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.

Freedom Seeker by Ruchira Gupta

Twelve-year-old Simran (Simi) Singh lives in Northern India with her mother, Henna Ali (Ammi) who is Muslim and her father Gurbeer Singh (Abbu) who is Hindu/Sikh. Ammi is a nurse while her father works on the family's farm. He was once a champion field hockey player. Simi loves field hockey. Her best friends are Ravi who is always late with his homework and Reena. 

Miss Sharma announces that Simi has been chosen to be captain of their middle school field hockey team. While Ravi and Reena offer their congratulations, Ashok who is one of Simi's classmates sends her a paper airplane telling her to leave. But Simi is determined not to let his threat get to her. Simi's team will play in the All-India National Youth Gold Cup in Delhi later in the year.

Their family's Eid celebration is marred when a rock crashes through their livingroom window. Simi sees a car with the bumper sticker, COMBAM race off. The rock is wrapped in a piece of white paper that reads, "Cancel marriage between Sikh men and Muslim women. Sikh and Hindu men are being lured to Islam with marriage. We will punish you. Go home, beef eaters."  Dadu (Gurdeep's father) believes that this intolerance will pass but Nanaji (Ammi's father) wonders if it will.

Simi recalls when a group of boys called her "Mozzy" and taunted her with "Mozzy daughter" and told her to go to her country. Ammi explains that a group called COMBAM which stands for Committee to Ban Marriages to Muslims, are against interfaith marriages. They want to "cleanse" India of Muslims.

At school the harrassment continues with a note on Simi's locker that reads "Go home, Captain Simi."  As coach of the hockey team and a leader, Simi has to be careful how she responds to these taunts. "Coach says a team leader has to be positive, thoughtful, and show no fear." At their field hockey practice, Simi gets pushback from Ashok and his friends who seem to be ignoring her. At a second practice, Simi confronts Ashok who tells her, "Your parents aren't legally married...Sikhs and Muslims can't marry." Ashok tells Simi that her mother "...isn't a real Indian" and that they should move to Pakistan. but Simi retorts that her mother's family goes back seven generations in their town. 

As Ashok continues to ignore Simi she decides to ignore him. She eventually challenges him to either participate or step aside. When he does what she wants, Simi praises him. The following week there are pamphlets on their doorstep from the Brotherhood for Justice - a political party. The three men come to the house and are taken into the livingroom by Dadi (Simi's father's mother). The men question Dadu and Dadi if there is a Muslim living in the house and if they have beef in the fridge. Simi realizes that the men want to know if her mother - a Muslim lives there.

That night Simi overhears her parents and her father's parents discussing what is happening. Dadu advises that Gurdeep, Henna, and Simi should seriously consider leaving India. They suggest going to America where Gurdeep's cousin, Kuldeep works as a taxi driver in New York. Later at her mother's parent's home, Simi questions them about her parent's marraige and how to change people's minds. They advise her to always act with respect and love.

At the school gate on Monday, two men are handing out flyers that state, "Preserve Pure Indian Genes"  Simi sees Ashok with the flyers stuck in her back pocket, leading her to doubt that she is having any impact on him. In an attempt to change the minds of the men handing out the flyers, Simi, Ravi, and Reena order samosas and jalebis for them at their construction site. After giving the men ten minutes to eat the snacks, they had the men flyers which explain the snacks were made by an Indian Muslim and that India's culture is richer for the Muslims.

But when Simi arrives home she learns that Abbu was attacked at the farm by men from COMBAM. He was badly beaten and his knees smashed. He was rescued by the farm workers and taken to hospital. After surgery on his knees, it takes over a month for him to heal. To pay for his surgery, Simi's family must give up part of the farm. Over the next few months the electricity is cut off and Dadi sees one of her gold necklaces.

They learn that more families have been attacked and there are rallies by the Brotherhood for Justice. Simi's family decidee that Gurbeer will go first to America and then Simi and Henna will follow. However, the U.S. denies Gurbeer's visa application. Nanaji tells Gurbeer that somehow he must leave the country because the situation in escalating. Interfaith couples are being targeted and some interfaith marriages are being prevented. He tells Gurbeer he will have to pay a smuggler to get him into America legally. 

The final plan is for Abbu to fly to Mexico via Spain and then smugglers take him across the US-Mexico border. Five days after leaving India, Abbu calls and tells them he is now with his cousin Kuldeer in New York.  With the help of a lawyer, Abbu will apply for visas for Henna and Simi to ger political asylum.

Then the Brotherhood wins a local election, meaning they can do what they want. For days the Brotherhood and COMBAM celebrate. After school one day, Simi is accosted by four boys, one of which is Ashok. However, he tries to stop the boys and eventually does protect Simi. Ashok asks if she is okay and Simi tells him if she isn't around to lead the team in Delhi, to remember to lead by example.

Abbu's petition for their visas is rejected. Nanaji tells Henna to go to the travel agent to pay for their way to America. Two weeks later, Ammi and Simi leave India for America. It will be a journey much more arduous than that of Abbu and Simi will face challenges that will change her forever.

Discussion

Freedom Seeker is a story that tackles the subject of religious intolerance in India, refugees, and illegal immigration in America. The novel is divided into three parts: 1 Fear and Flight, 2 Loss and Longing, and 3 Rescue and Reunion. The front matter contains a map showing Simi's journey.

The main premise of the novel is that Simi and her family are facing discrimination because of her parents interfaith marriage: Henna is Muslim while Gurdeep is Hindu. In the novel, the fictional group Brotherhood for Justice is seeking to outlaw such marriages and are harrassing and attacking interfaith families. When the Brotherhood for Justice wins the local election, this supposedly gives them the freedom to further their agenda against interfaith marriages. It should be noted that while there is no such group in India most Indians do not support interfaith marriage, believing it is better to marry within their own religious community. This various across regions, educational levels and even religious faiths. Laws now forbid brides or grooms from converting to their spouse's religion. This has resulted in attacks on couples in interfaith marriages. Hindus in particular are very much against interfaith marriages. The religious intolerance that Simi and her family are experiencing is a reality for those few interfaith families who do live in India. An Author's Note at the back of the novel providing some information on the situation in India might have been helpful to put the story within a proper context for younger readers. 

Simi's coach does not deal with Ashok and his friends, as they harrass and make life difficult for Simi. He doesn't step in to remind Ashok that his behaviour is unacceptable and poor sportsmanship. Simi tells her coach that it doesn't seem to be about her abilities but "...about who I am, where I come from." He reminds her that it is "about proving to yourself that you can rise above it, that you are more than their narrow views." Eventually Simi does get through to Ashok, so the coach's strategy does work. But it is also putting the responsibility on a young girl to deal with what might have become a more serious situation, given the growing intolerance. It does seem though that Simi's focus on drawing Ashok into the game he loves helps him see her differently. He does protect Simi when she is attacked by a group of boys.

It is also interesting that school officials do not act on the men who are passing out flyers just outside the school gates, making the situation for the students stressful. And when Abbu is badly beaten, Simi's family does not report his assault to the police. If they do, there seems to be no action by the police to apprehend those responsible. It would appear that this inaction by school officials, police and the community at large are the reason Simi and her family have no choice but to leave.

