The True Story of Vanilla by Ann Richards

Edmond was born in August, 1829 on the Bellier-Beaumont sugar plantation on Reunion, a small island in the Indian Ocean. His mother, Melise and his father Pamphile were both slaves owned by Elvire Bellier-Beaumont. In 1834, when Edmond was around five years old he was sent to live with Elvire's brother, Ferreol Bellier-Beaumont who was a widower without any children. 

Ferreol's plantation was typical of most plantations with a large main house and small huts for the slaves. The houses of the slaves had no beds so they slept on the dirt floor. On the plantation the slaves planted sugarcane, and then cut and bundled the canes during harvesting. The work was hard in the hot sun and many slaves, wishing to be free and return to their home countries where they were taken from, escaped, rowing across the sea to Madagascar, Africa or Comoros. But for Edmond, life was different: he lived in the main house with Ferreol.

Ferreol Bellier-Beaumont was known on Reunion as a botanist who enjoyed studying rare plants. As  Ferrreol walked about the plantation and his garden, Edmond watched him and learned from Ferreol about the various plants. Edmond was an intelligent child and became very interested in botany like his master, Ferreol. 

Ferreol was interested in starting a new industry on Reunion - the producing of vanilla. Competition from Cuba and Europe meant that it was no longer profitable to grow sugarcane on Reunion. Ferreol did produce a small amount of cane for local needs but he also grew other produce including pumpkins, bananas and pineapples. 

At this time, vanilla was grown only in Mexico, making it a rare and expensive spice. Botanists from France and Belgium had discovered that the Melipona bee pollinated the vanilla flower. However, they too were not able to get their vanilla plants to produce the vanilla pods. Ferreol had explained to Edmond how he pollinated his pumpkin plants by hand. Since the flowers open early, this had to be done before 10 AM in the morning. He would find the male and female flowers and touch the female stigma to the male anther in what was known as "the marriage". In a few days, small buds would appear beneath the female flowers. Edmond repeated this process himself in Ferreol's pumpkin field to see if he could replicate Ferreol's work. He was successful. 

However, Ferreol like other botanists were frustrated by their lack of success in being able to able to pollinate the vanilla plant. His experiment using wasps from the fig tree didn't work either. So Edmond set out to help his master by intensively studying the different species of plants in Ferreol's garden. For each type of plant in Ferreol's garden, Edmond looked at the blossoms of each, located the male and female part of each flower and pollinated them by pressing these two parts together. When this was successful, Edmond knew that he understood how to find the male and female parts and how to hand pollinate them. The result was that Ferreol's garden produced pumpkins, squash, peppers and other produce. Edmond just had to look inside the vanilla orchid flower to find those parts. Carefully examining the orchid using a bamboo twig, Edmond located the sticky anther and "With the tip of the bamboo twig, he guided the anther to the female part of the plant, called th estigma, and pressed the two parts together. He had successfully hand pollinated the vanilla orchid! Edmond was twelve-years-old.

When Edmond saw that the plant had begun to bud the next day, he repeated the process on the remaining vanilla flower. A few days later when Ferreol was walking through the garden with Edmond and he saw the green vanilla pods forming underneath the wilted flowers he was stunned. Edmond explained what he had done. As new flowers opened, Edmond showed Ferreol the process for hand pollinating the vanilla orchid flowers.

Soon Ferreol's friends and the villagers and plantation owners came to see the vanilla buds but they were in disbelief that a slave could do this.Ferreol wrote letters documenting what Edmond had done because he wanted him to receive the recognition for his disocvery. These letters were sent to the French Chambers of Agriculture, scientific journals and even to Reunion's newspaper. He named what Edmond had done, "Edmond's gesture" or le gest d'Edmond. Edmond demonstrated his technique to the various plantation owners. Despite Ferreol's efforts to get Edmond the recognition he deserved it would take many years and much effort.

Discussion

The True Story of Vanilla is a fascinating account of how one young boy, a slave on a plantation on a small island in the Indian Ocean made an important discovery that had an impact both on his own country and the world. That person was Edmond Albius.

Richards presents Edmond's story while offering readers  background information on many topics relevant to his discovery. The history of Reunion, the pollination of flowers, the discovery of xocolatl, an early form of chocolate by the Aztecs and of tlilxochitl by Montezuma when he conquered the Aztecs, the history of slavery in Reunion and elsewhere, and vanilla production in Mexico. There is a short discussion about growing a vanilla plant but no information on where to buy one! 

Richards has included a section, "In The Pod" within each chapter, that offers readers interesting facts about the vanilla plant. For example, "Each vanilla bean is different, with a unique flavor, aroma and color," is one of many facts presented in these sections which can be found through the book. In The Pod provides information about the vanilla flower, pod and bean, the vanilla scent, vanilla's use in food, health benefits of vanilla, its use in cosmetics and how vanilla is produced today. 

