The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Gayle Lemmon came to Afghanistan in the winter of 2005. She was on winter break during her second year of an MBA at Harvard Business School when she decided that she wanted to act on her desire to write about stories no one else was covering. The stories Lemmon thought she might want to tell were those of women working in war zones. Previously she had written a piece about women entrepreneurs in Rwanda - a country whose male population was completely decimated as a result of the genocide.

In 2005, Lemmon arrived in Kabul looking for the stories of women who had survived the numerous wars, invasions and cultural changes of Afghanistan. She was looking for women who had not just survived the Soviets, the Taliban and the post-Taliban eras but those who had successfully initiated entrepreneurial projects. "Most stories about war and its aftermath inevitably focus on men: the soldiers, the returning veterans, the statesmen. I wanted to know what war was like for those who had been left behind: the women who managed to keep going even as their world fell apart. War reshapes women's lives and often unexpectedly forces them - unprepared - into the role of breadwinner. Charged with their family's survival, they invent ways to provide for their children and communities."

Initially the author was looking for a story about Afghan women post 9/11 and what sort of businesses these women were developing. Eventually she learned of Kamila Sidiqui, a young entrepreneur who got her start as a dressmaker during the Taliban regime. Sidiqui, whose family is Tajik, Afghanistan's second largest ethnic group, lives in Khair Khana, a northern suburb of Kabul. Her father, Woja Abdul Sidiqi whose family hailed from Parwan in the north, was a senior military officer for the Afghan army.Together, he and his wife Ruhasva were the parents of eleven children, nine of them girls!

Kamila Sidiqi's story begins at the point where she has just received her teaching certificate from Sayed Jamaluddin Teacher Training Institute and is about to commence her studies at Kabul Pedagogical Institute, a coed university in the capital. It is 1996. Afghanistan is rocked by civil war now that the Soviets have left. The triumphant Mujahideen are now fighting amongst themselves for control of the capital, Kabul. And it is the Taliban who are winning control over more and more areas of the country.

Kamila's hope was to earn a bachelor's degree and eventually become a professor of Dari or literature. If the Taliban win and take over Kabul, Kamila realizes that this will not happen. She has heard rumours that when a city is overtaken by the Taliban, the women must leave school and cannot even leave their homes unless they are accompanied by a mahram. Taliban controlled cities require women to wear the full length burqua, known in Dari as a chadri. 

When the Taliban finally do overrun Kabul, all this comes to pass. The effect on the women of Kabul and even on Afghan society itself was disastrous. Girl's schools closed and women vanished from the streets. Forty percent of civil servants and more than half of the teachers in Kabul were women. They were now unemployed. For families headed by widows the consequences were particularly devastating. Many of these women were the sole support for their families, often having lost their husbands in the many years of war. These families had lost their principal breadwinner. The loss of so many workers also affected the general day to day running of the government.

Many families decide to leave Kabul for Pakistan or Iran, but the Sidiqi family decides to stay. Eventually Mr. Sidiqi decides to move to his hometown of Gulbahar in Parwan and his wife eventually follows. They decide that it is too dangerous for the remaining daughters to travel north so they will remain in Kabul. But it is clear that Kamila and her sisters need to find a way to support themselves. What they initially thought would be a short-lived edict restricting women in society, was now becoming ridiculously entrenched with further rules such as prohibitions against walking in the middle of the street, mixing with strangers, wearing chadri which showed the outline of arms or legs, or going out without a mahram (male relative). What Kamila needed was "a plan that would allow her to earn money while staying within the Taliban's rules...."

Kamila decided to start her own dressmaking venture. She had her older sister Malika teach her how to sew and how to use a sewing machine and then she and her sisters prepared samples of dresses to take to shop-keepers with the intent of securing orders. Her younger brother Hajeeb was her mahram and together the two of them were able to navigate through the Taliban rules to start a flourishing dressmaking business. Eventually, the business expanded to teaching other women how to sew and how to set up their own businesses.

Kamila was eventually asked by two Afghan women who worked for UN Habitat to join Community Forums in which women took part in jobs and social programs they designed and supervised. Profits earned were redirected back into the forums to fund more projects. The Taliban allowed these forums as long as only women participated but this was still a risk for Kamila. But Kamila's desire to help other women especially when the need was so great meant she could not refuse.