Ruchira Gupta seems to present a very balanced view of the illegal immigrant experience in the United States. Although there is no mention of who is leading the United States, readers are told that things have drastically changed in the weeks since Abbu illegally entered the country. The area where he crossed is now blocked by a high wall "...made of tall iron spikes wrapped with four barbed wire rolls on both sides."  As with many illegal immigrants, Simi and her mother and the people they are with must risk crossing the Sonora Desert in Arizona. Eventually Simi and Ammi become separated as often happens with the children of refugees. 

The novel portrays the difficulties illegal immigrants face in relocating loved ones and difficulties immigration officials experience in dealing with so many immigrants with such varied circumstances. Children become separated from family. There are cold cages where the children are placed initially and later on at Casa Phoenix, a slightly better situation but many rules. There are some very good people who help Simi such as Pablo who plays games with the children, the woman Coast Guard volunteer who promises to try to find out about Simi's mother, Sophia who is Simi's counselor, and Rini Pose the journalist who manages to reunite Simi with her parents. Then there are others like Paul, Simi's case manager who seems indifferent and overwhelmed.  

The novel also incorporates a few characters from various countries in order to portray the variety of people who take desperate risks to enter the United States illegally in search of safety and a better life. For Simi and her family it is because of persecution in their home country. For others like Jose, who is from San Pedro Sula in Honduras, it is the threat of gangs who run the city. 

In Simi Singh, Ruchira Gupta has crafted an intelligent and resourceful character. Instead of fighting with Ashok, she manages to open  who is determined to locate her missing mother. She decides to use her ability to write and speak English to enlist the help of an Indian woman reporter.  This resourceful move, expedites Simi's case and helps locate her mother and reunite their family. The novel ends on a very hopeful and positive tone with many people coming together to get Ammi to New York and to her family.

Freedom Seeker is a timely novel about illegal immigrants and the struggles they face, offering hope in spite of so many obstacles and challenges.

Book Details:

Freedom Seeker by Ruchira Gupta
Scholastic Press      2025
298 pp.

Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Twelve-year-old Leila Saleh is on her way to meeting up with her mother, Amani Saleh, a meteorologist and researcher in Norway. 

Leila has been living with her aunt and her cousin, seventeen-year-old Mona in her aunt's terraced home in Croydon, England for the past six years. All of them fled out of Damascus, Syria when Leila was just five-years-old.

At the airport in Tromso, Norway, her flight guardian guides Leila through immigration. But Leila's mom isn't there to meet her. Instead it is her mom's friend, Liv Nilsen. They are quickly joined by Liv's daughter Britt, who has just arrived from her school in Bergen. The drive to her mother's apartment is filled with surprises for Leila: the huge mountain and the tunnel under the sea, the Arctic Cathedral. In the apartment Liv shares with Leila's mother, she shows Leila a picture of a fox they have named Miso and have been following. Liv tells Leila that her mother couldn't meet her at the airport because she had a meeting regarding funding for studying this animal. 

Later that evening, Leila meets her mother in a restaurant along with Liv and Britt. In the restaurant, Leila's mother reveals that their funding to study the Arctic fox they've been following and recently put a tracking collar on, has been approved. Liv tells the group that the fox, who they've named Miso, was born in a litter on a beach in Svalbard and "has been walking for weeks now, across the sea ice, miles at a time, going north and then west." She has walked almost a thousand miles in one month. Liv states "She's proving animals can adapt through migration even in these most extreme times." The new funding will allow Liv and Amani to track Miso by boat, "...observing her interactions with other animals, seeing whether her coat changes color or her eating habits change." Then in a stunning turn of events, Leila's mother asks if Leila and Britt want to accompany them on the boat! The two girls agree, leading the four to have a remarkable journey of discovery and healing.

Discussion

Leila and the Blue Fox is a story that focuses on the strained relationship between a young girl and her mother, set against the backdrop of research in the high Arctic. The novel incorporates two narratives: that of Leila and her mother, and that of a blue fox, Miso as she journeys across the Arctic ice towards food and finding a mate.

Leila Saleh and her mother Amani's backstory is gradually revealed in the novel: Leila was born in Damascus and they fled the war in Syria when she was only five years old. Her father remained behind in Syria but Leila, her mother, her aunt and her cousin Mona all left. Even though it was seven years ago, Leila remembers the experience. "She remembers it all. The night they left Damascus, bombs lighting the sky like fireworks. Basbousa, terrified in his basket, handed to their neighbor who would not leave. The car into the hills, a truck to the border. The smell of gasoline, the sound of crying, energy bars like sawdust in her throat. Amma chanting....Walking awake, walking half-asleep, being carried, walking always in the dark. More cars, more trucks, a van where Mona had a panic attack...The boat...the boat." 

Leila, her mother along with Amma and Mona settled in Croydon in south London. However, Leila's mother, a meteorologist who studies climate change, was unable to find work in England and so she moved to Noway. There she got a job at the Tromso Arctic Institute. The result was that Leila has not seen her mom in six years. This long absence has created feelings of abandonment and intense anger in Leila who wonders why her mother left her. The long absence seems somewhat contrived: was Amani not able to find even a week to return to London to visit her daughter? Leila believes it is because Norway is "as far away from home as she can be. Because everything is different, from the food to the clothes to the weather, because she doesn't want to remember home. And really, though no one says it, because she doesn't want to remember Leila."

Leila's anger and sense of abandonment are intensified when she arrives in Tromso, Norway only to learn that her mother is not at the airport to meet her but instead has chosen to attend a meeting for research funding. When Leila meets her mother at the restaurant she refuses her touch and is angered by her mother's use of her childhood name of "La-La". Six years have passed and no one calles Leila that pet name anymore. To Leila, her mother's "...work was clearly more important to her than being a mom." Later on Leila states that her mother "...was following the fox anywhere ti led, when she hadn't even come to find Leila, even though she knew exactly where she was." 

A chance for healing of the rift between mother and daughter happens when Amani and Liv invite their daughters to accompany them on a boat trip as they track the blue fox Miso's journey westward across the ice. The journey towards healing between Amma and Leila is mirrored in Miso's struggle to find a safe place to live.

While on the boat tracking Miso, Leila continues to struggle with her feelings regarding her mother, both hating and loving her. In London, she was able to hide her hurt, keeping busy with life. "But now Leila is here with her, feeling her warmth and hearing her laugh, the absence feels sharper, ragged. Being with her has made all that time without her far more painful." 

In close quarters on the boat, Leila finds herself drawn into her mother's research and even understanding her mother's love of the Arctic. She becomes the research team's social media manager, posting information about Miso's journey on Twitter. Becoming involved helps Leila begin to understand her mother. But being on the boat with her mother, experiencing her also bring back memories of a life lost - in Damascus. "With them arrive feelings so big she can't fit them all inside her head: sadness and happiness and the feeling Britt described, of a lost life, a half life it is easier to forget."

Both Liv's daughter Britt and Leila struggle to cope with mothers who appear to be self-absorbed and disconnected from their daughters. Britt tells Leila that her mother never asks questions about her boarding school and doesn't know about her friends, the books or music she likes. Britt tells Leila her mother "...knows the names of every whale but nothing about me." Leila can relate to Britt's pain because of her own mother's focus on Miso and her research and the fact that she won't tell Amma and Mona about the research and about being on the boat.