Edmond eventually gained his freedom as a result of the abolishing of slavery in the French colonies in 1848. He was now allowed to have a last name and he chose Albius, "...from the Latin albus/albin, meaning 'white' -- like the vanilla flower." After leaving the Bellier-Beaumont plantation, Edmond wanted to find work as a ship's cook but this was not to happen. Instead he worked as a laborer and eventually was convicted of theft and sentenced to five years  of hard labor. He was freed after three years, due to the persistent efforts of Ferreol who continued also to advocate for Edmond to receive recognition for his pollination of the vanilla plant. This too was proving to be difficult because another botanist, a colleague of Ferreol's, Michel Claude Richard claimed to have discovered the method of how to hand=pollinate the vanilla orchid. Eventually Edmond was recognized as the discoverer of how to hand pollinate the vanilla orchid.

The True Story of Vanilla is filled with so many interesting facts about this spice which is used now throughout the world in so many products and foods. But it is also a story about slavery and the prejudice that existed at this time. Edmond Albius was only twelve-years-old when he made his astonishing discovery. He was intelligent and resourceful, a quick learner who applied the techniques that Ferreol taught him. But because he was a black slave boy, he was not considered intelligent enough to have discovered this process, by the white plantation owners. And it would take twenty years before he finally received the recognition he deserved for his hand-pollination technique - one that is still used today.

The art for the book is digitally created and colourful and while the cover is quite attractive, the artwork inside is somewhat uninspiring. Although there is map of Reunion, there is no map showing Reunion's location relative to Africa and Madagascar which would allow young readers to place the island's location on a globe. And although there is a surviving daguerreotype of young Edmond Albius, it was not included in this biography about him!

Ann Richards who is a Jamaican Canadian from Brampton, Ontario, has included a Timeline, a Glossary and a list of Resources as well as an Index. 

The True Story of Vanilla is highly recommended for readers and cooks of all ages!

Book Details:

The True Story of Vanilla by Ann Richards

Toronto: Orca Book Publishers      2025

99pp.

Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson

Twelve-year-old Homer, his sister Ada and their Mama (Rose) have runaway from Southerland Plantation. Their plan was to go north to freedom but Mama has gone back to get Anna, a slave Homer had promised to help run. Now Homer and Ada are being tracked by Stokes, the overseer and his dogs, and his two brother-in-laws, Ron and Rick. Homer manages to escape one of the dogs which has bitten him, and he and Ada head towards the river.

At the bank of the roaring river, Homer grabs Ada's hand and they jump, surfacing far downstream. They make their way to the bank, but not before Homer hits his head on the riverbed. On the bank of the river, Homer and Ada sleep before considering what to do next. They remember what Two Shoes, so named because he wore Mr. Crumb's castoff shoes did. His son Desmond, had been sold off, leaving his wife, Sally, devastated. In hope of getting Desmond back, Two Shoes had revealed where another slave, Wilson, had run away to. But Mr. Crumb did not buy back Desmond as he promised, and Wilson was found and whipped.

Hearing Stokes dogs, Homer pulls Ada deeper into the swamp. However, Homer soon finds himself sinking deep into the mud in a sinkhole. With Ada's help he gets free, only to find a huge snake wrapped around his leg. As the snake is about to strike, an arrow kills it. A strange man with hickory brown skin and hair in long ropes descends from the trees to claim his arrow and also to stop Ada's questions. They hear Stokes nearby with his dogs, striking fear into Ada. Before she can run off, the man tears a strip off of Ada's dress wrapping it around an arrow with something sticky. From the treetops he sends a flaming arrow into the dry leaves below, igniting a fire in the swamp.

Homer and Ada follow the man, whose name is Suleman deeper into the swamp. After a complicated journey that involves trudging through the swamp for a day, travelling in a boat carved from a tree, passing through a secret door hidden in the brush, spending the night in a secret tree hideout they continue on. During their journey to Freewater, Suleman tells Homer and Ada that he ran away three times from the plantation, each time losing a finger as punishment. Suleman's work is to know about the various plantations and to steal what they need from them. He leads Homer and Ada to a spot where they meet people disguised as brush, covered in leaves and mud. They are David, Ibra and Daria. The group then climbs into the trees to walk across a rope bridge in the canopy and into Freewater, a village of escaped slaves.

Meanwhile at Southerland Plantation, eleven-year-old Nora has discovered that Homer's mother, Rose has been caught and brutally whipped by Stoke's brother-in-laws. Nora is the youngest daughter of Master Crumb, owner of Southerland. When Nora was born, her father believed her to be unwell. She was born with a large red strawberry birthmark on the left side of her face. Her father once showed Nora a picture of an octopus, telling her the birthmark was like the octopus, "...with the oval shaped octopus head marked her temple, and from it sprang eight curving marks. Two that stretched to her left eyebrow, another three that unwound along her cheekbone, and another three that traveled down her jawline." Because her parents thought she was sickly, Homer's mother Rose was forced to wean him and become Nora's wet nurse. Soon Nora spent much of her time with Rose who was given a room off the kitchen. Nora was taught by a tutor and spent her days in the kitchen with Rose, reading. Being abandoned in this way, Nora refused to speak.