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Kamila has focused on women and business, training women in microfinance, and in entrepreneurship. Eventually she launched her own company, Kaweyan which is responsible for training people how to turn their ideas into a business plan.

Discussion

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana tells the story of Kamila Sidiqi as she struggles to survive during the Taliban occupation of Afghanistan beginning in 1996. Sidiqi's story wouldn't be so exceptional if it weren't for the fact that she overcame enormous obstacles in the most imaginative and determined way. Her story is about one woman's desire to help not only herself but other Afghani women and how she succeeded. It is a story about the wonderful warmth and deep concern these women have for their neighbours and those around them. Whenever women in need came to the Sidiqui house, the family always responded by taking them in to work.

Lemmon doesn't mince words as to how the Taliban began to mold Afghanistan into a totalitarian theocracy, an Islamic state. "Kabulis watched helplessly as the Taliban began reshaping the cosmopolitan capital according to their utopian vision of seventh-century Islam. Almost immediately they instituted a brutal - and effective - system of law and order. Accused thieves had one hand and one foot cut off, and their severed limbs were hung from posts on street corners as a warning to others...Then they banned everything they regarded as a distraction from the duty of worship: music, long a part of Afghan culture, and movies, television, card playing, the game of chess, and even kite flying, the popular Friday afternoon pastime....

But of all the changes the Taliban brought, the most painful and demoralizing were the ones that would fundamentally transform the lives of Kamila, her sisters, and all the women in their city. The newly issued edicts commanded: Women will stay at home. Women are not permitted to work. Women must wear the chadri in public."

Those most affected are women and girls, whose lives have narrowed entirely to their home. In effect, Afghanistan had lost the talents and gifts of half its population - the Afghani women. In creating her business, Kamila Sidqui demonstrates the resilience, determination, and courage of Afghan women, who refuse to be enslaved by seventh century Islam. 

Lemmon has told Kamila Sidiqi's story because in her own words, "Brave young women complete heroic acts every day, with no one bearing witness. This was a chance to even the ledger, to share one small story that made the difference between starvation and survival for the families whose lives it changed."

The Dressmake of Khair Khana is a must-read for all Western women, a reminder that the rights so hard fought a century ago by our sisters, to vote, to be recognized as persons under the law, to own property, to be educated and to work, must never be taken for granted.

Book Details:
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
New York: Harper Collins Publishers 2011
256 pp.

Traitor by Gudrun Pausewang

Fifteen year old Anna Brunner lives in Stiegnitz, a small village located in the Sudetenland - a predominantly German speaking border area of Czechoslovakia that was annexed by Hitler in 1938. Steingnitz is a mere 10 miles from the border of the Czech Protectorate. During the week, Anna studies at a school in Schonberg where she boards with Frau Gisela Beranek. On the weekends she travels home via train to Mellersdorf and then walks to Steignitz where she lives with her mother Marie Hanisch, her grandmother and her 14 year old brother Felix. Her father, Felix Brunner, a circus conjurer, committed suicide when Anna was young and her older brother Seff is away fighting on the Eastern Front.

One day on her way home to Stiegnitz, Anna Brunner discovers tracks in the snow weaving in and out of the forest. She follows them home to her family's barn where she discovers a cold, emaciated and ill man hiding their hayloft. Puzzled and believing him to be a lost mental patient from a nearby institute, Anna gives him shelter and clothing. Her family doesn't know and Anna still doesn't clue into who she is helping even when she learns that seven escaped men have been shot and the eighth man is still being sought.

However, Anna is horrified to discover that the man in the barn is the sole survivor of eight Russians who escaped from a prisoner of war camp days before. Anna now faces a serious dilemma. If she turns him in, he will be shot. If she helps him, she is helping an enemy of Germany and she will be a traitor and executed.

"To deliver up a terrified, half-starved man to shot like an animal -- how could she reconcile that with her conscience? She couldn't live with guilt like that, and she didn't want to!"

Anna experiences intense inner conflict based on what she sees in the escaped Russian soldier - a helpless man who is grateful, respectful and suffering and what she has seen in posters that portray Russians as bloodless murderers. She recognizes that people can have both bad and good in them and that this is not just restricted to people of a certain race.

"Frau Bernaek had objected that all the good was never on one side, not all the evil on the other. Not even now. She was of the opinion that 'Next to the good in every individual, there is also evil."