When a crisis sees Leila's mother arrested by the Canadian Coast Guard and Leila must tell Amma and Mona what has been happening, "She realizes she loves Mum, but she loves Mona and Amma as well. That they are more than enough." And Leila tells Mona she plans to return to London. Eventually when Amina returns she finally reaches out to Leila explaining why she left England and never returned. Amina reveals that she didn't fit in and didn't feel safe. She decided to stay in Norway because it allowed her to support Leila and her aunt and cousin. "I didn't leave because of you...I left for you. To provide for you, as well as for myself..." 

This helps Leila understand what has happened and why, and helps her to come to terms with her feelings of loss and abandonment. But it also doesn't explain why Amani did not return at least for holiday visits therefore seems shallow and incomplete. Nor does Leila question why her mother never returned for at least a holiday visit. However, she does ask her mother to visit "even once a year" which she agrees to do.

The author does tie together Leila's family's "migration" with that of Miso's. Leila's mother tells her,  "We had to leave our home, because of war. But what if it was because of water, or lack of it? Or the weather? Patterns are changing. Miso's journey proves that migration is necessary for survival. What Miso did, what we did, was leave home to find something better."  The message for young readers is that refugees often do not want to leave their homes, but come because they must, because they are seeking a safer, better life.

Miso's journey across the Arctic ice from Svalbard a group of islands in the Barents Sea is based on the real life journey of a female Arctic fox named Anna who travelled from 3,500 km from Norway's Svalbard archipelgo to Ellesmere Island in Canada. Anna began her journey on March 26, 2018 and arrived arrived in Canada on July 1. The arctic blue fox had  been fitted with a radio collar in 2017 and was tracked by researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute. The fox travelled via sea ice and across glaciers. Her journey demonstrated how important sea ice is to animals in the Arctic.  Although Miso's narrative is short, there are lovely illustrations by Tom de Fresten.

This novel was well written and will definitely appeal to middle grade readers interested in animals and the High Arctic as well as young refugees seeking a better life.

Book Details:

Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
New York: Union Square Kids      2022
243 pp. 

All The Blues In the Sky by Renee Watson

Thirteen-year-old Sage didn't know best friends could die. But one month ago, on her birthday, her best friend died. "And a good day, turned into a bad day, turned into the worst day."

Sage lives with her dad in Harlem, but visits her mom every other weekend. She's been doing this since sixth grade when her parents divorced. Her brother Spencer, lives on campus at Howard University, and spends his summers studying abroad, so he's never really home.

Sage wasn't with her friend when she was hit by a speeding car as she was walking to Sage's house. They were going to spend the day together. Initially her friend wanted to spend time 

Sage attends a grief group that includes Ebony whose dad died from a heart attack, Zay who lost her grandmother, Ana whose twin sister died from leukemia and DD whose brother was murdered by police during a traffic stop. Sage struggles in the grief group because she feels Ana and Zay don't understand what she feels: they got to say good-bye while she did not. She feels lonely, sad and guilty. Ms. Carver, who runs the group has given everyone in the group a journal to write down any questions they have so their mind can be free to think about other things.

On Saturday, Sage's Aunt Ini visits from Brooklyn. Sage and her best friend often spent time with her aunt. She forces Sage to get out of bed and takes her to Harlem Meer, where they go to Chelsea Market to look at jewelry and taste samples. Aunt Ini tells Sage she will miss her friend every day of her life but that these memories will comfort her.

Sage continues to go to school and attend grief group,  joining the Fly Girl program. Along the way, she finds comfort, acceptance, and an understanding of the tragedy that has touched her life.

Discussion

All The Blues in the Sky is a novel, written in free verse, that explores the guilt that loved ones sometimes experience with the death of a family member or friend as well as grief and the pain of loss. The novel is narrated by thirteen-year-old Sage, whose best friend, unnamed until the end of the novel, was killed by a drunk driver while walking to Sage's home for her birthday party.

To help her deal with what has happened Sage attends a grief group at her school that is led by Ms. Carver. However, initially Sage isn't very keen on the group because she believes that some of the girls attending do not understand the grief and guilt she is feeling and so she holds back.  Ms. Carver explains how grief can bring about guilt "...guilty for surviving, for still being here, enjoying life after your loved one is gone. Guilt about laughing and having good days..."

After the others in the grief group admit to what makes them have feelings of guilt, Sage expresses why she has feelings of guilt: she believes she is responsible for her friend's death. Her best friend wanted to go to a skate party on Sage's birthday but Sage was insistent they spend the entire day together, turning down her friend's offer to attend the skate party with her.  And so this led her friend to be in the street, on her way to Sage's house, when she was hit by the drunk driver.  "And if I had said something different, something not Birthday Girl selfish, she wouldn't have been walking from her house to my house at 11:15a.m....She wouldn't have been crossing the street when a drunk driver sped through the streets of Harlem..." Not only that but when her friend didn't show up, Sage assumed the worst of her friend, that she had lied to her, and gone to the skate party. And so she sent her angry texts. 

In reflecting on what happened Sage admits to herself that the reason she didn't want to attend the skate party was because she was afraid her friend was beginning to like her coding friends better and that she was afraid of both of them making new friends. The fact that Sage can finally admit this to herself is a first big step towards her beginning to process what happened and heal. 

Sage's feelings about how she behaved lead her to question whether she was a good friend. She wonders if "...her doing more for me and less for her made me feel guilty, like maybe I was not a good friend." She has other questions too. Ms. Carver tells the group that "questions are a part of grief". "Is killing someone just as devastating as losing someone? Does the driver of the hit and run have nightmares too?" Sage wants to know what her friend's parents will do with their daughter's belongings. She wants to know why "out of all the blocks to walk down and corners to cross and red lights to run...why did that car crash into at the time it did?"  Sage has questions about grief too. "Well, I want to know how long I'll be sad, and I want to know if I'll ever feel normal again. And what am I supposed to do on her birthday or on the anniversary of the accident? And what if I forget the sound of her voice?"  And later on Sage wonders, "Did she know how much I loved her?....Was our friendship enough?"  Even in her aviation class, Sage questions, "Why, when so many people keep living, did my best friend die?"

These are all timeless questions that most people experience following the death of a loved one. They are difficult questions sometimes without a definitive answer. For Sage, some understanding comes from the grief group, from her friends, and from her beloved Aunt Ini. Her mathematics class and her aviation class also offer Sage a different perspective on what has happened.

Watson uses mathematics as a metaphor for relationships, using it to portray how Sage finally comes to understand what her Aunt Ini has told her about losing someone. Sage loves mathematics because she feels in control, where there are answers and solutions. Sage's teacher, Mr. Dixon tells the class, "It's important to understand that transversal lines develop angle relationships....Understanding angle relationships in math will help you understand your personal, real-life relationships." He tells the class, "Not every person that comes into your life has a parallel to yours. We can't all be mirrors of each other. There are people -- like transversal lines-- that cross paths with yours, only for a moment. In that short moment, you connect, have something in common, but still you have your own unique experience." At this point, Sage doesn't realize how this relates to her and her view of the other girls in the grief group. 

Sage believes that two of the girls in the grief group, Ana and Zay simply do not understand what she, Ebony and DD are going through because they got to say good-bye to the people they loved, and they saw death coming. She believes that their experience of death was different because they had a warning that death was imminent. Sage carries this judgement throughout many of the meetings and she admits to tuning out Ana and Zay, believing they have nothing to offer her. Eventually, Sage expresses this sentiment. "I understand that someone they loved died, but it isn't the same. They talk about months, weeks of goodbyes and quality time. I didn't have that. Neither did DD or Ebony. And I'm tired of talking about it like it's the same. ,, But to say you know how I feel, to say we are the same...no. You knew death was coming. You got to say good-bye."  This results in Sage being  out of the group until she apologizes.  