With only a month before Nora's older sister, Violet's wedding, the whipping of Rose is a disaster. For Anna, a slave in the house, the disappearance of Homer and Ada, and the whipping of Rose causes much trouble. Anna was considered a peculiar girl. She had been sold many times, often not lasting more than a year in a house. Anna's mother had cut her on the arm, making a sort of arm scar that seemed to Anna to be a hint to run North. Anna was determined to escape and find her mother, and Homer and Ada's escape, and the suffering of Rose, moves her to begin planning both her escape and her revenge.

Nora too begins planning. Overhearing her sister Violet complaining about her being at her wedding, Nora runs to find Rose, only to discover she is seriously injured from the whipping. It is a sight that makes her ill. 

Meanwhile, in Freewater, Homer and Ada meet some of the inhabitants of the emancipated community. There is Sanzi who lives with her mother Mrs. Light, who escaped years ago and her older sister Juna. Sanzi was born in Freeland, has never known slavery and wants to be like Suleman. She carries around a bow and a quiver of arrows and is often in trouble. Her father David patrols the borders of Freewater. Billy who ran away with his father Ibra, is fourteen-years-old. Billy stutters and is afraid of many things. He is certain the slave catcher who hunted him and his father is still out there waiting. He loves to work with wood and has crafted a wooden bracelet for Juna, whom he has a crush on. There is Ferdinand, Sanzi's rival who escaped from a ditch digging gang. He managed to steal the overseer's knife and it is his prized possession.

Homer and Ada spend the next three weeks adjusting to life in Freewater. But Homer is determined to help his mother and Anna escape Southerland. He is forced to act when he uncovers the betrayal of Two Shoes. His plan to return to Southerland is discovered by his new friends, Sanzi, Ferdinand, Billy, and Juna and they insist on coming with him, as does Ada. They set out, hoping to arrive during the busyness of Violet's wedding. 

Meanwhile, Anna and Nora both begin to develop their own plans to leave Southerland. But Violet's wedding becomes a special day for Homer, Ada, Rose, Anna and Nora and a day that Violet and Southerland won't easily forget.

Discussion

Amina Luqman-Dawson has crafted an enjoyable and interesting story with her debut novel, Freewater. In Freewater, Luqman-Dawson creates a story inspired by the maroon communities living in the Great Dismal Swamp which was located in southeastern Virginia and the northeastern part of  North Carolina prior to the Civil War. It had been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for centuries before the coming of the maroons, who were enslaved people who had freed themselves by escaping the plantations they worked on.

Conditions in the Great Dismal Swamp were difficult, with hot, humid weather, dense bush and vines, bears, poisonous snakes and insects. These conditions made it almost impossible to track and recapture runaway slaves. Despite the obvious hardships, life was preferable in the swamp to living the life of a slave on a plantation. The maroons built homes on higher ground in the swamp. Since they had few tools and even clothing, they often raided nearby plantations for tools, food and other goods.

In Freewater, Homer and Ada along with their mother Rose, flee Southerland plantation to a community hidden deep within the nearby swamp. However, their freedom is marred in Homer's mind because they have broken their promise to take another slave, Anna with them. This leads Rose to return to try to bring Anna, but she is recaptured and whipped. For Homer, there is no freedom until he brings his mother to Freewater.

Luqman-Dawson has crafted a diverse cast of characters, from the brave Sanzi struggling to find her place in Freewater, to Billy who stutters and is overwhelmed with the fear of being recaptured, to Homer who tries to adapt to life in the swamp while his mother is still enslaved. Then there is  Mr. and Mrs Crumb and Violet Crumb who see their slaves as mere possessions, Anna a young slave girl who has been sold so many times and who has no memory of her mother, Two Shoes who repeatedly betrays others in an attempt to bring back his beloved son Desmond, and Old Joe and Miss Petunia, who are elderly, faithful slaves. Nora Crumb, the abandoned daughter of the Crumbs, realizes the truth about the slaves at Southerland.

Nora, the youngest daughter of Master Crumb, begins to comprehend the reality of slavery when she discovers Rose has been brutally whipped. Watching Rick and Ron pour salt onto Rose's wounds, makes Nora ill. Later, overhearing her father planning to recapture Homer and Ada causes her to wonder about the type of person her father is. "Nora held her breath. She'd heard talk about catching runaways all her life, and she hadn't thought too much of it. Rose, Homer, and Ada, they were different, weren't they? But something in Nora's father's words made her blood run cold. It didn't match the father who tucked her in at night." When Anna returns a book Nora left for Rose, telling Nora that her father will give Rose the lash again if he finds the book, Nora thinks, "To hear her father connected to the idea of hurting Rose turned something in Nora. Yes, Stokes was mean. He was cruel and feared. But her father? Anna's words were like a first small crack setting into a sheet of lake ice." 

