling possibly originated from the word jiao er which means "tender ears".  Chinese takeout almost always offers egg rolls and spring rolls. Egg rolls are dipped in egg before frying  while spring rolls often have a rice-flour wrapper and can be eaten cold. Spring rolls have been a part of Chinese cuisine for a long time: the story of their invention goes back to the late 1500's and the Ming dynasty. Another interesting story in this chapter is how scallion pancakes became the inspiration for pizza.

Soup is a very common part of meals in China where it is "considered an essential part of a meal in Chinese cuisine." It is possible soup has been served in China for at least twenty-thousand years. It was often used to treat illness. In Chapter 4, Lin discusses soup in general, including how making soup in Chinese cuisine is an exact process, from how meats and vegetables are diced, to the temperature and amount of water used (no water is added during cooking!). The legends behind various soups are presented: from Wonton Soup, Crossing the Bridge Noodle soup originating in Yunnan Province, to Hot and Sour soup (likely adapted from a spicy soup receipe from Henan Province), Sizzling Rice soup to the famous Bird's Nest soup made from siftlet nests. 

In Chapter 5 Side Dishes, Lin explains how the meal in China has changed through the years, from being a meal eaten at "low, individual tables throughout the Qin dynasty" to "shared-dish eating with gong-kai (literally translated as 'public chopsticks') as the shared serving utensil became the norm. The structure of the meal has also changed somewhat in North America from consisting of rice (fan) first followed by cai (vegetables and/or meat) to primarily meat and vegetables with rice on the side.  This chapter focuses on several dishes including rice which is easy to store and cook is a staple of Chinese cuisine. It is respected in Chinese culture because it is difficult to grow as evidenced by the complex system of rice paddies, terraces and irrigation systems the Chinese have developed. It is also used in many religious rituals and is believed to symbolize the connection between Earth and the Heavens. 

In this chapter, legends about how people first received rice, about niangao a special rice cake often a part of Lunar New Year celebrations are highlighted. As well, the history of noodles as part of Chinese cuisine, especially in Northern China where wheat is grown rather than rice, chow mein (stir-fried noodles) and tofu are complemented with wonderful stories.

In Chapter 6 Chef's Specials, Lin finally leads her readers to the main dishes of Chinese cuisine. Because most early Chinese immigrants were from Canton (now Guandzhou), food in Chinese restaurants was mainly Cantonese-style. Lin outlines the eight great regional cuisines of China in this chapter and why many Chinese dishes have elaborate names.

In this chapter readers will learn about Kung Pao Chicken or Gongbao Chicken as it is known in China, Sweet and Sour Pork, Buddha Jump Over The Wall (a type of rich stew that includes quail eggs, duck, chicken, ham and sea cucumbers!), Mu Shu Pork from the Shandong region, the famous Peking Duck, Beef and Broccoli, Emperor Chicken,  and Mapo Tofu (a Sichuan dish that is popular in Asia and very spicy). There's an interesting discussion on Chop Suey a Chinese dish that once was made with animal entrails! and Beggars Chicken, a stuffed chicken baked in mud. 

Finally, Chapter 7 Desserts touches on a few sweet offerings in Chinese cuisine. There is no dessert course and no traditional Chinese word for dessert, as sweets are usually eaten between meals. However, Lin explains some of the sweets Chinese love including oranges which symbolize luck, gold and success, Red Bean Soup, ice cream, and of course Fortune Cookies.

Discussion

Grace Lin's Chinese Menu is a long-overdue book that explains many different aspects of Chinese cuisine, as we know it in America (and Canada). Lin takes her readers on a smorgasbord of Chinese dishes from basic rice, to the famous Bird's Nest Soup and Peking Duck, to tofu, oranges and fortune cookies.

Most North Americans probably know that the food we eat in Chinese restaurants, is not really the food that is served or cooked at home in China. Lin acknowledges this in her Author's Note at the back. "Yes, every Chinese dish served in an American restaurant has been adapted and changed. Yes, many do not have the flavors of traditional Chinese cuisine and are unlike what you would find in China. But Chinese American cuisine is the flavor of resilience, the flavor or adaptability, the flavor of persistence and triumph. Above anything, this food is the flavor of America." 