 In a class weeks later, Mr. Dixon tells the students, "when parallel lines are cut by a transversal line, four types of angles are formed. Those angles have a relationship. While some of them are congruent, the others are supplementary." Sage realizes this relates to everyone in the grief group.

"A transversal thing happened to me, to Ebony, to DD, 

to Ana, to Zay.

And that one thing that touched us

was the same thing and wasn't the same thing.

And it brought us together, made us relate to each other.

Similar, not the same. Connected forever."

Sage now understands that her life was intersected by the transversal lines of Ebony, DD, Ana and Zay because of death . For some, the "angles" or experiences of death were congruent or similar to what Sage, Ebony and DD experienced, but for others it was like that of Ana and Zay. She comes to understand that death brought them together, but their experiences were all quite different. Sage now understands what her Aunt Ini was trying to tell her, "Just because everybody's pain looks different, don't mean it hurts less." 

Another metaphor used by Watson in the novel is that of flying. After her friend's death, Sage isn't interested in attending the Fly Girl program. To Sage, being in her aviation class was similar to math class, "...There will be answers and reasons and formulas to help me make sense of the unknown." Sage is hoping that the Fly Girl program will give her the answers she's seeking. Ebony tells her that if she thinks about what Ms. Carver tells them during the grief group she will find those answers but for Sage, who enjoys the logic and finiteness of mathematics, that's just not the case at this time.

The Fly Girl classes help Sage process her grief in a more positive way. The Fly Girl instructor, Ms. Barbara tells the class that the mathematics of how a plane flies are incomplete, that we don't fully understand how a plane is able to fly. This makes Sage realize that science doesn't have all the answers and that maybe she does need to return to the grief group. In a discussion about turbulence encountered while flying, Ms. Barbara states that planes are designed to handle the phenomena, that it is "uncomfortable but normal" and that "...life's turbulence is the same way.", unsettling, unexpected but something we are often able to pass through.

Thinking about flying and being in sky, leads Sage to think about the various blues pilots see in the sky: light blue, white blue, blue violet and even midnight blue. 

"And sometimes life is blue too.

Blue is the empty chair at the desk in the classroom

where my best friend used to sit.

Blue is the ache in my heart when I pick up the phone

to call her and remember she's gone...

Blue is all the calm, all the heartbreak, all the  hope,

all the tears, all the laughter."

Sage wonders if maybe blue is the colour of love, because "For all the blues in the sky, there are as many blues in the heart." 

Eventually, Sage begins to experience healing. She has some of her doubts and guilt alleviated when her friend's sister, Brielle brings her a letter that was found at the scene of the accident. The letter written to Sage, tells why her friend loves her so much and it offers Sage relief and peace. When she visits her friend's home, Sage finds a box filled with mementos of their friendship. This confirms to Sage that she was loved by her friend. 

"Not only because of her letter to me

but because of all that's here, saved in this box.

She kept me, kept our friendship. sacred."

This in turn helps her to process the news that her beloved Aunt Ini has terminal cancer and as with her friend's death, more questions. By now Sage knows that life can be full of loss but that if she has children she will tell them despite this "to love without regret" and that it is okay to feel all the love, sadness and anger that loss can bring.

Once again, Renee Watson has written a profoundly beautiful and engaging story, this time focusing on  the pain of loss and the grief people feel following the death of a beloved friend. All The Blues In The Sky tackles the questions about death and grief that many children have, and that often parents and other adults never address. What's interesting in this novel, is that the main character, Sage never really has a serious discussion with either her mother or father about what's happened. Her beloved Aunt Ini however, does seem to understand that Sage is struggling over the death of her friend and in her quiet way, offers Sage some wisdom that helps her towards healing. In Sage, Renee Watson has crafted a likeable, believable character. Her voice and her experience of raw grief and sadness will resonate with those young teens who have suffered a similar loss. Highly recommended.

Book Details:

All The Blues In The Sky by Renee Watson

New York: Bloomsbury Children's Books

182 pp.

Run For Your Life by Jane Mitchell

Azari's life has been split in two. The first part of her life was in her village in her home country with her mother and father, her older sister Sharnaz, her younger brothers Kashif and Musa, and her friends Iman and Ruba. The second part of her life is in Ireland where they arrived after hiding among the containers on a ship. 

After being brought to land, Azari and her mother go to the International Protection Office where they are interviewed by a man. In Azari's culture, women do not speak to strange men. Her mother who cannot read or write, refuses to be interviewed by him, leaving fifteen-year-old Azari to answer his questions. Although it is irregular, they allow Azari to tell her story, one that brings up powerful memories, ones she is scared to remember, scared to forget.

After filing an application for asylum, Azari and her mother leave the Centre where they have been staying and go into an old, dark house that is part of the Direct Provision. Azari's mother spends most of her days in bed sleeping, leaving Azari to figure out things on her own. She arranges to meet Sheila from legal aid, who reviews her story. Sheila is not happy that she has to interview Azari rather than her mother.

Weeks pass, Azari begins to learn English and begins to consider resuming running. She purchases leggings, running shorts, and running shoes, after traveling by herself to a nearby department store. But her mother is frantic because respectable women don't go out alone and they don't run. Soon Azari and her mother are moved to another Direct Provision Centre in a small town. They are placed in a room on the first floor that has one large bed and a broken wardrobe. Azari begins running as a way to cope with these changes, giving her a feeling of control. Although this upsets her mother, a black woman named Princess who also lives in the building, encourages Azari.

She starts school in January, in a class with girls two years younger. Azari finds reading English difficult and has never studied geography, history, science or advanced maths. She also attends what the Irish girls call "Black School", a mix of students from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to help them catch up. In gym class, Miss Cullen encourages Azari to join the runners club but she has no means to travel there and there are other issues as well. Azari begins to gradually make friends: an Irish girl named Emer invites her to join the school's lunchtime book club, and Robert, a boy who is part of Miss Cullen's running club, asks her to join him for runs around the village. Running with Robert brings Azari great joy but at the same time she knows this will not meet with her mother's approval. 

As their application for asylum moves forward towards the interview, Azari and her mother must also deal with increasing racism from the villagers, that eventually puts all the refugees in danger. Nevertheless, Azari's taste of freedom, helps her to stay focused on moving forward in every part of her new life in Ireland.

Discussion

Run For Your Life explores the plight of new immigrants to Ireland, the Direct Provision Office which handles immigrants to the country, and the practice of honor killings in some countries. The main character, Azira narrates events as they settle in Ireland, but in flashbacks, also reveals why they had to flee their country, leaving behind family and culture.

Mitchell tackles a large number of issues in this novel including honor killings, forced marriage, domestic abuse, the education of girls, garment factory workers rights, and even acid attacks on women. These issues are significant for the girls and women in Azari's home village. For example, Sharnaz is to be married off, against her will, to an old villager to pay off the family debt. When she runs away and is recaptured, she is to be stoned to death to restore the family and village honor. Sharnaz and Azari, like many girls in the developing world, are taken out of school and sent to work long hours in poor working conditions in a garment factory. Their father frequently beats their mother, who has little say in anything that happens to herself or her children.