Nora, unlike anyone else at Southerland, has a special relationship with Rose. Born with an octopus-shaped birthmark that extends down the left side of her face, Nora is an outcast in her family. Her mother insists that Nora wear her hair down to cover the strawberry mark. Mrs. Crumb seems unconcerned about how her daughter feels about her actions and words. This leads to Nora feeling unloved and unwanted. But Rose, who nursed her as a baby, has always accepted Nora. When Rose recovers from her wounds, Nora can see that Rose is heartbroken, because she doesn't know the fate of her children, Homer and Ada. At a dress fitting, Nora is forced to sit on Rose's back by her mother who prattles on about how Nora's hair can cover her birthmark and who has no concern for Rose's evident pain. Nora can feel the scars of the whipping and seeing Rose's tears, she jumps up and runs off. Later on, Rose tells Nora how Violet also used to come to the kitchen when she was small  and talk to her, but that eventually she stopped coming. Nora realizes that her sister "used to visit Rose, but she never spoke to Rose now. Never. To her, Rose didn't exist, except to cook. Nora was nothing like Viola. Was she?"  Nora realizes that when her sister was younger, she saw Rose as a person and spent time with her, but as she grew up, Rose became a possession, to be used. Nora is afraid she will become like Violet and she doesn't want that to happen.

This event completely changes Nora and her view of her life. Filled with shame over what has happened to her beloved Rose, Nora starts to investigate life around Southerland. "After a lifetime of hearing the soulful songs coming from the fields, Nora ventured out to see their origin. She hid among the rows of tobacco and listened to the crack of Stokes whip and saw that the eyes of the field hands looked much like Rose's. The pain she saw frightened her and sent her running back to the house, and back to being within her mother's reach. Suddenly, the tobacco fields she'd seen in the distance every day didn't look beautiful. Nora knew they were pain-filled. Her home wasn't what she'd thought. Maybe this was why Rose had run off in the first place." 

Nora clearly recognizes the way her family is treating their slaves and especially Rose, who has raised her, is not right and she sets out to try to right that wrong, first by trying to free Rose with a fake note of manumission. When that fails she decides to try to help Anna. In the end she is able to help both Rose and Anna.

Nora's transformation is symbolized by her washing away the white powder on her face that her mother forced her to wear to cover her strawberry birthmark. Nora's reality is that she has a birthmark on her face just as the reality is that slavery is evil and hurts those who are enslaved like Rose and Anna. Her transformation continues when Nora speaks for the first time, ordering Stokes to leave Anna alone. Up until this time, Nora has never spoken but now she finds her voice and uses it for good.

Freewater is not only a story about slavery but also one about personal journeys: among them, Homer's journey to free his mother Rose, Sanzi's journey to find her place in Freewater, Billy's journey to overcome his fears and have the courage to tell Juna how he feels, and Nora's journey to assert herself in Southerland and understand the evil of slavery. This is a well written, interesting novel, with realistic characters, a good story in a setting that many young readers will likely not know much about.

Book Details:

Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson
New York: Little, Brown and Company      2022
402 pp.

The Gospel Truth by Caroline Pignat

Phoebe is a slave on Arnold Duncan's Whitehaven Plantation located in Virginia in 1858. When Phoebe was only six years old,  her mother was sold off to another owner and from that time she's never spoken. Now sixteen years old, Phoebe looks after Tessa Duncan, the daughter of the plantation owner, brushing her hair and laying out her clothes.

The story begins with Will, one of the slaves owned by Duncan, being brought back by the overseer Brutus after attempting to escape. Brutus is ordered to "peel and pickle" him, meaning that Will is to be whipped until there is no skin remaining and then salt water poured on the wounds causing extreme pain. Duncan believes that Will, who is a very large man, is a valuable slave and he's determined to "break" him and then breed him. Duncan also owns Will's younger brother Shadrach.

Over the past year Miss Tessa has been tutored by Mr. Cooke to learn to read. Unknown to anyone else, Phoebe has learned to read while fanning Miss Tessa and Cooke as they study. Since it is against the law for a slave to learn to read and write, Phoebe keeps this a secret. She hopes one day to check the master's red book to learn where her mother has been sent.

One day Shad announces to Beatrice who is the cook and to Phoebe that a doctor is coming to the plantation the following week to study Virginian birds. The arrival of Doctor Ross Bergman, an ornithologist from Canada peeks everyone's interest including Phoebe. Arnold Duncan whose great-great-grandfather came from Scotland, is the first Duncan in five generations to have no son to pass on the plantation. His land is almost spent and he needs fresh land to grow tobacco. To buy land, Arnold Duncan hopes to attract Bergman's money.  Duncan is also keenly aware that times are changing with the North turning on the South and the slaves against their masters. The days of a plantation run on the backs of black slaves may be nearing its end.

Phoebe finds Dr. Bergman most interested in her, but even more so when Miss Tessa informs him that Phoebe seems to "have a way with birds". Master Duncan orders Phoebe to accompany Dr. Bergman to the woods to show him where the cedar waxwings nest. Missus Duncan is not happy about this. The next morning Miss Tessa accompanies Dr. Bergman and Phoebe into the woods. Both Shad and Bea worry about Phoebe going into the woods with the white doctor.  Miss Tessa's constant talking means they find no birds. For Tessa the walk and the heat are tiresome and she's not interested in birds but in attracting Dr. Bergman as a potential husband.

At dinner that night, Master Duncan is angry about a suspected abolitionist who has been showing up at the plantations and helping slaves to escape up north. On another outing to find birds, Bergman draws bird nests and is introduced to a more detailed tour of life on the plantation by Miss Tessa, one that sees him witness a black slave being beaten. He keeps his feelings carefully hidden although he does tell Miss Tessa that her use of the Bible as a justification for keeping slaves is not correct.

