Rachel's Hope by Shelly Sanders

Rachel's Hope is the final installment in the Rachel trilogy that traces the journey of Rachel Paskar and her family who have fled the 1903 pogrom in Russian to Shanghai, China and are now in San Francisco. 

It is the winter of 1905 and sixteen-year-old Rachel, her sister Nucia and Nucia's husband Jacob, and the orphan Menahem arrived eight days ago in San Francisco. They have just been released from quarantine. Rachel and Nucia's mother and father are dead: her father murdered during the Kishinev pogrom in Russia while her mother died from from consumption in China. The four of them are searching for the lodging house the woman at the Eureka Benevolent Society had marked on the paper map.

A month later both Rachel and Nucia are working as maids at the Haas home on Franklin Street in the upscale neighbourhood of Pacific Heights.The Haas family were Bavarian Jewish immigrants who own a prosperous dry goods store. Although the Haas are Jewish they practice some American customs like Christmas and Easter. Nucia works as the upstairs-maid wearing a white uniform and meeting with the mistress of the house every day. Rachel however, works downstairs wearing a black uniform like the other maids. The Haas also have a Chinese servant, Wah who does their laundry.

After work Rachel and Nucia walk home to their boarding house on Sixth Street where they live in a second floor flat at the back of the house. They are met outside by Jacob and Menahem. Jacob announces that he has taken out a loan from the Hebrew Free Loan Association to start his own business as a vendor selling food from wholesalers to restaurants and shops. This upsets Nucia who believes his steady job at the Standard Shirt Factory is safer and she worries if his business fails. Rachel, however supports Jacob's plan believing that they should take risks to improve their lives.

Menahem attends Spring Valley School and struggles to be accepted. Rachel finally buys him some new clothes but they are much different that what he is used to wearing. Boys in America wear short pants with high socks, not the long pants Menahem is used to wearing in Russia. In a letter to Sergei, Rachel tells him that Gentiles live peacefully with Jews and that Jews can become prosperous in America. 

Rachel, Nucia, Jacob and Menahem begin to settle into life in San Francisco. They attend synagogue at Temple Sherith Israel along with Mr. Bloom and his wife Esther. The service is a Reform Sabbath and Rachel notes that it is very different from the services in Russia and China. They form a strong friendship with the Blooms who invite them over for Saturday dinner, and who often give Nucia leftover meat and fish from their kosher store. Rachel and Nucia also attend free English classes for new immigrants at the First Chinese Baptist Church. Rachel finds that she is beginning to understand English. Jacob with his job as a vendor also becomes proficient in English. In order to better fit in with his new classmates, Menahem decides to change his name to Marty. Rachel also begins taking high-school English and mathematics classes two nights a week. She hopes to obtain her high school diploma in three years. She hasn't given up on her dream of becoming a journalist.

In a remarkable twist, Rachel meets Anna Strunsky in the large bathhouse at the Sutro Baths located at Lands End. Anna is a Russian Jewish immigrant who came to America when she was nine-years-old and is now a journalist. She is planning to return to Russia later this year to cover women's stories for San Francisco Bulletin and California Women's Magazine. She wants to cover the worker's strikes. Rachel states that Russia is not safe for Jews as there have been riots and over five hundred Jews have been killed. And people in St. Petersburg are being shot by the Cossacks and police when they demonstrated for better working conditions. Anna believes she will be safe because she is an American reporter. Anna offers to help Rachel with her English, if she will help her relearn Russian. 

Rachel meets up with Anna at a cafe called Coppa. There, Anna shows Rachel some articles about the movement to free the Russian people. She tells Rachel that she has read about the terrible lives of the Russian peasants, about the factory workers' strikes and the massacres of Jews. Rachel explains how her father lost his life in the massacre that happened in her town of Kishinev and how it was instigated by the lies published by the newspaper editor in the village. She tells Anna, "I dream of being a writer, like you, to tell the truth and make sure people don't forget what happened to us." Rachel also tells Anna about Sergei Khazhenkov, who is fighting for the workers in Petersburg. Anna asks Rachel to write down details about him so that when she returns to Russia she can try to locate him. Rachel reveals that she cares for him but because he is Gentile they cannot be together.  Anna tells her that things are changing and that she is seeing someone who is not Jewish.

To help Rachel in her quest to become a journalist, Anna advises that she must read more. At the public library at City Hall she loads Rachel down with copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Wuthering Heights, Ten Days in A Madhouse, and Around The World In Eighty Days. Rachel has her letter about arriving in San Francisco published by the Jewish newspaper, Emanu-El complete with her full name. Rachel becomes interested in the women's suffrage movement after attending a meeting of the National Council of Jewish Women at Temple Emanu-El. With four hundred women in attendance, Rachel learns that men in California voted against suffrage because many women involved in the suffrage movement were also involved in the temperance movement and the men did not want to lose their right to drink alcohol. This leads Rachel to send an article to the Israel's Messenger in Shanghai for publication. While the Editor-in-Chief publishes her article which she wrote in Yiddish, he encourages her to focus on writing in English for American newspapers.

On April 18, Rachel, Marty, Jacob and Nuncia flee their flat in the early morning hours. As the buildings around them topple. they escape unscathed. They watch as the Wells Fargo Bank crumbles to the ground. The falling bricks from the dry goods store injure some and kill others. As they flee down the street, sunken in some places by several feet, they see twisted streetcars and watch as the broken gas lines, catch fire. Buildings along Market Street catch fire, one after another.  The smoke makes Marty cough and he beings to struggle to breathe.

In the morning Jacob learns that everything south of Market Street is gone including synagogues, the Haas Brothers store. Four days later, Rachel and her family visit their runined boarding house and decide to walk to Golden Gate Park where people are being assigned tents to live in. Rachel takes Marty to a hospital where he is diagnosed with asthma and is treated by the doctor. Rachel and Marty spend several weeks at Mr. Levison's home, to allow him to recuperate. There, Rachel helps Nathan Pearce care for his baby daughter, Ruthie, after his wife was killed in the earthquake. Although Rachel feels a growing attachment to Nathan, she decides to refuse his offer to work for him as a nurse for Ruthie and opts to return to Jacob and Nuncia who are still living in a tent. Back in Golden Gate Park, Rachel wonders if she will ever achieve her dream of becoming a journalist. The earthquake seems like such a setback for all her plans to finish her schooling and attend university.

During this time from 1905 into early 1906, Rachel's friend, Sergei has fled St. Petersburg after the deadly march on the Tsar's Winter Palace and has slipped onto a train to Moscow. He is a fugitive, a member of the secret revolutionary group, the Combat Organization, wanted in the murder the Interior Minister of Russia, Viacheslav von Plehve. He had supported the anti-Jew pogroms including the one that killed Rachel's father. When he's caught on the train after falling asleep, a stranger, Dimitri Kalyayev bribes the police officer, telling him Sergei is his son. Dimitri explains that he helped Sergei because he recognized him from the newspaper and he provides Sergei with directions to a safe house. 

The two storey wood house on Volgogradsku Prospekt belongs to the writer, Maxim Gorky. Shortly after he arrives, Boris Savinkov, the leader of the Combat Organization in Petersburg, and the architect of the von Plehve assassination, arrives. Gorky doesn't believe the tsar will give the Russian people more power or freedom. Sergei agrees to help distribute the newspaper Iskra to every factory in Moscow to encourge the workers to fight for better wages and working conditions.

Two weeks later, many Moscow factories are on strike: thirty thousand workers on strike demanding a democratic government and better working conditions. Food is scarce. Gorky wants to form a soviet council like that in Petersburg that is intent on "obtaining democracy for all Russian people." While Savinkov believes that the bombings and assassinations have helped their work towards democracry Sergei does not and neither does Gorky who believes "The pen is the mightiest weapon, much more powerful than any bomb." He believe words give people the courage to fight and so Gorky proposes they distribute leaflets.

On October thirtieth, the tsar signs an Imperial Manifesto supposedly "guaranteeing civil liberties for all Russian people  and legal power for the Duma."  but as Gorky suspects, the tsar has the power to veto legislation passed by the Duma and citizens can still be arrested for speaking out against the government.

Sergei is involved in getting dynamite for the Moscow revolution on December 5th. Savinkov organizes the securing of weapons while Gorky orders the distribution of signs to get more people involved. They build barricades across Tverskoi Boulevard. The intent is to block off all of Moscow's main streets from the Russian troops. Barricades are also being constructed on the circular street around the Kremlin. 

The revolution begins but Sergei is ordered back to Gorky's house. Despite controlling some areas, they have lost men so Savinkov tells Sergei they want to bomb the headquarters of the secret police (Okhrana). However, Sergei doesn't want to be involved in another bombing but he finally agrees to instruct the bombers, fifteen yea old Victor and sixteen year old Arkady. However, the bombing doesn't go as planned with one of the bombers, Viktor shot and killed. 