As she remarks in her Note, the Chinese immigrants who faced racism, violence and hardship, "...used their cuisine - their cuisine with its rich and wonderful histories and myths - to survive. They constantly adapted and changed their recipes to use the ingredients that were locally available..." The result was the creation of a new cuisine, that of the Chinese diaspora. 

Lin wrote this book partially to dispel the notion that American Chinese cuisine is a "cheap" food offering compared with European cuisine, such as French or Greek food. Although Chinese food was often offered at bargain prices to attract diners, there was plenty of hard work by American Chinese to not only to adapt cuisine from their homeland dishes, but to establishing their restaurant clientele. 

As she so aptly demonstrates in Chinese Menu, Chinese food has a rich history with each dish having stories, myths or legends about how they were created or how their sometimes very unique names came about. Organizing her book according to a menu one might encounter in a Chinese restaurant, allows Lin to provide an overview of each category and then focus on some of the more common offerings. And to give her Western readers some context,  Lin provides not only a map of the provinces in China, but also a historic timeline of the various dynasties and the foods she writes about in the book. 

Chinese Menu offers readers the opportunity to better appreciate not only Chinese cuisine but also the rich culture that underlies each dish they might encounter the next time they have Chinese take-out. Lin discusses the importance of dragons in Chinese culture and mythology, Chinese history and festivals.  Accompanying each chapter is Lin's beautiful artwork, rendered "in pencil on tracing paper and then scanned, retouched and colored in Adobe Photoshop." The extensive Bibliography at the back is evidence that the author has done extensive research for each chapter to back up her own rich cultural experience. 

Chinese Menu is an exquisite and informative book with a beautiful cover that invites young readers inside. Highly recommended!

Book Details:

Chinese Menu by Grace Lin

New York: Little, Brown and Company    2023

288 pp.

Eagle Drums by Nasugrao Rainey Hopson

Pina lives with his mother and father in the harsh Arctic tundra, where winter lasts eight months, leaving them only four months to stock food. They are Inupiaq.

Out on a hunting trip, Pina catches twelve caribou. For each of the fallen animals, Pina honours their lives, placing a pinch of lichen on each of the animal's tongues and severing the third vertebra. He butchers the caribou, wrapping the meat in their skins and burying the bundles to keep them cool until he can return. Eventually, the caribou meat is stored in the family's siglauq, an underground chamber carved into the ice that never melted, deep within the ground.

Pina had two brothers, the elder Atau and a middle brother, Maligu. When Atau had disappeared long ago in the mountains, his beautifully carved bow, found by their parents, passed on to Maligu. He carved many images into the bow, of mountains and land animals, and where they can be found. But Maligu also disappeared in the mountains, leaving behind the bow. Neither Pina nor his parents knew what happened to either boy. Pina's father's grief was intense so he focused on being the best son.

Pina and his parents live alone, rarely encountering any other people. Their life is good, and they always seem to have enough to eat. They shun people and Pina doesn't really know how his parents met.

One night during dinner, Pina's mother indicates they need more obsidian and because his father will be fishing down the coast to bring in one last catch, Pina will have to travel to the mountains where it can be found. Pina senses his mother's worry but he is not concerned as he has made many trips to the mountains since the disappearance of his brothers without any problem.

Taking his pack and his bow, Pina heads out with the blessing of his parents. When he stops to eat and rest at the base of the mountains, Pina hears the cry of a golden eagle. Suddenly he finds himself under attack by the eagle. Barely escaping, Pina confronts the great bird, waiting to see what it does. When Pina does not attack, the eagle settles and then begins violently shaking its head, causing the feathers to peel off.  Pina sees before him a tall man, wearing a parka of golden feathers. He remembers his mother telling him that "Animals are like us, Pina...They choose to be animals, but when they need to be human, they take off their parkas. And then they are human for a while...Respect them as you would any strong spirit, and never challenge them; you will always lose..."