Dr. Bergman simply bides his time hoping to get Phoebe alone. His chance comes the very next day when Miss Tessa is made to remain at the house for a lesson with Mr. Cooke. Phoebe takes "Dr. Birdman" as she calls him, out into the woods for more birding. Wary of his intentions, she waits until he takes a nap to go to her "hidey-hole" in the tree where she has hidden her journal. Bergman follows her there and watches Phoebe as she sits quietly with an little bird in her hands. When she returns Bergman tells Phoebe he needs her to help him and to keep a secret. He wants her to bring him a slave who has tried to escape to her hollow tree. Phoebe agrees to do this.

Shad, suspicious of Dr. Bergman's intentions, follows Phoebe and the doctor into the woods. Although nothing happens to Phoebe, Shad remains watchful. The next day Master Duncan releases Will from the shed because he needs his tobacco harvested quickly. Phoebe delivers Bergman's message to Will and they meet him at the hollow tree where the doctor tells Will to bring men he trusts to the tree the following night.  The next night Will brings Levi, Joe and Davey to meet Dr. Bergman. Unknown to them Phoebe is hiding within the tree and hears their plans.  Bergman tells the slaves that not all white men are like Master Duncan, that he is there to help them escape and that many hundreds of slaves have escaped to the north and to freedom. Only they can choose to take the risk and Bergman requests that if they choose not to, that they tell no one. He asks them to meet him at Carson's Corner in ten days. Can Will and his friends and Phoebe trust that the white man is telling the truth? Will they have the courage to grasp this chance at freedom? And will Shad discover the truth of slavery before it's too late?

Discussion

The Gospel of Truth is told in free verse by six narrators: the slaves Phoebe, Shad and Will as well as Master Duncan and his daughter Tessa Duncan and the abolitionist, Dr. Bergman. The novel is set in 1858, only two years before the election of Abraham Lincoln and three years before the start of the American Civil War. In 1858 America, slavery was ubiquitous in the south where plantation owners used black slaves to work crops of hemp, tobacco and cotton. Slavery had been essentially abolished in the northern states by 1804, but with many plantations in the south switching over to growing cotton, the use of slave labour was firmly entrenched. There were millions of black slaves living in the southern United States by 1858. 

However, the movement to abolish slavery altogether began to grow rapidly after 1830. At this time free blacks and white abolitionists began actively helping slaves to escape to the northern states or into Canada. The route of safe houses and those willing to help became known as the Underground Railroad.  At this time the southern states were beginning to face an economic crisis as the land began to fail. Those living in the southern United States saw the northern state's abolitionist views as an attack on their way of life. When Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, seven southern states left the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. This secession eventually led to the beginning of the Civil War and ultimately to the war becoming about the issue of slavery.

The use of verse to tell the story of courageous men and women who risked everything to escape slavery is an effective means of storytelling because it pares the narrative down to its essentials and focuses on the humanity of the slaves. Pignat does touch on many of the realities of institutionalized slavery: the brutal beatings, whippings and torture undertaken to "break" slaves, the selling of mothers away from their children and children from their mothers, the rape of slave girls by their masters and the use of slave women as concubines.  In The Gospel Truth, Phoebe, Will and the other slaves must overcome their conditioning by their white master to accept their fate and their fear of the white man to realize the truth written in their hearts that she belongs to no one and that "owning people is wrong."  The white plantation owners deliberately keep their black slaves ignorant, unable to read or write, meaning they were completely dependent upon their owners. Phoebe secretly learns to read in the hopes that she can learn what happened to her mother.

Pignat also demonstrates that the racist view of the slaves was part of white family life and passed from generation to generation of Americans. For  example, when Miss Tessa is out birding with Dr. Bergman  they witness the brutal beating of a girl whose fallen behind the line. Tessa tells Dr. Bergman,
"We buy, breed, feed, clothe, house, and train them,"
Miss Tess parrots.
"And if need be, we sell them.
But we take good care of our property."

"Your people," he say.

"Oh, Doctor," she roll her eyes,
and say what master always say,
"they're not people...

they're Negroes."

She attempts to explain that her belief is supported by the Bible to which Dr. Bergman suggests that "...some people misinterpret even God's truth." What Tess considers is "gospel truth" from the Bible is not so.

Readers also see the effect of slavery on families and marriages. The use of slaves as concubines undermined many marriages. Master Duncan's rape of Ruthie, Phoebe's mother and the birth of Phoebe destroy the Duncan's marriage as Missus Duncan refuses her husband afterwards. This results in Arnold Duncan having no male heir for his plantation.

The theme of truth is woven throughout the novel. When Phoebe is taunted by Ella Mae, Bea tells Phoebe that the reason Ella Mae hates her is because Phoebe's father is a white man, Master Duncan.  She tells Phoebe that "I've been protecting you for ten years no. But I see I can't protect you from everything...'Specially not the truth." Bea tells Phoebe it's time she knows the truth.