On December 17th, Sergei and more revolutionaries are at Krasnopresnenskaya Street with loaded rifles, facing a large number of government troops included the Semenovsky Regiment. Gorky gives a speech and then the fighting begins. For hours Sergei and the other revolutionaries fire at the soldiers. However, when the government begins shelling them Sergei and the others are forced to flee through the streets. Sergei is quickly captured and taken to Taganka Prison in Moscow. An elderly man in the prison who has been exiled before tells Sergei he will languish in prison on March and without a trial will be exiled. That is what happens: Sergei is exiled for five years to Chita in Siberia, thirty-eight hundred miles from Moscow. Will Sergei ever survive to leave Russia and find Rachel?

The question remains, will Rachel's hope to be reunited with Sergei come to pass and if so, do they have a chance at a future together?

Discussion

Rachel's Hope is a engaging and well-written conclusion to the Rachel Trilogy. In this third novel, Rachel and Sergei's stories are told beginning in the Winter of 1905 through to Winter of 1908. The author makes use of two alternating narratives, that of Rachel Paskar and Sergei Khazhenkov to describe the event of this period. In San Francisco in America it is a time of recovery from the devastating earthquake of 1906, while for those in Russia, it is a period of social and political upheaval that sees the seeds of revolution sown.

Life in San Francisco is described through the eyes of Rachel Paskar, a new immigrant and refugee from the Jewish pogroms in Russia. When she goes shopping at a store for Menahem and herself, she is treated with respect as a customer. However, she remembers what it was like in Russia, "The colorful fabrics reminded her of the thread store her mother had loved in Kishinev. Rachel recalled the last time she'd gone to that store for her mother, when the owner had called her "a stupid yid."

Rachel finds that that the Jewish community are less strict about their practice of Judaism than in Russia and China. In the Sherith Temple, Rachel is amazed at the opulence of the temple, a sign that in America one can show pride in being Jewish, something not possible in Russia. "In San Francisco, Jews could build grand buildings like Sherith Israel with its plush red-velvet seats, impressive organ, and bright stained-glass windows. Here, one could show pride in being Jewish."  She observers that men and women sit together instead of being segregated, and the rabbi tells them that married women do not have to cover their hair with a headscarf, both of which trouble Nuncia. Mrs. Bloom counters that she likes "...being able to choose how I want to be Jewish.". Mr. Bloom who is Jewish is selling both kosher and non-kosher food as even Jews are eating non-kosher foods. While Mr. and Mrs. Bloom support the loosening of restrictions, Nunia expresses concern. "These traditions are the only link we have to Russia...By holding onto them, we are keeping our memories alive." However, Rachel points out to Nucia just how different everyone looks and the different languages they hear on the street. "Don't you see how different people look from one another here?...You can dress however you like, speak in any language, practice any religion, be who you want to be here in America."

Rachel, Jacob and Nuncia struggle to understand why some immigrants want to change their names. Menahem announces that he wants to change his name and in fact is already going by "Marty". He tells his family that the teacher struggles with the name. Nuncia reminds Menahem that his parents gave him his name and it is the name of his grandfather but he isn't convinced. Mr. Bloom explains that many immigrants have long names that are difficult to pronounce and so it's not unusual for them to use a simpler name. 

She also finds that women have more opportunities in America than women in Russia, but still not as many as men. When Anna tells her about women in America working to get the right to vote, Rachel remarks, "Back in Russia I would have been happy with permission to go to university, or to travel without a note from my father."  Rachel finds school different in America where students can voice their own opinions. "In Russia, teachers spoke and students listened. Personal views didn't matter unless you were a grown man. To speak your mind as a student had not been acceptable."

When Rachel attends a meeting of the National Council of Jewish Women at Temple Emanu-El regarding women's rights, she notes that a meeting attended exclusively by women would never be allowed in Russia. And unlike Russia, Rachel can read whatever she wants, choosing books from the library that Anna Strunsky takes her to. It's important to note however, as Sanders writes in her Historical Note, that Jewish immigrants to San Francisco faced a much easier time than Jews in other American cities. "The broader integration of Jews into the host society is what set San Francisco apart from other major cities at the time, where Jews continued to exist in more ghetto-like conditions"

Rachel's Hope is a study in contrast between America and Russia in the early 1900's. While America is seen as a land where most immigrants had the opportunity to better their lives, Russia is being torn apart by rebellion and revolution as its people, most of them destitute, fight for basic rights. Workers in Russia are the lowest paid in Europe. There are demonstrations for better living conditions, better wages, safer working conditions in factories, and more say in the governance of the country. As the people struggle to obtain change, their peaceful demonstrations are met with force and violence. Sergei remembers the demonstration at the Winter Palace. "Just a few days earlier, he and thousands of other factory workers, women, and children had marched to the Winter Palace, the tsar's home in Petersburg, to protest for better working conditions, increased wages, and an end to the catastrophic Japanese-Russian war. It had been planned as a peaceful demonstration, but when they arrived, the Russian military opened fire, killing and injuring thousands of protestors."  As the government and the tsar resist any change, the people of Russia resort to bombings and assassinations. 

Sergei's description of life in Moscow is in marked contrast to the shops and restaurants in San Francisco. While Rachel experiences her first meal in a restaurant where she can choose what she wants to eat, life is very different in Moscow. Sergei notes: "...he moved past the closed-down shops with empty shelves...Food had been scarce since the railway workers' strike. Supplies couldn't get  into the city. Shops had been drained of food, clothing, and necessities. The lack of medicine forced the hospital to close." People are starving, among them Sergei notes, are many hungry children. Four days into the rebellion, Sergei observes the children in Moscow who are helping build barricades, how they do not have warm clothing. "Not one wore clothing suitable for the frigid winter air. The girls had threadbare, stained shawls around their shoulders. The boys had coats that were either too small with sleeves halfway up their forearms, or too large leaving space for the icy air to seep through."

His experiences in Russia change Sergei forever and in ways that eventually lead him to realize he can never be with Rachel.  His conscience is troubled because he was involved in the assassination of a government official. He witnesses the death of many people during the unsuccessful revolution. At Gorky's  house, Sergei is still haunted by the murder of von Plehve. "I will never be free from guilt, he thought as he wiped his brow. Even though I am not behind bars, guilt is suffocating me, destroying me from the inside." When he finally does escape Russia and makes his way to San Francisco, his reunion with Rachel is not what either of them were expecting.

In Russia Rachel and Sergei could not be together because he is Russian and Rachel is a Jew. But in America they still cannot be together but this time it is different. Sergei tells Rachel, "Much more divides us now...Too much has happened to me. Too much time has passed." He explains that he doesn't want to bring back memories of the past with his presence and that he does not fit into her world. Athough Rachel still believes he is the good person she knew in Kishinev, Sergei tells her, "You don't know that. You don't know anything about me. You don't know what I had to do to get here. You don't know the nightmares that keep me up at night, what I wish I could change about my past." Rachel and Sergei are a study in contrasts, Rachel a survivor who is thriving, Sergei a survivor but deeply scarred.

Despite the tragedy of Rachel and Sergei, the novel ends on a hopeful note. Rachel is moving forward with her dream of becoming a journalist by attending university and has met a man, Alexander who is in love with her.

A mark of good historical fiction is the ability of the author to develop the setting. Author Shelly Sanders' portrayal of life in both revolutionary Russia and early 20th century San Francisco feels authentic. The chcaracters are well crafted and included a few real-life characters of Maxim Gorky and Anna Strunsky. The author realistically portrays several historic events that occur in the novel: the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the 1905 Russian Revolution. Readers are directed to Sanders' Historical Note at the back.

Although this trilogy was written over ten years ago, it is an important and timely work, considering the rise of anti-semitism in America, Canada and Europe. Highly recommended.

Book Details:

Rachel's Hope by Shelly Sanders

Second Story Press      2014

ebook

482 pp.

When Clouds Touch Us by Thanhha Lai

Eleven-year-old Ha lives with her mother and her brothers Quang and Khoi in Alabama. They fled their home country of Vietnam, without her father who was missing in action, something her mother won't talk about. Ha's middle brother, Vu Lee lives in San Francisco.

Ha is in grade six and has a best friend, Pam who wants to celebrate their birthdays together. She decides they will celebrate this on Ha's birth date with a special party.

At a family meeting, Ha's mother announces that she wants to move the family to Texas where Vietnamese seem to have more opportunities. Ha's mother wants this because she hopes this will take some of the responsibility away from Ha's older brother Quang who is working as a mechanic and so that Khoi can study to become an animal doctor. She also doesn't like that Pam's mother pays for Ha when the two girls do things together.

A first family vote has the three children Quang, Khoi and Ha vote to stay in Alabama. But a second vote sees Khoi side with their mother, creating a tie. Ha knows that her mother is scheming and will bring Vu Lee into the vote. He does return home and the family decides to move to Texas. They begin packing but Ha's mother delays their travel to Texas so Ha can have her day-of-birth party with Pam. After the party and roller skating, Ha, her mother and Khoi leave. 

