Dinosaurs by Rachel Ignotofsky

Dinosaurs aims to present the evolution of life on Earth in an engaging way to young readers. Before embarking on this incredible journey through time, Ignotofsky provides readers with some background information. There are pages that provide explanations of the Geological Time Scale, What Is A Dinosaur?, Understanding Plate Tectonics, Ever Changing Geography, What Is a Fossil?, Reading The Rocks, Mass Extinction Events, and Understanding Evolution. This all sets the stage for exploring life on Earth.

The story begins with the PreCambrian SuperEon, the first four billion years of Earth's history, when the planet formed in the solar system. This period includes the Hadean Ion, the Archean Eon, and the Proterozoic Eon. There are many interesting facts about this time such as during the Hadean Ion the moon was close to fifteen times closer to Earth, during the Archean Ion the oceans were much saltier than they are today, and during the Proterozoic Eon the first mega continent formed. It was during the Proterozoic that the Great Oxygenation Event occured.

Life before the dinosaurs in the Paleozoic Era began to colonize land. The Paleozoic Era has been divided into six geological periods: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian. The Cambrian saw many new life forms develop. This has been termed the Cambrian Explosion in which creatures with the first backbone, the first lungs and the first legs appeared. The Ordovician saw a huge increase in biodiversification, now termed the Ordovician Biodiversification Event  that saw the development of jawless fishes, tentacled cephalopods and starfishes. The Late Ordovician experienced a mass extinction event, the first of five such events to occur in geological history. The Silurian Period was a relatively quiet time during which fish continued to evolve.

In the Devonian Period much of the Earth's continents covered by warm, shallow seas." It was the age of fishes and coral reefs. A second mass extinction event, the Late Devonian mass extinction occurred but its cause is unknown.  The Carboniferous Period saw swamps and rainforests proliferate. The oxygen content of Earth's atmosphere was also very high at this time as carbon was trapped in the plants and trees. The largest terrestrial invertebrate to ever live, Arthropleura millipede which was eight feet long, inhabited the swamps of the Carboniferous Period.

The Permian Period saw the formation of the giant supercontinent Pangea, surrounded by the global ocean called Panthalassa. Reptiles thrived in the arid, warm interior of the continent. The Permian-Triassic mass extinction event closed out this period.

The Mesozoic Era was the age of the dinosaurs. Three periods have been designated in the Mesozoic: the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.  The Mesozoic Era began with the worst mass extinction and would end with the devastation of an asteroid impact. Earth had no polar ice caps as the planet was very warm. A day in the Mesozoic Era was twenty-three hours.

The Triassic Period saw the development of a new branch of reptiles - the archosaurs that included the dinosaurs. They were not the large creatures expected but were small. The Jurassic Period saw Pangea begin to break apart due to tectonic activitiy. During this time, it became two separate continents, Laurasia and Gondwana. Rainforests replaced the arid deserts of Pangea, providing a significant source of food for dinosaurs. The Cretacious Period was the climax of the dinosaur's reign. Tyrannosaurus rex the apex predator on land, azhdarchid pterosaurs in the air and Mosasaurus in the oceans. An asteroid impacting the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico would end their reign.

The beginning of the Cenozoic era, the three main mammal groups were already established. These were the monotremes  (egg-laying mammals), marsupials (mammals that birth live young and carry them with a pouch), and placentals (mammals who give birth to live young from the womb).  During the Cenozoic Era, Earth developed large polar ice caps. There were three periods in the Cenozoic Era: the Paleogene Period, Neogene Period and Quaternary Period.

The Paleogene Period saw large fluctuations in climate. This period was one of mountain building with the creation of the Rocky Mountains and the Himilayan Mountains.

During the Neogene Period the abundance of grasslands saw mammals adapt to running from predators. Early hominids began to evolve to walk upright. The Panama Land Bridge connecting North and South America developed during this time. This land bridge allowed animals and plants to inhabit new areas in what has been called the Great American Biotic Interchange. It also separated the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, changing ocean currents and weather patterns.

The Quaternanry Period was dominated by multiple ice ages. Animals adapted by becoming large and furry and were known as megafauna. They included mammoths, woolly rhinos and saber-tooth tigers. Modern humans evolved during this period and migrated to all areas of the planet. Humans transformed Earth's ecosystems. 