Later on Shadrach finds the bag containing the items Dr. Bergman gave Will for his escape as well as Phoebe's journal in the hollow tree. Shad tells Phoebe that he thinks Will is going to try to escape again but that he has prevented this by taking the bag and he has given her journal to Master Duncan so he can find out "who been leading my brother astray."  This terrifies Phoebe who tells herself that she cannot run from the truth, she can't hide the truth that she knows how to read and write. Shad is horrified when he learns the truth about the journal - that it belongs to Phoebe who knows how to read and write. As Shad struggles to uncover the truth of what is going on, he is forced to choose between Phoebe who wants to run to freedom and Master Duncan who promises to make him overseer. Phoebe finds her voice to tell Shad the truth of why she's running:
"I ain't Master's shame," she say,
eyes puddled up with tears.
"I ain't Tessa's toy,
or even your girl, Shad."
She shrug.
"I's Phoebe. Just Phoebe. I belong to no one."

She tells Shad,
"--owning people is wrong.
shameful wrong, Shad.
And that's the gospel truth."

In the end Phoebe states that
"It takes courage
                to see truths
                that we'd rather not."

There is plenty of symbolism to explore in this novel particularly around the yellow bird that Phoebe finds injured at the beginning of the novel. She takes the bird, which has a broken wing, home and places it in a cage. Phoebe believes that
"sometimes the safest place to be is 
in a cage."
This is a truth for Phoebe. However as time passes, the bird languishes, refusing to eat or sing. Phoebe returns to where she found the yellow bird and watches the same birds who are free, discovering that they eat worms and bugs. When she brings home a worm, the yellow bird responds and finally moves in the cage. Phoebe comes to understand that although the yellow bird's wing has mended its heart is broken. 

Miss Tessa wonders why the yellow bird won't sing and makes the connection that like Phoebe, it is mute. However she fails to understand why this might be. When Phoebe plans to run and take Will's bag containing the items he will need to escape to him at Carter's Corner, she remembers to free the yellow bird. She recognizes that although the bird is safe in the cage, it is not living the life it was meant to.
"Sure, I keep her alive,
but I's keeping her
from living like a yellow bird should."

Phoebe also understands how being caged has affected the yellow bird.
"Miss Tessa said the bird is tame.
Tame is just another word for broke.
Her wing is long healed.
But numbed by what life she knows behind these bars,
Yellowbird stopped hoping for one beyond them.
Truth is,
that cage is hurting her in ways I can't fix.
I keep her alive,
but she's living half-dead.

So Phoebe does what she has to - "I throw her at the dark and all its dangers."  She sets the yellow bird free and when free, the bird sings "like a yellow bird should."

The yellow bird represents Phoebe who as a slave, is living in a cage called Whitehaven, unable to leave and unable to live her life as she is meant to. Like the yellow bird, she and Will and the others must flee into the "dark and all its dangers" to escape their cage of slavery. And Phoebe herself, once she makes the choice to escape, finds her voice to tell Shad why it is that she must go. On the verge of freedom she speaks, just as the yellow bird once free, begins to sing again.

The Gospel Truth is a wonderfully crafted novel with a remarkable heroine as its focus. Winner of the 2015 Governor General Award, The Gospel Truth represents historical fiction at its best, capturing the era in a realistic manner with believable characters. Caroline Pignat is a Canadian author whose novel Greener Grass won the 2009 Governor General Award. Pignat is an English teacher in Ottawa.

Book Details:

The Gospel Truth by Caroline Pignat
Brighton, Massachusetts: Red Deer Press    2014
327 pp.

The Tiffin by Mahtab Narsimhan

The Tiffin is an beautifully crafted story about a young boy full of courage, integrity and hope written by Bombay-born Canadian author,  Mahtab Narsimhan. 

The story opens in April, 1982,  with the hint of tragedy about to befall a young unmarried woman, Anahita Patel. She has written a note to her lover, Anurag Parekh, telling him she has to meet him that very night. She placed the note in between two warm chapatis, in his tiffin, a tin lunchbox which is delivered by dabbawallas throughout the city of Bombay. The note bears shocking news which Anahita must get to Anurag and the safest way to do this is to place it in his lunch. 

When her regular dabbawalla, Amit is sick, Anahita is concerned that her tiffin might get lost or stolen -  almost unheard of. It is a foreshadowing of what is to come. The tiffin must get to Anurag Parekh at Mittal Towers, Nariman Point.  The replacement dabbawalla assures Anahita the tiffin will be delivered.

At Andheri Station, the tiffins are sorted by a group of men under the direction of Vinayak. He is concerned about Amit's replacement, who is now late. He arrives late at the train station, the tiffins are quickly sorted and as the train starts to leave, they are loaded on with the dabbawallas. But Amit's replacement was the last to get on, struggling to pull in the carrier containing the tiffins. As the train passed a telephone pole, the carrier hit it and a tiffin at the very end fell out onto a wooden sleeper. In a one in six million chance, Anahita's tiffin doesn't make the train to Bombay and is lost, with tragic consequences.

The novel skips ahead thirteen years to tell the story of a boy named Kunal who works as a waiter in a Bombay dhaba (restaurant) named Bombay Bahar. The Bombay Bahar supplies food for customer's tiffins, which are then sent to the train station and into the center of Bombay. Over two hundred thousand tiffins are delivered precisely at noon daily usually without ever losing a lunch box.