In her new school in Texas, no one remembers Ha's name and she finds herself the only Asian student. Her mother works in a radio factory, while Vu Lee works in a bakery as well as at a second job finishing wood. They live in a pay-by-week rental. Eventually, Ha and her family move into an apartment. They have no furniture or beds. Starting over is hard, and for Ha this is just the beginning of many more changes.

Discussion

Thanhha Lai has crafted a realistic portrayal of a Vietnamese family's struggles to settle in 1977 America. The Vietnam War, which the Americans and South Vietnamese lost, has only been over for two years. Initially Ha's family, having fled Vietnam without her father, had settled in Alabama. However, Ha's mother has heard there is a larger Vietnamese community in Texas along with better job opportunities. In the beginning, life seems no better for Ha in Texas.

When the family moves into their first apartment they have very little - five boxes and four pillowcases. But her mother tells them to "...lengthen your gaze, toward where land meets cloud."  All Ha wants though, is an end to refugee living. She is in her third Grade Six class in the past month and she misses evenings with her mother who works late. Added to this, Ha has her first menstrual period at school despite some help by her teacher, she is left waiting on a bench for over two hours for her bus. 

Although she meets a few friend, Diggy, who is Puerto Rican, she knows this friendship will likely not survive their eventual move to a house. When Ha tells her mother about things that happen at school, her mother  panics, trying to protect her only daughter by having Ha presented at a Buddhist temple where she is scrutinized by Vietnamese mothers looking for prospective wives for their sons. Because her mother works long hours, Ha takes to signing school forms and her report card.

Ha also has to endure an insensitive class discussion of the My Lai Massacre which she doesn't know about because she was three-years-old when it happened in 1968. Charlie Company, part of the American Division's 11th Infantry Brigade, numbering less than one hundred men, was ordered to search for Viet Cong guerillas in nearby Son My. However, when they searched the village, they found no guerillas, only women, children and elderly men. Lieutenant William Calley, after ordering the villagers rounded up, gave the order to shoot them. The soldiers also raped a number of women. The massacre was only stopped by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson who placed his helicopter between the soldiers and the fleeing villagers. They flew many wounded villagers to a medical hospital for care. Five hundred and four people were killed, including one hundred eighty-two women, seventeen of whom were pregnant. The U.S. military attempted a cover-up but the war crime was exposed when Rod Ridenhour, a soldier in the 11th Brigade gave an interview to an investigative reporter after the military refused to act.

When Ha confronts her mother about this event, she tells Ha that she has invested in her children rather than being angry. 

"Instead I chose you children,

vowing to educate

your minds and hearts

so you would know the result

of your every action.

Choices to no

pick up a gun,

glorify a leader,

hide behind commands,

claim honor, blame others.

You would then 

begin to create

a different history." 

Ha's mother advises,
"Contemplate on yourself

until you're a solid anchor,

then ensure kindness to family

then society then earth."

Beautiful words, that ring true for everyone.

The lack of understanding between Vietnamese and American culture reaches a crisis point when Ha's mother is accused of abuse, after Ha returns to school having been ill. Treated at home by her mother, Ha has a leaf imprint on her back which is mistaken for the marks of a beating. Ha's mother stands up to school officials and with the help of a Vietnamese doctor they are exonerated.

When Clouds Touch ends on a much happier note: with the help of her brothers and her own contribution, Ha's family is able to buy a home. The clouds on the horizon have dived down to touch Ha and her family. And Ha discovers that her mother is their true anchor, working to provide a home that they can return to, one that replaces what was lost from war. Even more so, her mother refuses Ha's offer to study nearby, to be with her mother. But Ha's mother tells her,
"I relinquish you

to a world

unknown to me."

In some ways all mothers do so, but even more so, the refugee mother.

When Clouds Touch Us is a fitting sequel to Inside Out & Back Again which was written over a decade ago..

Book Details:

When Clouds Touch Us by Thanhha Lai

New York: Harper Collins Children's Books    2023

244 pp.

The Turtle of Michigan by Naomi Shihab Nye

In The Turtle of Michigan, Shihab Nye continues the story she began in the first novel about Aref and his parents who are moving to America to study.

The story picks up where The Turtle of Oman left off, with Aref and his mother boarding a plane, on their way to America. Aref's father left a week prior, for Ann Arbor, Michigan, to set up their apartment. After a week of refusing to pack his suitcase and being unhappy about leaving his friends and all that is familiar in Oman, Aref is excited to be flying.

The long plane journey, from Muscat to Paris, to New York City and then to Detroit, Michigan is uneventful but tiring. The reunion with his father is tearful but happy. However, their arrival at their apartment is marred by a small disaster. Aref's other trips over a yellow parking divider and breaks her wrist. They are helped by their friendly neighbours, Mr and Mrs. Finnegan, an older Irish couple. At the hospital, Aref's mother has her wrist placed in a brace and is told to return to have a plate put in. 

When Aref finally does get to see his new home, an apartment, he likes it but finds it smaller than their "real house" back  home. In his room he has a terrarium that he hopes to use for a Michigan turtle.

After his mother's surgery, Aref settles into help his father with the chores and shopping. While waiting for his own school year to start, Aref accompanies his parents to their lectures at the University of Michigan. One day Aref and his father went to Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School to fill out papers for him to enroll at the school. While there Aref notices the poster about the Arts Camp and decides to join. For Aref it is the beginning of a new adventure that sees him make new friends and have new adventures. There is the good food at an Italian restaurant, their neighbour Hugh and his guide dog Honeybun, the Michigan turtles Aref and his father find on a fall hike, his first snowfall and his first Christmas. But the biggest and best surprise is about to happen, one that will make Aref very happy.

Discussion

The Turtle of Michigan is another gentle, positive story by poet and writer Naomi Shihab Nye. In this novel, eight-year-old Aref with the help of his parents, a kindly neighbour named Hugh and his teachers quickly adjusts to life in America. Although he misses Oman and his beloved Sidi, Aref learns to find places, people and things to love about his new life in America.

Shihab Nye chronicles Aref's journey in a very gentle, affirming style.  Before schools starts, Aref wonders if he will find friends. "Would he find new friends and walk with other people soon? Would he belong? Would he still feel like himself? Or would he keep feeling a little lost, like those birds in the air port terminal?" It is Aref's father who helps him to settle in by taking him to explore shops and going on hikes near their home.  Aref's parents' openness to new people, and new cultures  helps him to adapt quickly. This leads Aref to bravely decide to attend art camp even though he doesn't feel he's a good artist. But Aref does make new friends at the art camp. The result is that, Aref finds that their apartment complex feels like home. "Home happened fast" he notes.

Like his father who is a biologist, Aref is interested in animals such as bats and turtles. When he first arrives at his family's new apartment in Ann Arbor, he sees that his father has placed a terrarium in his bedroom.  At first Aref is anxious to find a turtle for his terrarium. In October when Aref and his parents go on a hike to the Nichols Arboretum, they spot many turtles happily swimming in the water. There are baby turtles and larger turtles. Aref's mother suggests they just take a small turtle and bring it home for his terrarium. This horrifies Aref who cannot imagine separating the turtles. When Aref considers the situation, he tells his friend Robin that "It would be very bad to live in a glass tank." Eventually he decides to use his terrarium for growing a herb garden.

Shihab Nye incorporates many different issues into her story, briefly exploring each. The character Hugh, a neighbour who is blind and has a support dog, is portrayed in a way that demonstrates his disability doesn't preventing him from enjoying a rich and varied life. He cooks a gourmet dinner for Aref's family and a mutual neighbour's family. He recently traveled to Arizona to help his sister who is also visually impaired. Shihab Nye broaches the topic of a blended family by having Aref's friend, Robin tell him about his father and step-father. The issue of bullying is also explored when Aref decides to join the anti-bullying club at school run by first-graders (a rather strange way to run an anti-bullying club).

The Turtle of Michigan is a well-written sequel to the first novel, offering a positive immigration experience and encouraging young readers who might be faced with adjusting to a new culture to consider not what they have lost culturally, but what they might gain both from new friendships.

Book Details:

The Turtle of Michigan by Naomi Shihab Nye
New York: Greenwillow Books      2022

322 pp.

Watercress by Andrea Wang

 A young girl is driving along a country road in Ohio with her parents and her older brother. They are in the family's old red Pontiac. Suddenly her mother spots watercress in the ditch beside the talk stalks of corn. They stop and out of the car trunk, comes a brown paper bag and rusty scissors. Her parents are remembering a time in China.

The young girl and her brother are told to remove their sneakers and socks, roll up their jeans and help them gather the watercress. The water is cold and the mud squelches between her toes. As they gather bags of the small plant, the young girl hopes no one sees her in the ditch with her family. Her brother shoves some watercress, dripping muddy water and snails near her face.