Finally, the Holocene Epoch which represents the last eleven thousand years of Earth history, is the time in which humans formed civilizations.

Discussion

Dinosaurs is a colourfully illustrated and engaging large picture book that offers a detailed summary of the evolution of life on Earth.  The title is somewhat misleading as the book's focus is more on geological history rather than exclusively on dinosaurs.

After providing some information on important concepts that will be encountered in the book, Ignotofsky launches into descriptions of life during each of the geological eras and their periods. After introducing each period of geologic time life is described in more detail through several features. The Land and Sea provides an overview of each period and there is also a Fun Facts section. For example, in the Devonian Period Fun Facts, the Australian lungfish which has gills and lungs is featured. Each section also has a fascinating "Stories of Discovery" section which highlights various important discoveries relevant to that geologic time period. Some of the features include the Canadian Burgess Shale, and discoveries in the Silurian rocks near the village of Chuanhegai in China, and on Ellesmere island in the high Arctic of Canada. Once the story moves into the Mesozoic Era, life on Earth is divided into two sections, Life on Land, and Air and Sea.

Each geologic period has a Creature Feature which describes some of the life in that period, hopefully based on fossil evidence, although Ignotofsky doesn't specify what is the basis for the descriptions and illustrations. Nevertheless, this makes for a very interesting part of the book.

Overall, Dinosaurs is a very well done, well-written with many interesting facts, colourful illustrations with a well thought-out layout. But there is just so much information, much of it very detailed, that it is questionable as to what age this will appeal to. For younger readers, the visuals will be most appealing, especially the Creature Feature secction, but the large amount of text, most of it in very small font to accomodate the amount of information may feel daunting. Nevertheless, this adult with a background as a geologist found it very appealing!

Book Details:

Dinosaurs by Rachel Ignotofsky

New York: Ten Speed Press    2025

127 pp.

The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis

Eleven-year-old Parvana is sitting with her father on a blanket in the Kabul marketplace. Her head and shoulders are completely covered by her chador. She is there to help her father walk from home to the market. Parvana lives in Kabul with her mother Fatana and her father, her older sister Nooria, and her younger siblings, five-year-old Maryam and two-year-old Ali. 

Her parents are well educated having attended university; her father attended university in England and both her parents speak English. They came from well respected families and earned good money. This meant that "...they had a big house with a courtyard, a couple of servants, a television set, a refrigerator, a car."  Her father had taught in a  high school while her mother had been a writer for a Kabul radio station. Parvana had been in the sixth grade while Nooria attended high school. All that changed with the coming of the Taliban.

Before the Taliban, Afghanistan had been invaded by the Persians, Greeks,, Arabs, Turks, British and then Soviet Russia. War had been ongoing for more than twenty years. Parvana was born the year the Soviets left Afghanistan. The Taliban now ruled the country except for the northern regions. In Kabul they forced girls out of the schools, her mother was forced to leave her job and all girls and women in Afghanistan had to stay home. They were not even allowed out to shop.

Parvana's family had lost their beautiful home and had moved several times, each time to a smaller place. Now they lived in one small room with the possessions they managed to save from the bombings. Her father had lost his lower leg when his school was bombed but he had sold his wooden leg. So now Parvana helps her father walk to the market each day where he tries to sell some of their remaining possessions or reads letters for a fee. Most Afghans cannot read or write. Parvana can speak Dari and understand some Pashtu and because she has received an education, like her father she can read the letters.

They make their way home, her father leaning on Parvana. They now live on the third floor of a bomb-damaged building. To reach their apartment, Parvana and her father must use the damaged stairs on the outside of the building. Upon arriving home Parvana is sent out to get water, a task that means five trips to the outside tap. The single room they all share contains a tall wooden cupboard and two toshaks. The beautiful Afghan carpets and all their furniture has been destroyed in the bombings of their previous homes. What survived from the bombings Parvana's mother kept in the cupboard. This includes a parcel of Hossain's clothing. He was Parvana's older brother who was killed by a land mine when he was fourteen. Nooria has told Parvana how he loved to carry her around and play with her.