Pina is certain that this being must have a purpose for revealing himself. The man tells Pina that he is responsible for the deaths of his brothers, bringing out the pain of their loss in him again. He swiftly approaches Pina, telling him he may call him Savik. The eagle-man offers Pina a choice, he can come with him or die like his brothers chose to. Knowing his parents would want him to live, Pina agrees to go with Savik and so picking up his gear follows him. For the next fourteen months, Pina will live with the eagles, learning the lessons they wish to teach him and bringing home this knowledge to his people.

Discussion

Eagle Drums tells the story of how the Messenger Feast came to be in the Inupiat culture. The Inupiat live in the Arctic Circle and they were hunter-gatherers, relying on hunting and fishing as well as foraging. They hunted seals, whale, polar bears, caribou and fish, and also foraged for berries, roots and shoots. With such a life-style, every part of the animal was used. Hopson portrays this throughout her novel, through her main characters, Pina and his parents. Pina's mother was especially skilled at turning caribou skins into beautiful parkas with exquisite borders. And Pina, while living with the eagles, knows what plants and roots he needs to search for in the deep of winter, saving himself from starving.

Hopson, in her Author's Note, explains the Messenger Feast came about because long ago, their people were very isolated from one another. So men ran for miles to find other Inupiat and invite them to the feast. With the arrival of Christian missionaries, the Inupiaq songs and dances, their stories  and their festivals were banned. It was only recently that the the Messenger Feast was reclaimed, after listening to the Elders' accounts of experiencing the festival when they were children.

The origin story of the festival, related in Eagle Drums is that of a boy kidnapped by golden eagles who teach him lessons on how to make drums, compose songs, dance and how to build a qalgi, a large hall where all could come together to feast, dance and tell stories. The hero of the story, Pina is then tasked to bring together his community for the first feast when he returns home. His parents, thrilled to see their son whom they thought was lost, are happy to help plan for the feast, by storing food, making gifts for those who attend, and building a qalgi. 

Pina is taught much more than just the skills to hold a festival. From the eagles he learns that he does not have to do everything alone. When he and Savik begin to plan work on the large qalgi, Pina wishes that he had ten people to help him. To his surprise, the eagles help by bringing supplies for the building. Savik tells him that work goes much faster if you ask for help and work with others. This new idea makes Pina feel uncomfortable. "He had never owed strangers anything before. With his family there was just this understanding."

The first festival has a profound effect on Pina. He had been raised by his parents to be wary of strangers. When he was a ten-years old, he remembered his family, while on their way to their wintering grounds, encountering a family on the tundra. Pina remembered being filled with fear as he had never been so close to strangers before. The strangers believed that Pina's family were rich because of their clothing. Pina saw that they were hungry and tired. At home that night Pina questions his father who tells him that because they do not know strangers, they cannot trust them. Pina wants to help the family and attempts to take food to them in the middle of the night but is prevented from doing so by his oldest brother. Atau tells Pina that when he did this, the people did not trust him and thought he would try to steal from them. 

After the feast, Pina experiences new feelings. "He felt as if his very soul had grown and found roots in the people around him. He felt more connected than he had ever before, connected to the world, connected to the life around him, and connected to his parents. The celebrations filled him with such inspiration, such wonder, and and enduring strength. He felt his humanity blossom with new insight and a deeper sense of stability."  For Pina, the feast showed him that living more fully is to experience connections with others and the natural world. 

Eagle Drums was written and illustrated by Nasurgrao Rainey Hopson, a tribally enrolled Inupiaq author and illustrator who loves celebrating and helping to reclaim her Indigenous culture. Hopson is a gifted story-teller and her account of the origin of the Messenger Festival is both engaging and rich in details about life and survival in the high Arctic. 

Book Details: 

Eagle Drums by Nasugrao Rainey Hopson
New York: Roaring Brook Press      2023
245 pp.