At home that night, a dish of watercress is served for dinner but the young girl refuses to eat it. Her parents try to convince her to try it, but to the young girl anything different is bad.

 The young girl's mom shows her an old photo of her family, her China family. She never talks about her family. She points to her young brother, the girl's uncle and for the first time speaks about her family in China. During the great famine, they ate whatever they could find. But it was not enough, and her young brother died. Looking at the picture of her uncle who never survived and at the watercress, the young girl is ashamed of being ashamed of her family. And so, she makes a decision.

Discussion

Watercress is a story based on author, Andrea Wang's experiences as a child of Chinese immigrants growing up in a town in Ohio. In her poignant "A Note From The Author" at the back of the book, Wang writes that she "was very aware of how different my family and I were from everyone else. It's hard to feel like you don't belong, and collecting food from a muddy roadside ditch just made that bad feeling more intense for me -- something my very practical parent's didn't understand." Wang writes that her parents didn't talk about their life in China and the hardships they experienced during war. At the same time, she feels it's important for children to know their heritage.One way to learn this is through the memories parents offer. These memories, according to Wang, "...have the power to inform, to inspire, and to heal."

This simple story is full of meaning, rich with the power memories have. This is captured so beautifully by the expressive artwork of illustrator Jason Chin. The illustrations are rendered using watercolour on 140 pound cold press Saunders watercolor paper. In his "A Note From The Artist", Chin writes that he chose the medium of watercolour which is common to both Chinese and Western art. He writes that his colour palette and technique were also carefully chosen to reflect the themes in the story. In an attempt to "add another layer to Andrea's remarkable story", Chin "drew on my own memories of exclusion, loss, and guilt". He has succeeded admirably. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this exceptional picture book, is the ability of the illustrations to convey these exact emotions so deeply and purely.The reader experiences the shame, the anger and the guilt of the young girl as she struggles to come to terms with her identity and her heritage. Highly recommended.

Book Details:

Watercress by Andrea Wang
New York: Holiday House    2021

Escape From Syria by Samya Kullab, Jackie Roche & Mike Freiheit

In 2013, Amina lived with her entire family in one house. She loved walking home from school and visiting her Uncle Mahmoud to read his books. She would eat apples with her grandfather. Amina's family never thought Syria would be at war but her father explained that the roots of the conflict originated when Hafez al-Assad took control of the country. People lived in fear until 2000 when his son, Bashar came to power. Syrians were hopeful until a year into his rule, when he arrested those calling for democratic elections. Free speech, public gatherings were restricted and people were careful not criticized the government for fear of being watched.

But on March 15, 2011, everything got much worse when students in Dara'a, in southern Syria graffitied a wall with a resistance slogan. The students were arrested and possibly tortured. This outraged people and they began to demonstrate throughout Syria. As the unrest grew, Syria fell into civil war with soldiers from the Syrian army defecting to form a new group, the Free Syria Army or FSA. People were afraid that Assad was preparing to attack his own people in Aleppo.

When an explosion destroyed their home, Amina's father said they needed to leave. Amina's family - her parents, Walid and Dalis and her younger brother Youssef,  travelled to Lebanon where they planned to stay for only a few months and then return home. But their money ran out and they were forced to leave their apartment and live for two years in a refugee camp in Bekaa Valley. In the camp, Amina wants to work but her father tells her she must continue to go to school so that when the war ends she can attend university.

Lebanon was swamped with 1.3 million Syrian refugees. The country was still recovering from a fifteen year civil war and fears of another war were increasing.

Syrians were not allowed to assimilate into Lebanese society and were kept separate. This was because many extremists in Syria attempted to enter Lebanon to fight Hezbollah who were helping Assad. These extremists would bomb areas where Hezbollah had control. Because Lebanon did not have the infrastructure nor the money to cope with so many new people living conditions deteriorated and the schools were crowded. Amina was lucky to be able to attend school, learning in a new language. 

But one day Youssef became very ill with bacterial meningitis. The medication to save his life was expensive and the decision was made to have Amina leave school in order to work to help pay for Youssef's medications. Her father also made the difficult decision to not renew his residency papers meaning he could be arrested at any time in Lebanon. To make matters worse, the war in Syria was growing worse with many soldiers now abandoning the revolution and the emergence of jihadist and Islamist groups. Their dream of returning one day to Syria appeared to be vanishing.

Then Walid learned from his cousin about a potential way out of Lebanon. But when that failed, and just as the situation appeared even more dire, a new possibility appeared.  But do Walid and Dali have the courage to take it?

Discussion

Author Samya Kullab is currently a Baghdad-based Iraq correspondent for the Associated Press. In 2017, Kullab, in collaboration with illustrator Jackie Roche and colourist, Mike Freiheit, wrote Escape From Syria, about the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon. From 2013 to 2016, Kullab was a reporter and editor for Lebanon's Daily Star, covering the refugee crisis as it unfolded. 

Kullab observed first-hand, the refugee experience as well as the social and economic impacts on Lebanon as it absorbed almost a million displaced Syrians fleeing the war. In her novel's introduction, Kullab outlines some of the problems Syrian refugees experienced, problems which she vividly portrays in Escape From Syria.

This powerful graphic novel portrays the impact of the Syrian conflict through the character of Amina and her family. Kullab switches the narrative back and forth between the different time periods, gradually filling in the backstory as to how Amina and her family arrived in Canada. Amina and her family are now safe, living in Toronto, Ontario but she remembers times before the war when her mother made delicious dinners and her father, who owned a shoemaking business travelled the world. She also recollects the outbreak of the conflict and fleeing into Lebanon.Unlike many other refugee stories, the focus is not on Amina's family's escape from Lebanon. Fortunately, there was no dangerous sea crossing, although her father Walid almost drowned during his failed attempt to leave via human smugglers. 

Instead, Kullab focuses on what life was like in the refugee camps and how desperation can make good people do things they would never ever have considered. Conditions in the camp are terrible, with little food, poor sanitation and almost no schooling. A child who spends five to eight years in a camp, with no education, has poor prospects for a good life.Walid is determined Amina stay in school, until their circumstances become so dire that she is forced to work so they can pay for Youssef's medication.

The desperation is especially seen in the panels that show Amina meeting her friend Mona who was in her class in Aleppo. Mona offers Amina an invitation to her wedding but Amina is stunned because her friend is only thirteen years old! She is being married because her parents are afraid the camps are no longer safe. When Amina's mother brings up this idea, telling her they are considering the same, Amina refuses and runs out. Later at the UNHCR, Amina tells the case worker her mother wants to arrange a marriage for her as a means of protecting her.

Kullab reminds readers that even after finding safety in another country such as Canada, Syrian refugees struggle, feeling like outsiders as they work to adapt to a new country and culture. Walid tells Amina, "In Syria, I knew who I was. I knew the logic of the place, even when there was war. But here, I'm swimming in an ocean and I'm still searching for my footing."

Escape From Syria offers young Canadian readers an overview of the Syrian refugee crisis and how war, fleeing one's homeland and living in a refugee camp has a significant impact on the people experiencing these situations. The story is simply told, the art panels well crafted and coloured. Kullab presents the context of the story in her introduction and in the back matter fills in the details of quotes from the text in the End Notes. A brilliant, effective collaboration. Well done!

Book Details:

Escape From Syria by Samya Kullab
Toronto: Firefly Books       2017
95 pp.

Amina's Song by Hena Khan

Amina Khokar is in the final days of her visit to Lahore, Pakistan with her older brother, Mustafa and  mother. Amina and her family decided to visit Pakistan after Thaya Jaan became ill earlier in the year. 

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

In the evening at her uncle's home,  Amina and Zohra sit on the rooftop terrace. Amina invites Zohra and her brother Ahmed to visit America during  the winter but Zohra isn't keen to do so, because she feels she won't be welcome there. When it is time to leave, Thaya Jaan makes Amina promise to show Americans "the beauty of Pakistan".  

As Amina struggles to acclimatize to life at home, she feels her friends aren't much interested in her experiences in Pakistan. Determined to show her friends and classmates that Pakistan is more than what they hear on the news, Amina decides to focus on Malala Yousafzai. But when her first presentation leaves the wrong impression, Amina struggles to figure out how she can show the beauty of the Pakistan she loves so much.

Discussion

Amina's Song is the sequel to Khan's first novel, Amina's Voice. It picks up where the first novel left off with Amina and her family visiting family in Lahore, Pakistan. 

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

Amina wants to stay longer in Pakistan and learn Urdu. Her feelings are further conflicted when her cousin, Zohra refuses to visit America because she's "not wanted", leaving Amina hurt.  "She's talking about my country, the one that's a part of me and made me who I am." She reminds Zohra that there is good and bad everywhere. Back in America, this internal conflict that Amina feels continues but in a different way; Amina feels that her friends do not appreciate her culture and show little interest in what she experienced over the summer.