After their family meal, her father in his good white shalwar kameez begins telling a story from history. He was a history teacher at the time his school was bombed. The story is set in 1880 when the British attempted to take over Afghanistan and a young Afghan girl urged her country's soldiers on to defeat the British. Suddenly their joyful family moment is broken when four Taliban burst into their home. Two soldiers seize Parvana's father and drag him out while the other two ransack the wooden cupboard. They leave but not before beating Parvana as she tries to distract them from discovering her father's books hidden in the secret compartment at the base of the cupboard.

The next day Parvana and her mother set out to walk to the prison to free her father. Along the way her mother stops frequently to show a photograph of her father. Photographs are illegal but people just shake their heads. At the prison, Parvana's mother is initially ignored by the Taliban but when they both begin shouting for him to be released, the Taliban beat Parvana's mother and tear up the photograph. 

Parvana and her mother arrive at home, their feet bloodied and raw from the long walk. Her mother collapses on the toshak and weeps herself to sleep. For four days Parvana's mother doesn't get up. The room begins to smell from Ali's unwashed diapers and they finally run out of food. Parvana is sent out by Nooria to buy food. She is able to buy nan at the first stand but when she reaches the vegetable stand, Parvana is attacked by a Talib. After he strikes her, Parvana runs in terror, clutching the nan bread and runs straight into Mrs. Weera. In response to Mrs. Weera's question as to why she's running, she tells her she's running from the Taliban.

Mrs. Weera and Parvana's mother had been in the Afghan Women's Union and she has been meaning to visit to get her help with the women's magazine. She and her granddaughter accompany Parvana home. There Mrs. Weera manages to get Parvana's mother up, washed and dressed. The next morning, Parvana is stunned to learn that they are asking her to pretend to be a boy so that she can go to the market. The plan is that Parvana will cut her hair, change her name to Kaseem and pretend to be their cousin from Jalalabad. And if anyone asks her family where Parvana has gone, they will tell them she is visiting her aunt in Kunduz. Mrs. Weera tells Parvana, "It has to be your decision...We can force you to cut off your hair, but you're still the one who has to go outside and act the part. We know this is a big thing we're asking, but I think you can do it..."

Parvana agrees and with her hair cut short and dressed in Hossain's clothing, she ventures out to the market to buy food for her family. This time she is not harassed and she becomes the "breadwinner" for her family. Mrs. Weera decides to move in with Parvana's family so she and Parvana's mother can work on the women's magazine. But for Parvana, dressing as a boy offers her not only freedom but the unexpected friendship of another "boy".

Discussion

The Breadwinner is the first novel in the series about an Afghan girl named Parvana living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The story is narrated by Parvana who is eleven-years-old. Under Soviet and then Taliban rule, her family has suffered significant loss. Her family, once flourishing and well off, has lost their home, most of the possessions, and their son and brother, Hossain. 

Afghanistan has had a complicated and violent history but especially so in the twentieth century. The country was invaded in 1979 by the Soviets who wished to install a communist, Soviet-backed government. The Afghanis fought this takeover with help from the United States and Pakistan. In 1989, the Soviets had had enough and left the country in a chaotic state that led to another civil war. In the early 1990s, a new Sunni Islamist movement called the Taliban began to develop in the religious schools or madarasas in Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. This movement spread throughout the southern provinces and in 1996, the Taliban captured the city of Kabul, killing the president of Afghanistan and establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. 

In the Islamic state, the Taliban implemented Sharia Law under which women have almost no rights. The Taliban banned girls and women from attending school or studying, they are not allowed to work, they can only leave the house with a male chaperone and if they do so they must be fully covered with a burkha. They are not allowed to show any skin in public. Women cannot be involved in public speaking or politics. The ground floor windows of the home must be covered so that the women inside cannot be seen by passersby. Relatives who advocate for women or who help them break any of these rules are at risk of being punished by the Taliban. Women also cannot access health care provided by men. 

It is in this world that Parvana lives. Author Deborah Ellis effectively portrays to her young readers the devastating effect the civil war and the rise of the Taliban has had on Parvana's family. Although the term "Sharia Law" is not mentioned in the novel, this is what Parvana and her family have lived under for the last year and half.  Her mother, once a writer for a radio station in Kabul, cannot work and must stay home. Nooria and Parvana can no longer attend school. The family, once prosperous, has lost their home and most of their belongings. Their oldest son, Hossain died after stepping on a land mine, and Parvana's father has lost his lower leg during the bombing of the school where he taught. Civil war and the Taliban have impoverished them to the point that they must resort to selling their possessions in the Kabul market.