Once she arrives in Ireland, Azari is exposed to views that are quite different from those in her village. For example, she has been told by her mother that she must never be alone with a boy or a man, that they will hurt her and bring shame to her. "Boy's aren't safe.", her mother warns. As a result, Azari, doesn't know if she is safe to run with Robert, or even to spend time with him just talking. To do so in her culture back home is shameful. "Then of course, there's the boy in the library. He had a friendly face. I liked talking to him. I liked his smile. But Mother, Sharnaz, Father, the village women, the Farooqs, in fact, probably every person I have ever known, would tell me no respectable woman should be alone with a boy. Men take a woman's honour." However, Princess challenges Azari, telling her, "Sure, some men are not safe...but not all men and boys are not safe and not all the time."

Azari also encounters a much different perspective about her body and menstruation. Azari has been told by her mother that during menstruation she is "impure and unclean" and she is given a set of rules to follow: she cannot attend school, cannot cook food, and must keep her period a secret. Significantly, she is sent to forage in the village rubbish heap. The pamphlets Azari finds in the library change everything. "They tell me things I never knew about my own body. How it works. How I'm not unclean or impure, although that's still how I think of it.  I open the packets and wrappers. Look at the products. Think about how this changes everything I thought I knew. And how I might change what I do from now on."

Mitchell emphasizes the difficulty refugees have in settling in Ireland. Not only are they faced with differences in culture and beliefs as mentioned above, but they also enter a system, called Direct Provision in Ireland, that sees them languishing for years as their application for asylum is processed. In the meantime, they experience poor, crowded living conditions, have limited access to higher education and are often isolated, affecting their mental health and making integration more difficult. 

In Run For Your Life, Azari faces racial discrimination at school and outright hostility in the small community where they are re-located. Eventually, their Direct Provision house is attacked and set fire to, forcing them to be moved again. Despite all the challenges Azari has encountered, she is courageous, and determined to live a life of her own choosing. Run For Your Life ends on a hopeful note, with Azari excited for the future and the possibilities it holds.

Run For Your Life offers a unique perspective on the refugee situation in Ireland. The colourful cover design blends together images from Azari's home country (possibly India??), colourful and sunny, and her new home in Ireland, rainy and green.

Book Details:

Run For Your Life by Jane Mitchell
Dublin, Ireland:    2022
251 pp.

Cardboard City by Katarina Jovanovic

Thirteen-year-old Nikola Seich loves to play the trumpet and he's good at it.  He learned from his grandfather and then when he died last year, from his neighbor's brother, Bosco. Nikola lives with his Baba and his older sister Saida in Cardboard City, located underneath a bridge in Belgrade. 

At the summer festival, Rika who plays with his trumpet quartet, notices Nikola mesmerized by the music and making motions like he is actually playing a trumpet. When he meets Nikola, Rika tells him that his quartet will be playing at the big brass festival in the town of Guca. Nikola is very interested in attending, so Rika tells him if he can get permission he can travel with him to the festival. Rika takes Nikola to have dinner with him and his girlfriend Almira in their trailer. Nikola loves the food she prepares. Almira tells Nikola they will leave early the next day.

Nikola goes home to his grandmother, Ramina whom he calls Baba, and tells her his dream of becoming a trumpet player. He tells Baba how Bosco taught him more about playing the trumpet and how to play the piece, Carnival in Paris. To help him understand the music he was playing, Bosco also showed him pictures of the city of Paris. Baba has Nikola play for her on a neighbor's trumpet. The trumpet that his grandfather had was taken by his sister Saida when she recently ran away. Baba is so impressed with Nikola's playing that the next day she takes him to Rika. After satisfying herself that he is trustworthy, she gives her permission for Nikola to travel to Guca.

When they arrive in Guca, Rika and Almira's truck and trailer is not allowed into the town but forced to park in a field. To Nikola, the area around Guca smells fresh and different from his home in the Cardboard City. While Rika and Nikola are in Guca for the festival, Almira goes to a restaurant down the road to get clean water for making soup. There she sees a young Romani girl singing at the bar in front of a group of rowdy men. Realizing what is going to happen to this young girl, Almira intervenes and takes her back to the trailer, feeds and clothes her. She learns that the girl, named Saida, has run away from home after her Baba wanted her to get married or work as a house cleaner and that she has a younger brother named Nikola. To Almira, it is a strange co-incidence that Saida has a brother with the same name as the boy who has accompanied them to Guca.

After playing on the main stage, Nikola finds himself being asked to play when he is on the street and earning money. Then he meets a trumpet player, Drago Nadic, who won the Golden Trumpet last year. Drago is so impressed with Nikola's playing that he offers him a chance to play with his band on the main stage the next day.  They part ways but it is so late that Nikola cannot find his way home.

Rika and another  man who is Romani, return to the trailer carrying Nikolai who has become very ill.  Saida is shocked to see it is her brother and Rika and Almira realize they have taken in a brother and sister. But the festival and Saida's refusal to return to Cardboard City will offer new possibilities for the young Romani brother and sister.

Discussion

Cardboard City presents the plight of the Romani people in Eastern Europe. The novel is set in a real-life slum known as Cardboard City which existed up until 2009 when the residents were removed. It is also a story about people who are impoverished, marginalized and discriminated against.

Cardboard City (Karton siti) was located in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, beneath the Gazela and Stari zeleznicki bridges, close to the upscale, five-star hotels,  Hyatt Regency Belgrade and the Continental Hotel Belgrade. In 2007 there were just under one thousand people living in Cardboard City, all of them Roma who made their living by collecting garbage. The slum had no roads, running water, electricity or sewers. Many of the dwellings were constructed of cardboard and other non-building materials. In 2009, the residents were removed, after several unsuccessful attempts. Some were moved to containers placed across various Belgrade suburbs, while others were dispersed throughout municipalities outside of Belgrade.

With Cardboard City as the setting, Jovanovic presents her readers with a portrayal of the Roma people, how they are shunned and mistreated in a society which offers them no opportunity to escape a life of poverty.  Readers learn of the terrible living conditions which are described by the characters in the novel. Nikola talks about working all day to collect paper and boxes from schools, parking lots and other places, how his shoes wear out and he manages to find another pair in the rubbish, and how they often have little to eat, sometimes only bread with lard for lunch.  Saida describes how she steals flowers from the graveyards and sells them to people at restaurants. She talks about riding the streetcar and almost stealing the wallet of a rich lady who yells at her to get a job and that she is "Lazy Gypsies. You only steal and beg."

Neither Nikola nor Saida attend school. We learn that they did attend at one time, but that Baba pulled both out after they were "humiliated for being Romani". Nikola remembers the humiliation he felt because no one would sit with him, except one girl. "They all laughed and some pretended to gag.  What Nikola wanted most at that moment was to crawl into a deep hole in the ground or to run away from the long-necked teacher and the big white building full of chalk, and the children with clean hands and white collars, who ate white bread for lunch." 

The isolation made Nikola feel different, but not in a positive way. "One day, while Nikola was walking in the school hallway, some gadji mothers moved their children protectively away from him. He suddenly felt alone, like a strange wild plant."  Because they were not attending school, Nikola and Saida lived in fear that they would be taken to an orphanage, "...one of those big buildings with windows with bars on them from which Romani orphans could never escape." 