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

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

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

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

Book Details:

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

You Bring The Distant Near by Mitali Perkins

You Bring The Distant Near follows three generations of women from an Indian-American family who immigrated from England to America. The novel explores the challenges they face and is told from various points of view over the years beginning in 1965 until 2006. To aid her readers, Perkins has included a small family tree at the front of the novel. The novel follows Ranee Das who is mother to Tara (Starry) and Sonia (Sunny) Das and grandmother to their daughters, Anna (Anu)Sen and Chantal (Shanti) Johnson respectively.

The novel opens in 1965 with Sonia participating in a swimming race at the British Club in Ghana. They are the only dark-skinned people at the club. Sonia, in the lead, loses the race when Ranee pulls her prematurely from the water. The novel is then divided into three parts.

Part I Strangers 1973-74 skips ahead to 1973 and the Das family is enroute from London, England to New York.  Tara, lighter skinned, loves to pretend she's various famous people, her latest being Twiggy. Once in America, she decides instead to channel Marcia from the Brady Bunch. Sonia, who is darker, younger is the academic. They are met in New York by Baba who takes them to their apartment in Flushing, a part of Queens. Sonia's mother questions the safety of the area when she notices most of the people are black. The Das family settle in, with Ranee making her daughters "American" clothes to help them fit in.

The first day of school, Ranee accompanies her children dressed in a green sari and golden bangles on each arm. The girls are tested, and Sonia is placed in the gifted class in grade nine, while Tara is enrolled in grade eleven. Tara immerses herself in school, Sonia finds solace in her diary and starts an Equal Rights Club at school. However Ranee struggles to be happy and fights often with Baba. Sonia's entries about her mother's treatment of Baba lead to change and to Ranee and Baba moving to a new house in Ridgeford, New Jersey. There Tara enrolls in theatre and Sonia is placed in advanced math, physics, English and French.

Part II Travelers 1976-81 sees the Das family struggle to cope with the death of Baba who is killed in an hit and run accident. This part of the story focuses on the journeys the two daughters undertake. Although pressured to return to Kolkata, Ranee decides to stay in the house Baba bought for her. Sonia meets Lou Johnson, a football player nicknamed "Black Lightning". The two of them fall in love during a trip to Paris after winning an essay contest. Lou helps Sonia come to terms with her Baba's death by bringing her into a Catholic church in Paris where she discovers God and inner healing. Tara travels to Bangladesh to scatter her father's ashes in the Ganges. To help her is Amit Sen, the boy whose marriage proposals she has twice turned down. After scattering her father's ashes, Tara travels to her family's ancestral home which was a jute farm that they lost to Muslims after the Partition. There Tara makes her peace with what happened, giving the family gifts. She agrees to marry Amit. Sonia becomes estranged from her mother after eloping with Lou. Even the fact that she is expecting her first child does not move Ranee to reconcile.

Part III Settlers 1998-2006 tells the story of Ranee's grandchildren, Chantal Johnson and Anna Sen. Chantal lives in Harlem with her parents, Sonia who is a freelance journalist and Lou who is a sculptor. Her cousin Anna lives mostly in Mumbai with her parents, her mother Tara is a Bollywood actress while her father Amit is a banker. They have a penthouse in Manhattan. Chantal's Grandma Rose (Lou's mother) and her Didu do not get along and when Chantal becomes upset over their fighting they decide to make peace. Anna is sent to Carver Independent School where Chantal attends. Anna finds school very different from what she's used to but she enjoys her life at Carver -except for the locker room and its lack of privacy. With the help of Chantal and some new friends, Anna remakes the locker room. Chantal's life is marked by her relationship with a rich, white boy named Martin Larsen in her senior year. Chantal doesn't believe they  have a future because Martin's family is so wealthy and they seem to care more for things than people. But Martin proves Chantal wrong when she wrecks his Porsche.

Anna becomes overwhelmingly distraught when Ranee decides to become an American citizen after the 9/11 attacks. However, Ranee decides to remake herself entirely as a modern "American" woman much to the distress of her family and in particular Anna. She decides to attend Lou and Sonia's Catholic church where she finds friendship and community. The novel ends with Ranee living in an apartment on her own and setting up a meeting with her kind young neighbour, Darnell who is black and who is looking for an old-fashioned girl!

Discussion

You Bring The Distant Near is a multi-generational story which deals with the themes of identity and prejudice as a Bengali family crosses from one culture into another. The focus shifts over time from new immigrants Rajeev and Ranee Das and their daughters Tara and Sonia to their first generation Indian-American granddaughters Anna Sen and Chantal Johnson and returns full circle to Ranee Das, the matriarch of the family. Each character struggles to understand their place within their own families and the world at large. Perkins has stated that the novel is about crossing borders, both geographical borders and the borders of life, from childhood to adult, from culture to culture - and the challenges that entails.

Ranee Das, mother of Tara and Sonia is a Bengali woman who was married at age eighteen in an arranged marriage. When she arrives in America she bears a prejudice against people with dark skin, even though her younger daughter, Sonia is dark skinned. Sonia is well aware of her mother's prejudice against dark skin, something she experiences on the flight to New York. "She...then swivels to take stock of my appearance. I brace myself. Sure enough, that familiar twitch of displeasure passes across her face. It's gone in a moment, but after years of rejecting her Light and Lively skin-bleaching cream, I know what makes her wince. The darkness of my skin." When they arrive in Flushing, New York, Ranee sees the many black children and immediately considers their neighbourhood to be dangerous. She refuses to let the girls go anywhere alone and is eager to move from Flushing telling the girls, "I've seen how those Negro boys look at you girls." Sonia objects insisting there is no caste system in America but Ranee tells her,  " 'All people are not treated equally,...It's like that everywhere in the world. In India, people assume that if you have dark skin, you're from a lower caste. Here, it's the same..."

Sonia's elopement with her black boyfriend Lou seems to cement Ranee's prejudice and it isn't until the birth of Tara's daughter, Anna that Ranee finally relents. Ranee's feelings about dark skinned people change - she loves Lou and Sonia's daughter Chantal, who is dark skinned. And by the end of the novel, Ranee is good friends with a young, caring, black man named Darnell who is her neighbour in Flushing, New York. In fact, Ranee acts to set up Darnell with her granddaughter Anna.

Ranee's identity crisis comes well after she's settled in America. She's still not an American citizen when the 9/11 attacks happen but this tragedy motivates her to become one. Up until this point, Ranee has worn a white sari, the clothing of a Bengali widow and has always stated ,"I'll die an Indian." After the citizenship ceremony, Ranee westernizes her clothing, cuts and dyes her hair, learns to drive, attends a baseball game and even asks Chantal to have a slumber party. She joins the Catholic church that Sonia attends, finding that this makes her feel American because she finally experiences a sense of community. Ranee's family worries but she finally explains to them that the attack changed her and that the city began to feel like her home. "It came nearer to my heart, not so distant."

Both Tara and Sonia struggle to find their identity in America. Tara's strategy is to change her identity completely and model herself after famous stars. In London she took on the persona of famous model Twiggy; in New York she attempts to remake herself into Marcia Brady from the Brady Bunch. These identities help her hide her Bengali identity and allow her to fit in. Eventually she drops the personas permanently but Tara's struggle with her identity continues into adulthood. Tara's mother and an unrelated "Auntie" attempt to arrange her marriage to another Bengali, Amit Sen. Tara refuses Amit's proposals twice because "Then Amit and I would become a Bengali couple in an arranged marriage, playing the same roles as our parents and grandparents and Das and Sen family ancestors have for generations." Amit flees to Bangladesh and later invites Tara to visit so she can fulfil her promise to spread her father's ashes in the Ganges River. In Bangladesh Tara realizes that she's spent her youth repudiating her Bengali heritage, never wearing saris (which she now finds quite beautiful), quitting harmonium lessons and Rabindra Sangreet (a type of India song) lessons. But after seeing her father's ancestral home, Tara finally comes to terms with her Bengali heritage and this frees her to acknowledge her love for Amit and to accept his marriage proposal.

Sonia's struggle with her identity as an Indian American is tied up in the women's rights movement of the 1970's. Sonia's activism likely began when she was pulled from the pool in 1965 so she wouldn't beat the white children in the swim race. Sonia views her Bengali heritage as patriarchal and considers her Ma's keeping of the Bengali restrictions for widows as being caught in a "patriarchal prison." Sonia is happy for her mother to become American but she also wants her to retain her identity as a Bengali too.