The Taliban also have a brutal punishment system for crimes based on a strict interpretation of Sharia law. These punishments can include flogging, amputations and executions that are often carried out in public spaces such as stadiums. Ellis portrays this in The Breadwinner when Parvana and her friend Shauzia slip into the stadium believing they are attending a soccer game. Instead they witness the gruesome amputation of  the hands of men accused being theives. The experience is traumatizing for the two girls.

Although no dates are given in the novel Parvana notes that they have lived under Taliban rule for the last year and a half and that her mother and Nooria have not been outside their home during that time. This likely places the novel in the early in the year of 1998. Near the end of the novel, Parvana and her father learn that Mazar-i-Sharif has been overtaken by the Taliban. This event happened in August of 1998.

Parvana and her friend Shauzia realistically portray the reality of life for girls during war and under Taliban rule. The two girls must worry about things that no child should have to worry about. But because they are girls living under Sharia Law, they have no voice and few choices. Parvana is in a better situation because her parents are well educated and they support girls being educated. Nevertheless, Parvana finds her situation stressful and she longs to just be a child. "Parvana was tired. She wanted to sit in a classroom and be bored by a geography lesson. She wanted to be with her friends and talk about homework and games and what to do on school holidays. She didn't want to know any more about death or blood or pain." Parvana sees the starving women in burquas begging and the hungry and sick. "And there was no end to it. This wasn't a summer vacation that would end and the life would get back to normal. This was normal, and Parvana was tired of it."

Shauzia's situaton is difficult too. Her father has died, her brother left for Iran and her mother is sick all the time. Shauzia, her mother and her two little sisters live with her father's parents who do not believe in girls being educated. She tells Parvana that everyone fights in the house. The situation is so difficult that Shauzia is planning to leave Afghanistan and hopes to travel to France. She hopes to leave by the spring when she will have saved enough money. However, Shauzia worries that she may have left it too late as her body is now beginning to change. Leaving her family means leaving them to starve as she is their only means of support. She tells Parvana, "I just have to get out of here. I know that makes me a bad person, but what else can I do? I'll die if I have to stay here!"  Later on Shauzia reveals to Parvana that her grandfather is looking for a husband for her because as a young girl she will "fetch a good bride price and they will have lots of money to live on." Such a view is extremely common in strict Islamic cultures. When Parvana asks how Shauzia's mother will eat, Shauzia's dilemma to save her mother or herself is revealed. Shauzia responds, "What can I do?" Shauzia asked, the question coming out as a wail. "If I stay here and get married, my life will be over. If I leave, maybe I'll have a chance. There must be some place in this world where I can live. Am I wrong to think like this?"

Parvana suggests that Shauzia should accompany Mrs. Weera and her granddaughter when they travel to Pakistan. However, Mrs. Weera suggests that Shauzia is deserting her family just because things are tough but does she really understand the situation Shauzia is in. Mrs. Weera was able to have an education and become a teacher. That future or most any other is no longer open to Shauzia if she stays in Afghanistan. Mrs. Weera seems to have forgotten that Shauzia is a child who has the right to be safe, to make some choices about her future and that includes the right to be educated. It is a dilemma that Parvana, at this time, cannot resolve.

The novel ends with Parvana and her father ready to begin a journey to Mazar which is now under the control of the Taliban, to find her mother, Nooria and Ali. This leads nicely into the second novel in the series, Parvana's Journey.

Book Details:

The Breadwiinner by Deborah Ellis

Toronto: Groundwood Books/House of Ansai Press     2021

176 pp.

Seabird by Michelle Kadarusman

It is 1892. Kartini is the second oldest daughter and one of eight children of her father Sosroningrat, Regent of Jepara, Java, in the Dutch West Indies. Her mother (Ma) is her father's first wife. Kartini sisters include her eldest sister, Lastri who is married and lives on Sumatra Island as well as two younger sisters, Rukmini who is eleven and Kardinah who is ten years old. Her older brothers are Sosroningrat, Boesono and Kartono while her mother has a baby boy named Wito. Kartini's father also has a second wife whom Kartini addresses as Mother. She is from a royal line and outranks Kartini's mother. She has 3 children. While "...Mother is powerful and sophisticated" Kartini's Ma is "uncomplaining and soft-hearted." 