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers: Remembering the "Comfort Women" of World War II by Han Seong-won

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers is a beautiful tribute to some of World War II's most courageous women survivors: girls and young women enslaved by the Japanese Imperial Army to be sexually abused for years.

Between 1932 and 1945, the Japanese Imperial Army set up what they called "comfort stations" in war zones. With the outbreak of war in the Pacific during World War II, young girls were lured from home or forcibly taken and placed in these "comfort stations." It was not until 1991 that the Japanese government would even begin to acknowledge the existence of such places.

In Chapter 1 Testimony, Han Seong-won offers the testimonies of these women, called Grandmothers because many of the women are now elderly and grandmothers. The first Grandmother to publicly testify about her enslavement by the Japanese Imperial Army was Kim Hak-soon, who filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government. As a result, women from many countries including the Philippines and the Netherlands testified. Eventually, August 14th was designated as "World Memorial Day for Comfort Women" to raise worldwide awareness of this tragic issue.

Grandmother Kim Bok-dong, a comfort woman, testified at the 1993 U.N. Human Rights Commission, and told her story in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. Grandmother Kang Il-chul was forced to work in a "comfort station" in Chanchun of Jilin Province, China. Grandmother Jan Ruff O'Herne, one of the few non-Asians, was a sex slave on Java Island, Indonesia, at a comfort station called Chilhaejung. She sewed the names of all the girls who arrived there on a white hankerchief. Grandmother  Jan broke her silence about this hell in 1992 and testified in 2007 at a hearing in the United States House of Representatives.

In Chapter 2 Memories, many of the Grandmother remember specific things about their home and life, such a love of singing, or a special folk songs. Some forget their names or their memories. For other Grandmothers, memories bring pain and open old wounds. And some make new memories in new cities like New York. 

In Chapter 3 Travelling Together explores how others can travel the road with the Grandmothers, working for recognition and an apology by Japan, helping to bring honour and healing to these women. 

The author while visiting Paris, was struck by the fact that the city does not destroy things that are old. Instead it values them and the memories they bring. This led him to think about how eighty years after the war, people are suggesting that what happened to the Grandmothers be forgotten because it is in the past. 

The Grandmothers and what happened to them are remembered through their testimonies, scholarships to students, and in movies like "I Can Speak." And they are being helped by Japanese women like Misseuko Nobukawa who heard rumours about women and children at the front but didn't bother much about it. It was the testimony of Grandmother Kim Hak-soon that changed everything and made her ashamed to be Japanese. She now travels the journey of the Grandmothers, in particular Grandmother Lee Yong-soo for recognition and apology.

In 2019, over twenty thousand people came together in protest and to remember on August 14 in South Korea. The author participated in this protest, held on the 7th World Memorial Day for the "comfort women" of Japan. By not forgetting, the memory of the Grandmothers is honoured.

Discussion

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers is a moving tribute to the young girls and women, forced by the Japanese Imperial Army to be "sex slaves" for their soldiers as they rampaged through the Pacific. This crime against humanity was covered up by the Japanese government and military through the use of the euphemisms of "comfort women" and "comfort stations". In Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers, Han writes, "From the stance of the perpetrators, the term "comfort women" is a way to hide the Japanese Imperial Army's horrible deeds." He also notes that the term "humiliates the survivors and deepens their wounds." "Comfort women" is therefore enclosed in quotations as a form of resistance to this term which is used by survivors only because this is how Japanese historical records have labelled the women.

This graphic memoir is not an easy read because the subject matter is horrifying even though Han does not go into any of the details of what the Grandmothers experienced as young women. The exact number of young girls and women involved is not truly known, but it is believed that anywhere between fifty thousand and two hundred thousand women were "sex slaves". Many of the women were minors and many women were lured by promises of work. Women were taken from Korea, Philippines, China, Vietnam. Burma, Thailand, Malay,  and other countries including women from Australia and the Netherlands. They were repeatedly raped day and night, suffering horrific injuries and illness and many died of abuse or suicide. 