Perhaps the weakest part of Perkins story is that of Chantal and Anna. Chantal seems to be the most settled of all the characters regarding her identity, but she judges her friend Martin, on the basis of his family's wealth and their perceived focus on material things rather than people. His love of his Porsche is a "symbol of how my family cares about art and love and justice, while his family cares about...rich people stuff." But when Martin takes the fall for the damage Chantal does to his car, Chantal realizes he does care first about people - especially her, rather than things. In contrast Anna, who has grown up mostly in Mumbai believes they should preserve their Bengali heritage. She prides herself on truly knowing what being Bengali/Hindu means and this makes her very upset when Ranee undergoes her transformation. It is Uncle Lou who helps her come to terms with everything.
 " 'None of us have to be 100 percent American,' says Uncle Lou. 'What does that mean, anyway? Hyphens, for better or worse, are everywhere now. And the good old U.S.A makes space for lots of identities.'
Maybe he's right. Maybe 'being American' means you still have room in your heart for other things. Old things. Good things."

You Bring The Distant Near, takes it's title from a line from a poem, Thou Hast Made Me Known which is about welcoming those who are strangers or foreigners. It was penned by famous Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore who won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.  Perkins captures the complex family dynamics, the care and love each member of the Das family have for one another, and the struggle to retain their culture and beliefs while attempting to understand and adopt those of their new country. The result is a story with characters and situations that seem realistic and interesting, a story that sheds light on the immigrant experience, one repeated generation after generation in America.

Book Details:

You Bring The Distant Near by Mitali Perkins
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux       2017
303 pp.

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

Daniel Jae Ho Bae's older brother Charlie Jae Won Bae has just been kicked out of Harvard University. Daniel's parents who are immigrants from South Korea are disappointed and angry that their beloved first-born son who can do no wrong has failed. Charlie doesn't like Daniel and the feeling is mutual. As a little boy, Daniel looked up to his older brother but that changed when Charlie pushed him away to be with friends.

Daniel and Charlie's parents Min Soo and Dae Hyun met and married in South Korea and came to New York City to start a new life. With the help of a cousin they opened a beauty supply shop called Black Hair Care which sells hair care products to the African American residents of New York. They expect their children to be successful to be doctors. Now that Charlie has been forced to withdraw, the pressure is on Daniel to gain admission to a good school and to stick to the path chosen by his parents - becoming a doctor. But Daniel doesn't want to be a doctor. Instead he wants to be a poet.  He's refused to apply to Harvard, but has an interview today with a Yale alum.

Daniel dresses in his new gray suit and a bright red tie for the interview and takes the Westbound 7 train to Manhattan where his favourite barber is located. He has the entire day free before his interview and he decides he will "do whatever the world tells him to", that he will "blow in the direction of the wind."  Enroute the train is stopped in a tunnel just before the Times Square station by the conductor who encourages everyone to find God. From Times Square Daniel decides to walk to the barber keeping an eye for a "Sign". He stops outside a church on Thirty-Seventh Street but when it's locked his sits down to people watch. That's when Daniel sees a black girl with a huge Afro and huge pink headphones completely blissed out listening to music. Daniel recognizes that she's passionate about music and finds this attractive. He decides to follow her when she enters a music store called Second Coming Records. 

Natasha Kingsley, her nine year old brother Peter and her parents Samuel and Patricia are being deported tonight. She and her parents are undocumented, illegal immigrants from Jamaica. They were discovered when her father was charged with a DUI.  Natasha decides to try one last time to prevent their deportation by going to the offices of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. On her way into the USCIS offices, Natasha has her personal effects scrutinized by Irene, one of the many security guards. She's late for her 8a.m. appointment with Karen Whitney by five minutes and she is refused. Just as she's about to be escorted out by security, a brown-skinned man by the name of Lester Barnes intervenes. Barnes tells Natasha that her family is here illegally and that she has to leave. He attempts to tell her "Everything is irie there, man" but Natasha questions him about whether or not he saw the real Jamaica on his trip. She begins to cry telling him she planned to attend college and will be returning to a country she doesn't know and hasn't lived in since she was eight. Barnes gives her the name of a lawyer, Jeremy Fitzgerald who can "fix" her situation. Natasha has an appointment at eleven a.m. and so she decides to walk to the lawyer's office and stop in at her favourite record store along the way.

Inside Second Coming, Natasha is disgusted to see her ex-boyfriend Rob and his new girlfriend, Kelly, making out and stealing records. Also watching is a stranger, a Korean boy who is astonished at what Rob and Kelly are doing.Natasha refers to him as Red Tie and together they watch as Rob and Kelly are confronted by a store employee. Daniel introduces himself and shakes hands with Natasha but she's not interested, doesn't tell him her name and tells him to have a nice life. Daniel follows Natasha out of the store and when she goes to step off the curb to cross the street, Daniel sees a BMW running the red light and pulls her out of danger. Natasha is stunned but grateful despite her headphones being broken. Daniel presses her to tell him her name which she does and he invites her to get something to eat. He learns that Natasha is from Jamaica and that she has an important appointment to keep, something that is causing her worry.

While Daniel believes he could have the life his father wants for him and be a great doctor, "something about Natasha makes me think my life could be extraordinary.." Daniel finds himself inexorably attracted to Natasha. In fact, he believes he's falling in love with her even though he knows being with a black girl will never gain his parent's approval. In the coffee shop, Natasha is not friendly towards Daniel and is dismayed to discover that Daniel is falling for her. She tells him not to fall in love with her because she has no intention of falling in love with him. In fact she doesn't believe in love because it can't be measured and is temporary.

So Daniel challenges Natasha that he can get her to fall in love with him. To do this he decides to use some of the questions from a study mentioned in the New York Times. But what Daniel doesn't realize is that time is running out for them. Are they destined to be together? Can Fate intervene?

Discussion

The Sun Is Also A Star is a beautifully crafted novel that explores the way our lives are inexplicably interconnected to one another. Throughout the tapestry that is woven in this story, Nicole Yoon asks her readers to consider the role of God, Fate or chance in what often seems like random encounters in our lives.

The central characters are Jamaican born, illegal immigrant Natasha Kingsley and Korean-American Daniel Jae Ho Bae. Around them revolve a cast of smaller characters that include Natasha's father Samuel, Daniel's brother Charlie and his father, Dae Hyun Bae, Irene a security guard at USCIS, the train conductor, the BMW driver Donald Christiansen, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald, his assistant Hannah Winter, a Korean waitress, and the building security guard named Joe. Although Daniel and Natasha affect each others lives significantly so do the other characters and in particular one character who plays an unexpected part in bringing them back together.

Like the string art on the novel's front cover, Yoon weaves a set of colourful, imaginative narratives together that portray the desperation of a girl to stay in America while demonstrating the threads that connect us all. The Sun Is Also A Star brilliantly demonstrates how we are all interconnected and asks us to consider the origin of the meetings that happen between people. Are these encounters coincidence, random acts that happen in the universe or do they happen due to Fate, destiny or God? Of course the main encounter in the novel is that of Daniel and Natasha. Were they destined to meet and fall in love or was it just random chance?

The two main characters view life very differently and thus approach this question very differently. Natasha is intelligent and practical. Like most people today, she doesn't "like temporary, nonprovable things, and romantic love is both temporary and nonprovable." While her mother believes everything happens for a reason, and her father prefers to see the hand of God in things, Natasha believes "that life is just a random series of good and bad things that happen until one day you die. There is no fate, no destiny, no meant-to-be." Natasha believes she's a realist: "It's better to see life as it is, not as you wish it to be. Things don't happen for a reason. They just happen." Natasha intends to be a data scientist but she feels this choice is not destiny. "I chose this career. It didn't choose me. I'm not fated to be a data scientist...I did research on growing fields in the sciences...No fate."

Practical Natasha believes the "poetic heart, the heart of love songs and soliloquies...is fickle and will lead you astray. It will tell you that all you need is love and dreams." Despite this, Natasha's "fickle, nonpractical, non-future-considering, nonsensical heart wants Daniel. I know there's no such thing as meant-to-be and yet here I am wondering if maybe I've been wrong." This sets up an intense conflict within Natasha who believes that "love is just chemicals and coincidence."  Natasha believes in "determinism -- cause and effect. One action leads to another leads to another. Your actions determine your fate." She views the actions of one individual human as inconsequential compared to the forces at work in the vast universe. 

In contrast, Daniel, an aspiring poet  challenges Natasha's practical, less passionate outlook on life. "We are capable of big lives...Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about." Unlike Natasha, Daniel believes in love and shortly after meeting her, he's certain he's going to fall in love with her. Daniel believes in Fate or destiny - their meeting might have been by chance but once it happened, falling in love was inevitable. When Natasha reveals that she is hours from being deported, Daniel is deeply hurt. He struggles and wonders if "Life is just a series of dumb decisions and indecisions and coincidences that we choose to ascribe meaning to."  He considers what Natasha told him that he's looking for someone to rescue him from his life because then the decisions about his future will be out of his control. "It won't be me defying my parents. It will be Fate." 