Unlike Felix who acts as a foil to Anna, she does not have others tell her what is right. She is not so accepting of the indoctrination of the Hitler Youth and the German Girls League and the German government and tries to think for herself. While thinking about what her father would have done with the Russian soldier she ruminates on the problem of good and evil:

"You knew it too, she thought, this problem of good and bad. If you were still alive, you could see it in your son. In Felix, whom you never knew. He's convinced that anything that benefits the German people is good. But he lets others dictate what that is....But he leaves it to others to decide for him what's good and what's bad. That's why I'm afraid of him, Father. I'm afraid of my little brother!"

Anna sees that Felix is becoming more and more radical and that her grandmother and mother are afraid of him. For Felix, Russians and Czechs are not people. They are expendable. Hitler is Felix's hero and he would die for him.

Eventually as her emotional burden increases and Anna struggles to find food for the soldier, she tells a friend about what she has done and this woman agrees to help her supply the hidden soldier with the necessities of life. But as the Germans lose the battle after battle and their country is invaded by the advancing Russians, Felix becomes more radical and Anna, although happy that the Russian soldier will finally be able to meet up with his advancing army, is worried about how she and her family will survive into the peace.

This novel has a shocking ending which I won't reveal and which the reader would never anticipate. Gundrun Pausewang has written a stunning psychological thriller right to it's unexpected and horrific end. I highly recommend this novel, although don't be surprised if teen readers are not satisfied with the ending.

Book Details:
Traitor by Gudrun Pausewang
New York: Carolrhoda Books 2004
220pp.

Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother. Stories of Loss and Love by Xinran Xue

Again and again, I cannot and will not believe that outdated customs combined with government policy can really force human beings to renounce that most beautiful and basic of human feelings, the parental instinct. It should not be possible, but it is.

Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother is a heart-rending, eye-opening account of women's lives in China. It is a recounting of the "tragic stories of what traditionally happened to abandoned girl babies and what continues to happen." Each of these stories sears the heart as the reader comes face to face with the clash of Chinese culture, traditional and modern, and the deepest desires of the heart in Chinese women.

Xinran's book is a collection of stories told to her as well as personal incidents she experienced when she worked as a reporter and radio broadcaster in China. These are painful stories, told by courageous mothers, to Xinran over a period of years either in person or in the form of letters. It took many years before Xinran could bring herself to tell these stories.

In her travels within China, Xinran discovered the crushing poverty of her fellow Chinese and how little she knew of Chinese history and culture. She came to understand that young Chinese did not know what their mothers and grandmothers had suffered. She also realized from her life in the United Kingdom that many Westerners had no understanding of the Chinese people. When she was asked if it was "true that Chinese women physically lack emotional cells and are mentally short of love" Xinran was devastated and angry.

This book, which she began to write in 2008 was to show that Chinese women have suffered terribly and continue to suffer so. It was to demonstrate the ability of Chinese mothers, daughters and grandparents to love deeply and unconditionally, but that their culture works against their feminine nature in ways that Westerners cannot comprehend.

During the course of writing books about Chinese society and Chinese mothers, Xinran received many letters from Chinese women who placed their daughters for adoption with Western families. By the end of 2010, Xinran writes that the number of Chinese orphans adopted numbers over one hundred twenty thousand!! - almost all of whom are girls. Why is this so? Why are the Chinese abandoning their girls?

Xinran believes that girl babies are abandoned in China for 3 main reasons:

1. traditional practices in Eastern farming cultures in which a preference for boys who can undertake hard manual labour. There is also the ancient system of land allotment in China in which males are given land and therefore are responsible for creating wealth, Females do not have such rights.
2. sexual ignorance and economics
3. one child policy which then made it imperative that in order for number 1 to hold, couples MUST have a male child if they wanted to increase their wealth and carry on the family name.

Discussion

Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother is not for the faint of heart. The stories leave one gasping at the seemingly callous perspective that pervades Chinese society, particularly in rural China, one that holds that girl babies are better off dead than living in any sort of existence. Xinran struggles to understand this mindset and what drives families to abandon their baby girls. Sometimes these encounters occurred during what appears to be an ordinary day - such as bicycling to work.

When Xinran rescued a baby girl abandoned in front of a public toilet she was admonished and harassed."The words rang in my ears but I kept repeating to myself: No, no, I'm not going to let this tiny creature die in front of my eyes. This is a human being. A real live human being capable of giving life to countless other lives."