Han humanizes the young girls and women forcibly taken and abused so long ago. His portraits give faces to the "comfort women"; they are not simply a faceless, nameless group of survivors. They are real girls and women whose youth was lost in enslavement and abuse and whose trauma lives on with them. In fact, Han Seong-won's portrait of Grandmother Kim Bok-dong as a young girl and then as an elderly woman, especially highlights this reality. 

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers is a book of remembering, of resilience, of determination, of care and of hope. The hope is that as more and more people are informed about what happened, that the Japanese government will do the right thing and apologize to the Grandmothers with sincerity, ask for forgiveness and make restitution.

Book Details:

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers: Remembering the "Comfort Women" of World War II by Han Seong-won
Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing      2023
174 pp. 

A Horse Named Sky by Rosanne Parry

A horse named Sky  is born into a family of horses that includes Mother, Auntie Gale and Auntie Rain, their stallion Thunder, and Rain's filly, Storm. Sky looks up to Storm who can run like the wind and he spends the seasons trying to catch her. Sky also learns that he must run from the "howlers", and that speed is strength. He also learns many other things from his family: Auntie Gale tells Sky to "watch for the claw beast", while Auntie Rain tells him not to eat the purple flowers.

Storm, as a filly, will stay with the mares, but Sky who is a stallion must soon either fight Thunder or move on.

One summer day, after several more seasons have passed, Sky and Storm wonder at the humans arriving with their "draggers", pulling various heavy loads. They have seen humans before: in the past "buckskin-dun humans with black manes" (Indians) have come to take the cones off the pinon trees for their seeds, and harvest sage. But the two mustangs note that the new humans are not interested in the seeds. Sky thinks they have come for the trees. Thunder tells them to avoid the humans.

The summer heat continues into the fall and the horses struggle to find food and water. Jack, the old burro stallion rounds up his jennies and leaves, telling Sky he is taking them to a place where there is a single mountain and a swift river. Auntie Gale leads the mares and their foals, and the colts to a spring which bubbles out of the ground on a rock. Although Sky is the last to drink, he is thankful. However, as the drought continues, Sky is frequently chased away by Thunder, who wants what little water there is for his mares.

As the spring begins to dry up, Sky knows the time for him to leave has come. Storm doesn't want him to leave though. Sky tries to follow the rain clouds, walking across the steppe. He remembers that water goes into ravines, so that's where he walks and he soon finds water...and meets up with Storm. Sky is surprised to see Storm, telling her "mares don't leave", but she tells him they can choose. However, Sky and Storm's freedom and time together is short-lived.

While tasting salt-licks, suddenly a group of humans riding large horses charge out of the brush and give chase to Sky, Storm and three brother stallions. The horses race across the steppe and into a narrow canyon where they hope to hide. However, they quickly find themselves trapped and Sky and several of the stallions are taken captive. Soon Sky finds himself pressed into running for the Pony Express. But no matter how well he's treated, with delicious food, rubs and shelter, the urge to be free and to reunite with his family and find Storm make him determined to escape.

Discussion

A Horse Named Sky is another well-told animal story by Rosanne Parry. This time she imagines an engaging story about a mustang stallion living with his family band in the Virginia range east of Reno, Nevada. In Sky's family band, Thunder is the adult stallion and some of his mares include Sky's mother, and his Aunties Gale and Rain. The story is told from the perspective of the young stallion, Sky. Since Sky is narrating, he uses language that describes what he sees and experiences in the way a horse might: human arms are "front legs", hands are "grabbers", oxen are "draggers", a cougar is a "claw beast", human adults are "stallions" and a human child is a "colt". 

In the first chapters, Parry describes Sky's life as a young wild horse growing quickly in the Virginia Range. This area is home to the single-leaf pinon pine, from which the Indigenous peoples of the area, the Paiute, Washoe and Shoshone, collected nuts for food. Sky refers to them as "buckskin-dun humans with black manes". Life is good, with the mustangs able to outrun the "claw beast" to find food and water. Sky quickly grows into a young stallion. His best friend is a young mare, Storm who can run very fast. This almost idyllic life will be in contrast to the experiences Sky will soon have and the changes to his homeland that will come about with the arrival of more humans. 