Kunal's life is not a happy one. He has been told that he is an orphan, dumped on the doorstep of Mrs. Seth and her husband, Sethji who own the dhaba. Kunal is given little to eat, often beaten, verbally abused and there are suggestions that he is enduring sexual harassment by both customers and some staff because he is very good looking. Kunal doesn't like Badri, the new cook who has eyes only for him, while one of the waiters harasses him. Lalan, the dishwasher tries to protect him.   Kunal does have one friend though, and that is the older Vinayak, a dabbawalla who frequents the dhaba for breakfast every day. 

Kunal tells Vinayak he'd rather be a dabbawalla than a waiter, but Vinayak tells him every job has good and bad points. Kunal reveals to Vinayak that he plans on leaving the dhaba. As he goes to serve an order, another hulking customer comments about Kunal's attractiveness and makes a derogatory comment about his mother. This causes Kunal to drop the plates. He challenges the customer, leading Seth to get involved. He smacks Kunal, calls him a liar, and orders him to apologize. However, Vinayak comes quickly to Kunal's aid, telling Seth that Kunal is an honest boy. He tells Seth if he's not fair, he will speak to the Dabbawalla Association about seeking another supplier for the tiffins. Mrs. Seth eventually diffuses the situation but the customer threatens Kunal with revenge. 

The dhaba fills tiffins everyday which will be delivered to their owners at noon. After carrying the tiffins to the entrance, Kunal asks Vinayak if he can help him sort them. Vinayak agrees and explains to Kunal how the number-letter combination on the tiffin works. Vinayak offers Kunal a place of refuge if he should ever need one, telling him his address and that he can get to his chawl within ten minutes. 

The next day begins as any other, with Kunal serving customers, wiping down tables and avoiding the leering customers and their rude comments. Sethji sends Kunal on a delivery to Pandit Road. After making the delivery, Kunal decides to check out the "...gaudy, pink house halfway down... " Mangal Lane - a place all the older boys spoke about. He wants to know why many of the boys want to make the deliveries to Mangal Lane. On his way there, Kunal sees Vinayak drinking in a bar and is surprised. 

Kunal returns from his delivery and shortly after Lalan arrives at the dhaba badly beaten, having been robbed. He tells Lalan that he is leaving for good. This news is devastating to Kunal because Lalan has been protecting him from the advances of the dhaba's cook, Badri. He panics and is outside trying to process what this means, when Sethji catches him and tells him that he will stay an extra hour that night helping Badri clean the kitchen. This further crushes Kunal. 

Sent out on a delivery, Kunal knows he cannot return to the dhaba and so he makes the decision to flee to Vinaya's chawl. When he arrives at the old man's room, he realizes Vinaya has been drinking. Kunal asks to stay with him for a few days and if Vinayak can get him work as a dabbawalla. But Vinaya tells him it's not so easy. After Vinayak falls asleep, Kuna returns to the dhaba to retrieve his mother's green bangle and the money he believes Sethji owes him in wages.  

Kunal returns to the dhaba, steals about three thousand rupees from the till but is caught by Sethji,  who viciously beats him and locks him up. Mrs. Seth comes and tells Kunal he must leave quickly because Sethji is planning to sell him to Abdulla, known as the Beggar King, a vicious man who cuts off the legs of young boys to make them into pitiful beggars. With the help of Mrs Seth, Vinayak comes to take Kunal away but he is determined that Mrs. Seth tell him about his mother after she reveals that she should never have helped his her. Although he initially leaves with Vinayak, Kunal runs back, insistent that Mrs. Seth tell him what she knows. She gives Kunal a letter his mother, Anahita Patel, a financial analyst in the downtown area, gave her. Gurpreet Seth tells Kunal that she tried unsuccessfully to track his mother down. Suddenly Sethji storms into the room, but as he attempts to reach Kunal, Gurpreet slams the door giving Kunal time to flee. From the letter, Kunal learns that the Seth's took in Kunal  temporarily to help his mother as she tried to locate Anurag. When she never returned, he was left to his fate, and became a virtual slave in the Seth dhaba. This shocking revelation changes the direction of Kunal's life but fills him with hope. His deepest desire in life has been to be a part of a family and be loved. He believes the only way to achieve this is to find his mother.

From this point on, the novel tells the story of Kunal's attempt to find his long lost mother. With the help of Vinayak, Kunal learns the work of a tiffin carrier and devises an audacious plan to locate his mother. Will he succeed in what seems to be an impossible task and find the family he so desperately desires?

Discussion

The Tiffin is a novel that explores the concept of family amidst the backdrop of extreme poverty in India. Kunal is a boy who has spent the first twelve years of his life believing he is an orphan only to learn that his mother left him with Mrs. Seth, with the intention of returning to get him. Something happened to prevent her return. Once he learns the truth about his birth, Kunal becomes determined to find his mother, in the hopes she will want him. Both Mrs. Seth and Vinayak warn Kunal about trying to find his mother, telling him she has abandoned him and will likely not want him. His determination to find his mother blinds him to the family he has.