When she rushed the baby to the hospital Emergency Department she was told that without a birth permit, they could not treat the baby. It was only when Xinran threatened to talk about this on her radio show that the nurse relented and the baby was saved. The duty nurse told Xinran that the hospital received so many abandoned baby girls that they had to hire night guards to prevent people from abandoning babies at their doors.

There is no doubt that Chinese women bear a heavy burden of suffering. It is very likely that the traditional cultural preferences for male children combined with the draconian one child policy have led to the abandonment and outright murder of millions of Chinese girls. As a result, it is estimated that tens of millions of Chinese girls are "missing". Human rights groups, population experts and social scientists have been warning for many years now of the effects of this gender imbalance will have on Chinese society.

Attitudes towards women and girls need to change in Asia especially in China and India. Public policy also needs to change. Governments have no business telling couples how many children they can have. Young women who become pregnant need the support of family and society to bear their children and if they so choose, to keep and raise them. Culture has no business telling women that girls are worthless. Without women, a society loses its heart and will inevitably die.

Xinran Xue's book is an important window into Chinese culture. It is highly recommended as is her website The Mothers' Bridge of Love: https://www.mothersbridge.org/

Book Details:
Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother. Stories of Loss and Love by Xinran
New York: Scribner 2010
239 pp.

deadly by Julie Chibbaro

We've all heard of "Typhoid Mary". Who was she? What was her story?
Deadly is a smart retelling of the story of Mary Mallon, an Irish immigrant who worked as a cook in New York City in 1907. Her story is told through the diary of 16 year old Prudence Galewski, a young Jewish girl living in New York City at the turn of the 1900's.

Prudence and her mother, whom she calls Marm, are alone and struggling to make ends meet. Prudence hase suffered the loss of both her father and her brother. Her father, Gregory Galewski is missing in action, having gone to Cuba to fight in the Spanish-American war of 1898, while her brother Benjamin died from gangrene. Prudence is interested in science and more specifically in why people get sick and die. She has a secret desire to understand the human body. This desire originated from her experiences helping her mother who is a midwife. Of course, in 1906, these sort of inquiries are not expected from young women.

Instead she is stuck learning how to walk on her toes, draw portraits and embroider at Mrs. Browning's School for Girls where she has been enrolled by her mother in the hopes of improving her social status. After applying for numerous typist jobs, Prudence is offered a unique job in the New York Department of Health and Sanitation. There she is an assistant to Mr. George Soper, a Sanitary Engineer who as head epidemiologist for the department, investigates the causes of disease epidemics. It is the perfect job for Prudence who tries to learn everything she can about the body, disease and how people get sick.

Initially, Soper is sent out to investigate an outbreak of typhoid at Oyster Bay on Long Island. When tests at the house fail to find the source of the outbreak Prudence makes an astonishing discovery that leads them to consider the cook as a possible source. That cook is Mary Mallon. When they approach Mary she is uncooperative, violent and refuses to be tested. And so begins the struggle to quarantine and test Mallon - one of the first recognized "carriers" of disease. When she is finally captured and Soper's theory is proved correct, they must deal with the ramifications of their actions. They have taken an apparently healthy adult woman, arrested her and placed her in quarantine with other patients who are sick.

Matters are further complicated when Prudence finds herself forming an attachment to Mr. Soper. Added to this, Prudence herself has also reached an important personal turning point in her life. Her acquaintance with Dr. Baker makes Mary aware for the first time of the possibility of studying medicine.

Prudence is more an observer to the actions of Soper and Dr. Baker than a participant. Chibbaro develops Prudence in the role of a character of conscience in deadly. She is someone who questions the actions and motives of the New York Department of Sanitation, the police and the medical profession in the case of Mary Mallon.

"How did he and Dr. Baker find the strength necessary to take the cook from her life they way they did? ... And was it right? I felt as if we had broken the law. We had no warrant for her arrest, no right to raid her employer's home. Her typhoid was still speculative. Weren't we obliged to release her?"

Prudence sees Mary as a person with dignity, instead of a unique medical case to be investigated.

"Besides the obvious question - does she really carry the typhoid germ? - there are still so many unknowns to her case. What is her history? Who is she, and where has she been?..."