The situation for his sister Saida is much more dire. She runs away from her home in Cardboard City because Baba wants her to marry. Many Romani girls marry by the age of fifteen. She is at risk of being trafficked and is likely in that situation when she goes to Milos apartment. When Saida runs away from Milos' apartment, and is standing on the Gazela Bridge, Saida believes she will never find a place in Milos' world. "The water under the bridge had the colour of coal - visible through the rising smoke of burning tires, tall and surreal, were the tents and makeshift huts of the encampment spread out before her....she thought that maybe it was her destiny to live here forever. She resigned herself to a life there - the buckets, the walk to the fountain to get the water, the leaky hut, selling flowers, roaming the gloomy alleys to look for food."  

Almira finds her singing in a seedy bar, on the verge of being abused by a group of men drinking. Thankfully she saves Saida from that fate. Saida tells Almira about her life and that she survives through her dreams - something she calls "dream mending". We know that Saida dreams of a better life because she tells Baba so: "...I dream about food. I cannot think of anything else. I don't have the money to buy new clothes, or even soap. I want to live in a clean apartment, to smell of flower-scented shampoo and face creams. I want to go to school and eat lunch in a real kitchen. It doesn't seem to matter how hard I try or what I do, I have to live in this smoke den and eat your devil goulash." In this regard, Saida, a Romani, is just like her fellow Romanians. She wants to live with dignity.

It is Almira who effects change in Nikola and Saida's lives by working to obtain guardianship over the two, by taking them in and sending them to school. She comes to understand that their lives are very different but that despite this, they are like people everywhere. "Almira came to understand that their lives - with their own laws, customs and values - though laced with sorrow, were rich with dreams."

As Jovanovic mentions in the front matter to the novel, "...These events could be about marginalized and impoverished people anywhere in the world. It could take place in the suburbs of Rome, in the favelas of Sao Paolo, in Dharavi in Mumbai, in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver - or in refuge camps anywhere in the world." Like the characters in Cardboard City, many marginalized, impoverished people do not attend school and therefore cannot improve their lives, do not have enough to eat and therefore are often ill or have much shortened lives, and often work hard for very little income. They may also use alcohol or drugs to escape the trauma and difficulties of poverty. The author does include a very informative Historical Note on the Romani people at the back.

Cardboard City is a short read, well written, with an engaging storyline that highlights the issues of poverty, marginalized communities and discrimination. Cardboard City is derived from a previous novel, Kartonac, written by the author in Serbian in 2009.

Book Details:

Cardboard City by Katarina Jovanovic

Vancouver: Tradewind Books     2023
129 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.

As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh

Eighteen year old Salama Kassab is struggling to survive in Old Homs with her sister-in-law Layla.  A year ago, the Arab Spring ignited Syrians' demands for freedom from the dictatorship ruling their country for decades. But the dictatorship ruling Syria brutally fought back. Salama's Baba and her brother Hamza went to the first protest but were taken away and imprisoned. Prior to leaving for the protest, Hamza had made Salama promise to care for their mother and his wife, Layla. Then a week later, Mama was killed when their house was destroyed by a bomb. Salama was also injured, receiving a head wound and wounds from shrapnel in her hands. 

After she recovered, Salama began working at Zaytouna Hospital. Prior to the revolution, life was very different for Salama and her family. Salama had dreams of attending university, becoming a pharmacist at Zaytouna Hospital and traveling the world. But as the protests continued, the government began killing the doctors, leading to a shortage of those who could treat the wounded. With only one year of pharmacy school, Salama found herself  pressed into working as a doctor at the hospital.

When Salama returns home from a shift at the hospital, Layla who is seven months pregnant, asks if she's spoken to Am at the hospital about paying for a boat to take them across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. But Salama has been stalling. Alone in her room, Salama is visited by Khawf. He is, as Salama describes, "My terror has mutated in my mind, bestowed with a life and a voice that never fails to show up at night." Khwaf insists that Salama ask Am about the boat. He warns her that he will "tear her world apart" unless she does this. Salama has a vision of her promise to her brother Hamza to keep Layla and Mama safe. She has a flashback to the day their mother died when their building was bombed.

At the hospital the next day, Dr. Zaid  who has connections to the Free Syrian Army, orders Salama to help the children who are casualties of a bomb hitting Al-Ghouta. Salama eventually speaks with Am, who tells her that he will drive her to Tartus, where they take a boat to Italy and then a bus to Germany. Am's price is four thousand dollars! This information is devastating to Salama because they do not have the money. Layla's solution is for them to sell some of their gold.

At the hospital, Salama is heartbroken as she watches a little boy named Ahmad slowly die from a head wound. Then she sees a boy who had brought in his sister with a shrapnel wound the previous day, arrive frantic. Salama follows him to his home where she finds his nine-year-old sister in pain from a piece of shrapnel still embedded in her stomach. Salama removes the metal and gives them medicine. Salama is certain she's met this boy, named Kenan before and she learns that his name is Kenan Aljendi. Salama and he were supposed to meet at a marriage proposal set up by their mothers, but the revolution prevented the meeting.

Staying overnight at Kenan's home due to the snipers, Salama learns that he has no plans to leave Syria because his videos on YouTube are showing the world what is happening. Salama challenges Kenan to record what is happening within the hospital and he agrees and Dr. Ziad gives his permission. 

Then Am arrives with his daughter Samar, who has a bullet wound in her neck. Salama threatens to let his daughter bleed to death if he doesn't get her and Layla on a boat. Desperate, Am agrees and Salama saves Samar. Over the next few days Salama bargains with Am and secures passage for her and Layla. In the meantime, her relationship with Kenan continues to blossom; they get engaged and marry. At the same time the war comes to Homs when the military breaks through the Free Syrian Army. Salama, Kenan and his siblings barely escape with their lives. It becomes apparent to both Salama and Kenan that staying in their beloved Syria is no longer an option. But will they survive the treacherous journey to freedom? "If we stay we die.....If we leave we might die."

Discussion

As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow is a story about hope and resiliency amidst the horrors of Syrian revolution.

Katouh has crafted a very realistic character in Salama Kassab; she is intelligent, courageous and resilient.  Like any young woman,  eighteen-year-old Salama had hopes and dreams: she was a pharmacy student with a bright future. She now works as a doctor in the hospital in Old Homs trying to save the victims of the Syrian government's attacks. Salama has lost all of her family and is suffering from the effects of PTSD. The trauma she has experienced as a result of her own injuries and from treating the wounded and dying manifests as hallucinations. 

One hallucination is a man dressed in a suit with drops of blood on the lapels whom Salama has named Khawf which is Arabic for fear.  Salama knows that Khawf is a creation of her mind, helping her to process her trauma and survive. "He's a defense mechanism my brain has provided, trying to ensure my survival by any means necessary..."  Every time Khawf "appears", he torments Salama, telling her she needs to leave Syria, to escape via a boat across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy and then to Germany. Salama recognizes what he is and what he's trying to do. "Maybe the reason he's willing to break me in order to get me on a boat can be explained in a scientific manner: He's a defense mechanism my brain has provided, trying to ensure my survival by any means necessary." 