Drought hits their homeland and the mustangs must move to find water. Although Sky strikes out on his own, everything changes when he is captured and  sold into the Pony Express. Storm and their family band, he later discovers, ends up working in a silver mine. 

From the beginning of his capture, Sky struggles with the loss of his family band. "Every day, for days on end, I've missed my family with a dull ache like the cold. But now I miss them sharp, like a broken bone." Despite being well treated, fed good food, cleaned and given water, Sky misses freedom. "I feel the tug of the homeward horizon, and no amount of water or crunchy bits will make me feel better."  Sky is determined to escape and find his way back to Storm whom he believes is free. The loss of freedom, being forced to carry humans, and travel treacherous mountain routes make him even more determined. To that end Sky's determination and intelligence leads him to learn the signs that will help him get home and to try to earn the trust of the humans in the hope they will eventually stop tying him up at night. It is when Sky learns to undo the wooden bar that locks him in, that his chance for freedom comes.

Parry incorporates a number of historical events within the story: the Pony Express which ran from Missouri to California from 1860 into the fall of 1861 , the presence of dromedaries purchased by the U.S. Army and which Sky encounters on the mountain trail, the arrival of silver mining in the Virginia Range in 1859 which decimates the delicate ecosystem of Sky's homeland through clear cutting all the trees and poisoning the waterways, and the indenture of Indigenous peoples as a result of the California Indian Act of 1850. 

Of all the humans Sky encounters, it is a young Paiute boy  whom he describes as "a buckskin human with a black mane" who "looks like one of the pinon gatherers"  who has the most impact. Like Sky, the Paiute boy is enslaved, creating a bond between them. Sky refers to the boy as a colt: he "is too big for a yearling, but he is definitely not of fighting age. A cold, then." This Paiute boy  takes good care of Sky. When he rests his head on Sky's shoulder, Sky thinks, "I've missed this so much -- a friend to lean on at the end of the day."  However, Sky also witnesses him being maltreated, noticing that he is not fed in the morning, and beaten by the older man at the Pony Express station, It is an action the young stallion cannot comprehend.  "When colt comes outside, there's a fight mark on his face. He's shaking from head to foot. I don't understand. A stallion only fights another grown stallion....The salty-faced colt is no stallion to be sparred with. He's far too tender for such rough treatment."  Eventually, Sky witnesses the young Paiute boy being freed by his father and he decides it's time for freedom too!

One of the most poignant scenes in the novel is when Sky arrives at his home, only to see how it has been devastated. There are no birds in the air, no animals on the ground and the trees are gone. Instead, Sky sees knee-high stumps with sage and  grasses left.

Sky not only undergoes a journey home, but also a personal journey from an insecure young stallion to one who not only rescues his entire enslaved family band but leads them to safety. He is a courageous leader, willing to risk his life for family and friends.

A Horse Named Sky is another wonderful animal story by American author, Rosanne Parry. The novel is filled with beautiful pencil sketches done by Kirbi Fagan, and which add so much to the story-telling. Parry has included a Map of Sky's journey (which would be better situated at the front of the novel), detailed notes titled, Wild Horses in North America, Horse Families, About Mustangs, The Habitats, Water Before Everything, The Pony Express, Silver Mining in Nevada, and the California Indian Act of 1850. There is also a short Author's Note and Artist's Note, and a list of Selected Sources for further reading, and a List of parks, museums and wildlife refuges in the Great Basin.

Book Details:

A Horse Named Sky by Rosanne Parry
New York: Greenwillow Books     2023
260 pp.

Saving Sunshine by Saadia Faruqi and Shazleen Khan

Twins Zara and Zeeshan Aziz live in New York with their parents, Dr. Bilal Aziz and Dr. Rasheeda Aziz. The entire family are traveling to a pediatrics conference in Florida.  There, Rasheeda will receive the pediatrician of the year award, the first Muslim woman to be given this recognition.