"It's one thing to follow the course of a disease through observation and questioning. It is truly another to be out jailing human beings suspected of carrying germs....The whole incident was immoral."

This is in direct contrast to Mr. Soper who seems clinical and whose concern is focused more on the families who have hired Mary and the people who are sick. It seems his lack of concern for Mary begins when she starts to resist any attempts to test her as a carrier. She is robust and healthy and doesn't believe she could make anyone sick.

Eventually Prudence feels deeply conflicted over the Mary Mallon situation. The conflict she senses is that between a scientist's quest to learn and the dignity of the human person. There is also the balancing of the rights of the individual person with those of society. Prudence worries she will not be able to consider medical cases from a purely scientific point of view if she were to study medicine. In a meeting with Dr. Baker, she confides her concerns;

"I saw illness as a kind of week, something that could be found and cleaned away. I didn't think it could live inside a person without sickening or killing them, not like with Mary. Now it's as if the disease and the person are inseparable. When the police officer threw Mary in the snow and they locked her up, they were treating her like a disease...."

It is therefore, through the thoughts of Prudence, that Chibbaro wants us to consider Mary Mallon's position and what it must have been like for her. She tells us in her Author's Note that she wanted a sympathetic protagonist for her retelling of the story of "Typhoid Mary". She wanted someone who understood the immigrants position in early 20th century American society and how they might have perceived the Mary Mallon situation.

Typhoid was a bacterial disease that killed people by the hundreds and even thousands. Medical professionals and sanitation experts had been working for years to clean up the municipal water supplies and improve sewers and sanitation. They often faced great resistance from a public who couldn't understand the science behind the policies.

Mary Mallon was one of the first living examples in support of a new theory put forth by Dr. Koch of Germany; that a healthy person could be a carrier of disease without actually becoming ill from it.
This idea was so revolutionary, that many people had great trouble accepting it just as they had great trouble believing many years earlier that tiny microscopic organisms were responsible for disease. For Mr. Soper and Dr. Baker, it must have been supremely frustrating to deal with someone like Mary Mallon and her supporters. The scientific evidence pointed to her being the cause of the typhoid outbreaks, yet she saw herself as a victim of Irish prejudice and fear.

It's easy to judge the past from the comfort of the present given our modern, highly efficient investigative tools. Soper and Baker did not have much in the way to offer Mary Mallon as treatment and therefore this made the situation more critical and requiring more direct means of action. Chibbaro puts the Mary Mallon situation in to perspective considering the social situation and conditions that existed in the time in America

Chibbaro's novel is well written and engaging with the story having a touch of romance. Young readers will learn about a controversial event that had a major ramifications on public health policy. Along the way they will be rooting for a female protagonist living in society on the cusp of new scientific discoveries- discoveries that would forever change the day to day life of most people.

Book Details:

deadly by Julie Chibbaro
New York: Antheneum Books for Young Readers Simon & Schuster 2010
293pp

Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang

Fifteen-year-old Emmajin, granddaughter of Emperor Khubilai Khan, watches on the balcony of the palace gate as the Mongol army rides into Khanbalik for the grand victory parade. Beside her is her cousin and best friend, Suren oldest grandson of Khan.

The army, led by General Bayan has just conquered a large city in the south, opening the way to Kinsay, the capital of southern China. Emmajin's father, Prince Dorji stands by the side of the seated emperor. Prince Dorji, the oldest of Khan's sons had run away to a Buddhist temple while Suren's father, Khan's second son Chimkin had gained great honour by leading armies and winning battles.

Emmajin races down to the main avenue, followed by Suren. At street level the parade includes a huge elephant with General Bayan seated atop in an open carriage. Emmajin is pulled onto a horse by her Uncle Todogen and becomes part of the parade that makes its way to the square in front of the Khan's palace. Emmajin wants to be a soldier in the Khan's army. 

That night as Emmajin and Suren wait for Old Master, the court storyteller, to tell stories, she wonders if there are any Mongol women soldiers. Emmajin knows about Mulan, the Chinese woman who fought against her Mongol ancestors. She remembers her great-great-grandfather Chinggis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, and how his mother and his first wife showed courage and determination. She also recalls how the mother of Khubilai Khan trained her sons to rule the Empire. Old Master tells how the Mongol army laid seige to Hsiangyang and used Persian catapults to destroy the city. Old Master empties a sack of ears from the enemy onto the floor. Suren recoils and Emmajin feels horror, while Temur, Suren's younger brother is thrilled. Emmajin decides to enjoy the moment and in her excitement reveals to Suren that she wants to join the army. He will be joining in Ninth Moon. Temur, tall and handsome, announces and archery contest for all boys of the court, the following day on what is Emmajin's sixteenth birthday. 