This leaves Salama deeply conflicted: she loves her country yet wants to help her fellow Syrians achieve freedom. Fleeing Syria feels like abandoning her country and seems wrong. Staying means breaking her promise to Hawza to protect their Mama and Layla to keep them safe and to risk death. To cope, Salama's mind has created a figure who will take responsibility for her actions.

Khawf also serves to show Salama the reality of what her life has become. As Salama continues to question whether or not to leave, Khawf reminds her through flashbacks of her life that once was, telling her,  "...of what true happiness was. This doesn't exist anymore. This isn't something you'll find here."

Salama's trauma is so profound that she has also been experiencing detachment from reality by way of a second hallucination. This hallucination is foreshadowed in a description of a sniper attack near her home that she describes to Kenan and is revealed later on in the novel. Kenan helps her to deal with this hallucination and it vanishes.

In contrast to Salama, is the quiet perseverance and determination of Kenan who offers her hope, unconditional love and the ability to see colour again in life, amidst all the blood and death. Dr. Ziad is representative of the Syrian "martyrs" who have remained in Syria, resisting the military.

As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow effectively portrays the plight of Syrian refugees, highlighting their deep love for their country, and the desperation that motivates them to leave. Katouh portrays the brutality, destruction and loss individual Syrians experienced during the conflict: the cold blooded murder of children, the bombing of hospitals, sniper attacks that target women and children and the gassing of civilians. In her Author's Note, Katouh writes, "This novel delves into the human emotion behind the conflict, because we are not numbers. For years Syrians have been tortured, murdered, and banished from their country at the hands of a tyrannical regime, and we owe it to them to know their stories."

The lemon trees, referenced in the title and throughout the novel,  are a symbol of hope, that someday Syria will be free. The author has indicated that the title is a reference to a line in one of the poems of Syrian poet, lawyer and diplomat Nizar Qabbani, "every lemon shall bring forth a child and lemons will never die out." - a reference to a hopeful future, that Syria will survive. 

Despite the heavy issues explored in the novel - and there are many, the story ends on a hopeful tone. As they are readying to leave Syria, Salama tells Kenan, "And we will come back," I say, my voice wavering. "Insh'Allah, we will come back home. We will plant new lemon trees. We'll rebuild our cities, and we will be free."

Although listed as a young adult novel, As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow is suited for older teens and adults.  Zoulfa Katouh plans a sequel to As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow which will explore life as a refugee and explore the themes of recovering identity, racism and trauma. 

Book Details:

As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh

New York: Little, Brown and Company    2022
417 pp.

Berani by Michelle Kadarusman

Berani weaves together the narratives of three characters, two young teens seeking to make their world better and an orangutan in captivity in a novel about identity, activism and coming of age.

Thirteen-year-old Malia Kusarto lives a privileged life with her mother in Surabaya. Her mother who is from Toronto, Canada,  is a linguistics professor who speaks perfect Bahasa (the national language of Indonesia). Malia's father passed away two years ago and so her mother is planning to return to Canada. This prospect deeply upsets Malia who doesn't want to leave Indonesia where her father is buried and her best friend Putu lives.

Malia attends a private school, Sekolah Menegah Pertama (SMP) with Putu. The school which has students of many religions teaches classes in Bahasa. Malia has to give a presentation on how palm oil agriculture is hurting the native orangutan population in Indonesian through the destruction of their forest habitat. She plans on handing out a "petition to protest the banning of palm-free product labels" to her classmates. However, Malia's mother advises her to tell her teacher, Mrs. Harwono about the petition because the issue is a complex one: some of her classmates' families may be involved in the palm oil industry. Although Malia promises her mother she will do so, she begins handing out her petitions when she arrives at school.

Ari Aruna lives with his Uncle Kus who has a restaurant, Warung Malang which makes his specialty, sop buntut, or oxtail soup. The restaurant has two live attractions: a mynah bird named Elvis Presley who sings Elvis songs and an orangutan named Ginger Spice. His uncle got Ginger Spice when she was a baby, after her mother was killed in the jungle. At first she slept in the house and was cuddled like a baby but when she grew larger and stronger, she was placed in a cage. Ginger is now so large, she cannot fit through the door of the cage and mostly lies around.

Ari is living with his uncle so he can attend the local middle school. His parents are tenant farmers who grow rice, which means they do not own the land they farm and therefore, do not earn very much money. They could only afford to send Ari to school, so his cousin Suni, the better and more eager student and a girl cannot continue her education. Instead, she now works in the rice fields.

Ari is expected to do chores to help out his uncle. He cleans the cages and does the accounting and bookkeeping. When he cleans her cage, Ari avoids looking at Ginger Spice. He feels uncomfortable. He has been chosen to represent his school in a chess tournament being  held at a private school in Surabaya. His friend Faisel has been helping Ari with chess in exchange for coffee and pastry at the Warung Kopi.

The chess tournament is held at Malia's school and on his way into the games room, Ari and his student escort pass by Malia who hands Ari a copy of her petition. The tournament is a success for Ari who has discovered there is prize money. He wins five of his seven games and their team has qualified for the regional semifinals. 

Meanwhile, Malia does her presentation but soon realizes that Mrs. Harwono is not pleased about the petition. She gathers the petitions from the students and asks Malia not to give out any of the petitions to students until she checks with the school principal, Mr. Ahmad. However, Malia reasons that this does not apply to the online version she has set up on the class webpage. But when the petition goes online and goes viral, Malia discovers her actions have come with some serious repercussions to not only herself but those around her.

In Malanga, Ari finds himself becoming more distraught over Ginger Spice's situation. When Ari first reads her petition he is stunned to discover that keeping Ginger Spice is against the law. He feels her situation doesn't apply to the petition. Ari believes what Ginger Spice really needs is a larger cage but when she is attacked by a group of teenagers, Ari reaches out to Malia and together they work to set up the rescue of Ginger Spice. But will the loss of Ginger Spice

Discussion

Set in Indonesia, the novel, Berani explores the lives of two young teens amid the larger problem of the endangered orangutan and the destruction of the native tropical forests that serve as their habitat.

The two main characters, Malia and Ari are very different but are brought together by the issue of orangutan conservancy. Malia is part Indonesian, part Canadian and lives a life of privilege and wealth. Her father's family is wealthy as evidenced by his mother, Malia's Oma who is driven around in a Mercedes, her mother is a professor, and Malia attends a private school. However, Malia struggles with her identity: she is considered bule, a foreigner or a campuran the Indonesian term for a person of mixed race. She considers herself Indonesian and doesn't want to leave for Canada. However, when expressing her fear that she won't know who she will be in Canada, her Oma tells her, "Dear girl. You are not defined by where you live or where your parents were born or where you were born. You are defined by what is in your hear, by your actions, your words." She also tells Malia, "...You are what is in your heart, you impact others by your actions and your words. Remember this, my love. Indonesian. Canadian. Girl. Woman. Mother. Grandmother. If you limit yourself to labels you are only putting yourself in a cage."

Malia soon learns that her actions have defined her as someone who doesn't seem to be concerned about others. Her petition, in defiance of both her mother and her teacher has serious consequences: the teacher is suspended and her best friend is also implicated. Malia acted without regard to others and with little understanding as to just how complex the issue of orangutan conservancy is. Malia manages to save face by writing her own letter of apology, recognizing the harm she's done but vowing to continue her work to help orangutans.