Kunal wants to become a dabbawalla so he can find his mother. He knows from the letter that his mother's tiffin was likely lost and that she left him with Gurpreet while she tried to find his father. The revelation of the lost tiffin leads Kunal to believe this is the key to finding his mother. To do that he needs to become a dabbawalla and then once he finds her he won't need these people anymore. Being a dabbawalla is a means to an end - to find his mother and be a part of a family. "He did not belong to their family and they hadn't included him in their celebrations. With any luck he'd have someone of his own, soon. Then he wouldn't need any of them, or Vinayak, ever again. "  It is at a meeting of the Association of Dabbawallas that Kunal hits on the idea of the notes in the tiffins. He will need to be a dabbawalla to do this, however, Kunal is initially rejected by the dabbawalla community who do not accept anyone who is not a Maharashtrian. A heroic deed by Kunal leads to all the dabbawallas helping him in his quest to find his mother, by printing out notes to be placed in the tiffins that will be sent to the financial district. 

As Kunal becomes single-mindedly focused on locating his mother, events play out between him and Vinayak in such a way that Kunal comes to realize that he already has the family he so desperately wants. It was Vinayak who "had taught him to read and write by smuggling an alphabet book and writing paper to him, and always looking out for him. " Vinayak reveals to Kunal that he too suffered a loss twelve years ago - his wife and son who were killed in a rickshaw accident. Despite the possibility that his mother has been located, Kunal agrees to stay with the elderly dabbawalla.

Kunal realizes this was the right choice when he returns to Vinayak's chawl to find a young woman waiting outside. Kunal knows this is likely his mother, but she says nothing and does nothing. "Say something, he thought. Say what I've waited twelve years to hear. The thudding of his heart was loud in his ears and he willed it to soften. He didn't want to miss a word. But she said nothing."  Instead, she asks for directions to the train station and quickly leaves. It is not the meeting Kunal was expecting. There is no room for Kunal in her life in contrast to Vinayak who has made room for him. He realizes this is what Vinayak had been trying to tell him about his mother - that she may not want him back. 

Nikhil not realizing that Kunal has just seen his mother, offers to take him to the Mittal Towers in the morning to see his mother. Kunal refuses. "His mother's face swam before his eyes, crumpled with pain yet, strangely, devoid of love. He remembered the deep satisfaction in Vinayak's when Kunal had accepted his offer to stay." He tells Nikhil he already has a family - with Vinayak. While it's not the ending the reader is hoping for, it does offer the opportunity to explore the concept of what makes a family. For some it might not be a biological parent but those who truly care. 

It's interesting that Nikhil discovers Kunal's mother at the Mittal Towers, which is where Anurag Parekh lived thirteen years earlier. This suggests that Kunal's mother may still be with Anurag, and that perhaps the reason she cannot take her son back, is not that she doesn't love him, but that maybe Anurag doesn't know of his existence. In the letter to Gurpreet Seth, Anahita states that her  mother sent her away to have the baby when she learned she was pregnant. It's possible that Anahita has a life now with Anurag and that taking in a son she abandoned may cause her problems.

Narsimhan has crafted an engaging novel with a realistic cast of characters: honest, innocent Kunal,  cruel Sethji who views Kunal as a slave, kindly Vinayak who offers Kunal refuge, and the hardworking dabbawallas who are committed to delivering thousands of lunch tiffins exactly on time every day.

The Tiffin offers young readers a rich portrait of life in poor Bombay. The author describes the sights, sounds and smells of life in the slums of the city. Descriptions of large black rats, the stench from the sewers and sweaty bodies, the beggar children whose legs have been amputated to make them more pitiful, the trains crowded with people sitting inches from the electrical wires are just some of the images Narsimhan offers. In Andheri Station, Vinayak and Kunal are pushed along by streams of people. "Vendors pushed gaudy plastic combs, cheap watches, and newspapers under their noses. Beggars ran to and fro harassing commuters for money, blessing and cursing them in the same breath. The smell of rancid oil and burnt milk hung in the air."  

Also included is a portrayal of the work of the dabbawallas, who rush to the train station with their carriers full of tiffins, each labelled, to be sorted by destination. This is hard work, which must be done exactly to maintain the near perfect record of never losing a tiffin. Not many North Americans know about tiffin lunches, although some restaurants now offer this service. The tiffin is used in India and some other areas of southeast Asia. It is a tin lunch box which at least two separate compartments for storing food. The food can be made hot and will keep warm for up to three hours. Wives of workers often make their husband's lunches or they can be supplied by a restaurant. The tiffins are then delivered by tiffin wallas, usually by train to all parts of the city with incredibly efficiency. Lost tiffins are rare.  Mahtab Narsimhan's novel is a great way to introduce an important aspect of Indian culture to Canadian readers.

Narsimhan grew up in Bombay and lived there for twenty five years. Now living in Toronto, Canada, she is an accomplished author who began her writing career in 2004. This novel is highly recommended for young teens.

Book Details:
The Tiffin by Mahtab Narsimhan
Toronto: Cormorant Books     2011
192 pp.