Because Kartini will soon be thirteen-years-old, she has been taken out of school. She is now forbidden to leave the walls of their family compound to attend school, to go to the beach, the market or anywhere. She must remain hiddent at home until she is chosen for marriage. "Javanese girls of high birth are secluded before age thirteen until their wedding day." This allows them to take the title of Raden Ayu when married.

Kartini is summoned by the Lady who admonishes her to "...behave like a proper Javanese girl of your high birth." Nur, the Lady's maid has told that Kartini was chasing her little brothers in the garden. The Lady tells Kartini she must learn to speak softly, take small steps when she walks and that she must learn how to be Raden Ayu. However, Kartini doesn't want to learn this. She was learning many things in school: languages, art, music, and literature. While her mothers continue to uphold their Javanese customs, Kartini believes her father would rather be more modern.

Kartini had a good friend in Lesty whose father, Eduard Claasen was the Colonial Resident until last year when he was recalled to the Netherlands. Kartini has been waiting anxiously for a letter from Lesty. Although she has written many letters to her friend in Amsterdam, she hasn't received a single letter in return. However, this day she spies Ma holding a letter and they meet in Kartini's bedroom. There her mother reveals that she has a letter from Lesty but that she must first give it to the Lady and Kartini's father. It is at this time that Kartini realizes that her letters to Lesty were never mailed.

Kartini decides that she will not wait for her mother to bring up the issue of the letters but will advocate for herself. In the presence of her parents, Kartini tells her father that she can settle her "galloping legs" by working to improve her Dutch language skills through correspondence with her Dutch friend, Lesty. The Lady agrees to this and Kartini's father suggests she can also read his Dutch newspapers and magazines. However, her father reminds Kartini that her reading and writing will be "empty pastimes" and lead her no where. However, Kartini believes that this will not be the case for her.

Kartini reads Lesty's letter and the two begin regular correspondence. In her response, Kartini explains what it is like to be secluded, telling Lesty that although their home is beautiful, it is still a beautiful cage.

It is 1893 and Kartini is in the garden pagoda writing the afternoon play for her siblings to perform. Her brother Kartono comes in and tells Kartini that he has been accepted to the Hogere Burgerschool grammar school in Semarang. After that he will go to the Netherlands to study there. Kartono tries to encourage his sister but Kartini tells him she will never be free, that the only way she will leave their house is when she is married.  Meanwhile a letter from Lesty reveals that she is struggling at school because she has been labelled "Slaver". She doesn't understand why she is tainted with this as slavery is long over and she had no part in it.

Kartini's two maids, Uka and Yanti bring to her a "gift" that has been given to their mother by a pedicab driver. The package was given to him at the harbour to give to two girls at the Regent's home. Uka gives Kartini a card with a symbol printed on it in dark purple ink. Because they do not know who gave the gift nor the intention, Uka and Yanti cannot keep the gift of two combs wrapped in batik cloth. This gift makes Kartini realize that just like her, these village girls are also not free. They cannot accept this gift on the chance it might bring dishonour to their families or even danger. Kartini promises to try to find out about the symbol and what it means and that she will keep it secret.  In another letter to Lesty, Kartini tries to explain to her friend the perspective of the Javanese who were once enslaved by the Dutch and how they still control their land and the governance of the country. She also explains that her family as part of the elite of Javanese society have worked alongside the colonial government.

Kartini meets the wife of the new Colonial Resident, Marie Ovink-Soer. Marie is a writer who has admired the paper that Kartini wroteShe is a writer and Marie is introduced to Kartini as the writer of a paper on local woodcarvers she admired. Marie is entranced by the Javanese percussion music called gamelan and she asks Kartini to explain it further.  Marie read her article in a copy of the De Echo, a Dutch-language magazine for women and asks Kartini what studies she has planned. However, this question is deflected by Kartini's older brother, Boesono who is jealous of her ambitions. She gives Kartini a small book of her short stories for young children as well as a book written by Helen Mercier called Verbonden Schakels. Tante Marie, as she asks Kartini to call her, asks Kartini to consider writing an essay to De Echo but again Boesono tells her that won't be possible. However, Kartini knows in her heart that she wants to be a writer.