But Daniel's faith that something else is at work in their lives is rekindled when he and Natasha find each other a second time that day - he returns to the building where she had the interview while she goes back to his house hoping to meet him there. Perhaps it is destiny or Fate that intervenes but Daniel's brother does the only good thing he will do for his brother in his life, he gives Daniel's phone number to Natasha. They discover yet another coincidence - Daniel's interview is in the same building as Natasha's lawyer and that the interview is with her lawyer, a Yale alumnus.While Daniel believes in God and that the connection people share with one another represents God, Natasha believes only in science to explain that connection. When it becomes apparent that Natasha will have to leave, Daniel has succeeded in his quest but while he hopes there will be "something else that could lead them back to each other" someday. For Natasha, maybe meant to be isn't forever.

 Themes and ideas from Natasha's narratives are explored further in separate chapters. For example, when Natasha meets with Lester Barnes at the Immigration office he makes reference to the Jamaican term "irie" which means good or pleasant. He tells Natasha of his limited Jamaican experience, "I had a nice time. Everything is irie there. You'll be all right." But in the chapter titled "irie. An etymological history" Natasha explores the meaning of irie, but also how words can mean one thing to one person -like Barnes, but a totally different thing to another person. Barnes really doesn't know or understand the Jamaican concept of irie in the same way that Natasha might. "A word can start off meaning one thing and end up meaning another. Is it from overuse and oversimplification, like the way irie is taught to tourists at Jamaican resorts? Is it from misuse, like the way Natasha's father's been using it lately?"

Yoon also shows her readers how the slightest of our actions can influence another person in ways we might not know. Irene who is the security guard at USCIS loves her job because it is the sole source of connection with other people in her life. She slows down each bin she needs to search, forcing people to "look up and meet her eyes." Irene decides that she will kill herself, something she's been contemplating for some time. However, Natasha, believing that Attorney Fitzgerald can save her family from deportation, decides to phone Lester Barnes asking him to thank Irene. Her delaying Natasha getting through security resulted in the chain of events that led her to meeting Daniel. Barnes call to Irene ultimately saves her life, leads her to start on a new path and results in her, years later helping to reunite Daniel and Natasha.

The Sun Is Also A Star is another brilliant, beautiful novel by Nicola Yoon. Her stories are engaging, thoughtful and remarkably well crafted. Nicola Yoon grew up in Jamaica and also in Brooklyn New York. Her second novel makes her a force to be reckoned with in young adult literature.

Book Details:

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon
Canada: Doubleday Canada    2016
344 pp.

Gathering of Pearls by Sook Nyul Choi

"Tough times are the times when one gathers one's pearls."

Gathering of Pearls is the last book in Choi's three part series about a young woman's life in Korea and her journey to America.

It is September, 1954 and Sookan Bak has just arrived at Idlewild Airport (now known as John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York, after a lengthy plane trip across the Pacific. Sookan has achieved her dream of coming to study in America where she will be attending Finch College, an all-girls Catholic college in New York. She feels tired, overwhelmed and nervous. Everything is so much larger and busier than Seoul, Korea. Sookan is struck by how tall and openly affectionate Americans are. Adding to her worries is the fact that the students who were supposed to meet her at Idlewild are not there. Anxious, Sookan calls Sister Casey at Finch College and gets instructions to the college. So begins her four years in America.

When she arrives at Finch College, Sookan's self-consciousness over her black hair and yellow skin is not eased by Sister Casey's request that she wear her native dress, called a hanbok to dinner. However, the girls at the college are delighted and Sookan meets her roommate, Ellen Lloyd, a tall, blonde outgoing girl. Sookan and Ellen get acquainted, with Sookan telling Ellen how her older sister who is a nun did not want her to come to America and Ellen showing Sookan a picture of her boyfriend, Lyle who is a student at Princeton. Sookan is impressed by Ellen's plans for her life, to marry Lyle and have four children, two boys and two girls.

Sookan plans an ambitious academic schedule, selecting world literature, world religions, Greek and Roman culture and early European history. She knows this will be challenging but she is determined to succeed. Sookan also meets another girl at the school, Marci Gannon, who is very different from Ellen. Marci is quiet, loves to read books and has a somewhat boyish look. Marci believes she looks and sounds awkward but Sookan reassures her that she is just fine.

Sookan receives her first letter from her mother which makes her feel homesick but she also discerns that things are difficult for her family in Korea. Her mother both encourages her, having faith that she will succeed and also tells her not to worry about the family back home.

As the term wears on, Sookan finds it increasingly difficult to keep up with her heavy course work and manage her outside commitments. For scholarship work she is assigned to serve the evening dinner shift and she's also asked to speak about Korea to the Girl Scouts Club. She also agrees to babysit the children of Professor Bennett on weekends.

As Sookan becomes better friends with both Marci and Ellen, she begins to realize that they  have similar problems with family expectations, despite the difference in their cultures and traditions.
In Ellen's situation, her problems center around her growing relationship with her boyfriend Kyle, whom she is convinced she will marry. Possibly knowing her parents will not support her decision to become involved with a boy so young, Ellen keeps her relationship a secret.

Marci tells Sookan that her father wants her to study science and eventually take over his chemical company, Gannon Chemical,  something she has absolutely no interest in. Marci feels disconnected from her parents who seem to adore her older sister, Susan, who is outgoing, popular and who shares similar interests with their parents.

Sookan especially understands Marci's predicament because it mirrors her own feelings, especially towards her older sister Theresa, although she is shocked to hear Marci voice them. Letters from Theresa who is a nun, seem to highlight this disconnect the Sookan feels too. Instead of encouraging her as their mother had done, Theresa chides Sookan for neglecting to send her the pages of her personal journal so she could read them, as she agreed to do and for neglecting their goal of  helping people. Theresa, whom everyone looks up to, considers Sookan's dream of studying overseas to be a waste of time. All this leaves Sookan conflicted and feeling as though she has neglected to do her duty and has disobeyed her older sister. Although she has assumed she would one day be a nun like Theresa, now she is not so sure.

Before leaving for Christmas holidays at Marci's home, Sookan receives two letters from home, one from her mother and the other from her sister, Theresa. The two letters bear different news and opinions. From her mother, Sookan gets a letter that encourages her to patient, that trying to do everything according to both Korean and American tradition will not be possible. On the other hand, Theresa's letter tells about her unending hardships at the convent, criticizing Sookan's behaviour and questioning her maturity to be away from home. Sookan must struggle to fit in at school while at the same time try to retain the values that her family back in Korea value.

Discussion

Gathering of Pearls while telling an interesting story about a young woman who comes to America to follow her dream of getting a good education and breaking free of the restrictions her culture places on her, is more a coming of age story. The themes of recognizing the wisdom parents have to offer their children, and acceptance are also explored.

Like Marci and Ellen, Sookan is faced with a family member who does not understand her or what she might want in life. In Sookan's case it is her older sister, while with Ellen and Marci it is their parents. How all three girls deal with this timeless problem is a major theme in the novel. Marci rebels violently against her father who wants her to study chemistry, a subject she is neither good at nor enjoys. She believes her father hates her, but Sookan, an outsider sees that he merely wants her to enjoy what he can provide for her. Ellen on the other hand, feels her parents won't let her make her own decisions about her life despite the fact that she is only eighteen years old. Sookan eventually comes to her own realization about her sister through her mother.

When Sookan returns to school after Christmas break, Sister Reed meets with her to change her schedule, telling her they are very impressed with all her accomplishments. She also gives Sookan a beautiful pearl necklace, a necklace her aunt wanted to be given to an extraordinary young woman. Later on when the pearl necklace breaks, Sookan is reminded of something her mother told her.

"She used to say that women are like oysters. Just as an oyster takes an irritating grain of sand and creates a pearl around it, a woman can take a painful experience and enrich herself by creating something precious from that pain. We take in the misery and bitterness, but instead of letting it poison us, we turn it into a precious pearl....
I cleaned each pearl and thought of my mother. She had suffered so much, and she had made herself richer for it. She was rich in understanding and love...."

When tragedy strikes her family and Sookan learns of the death of her mother, she is utterly devastated. Father Lee travels from Korea and tells her a particular strength that her mother possessed.

"'You know, Sookan, what made your mother so special was her ability to accept people. She firmly believed that one was born with one's nature. One could try to change but would ultimately remain the same. Because she believed this so firmly, she appreciated people for their strengths. She managed to overlook their weaknesses and never criticized them. She also believed that each person was born with a destiny. She never tried to impose her will on any of her children. She wanted each of you to pursue your own path.... She wanted you to live your own life and, most of all, to be happy.'"

Later on, her younger brother, Inchun, sends Sookan their mother's reading glasses. She also receives a letter from her sister that reeks of resentment that she is not there for their mother's funeral. Sookan recognizes this but also remembers her mother's way of thinking. Inchun's gift of their mother's reading glasses to Sookan is a reminder to her to look at people the way her mother did - with understanding, acceptance but also to realize that she must make her own choices and her own life and not necessarily do what her sister or others might believe she should do.