Zara and Zeesh do not get along and their constant bickering is overwhelming their parents. When they arrive at their hotel in Key West, Zeesh steps on Zara's suitcase, causing her to fall. Fed up with the two of them, their father takes away their phones. He tells them they "need to figure out how to be friends." Both are upset: Zara because as an animal activist she won't be able to post pictures on social media, and Zeesh because he won't be able to watch the NASA space videos he loves.

At the Tortuga Hills Resort in Florida, the two siblings unsuccessfully attempt to find where their parents have hidden their phones, even trying to crack the code for the safe in their room. It seems they will have to put up with one another. 

A kayaking trip sees Zara find a sick leatherback turtle on the beach. His eyes appear to be infected and the turtle seems lethargic, making Zara believe he is sick. She decides to name him Sunshine. When they return to the resort, Zara asks the concierge if there is an animal hospital nearby, telling him she has found a sick turtle on the beach. He offers to call a local vet to come to the beach.

While Rasheeda and Bilal attend the conference and award ceremony, Zara and Zeesh struggle to get along. Making the situation even more challenging, is the misunderstanding and racism they experience from people at the hotel. Can they learn to understand one another and work together while also supporting each other when others around them do not?

Discussion

Saving Sunshine is a story about sibling rivalry set within the experience of being Muslim in America. Twins, Although Zara and Zeesh are American-born, they experience bias, misunderstanding and racism. Their parents, Bilal and Rasheeda who were born in Pakistan, are searched at the airport, something Zeesh notes happens almost all the time and makes him angry. At the reservation station, the ticket agent struggles to pronounce their names while at the hotel, the concierge asks where they are from based on how they look, He also assumes the Middle East is a desert, demonstrating his ignorance. When this angers Zeesh, his father tells him he has learned to discern people's intentions rather than assuming the worst.

Zara also experiences ignorance and misunderstanding over her headscarf. When the concierge compliments her on her headscarft, this triggers a memory of a year ago when she when she wore the hijab to school for the first time in sixth grade. Zeesh wasn't supportive, not defending her when his non-Muslim friends make fun of her. Like Bilal, Rasheeda encourages Zara not to get angry at every person who taunts her, explaining that the hijab is about sacrifice. But once again when Zeesh makes some new friends at the resort and they comment on her hijab, he does nothing. 

While dealing with prejudice and ignorance, Zara and Zeesh gradually come to understand each other and work to save Sunshine with the help of a local vet. Dr. Anthony Sergio guess that they are from India angers Zeesh . But Dr. Sergio tells him that everyone is from somewhere and that people are just curious and generally mean no harm. 

As they spend more time together, the two teens begin to understand one another and become more supportive. On a walk at the beach in the evening, Zara begins to see the beauty of the stars and is eager to visit the Wendell Family Observatory (strangely on top of what looks like a lighthouse). Zara understands that Zeesh is missing his NASA videos so she hopes this will fill that void and Zeesh is thrilled. Later, as they are eating burgers, Zeesh's new friends arrive. When they insult Zara for wearing her hijab, this time he defends her, much to Zara's shock. When Zeesh gets himself into trouble, after running away in anger from their parents, Zara comes to his rescue. Zeesh returns the favour by working with Zara to help her rescue Sunshine during a violent storm. 

Saving Sunshine offers plenty of positive messages such as not making assumptions about people, and about working together to help each other . Zara and Zeesh's parents both tell them that they try to understand what people's intentions are instead of assuming the worst and responding angrily. It turns out that this is what both Zara and Zeesh must, in order to better understand each other.  When their parents remove the distraction of their cell phones, they are forced to focus on their relationship as brother and sister,  This leads each to understand what is important to the other, and to act with kindness. The colourful graphic art, done with Procreate and inked and coloured on Paint  Tool SAI, reinforce this message.

Saving Sunshine also offers non-Muslims the chance to explore how insensitive words, meant with the best of intentions, can be hurtful and divisive. 

Book Details:

Saving Sunshine by Saadia Faruqi
New York: First Second      2023

221 pp.