Another letter from Lesty reveals her excitement to attend the International Colonial and Export Exhibition in which twenty-eight countries will present their colonial trade.  There will be a Javanese pavillion. In her response, Kartini describes her home, which Lesty has never visited, in more detail. She also mentions the gift to her maids, sister Uka and Yanti and her discovery that the symbol on the card is Chinese and that it is the name of a woman, South Sea Starling, who commands her own merchant ship. South Sea Starling is the granddaughter of the infamous Pirate Queen. She asks Lesty to see if she can find any information about the Pirate Queen.

By 1894, Kartini's restlessness grows as she is determined to gain her freedom and make her own choices about her life. When she attempts to visit her father to press her case, her older brother Boesono tells her that soon she will be married. The possibility of a marriage proposal leads Kartini to confront Ma who tells her that her father has gone to speak to her uncle about it and that she will know soon enough. Kartini's mother is not well but she finds Kartini's determination to do other things before marrying to be foolish. Kartini herself falls sick with bone fever for weeks. When she awakens her sisters tell her that Ma is still sick with the coughing illness. However, Kartini now has no desire to get well. What is the point when she doesn't have the freedom to choose her own life.

It is in 1895 when Kartini's essay is published in the De Echo that her father's pride in this accomplishment motivates him to finally begin to see things from Kartini's perspective.  

Discussion

Seabird is a fictional account of the life and work of Rayden Ajeng Kartini. Born in Jepara, Central Java, Kartini on April 21, 1879, Kartini was able to attend the Europeesche Lagere School because she was part of the Javenese nobility. However before her thirteenth birthday, Kartini was forced into seclusion. As described in the novel, Kartini was determined to continue her education by correspondence with Dutch friends and by reading her father's Dutch magazines. She was determined to effect change for Javanese women, allowing them the opportunity to be educated just like their Javanese brothers, and to choose how they wanted to live their lives.

Canadian author Michelle Kadarusman grew up with an Indonesian father who was fiercely proud that his country had finally achieved independence from their colonizers, the Dutch in 1949.  In this respect, Kadarusman has a connection to the people and culture of Indonesia that makes Seabird a very special novel.

The novel is divided into four parts, labelled by the years 1892, 1893, 1894, and 1895. The chapters within these parts include Kartini's narrative as well as the fictional letters between her and her real life  Dutch friend, Lesty Claasen. The novel opens with Kartini beginning pingit, the custom of Javanese seclusion until marriage. Kartini is only twelve-years-old and doesn't want to be considering marriage at this time but wishes to continue her schooling. However, in seclusion she can no longer leave her family's compound for any reason, even to attend school. The loss of furthering her education deeply affeccts Kartini. But also the fact that she cannot go anywhere leads her to wonder what it must be like to be a boy. "What must it feel like, to be a boy? To walk confidently toward the compound gates, knowing they will be opened, at any time, at any age, like magic?"

Kartini struggles to accept the limitations that her culture places on women. These limitations are very evident when Kartini's maids, Uka and Yanti are given a gift of combs by someone. Kartini realizes that village girls like her two maids are no freer than she is. "Never mind that they are servants and I am the edaughter of a regent, we young women, all of us, must tread so carefully, because one foot wrong might set us on fire." The two girls cannot accept the gift openly because they do not know who the sender is and why it was sent.

By 1894, Kartini is growing increasingly restless. While she acknowledges that she has her sisters and her books and is helping her maids solve a mystery, Kartini wants her freedom. She wants her freedom in a way that she knows is not possible: to be able to run to seashore to see the ocean, to visit the capital of Batavia and see the grand buildings, take a steamship to Europe and study with her brother Kartono, to skate on the frozen canals in Holland and to walk to a library and learn about anything that interests her. "I want to be my own person. I do not want to be someone's wife." 

After being very ill for weeks, Kartini gives in to despair. "What is the point of getting up if I can't leave this house? To wander paths that always end in a stone wall? Reading books about places I will never go? Writing essays that will never be published? Keeping correspondence with a friend I will never see again? 