"I realized I must accept my sister, as my mother had done. Nothing would change her, not even Mother's death. I saw now that she had her own shortcomings, insecurities, and anxieties. It was my responsibility to try to understand her as a human being." 

Sookan recognizes that her sister does care for her but that she need not obey her. This gives her the freedom to accept her sister and to love her.

Gathering of Pearls is a wonderful conclusion to this beautifully crafted autobiographical trilogy. Readers will learn a little about the history of Korea and its culture, the values placed on family responsibility and duty. Sookan is gentle, thoughtful narrator who realistically conveys to readers all of this.


Book Details:
Gathering of Pearls by Sook Nyul Choi
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company    1994
163 pp.

Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy

Imperfect Spiral is a poignant story about a girl struggling to come to terms with a terrible accident during her summer holidays. Imperfect Spiral is really two stories interwoven; the story of five year old Humphrey T. Danker and his fifteen year old babysitter, Danielle (Danny) Snyder during the summer, and the story of what happens to Danny, her family and her town as a result of the accident. The events which occur over the summer and into the month of September, are narrated by Danny with the story of Humphrey and Danny told in flashback.  

The novel opens in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Fifteen-year-old Danny is trying to cope with the horror that has overtaken her life - the death of little Humphrey, whom she has nicknamed "Humpty". Danielle's job for the summer had been to babysit five-year-old Humphrey, the son of a prominent Washington, DC lawyer known for arguing cases that have come before the Supreme Court. Humphrey's mother has seen her breast cancer return a third time and she needs someone to care for Humphrey while she undergoes treatments.

One summer evening while walking home along Quarry Road in the Franklin Grove neighbourhood, Humphrey is struck by a blue minivan. Those living along Quarry Road rush out to help; Mrs. McGillcudy brings a blanket, Mr. and Mrs. Stashowers control the bystanders and Mrs. Raskin asks if Humphrey's parents, Tom and Clarice, have been contacted. All the while, Danny cradles Humphrey's head in her hands until EMS arrive. After being checked out at the hospital, Danny is questioned at home by two police officers about what happened. She tells them that she and Humphrey were walking home when she dropped the football she was carrying. Its crazy bounce sent Humphrey into the street after it, causing him to be hit by the minivan. After talking with the police, Danny learns that Humphrey has died and she is utterly devastated.

Danny's family and friends rally around her after the death of Humphrey, including those friends she has lost touch with. Her best "friend", Becca Sherman, texts her from the summer camp where she is a counselor-in-training (CIT).  Becca and Danny have attended both regular and Sunday school together, and had their Bat Mitzvahs together but over time they began to drift apart. Becca has tried to encourage Danny to come out of her shell, to join student council and be a part of student life at Western High, all to no avail. Becca wanted Danny to be a CIT with her, but she refused. Now Becca is reaching out to Danny, attempting to help her through a difficult time.

Danny's other friend, Marissa Martinez calls her after seven months of silence. Danny had a falling out with Marissa over her views about Danny's brother, Adrian. Adrian left home when he was four credits short of his high school diploma. He has a confrontational relationship with their parents who tried to plan out his life. He now works odd jobs and has signed on as a plumber's apprentice. Adrian begins coming home more frequently to help Danny cope with the tragedy. During his visits, Adrian reveals to Danny that he piecing his life back together on his own term.

After the accident, in what appears to be a chance meeting Danny sees a boy, Justin, at the park where she and Humphrey used to play. This park is full of memories for Danny because they made it into their special place, creating an imaginary world called Thrumble-Boo. Justin is from the nearby community of Montgomery Heights and Danny is puzzled as to why he is at the park in Franklin Grove. Justin tells her that he often comes to play ball with his buddies. After meeting a few times, Justin calls Danny at home to arrange to meet for coffee and they soon start to date. But it turns out that Justin has other reasons for meeting Danny, and that he has been harbouring a dark secret that draws him into what happened on Quarry Road.

As Danny struggles to cope with her feelings of guilt over Humphrey's death, the community becomes embroiled in a discussion about illegal immigrants after it is learned that the driver of the blue minivan was Eugene Folgar Guzman, an illegal immigrant whose student visa expired a decade earlier. Others in the community want sidewalks and better lighting installed along the road. Danny becomes distraught over the controversy because she feels lighting, sidewalks and more enforcement on illegal immigrants would not have saved Humphrey. It was her carelessness that resulted in his death not the lack of lighting or the presence of illegal immigrants in their community.

Meanwhile, as Danny struggles with her guilt and shame, she remembers her time with Humphrey over the summer. Humphrey proves to be a delightful child, both creative and inquisitive who seems to be largely ignored by his cerebral father whose focus is on correct grammar and proper manners. And with his gravely ill mother preoccupied with her health problems, it falls to Danny to fill in emotionally where she can. When Danny throws a football to him, Humphrey wants to throw one too, but his throws never "spiral" like Danny's do, despite her trying repeatedly to teach him. So instead she teaches him to catch a football first. In a very touching passage, Danny struggles to understand why Humphrey isn't able to catch the ball, until she hits on a novel idea that helps Humphrey master the feat. This inspires Humphrey to continue working on trying to throw a perfect spiral - the main goal of his life as a five year old.

Eventually Danny is sent to see a therapist, Dr. Gilbert, who helps her to work through her feelings of guilt and grief over Humphrey but also to help her discover why she has made her life so narrow. In the town though, the accident draws the community into a battle against immigrants. Danny refuses to attend the community meeting, although she does sneak in to see what happens. Later Danny is asked to testify at the Megis County Council hearing into the possible improvements on Quarry Road.   At first Danny refuses, but then she makes a brave decision to take a stand, to tell her story and what she really thinks. She decides to be an activist, like her friend Becca has insisted she has been all along. Perhaps this path will lead to forgiveness and healing for Danny.

Discussion

Imperfect Spiral is one of the best novels for young adults in recent years. Author Debbie Levy captures her readers' attention from the very beginning with the story of the fatal accident and then proceeds to fill in the details through flashbacks. Woven between these details are the struggles of Danny, Adrian, Justin, and the Dankers.

The writing is engaging and sensitive, capturing not only the guilt and remorse of a teenage girl, but also portraying a sensitive little boy who thinks a bit differently from those around him. Humphrey is a character readers will easily fall in love with, making his death all the more tragic. And yet as we read about his days with Danny and even at the end of the novel, his very last day, Humphrey's life is a triumph. He finds beauty in the simplest things and looks at the world with a sense of innocence. Levy succeeds brilliantly with the character of Humphrey because she makes her readers adore this little boy -  he's truly unforgettable. He is the boy who loves the purple velour pants he sees in the store when they go shopping for a gift for his mother - pants that Humphrey says "bring him to tears".

The main character of the novel, Danny, embarks on a journey of rediscovery and Humphrey and his death help her do just that. When her older brother Adrian left, Danny felt like she lost a part of herself.  She begins to close herself off from people and stops believing in herself. Her time with Humphrey reveals Danny as a perceptive young woman who cares about people. Humphrey's death and the resulting manipulation of the council meetings by people with their own agendas forces Danny to step out of her shell and to find her voice once again - if Humphrey's death is to have any sort of meaning.

The themes of healing and forgiveness are paramount in this novel. Danny begins to learn to forgive herself and try to heal from the loss of Humphrey - a little boy with whom she had a tender relationship. She must also forgive her friends for abandoning her but acknowledge her own responsibility in pushing them away. Tom Danker reaches out to forgive Danny, allowing her to begin to heal, recognizing that he didn't treat Humphrey well over the summer. Adrian also began to reconcile with his parents because he was able to live his life on his terms and not those dictated by his parents.  

Even on a community level, there is a need for forgiveness; many people in the community want the Guzman's arrested and deported as illegal aliens even though they have now lived in America for over a decade and their children are completely innocent. People reasoned that if Guzman wasn't in the country he would not have hit Humphrey but Levy counters this argument by having Guzman's son save a man's life, demonstrating that this argument is a straw man. Choices in life have both good and bad consequences and it's impossible to predict which will come about.

The theme of friendship is also important in Imperfect Spiral. There's the special friendship Danny had with Humphrey despite their age difference. And then there is the friendship that Danny had with Becca. Danny was intimidated by Becca's ambition and her plans for her life. But Danny didn't have those kinds of plans yet and she wasn't as sure about her future as Becca seems to be. When her brother Adrian left, Danny began to limit herself because she didn't want to outshine her older brother. Her life got smaller and her friend Becca recognized this change but couldn't seem to help. It's only when Danny talks with Dr. Gilbert that she begins to understand this. Humphrey's death provides the motivation she needs.

Imperfect Spiral is a wonderful novel that is such a refreshing change from the typical young adult fare.  The book's cover is puzzling. It should have featured a playground with roundabout, perhaps incorporating a bumblebee mounted on springs and a football. These figured prominently in the novel and would seem to be more relevant to the story.

Book Details:
Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy
New York: Walker Books An Imprint of Bloomsbury
339 pp.