In stark contrast to Malia, is another character,  Ari who is Indonesian and whose parents are poor rice tenant farmers. Their family can only afford to send one child in their family to school and certainly cannot afford a private school like where Malia attends. It is this hardship that motivates Ari to do so well in the chess competition after he learns there is prize money to be won. But it also results in an intense inner conflict for Ari who has been chosen over his cousin Suni who is not only the better student but intelligent and loves school. "In elementary school she was the clever one, not me, but I'm attending middle school, not her. I took the only place our family can afford. I stole the one chance she will ever have of continuing school. Instead, she is the one left behind to help tend the rice fields." 

Ari promised to visit Suni who hoped to use his textbooks to keep up. But guilt has stopped him from following through on his promise. It is Ari's decision to rescue Ginger Spice that helps him confront his guilt about Suni and act. After he and Malia work to have Ginger Spice rescued, Ari realizes his uncle didn't want to understand or know the truth about keeping orangutans captive. Similarly, Ari feels he too has been unwilling to know the truth about his schooling. "I have learned it is possible to ignore truths that are right under your nose. You can choose to ignore them, or you can speak up."

This prompts Ari to seek out the school administration and have Suni replace him while he earns enough money to return to school. It is a valiant act. Ari also demonstrates that from chess he has learned that "...there are many ways to reach your goal. There's millions of strategies and moves you can plan ahead in order to achieve what you want...I can be patient...I can play a long game and find my way back to school." Ari explains his position in chess terms and demonstrates to the school administrator his maturity.

There is a third voice in the novel, that of Ginger Spice, the captive orangutan. Orangutans are considered highly intelligent and share ninety-seven percent of DNA with humans. Giving human attributes to an animal - called anthromorphism - might be helpful for younger readers to understand an animal's plight but in some ways it's not realistic because as humans we don't truly know what or how they think. For certain, life in a cage is not natural and orangutans do not belong in cages and humans have the obligation to protect these endangered animals.

In her Author's Note, Kadarusman states that this novel was inspired by the experience her brother had when they were both living in Indonesia years ago. He encountered an orangutan in a cage in a small restaurant in the village of Malang, East Java. The orangutan was eventually rescued from the cage and like Ari's uncle in the novel, did not know much about orangutans. 

Kadarusman who grew up in Australia and now also lives in Toronto, Canada has included a short Author's Note, a Glossary, and some information about orangutans which are considered an endangered species.

Berani is another very well-written and enjoyable novel, offering middle grade readers a number of timely issues to explore.

Book Details:

Berani by Michelle Kadarusman
Toronto: Pajama Press 2022
211 pp.

FLY by Alison Hughes

Fourteen-year-old Felix Landon Yarrow, known as FLY "to anyone and everyone in a ten-mile radius" is on a quest of Don Quixote proportions. FLY lives with his mother who works as a caretaker: his father passed away when he was only three years old.

FLY has cerebral palsy and is wheel-chair bound,  his gangly body "arms and legs, hands and fingers flex-locked in cramped, crumpled contortions." He's hard to understand if you don't listen carefully because of his clenched teeth and wayward tongue. He carries around a copy of Don Quixote to remind people that there is more to him than meets the eye.

Because he's confined to a wheelchair, FLY has an aide named Levi, an eccentric young man who wears purple pants and tells FLY everything. Levi is always trying to help him make new friends but FLY isn't very interested. He feels that he goes mostly unnoticed by his fellow students, the exception being Daria. She noticed FLY when his book fell and she picked it up. Unlike others who don't see him, Daria looked into his eyes and smiled. That's when FLY developed a huge crush on her and began watching her.

But in watching Daria, FLY has noticed a group of boys who seem to be rude and are focused on her. FLY notices one boy, Carter, a boy "who walks like he owns the world" and who seems to be center of attention and now seems to be focused on Daria. So for three months FLY watches Carter, invisible to him. FLY has heard Carter boast about cheating on exams and stealing. FLY has a plan to bring down Carter. But plans don't always go as expected and FLY's plan most certainly does not!

Discussion

FLY is a short novel, done in verse, that explores the theme of living with a disability and making assumptions about people without really knowing them. Felix, confined to a wheel chair as a result of cerebral palsy, struggles because people often don't see past his disability. He refers to himself as "Nobody" because he feels he is invisible, a nobody who's not noticed. Sitting in his wheelchair in the hallway, is like being a fixture, a piece of furniture. His disability elicits pity and low expectations. 

 

People assume because his body doesn't work, his mind mustn't either. To counter this he carries a copy of the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes which he refers to as "DQ".
"I take old
DQ everywhere,
like a good luck charm -
physical proof
to ignorant people
that there's a
mind
in this
body of mine."

"Can you blame me?
So many people
make false
connections
projections,
and assume that
because my
body malfunctions,

my mind must,

too."

Felix doesn't like the word "awesome" because it seems to be used in a way that is demeaning.
"Awesome.
It's the kind of praise
surprised people give me
for the smallest 
accomplishment

when they see

my body doesn't work
like theirs does,

and assume
my brain doesn't 
work at all."

He also knows he is not someone to be pitied.
"I am not a poor boy

I'm a smart one,

with talents

only a few will ever discover."

Felix knows that he goes unnoticed and he feels invisible, like a FLY on the wall. He knows people look past him in his wheelchair.

As with the character Don Quixote, Felix sees himself as a chivalrous knight out to save his classmate, Daria from bad boy Carter. In his misguided quest, Felix begins stalking Carter (and Daria) at school. Felix doesn't tell anyone what he suspects about Carter because he sees this quest as giving him purpose. This escalates to sending email messages online to Carter and warning messages to Daria. Sending the messages anonymously, online gives Felix a new sense of power which he enjoys. Felix considers that Daria is innocent and unaware of the type of person Carter is. He considers protecting her from Carter is a matter of fairness and justice. Believing he has the evidence Carter is dealing in drugs, Felix sets out to confront him at school, but that meeting doesn't go down as planned, with Levi getting injured. And his actions don't have the desired effect for Daria either. 

Although things don't work out as planned, the ensuing brawl makes Felix feel alive and that people like Constable Mah are finally listening to him. Even when Daria angrily confronts him, Felix still feels some exhilaration because she is talking and looking at him, even though she's not grateful. Daria tells Felix, 
"A person is more than
how they look.
Talk to them.
Have a
conversation."

This makes Felix realize he has been hypocritical, doing to Daria exactly what he doesn't want people to do to him:
"How many times
have I thought 

the same thing?
Wished the same thing?

That people would
talk to me,

understand me,

not glance and

judge

without a word..."

Felix begins to understand that when he finally reaches out to talk with Daria, he will learn what she is really like, not the damsel in distress as he imagined her to be. He realizes there are many things he doesn't know and now he wants to be open to new ideas and experiences. By the end of the novel Felix is questioning the possibility of giving Carter a second chance, of trying to find out the source of his bus driver Vic's crabbiness and maybe even trying to learn to ride a horse!

FLY is another addition to the juvenile fiction canon that includes Wonder and many other books, exploring life with a disability, and how people with a physical disability are challenged by other people's perceptions. Done as a novel in verse, Hughes succinctly portrays Felix's frame of mind, his experiences, how others relate to him and the events that occur because of his plan. Well-written, engaging, with lots of themes to explore.

Book Details:

FLY by Alison Hughes
Toronto: Kids Can Press    2022
197 pp.