What is the point of a life where your voice is silenced at every turn? A life where you must whisper. Where you are not even allowed to show emotion? A paper doll." 

Eventually though, Kartini recovers her spirit and determination and with the information from Lesty about the Pirate Queen, she is able to help Uka and Yanti in a way that offers them another choice than remaining as maids. 

And Kartini finally confronts her father because she questions "...who has the right to give or take away dreams? Surely no one has the power to do this, even your own parents."  When she approaches her father who is sitting with Ma in her pavillion, Kartini tells him that perhaps Ma had dreams beyond her room, that she dreams of being a writer, and Rukmini dreams of being an artist. Kartini asks her father if he wants his daughters to be on their knees for their entire lives, or to be a second or third wife. She explains that by allowing them an education he has given them glimpse of lives they can never have. Instead they are placed in a cage and expected to forgo any dreams they might have for their lives.

In 1895 Kartini has her essay published on gamelan music and her father, proud of her accomplishment and recognizing her determination, understands things are changing and that they must change too. He tells Kartini and her sisters, "I believe intelligent men...must honor what is past, but also prepare for what lies ahead. And when necessary, make changes to keep in step with the times."  He agrees to allow his daughters to make their own choice to uphold the tradition of Raden Ayu. And he also grants her permission to attend the Governor General's reception as the first step to her freedom.

The novel's title Seabird is a reference to the white seabird which represents freedom. Kartini's family compound contains hanging cages holding birds.  One evening, Kartini sees a blue and yellow colored bird in its bamboo cage and she wants to open it and set it free. "I want to open the cage and set it free. Why should it be a prisoner here, its only purpose to provide us with its morning song. It's a cruel practic and I feel the creature's fate deeply in my gut...I know that if I were to let it out, it would not survive. It knows nothing of living in the wild. It is a fragile thing that is fed and pampered and only kept so we might look at it and think it pretty and delight in its song."  In the bird, Kartini sees a reflection of herself, also caged, her only purpose to be the wife of a man. And like the bird, if she stays in the cage long enough, she too will not be able to live outside her cage, because she will know nothing of the outside world. 

Kartini's struggle for independence mirrors her own country's struggle for independence from their Dutch colonizers. Her friend Lesty reflects the change that is beginning to happen in Europe regarding the colonies. At first Lesty is upset when she is called a "slaver" for being part of the Dutch who lived in Java. In her letter to Kartini, Lesty states that slavery has been abolished and that their maid, Larni was not a slave but a paid servant. However, Kartini responds that while "...slavery was abolished years ago, but that doesn't mean my people are not still enslaved to the Dutch. It is the Dutch who still control our land. And all the rules are governed by them. But it is the javanese locals who must build the roads, bridges, and railroads for which they receive nothing.The local farmers are left with very little for their hard work and must pay high taxes to the Dutch for their crops.The wealth of our land is stripped from us." Although Lesty has written that the two girls are equals, Kartini asks her to consider if this is really true. It is when Lesty attends the International Colonial and Export Exhibit to display colonial trade, that she begins to understand the situation from the Javanese perspective. The Javanese exhibit leads Lesty to explain to her father, "The Javanese are not curiosities to be stared at, like these things behind glass...This show of riches taken from their soil -- it makes me sick to see us claim it as our own when the truth is that it is all stolen." For Lesty, the people taken without their parents or family's permission to the exhibition and displayed is like placing them in a zoo to be viewed. It is a sign that the peoples of Europe are beginning to see the countries they have "colonized" in a different way, not as objects to be used but as human beings with a right to self-determination. This would take many more decades to become the reality.

Seabird is a short novel about an important women's rights advocate that most readers will not be familiar with. Kartini is proof that young girls can and do have a voice and the power to effect change. Kadarusman has included a portrait of Kartini and a short biographical note, About Kartini. There is also a note, About the Dutch Colonial rule in Indonesia, and one on Human Zoos. A map showing the location of the Dutch West Indies as it existed in the late 1890s would have been helpful. Well-written, engaging, with an attractive cover, and a must-read for readers of all ages.

Book Details:

Seabird by Michelle Kadarusman

Toronto: Pajama Press Inc.     2025

199 pp.