When Emmajin returns home, she learns that her father, Prince Doji has arranged for her to meet the eldest son of General Aju at noon. She is to sit quietly and to serve them to prove she can be a proper wife.  Unlike her sister Drolma, Emmajin isn't interested in marrying or in embroidery, dancing, and music. She knows that once she is betrothed, her chances of joining the army will vanish forever.

General Aju, a high ranking military commander and his son Jebe arrive early. as Emmajin is serving them, she cannot resist asking Aju about the catapults used in the seige. This puts off Aju and the betrothal talks end,leaving her father chagrined. She has sabotaged four betrothal attempts now.  At this, Emmaji boldly asks her father to allow her to join the army. He tells her the Khan would never agree and that it is wrong to kill humans. Prince Doji refuses Emmajin's request, giving her an amulet of Tara, the Great Protectress but Emmajin doesn't follow his practice of Buddhism. Undaunted, she participates in the archery tournament that day.

When she arrives in the courtyard for the archery contest, Emmajin is confronted by Temur, but Suren as the eldest grandson insists that she be allowed to compete. As she awaits her turn, Emmajin notices a heavily bearded foreigner watching the competition.  When it is time for Temur, Suren and Emmajin to compete, she asks the Khan that she be allowed to compete and if pleased, he allow her to join the army. The Khan makes no promises but she is allowed in the contest which will be mounted archery.

On her horse Baatar, a golden palomino stallion, Emmajin watches as Temur hits the target three times and Suren misses twice. However, now Emmajin struggles with what to do: should she beat Suren who is the eldest grandson and heir to the throne? Emmajin's first two shots hit the target but when an image of the strange foreigner enters her mind, she loses her concentration and misses her third shot. Baatar stumbles throwing Emmajin into his mane. Bleeding profusedly and deeply humiliated, Emmajin is furious at the bearded foreigner. She insults him by spitting blood at his feet.

The next day, the fifth day of the Fifth Moon and also Emmajin's sixteenth birthday, "the Khan, his court and most of the Golden family" are leaving for the summer palace in Xanadu. While Emmajin doesn't want to get up, her mother tells her she must as she has the honour of riding with the Great Khan. Xanadu or Shangdu  is located on a high plateau separated from Cathay (northern China) by a group of hills. The Khan spends time relaxing in a smaller palace there. The trip to Xanadu will take three days. 

In the courtyard, Emmajin sees four giant elephants who are tethered together with an ornate pavilion set across their backs. In the pavilion she finds the Great Khan and his chief wife Empress Chabi who is her grandmother, seated on benches. The Great Khan tells Emmajin that he has a special assignmment for her. Riding with them will be three Latins who are merchants from the Far West. The Khan plans to conquer their lands after he subdues China. To achieve this goal he wants Emmajin to gather "intelligence" for him: to kow their religion, kings, language, their lands and what riches they have.  Emmajin agrees. The foreigner who she must spy on is Marco Polo, the man who distracted her during the archery competition. He is a young man of twenty-one, with a dark heavy beard and green eyes.  Emmajin is confused by his behaviour and has no idea out to deal with this "unpredictable, outlandish man". However, her time with Emmajin begins to change her perspective on other cultures and more importantly war. Her friendship with Marco will have life changing implications for young Emmajin.

Discussion

In Daughter of Xanadu, Dori Jones Yang has crafted a fascinating historical novel centered around the visit of Marco Polo to the Great Khubilai Khan who was a grandson of Genghis Khan. Also known as Kublai Khan, he was the 5th Khan to rule the Mongolia Empire from 1260 to 1294. Among his major conquests was the subjugation of China and the forming of the Yuan Dynasty in 1271. The Great Khan met Marco Polo's father, Niccolo and his Uncle Maffeo when they travelled to Asia years before. Daughter of Xanadu takes place when Niccolo and Maffeo return to China, this time with a young Marco.

In this regard, Daughter of Xanadu is a romanticized fictional account of some of Marco Polo's adventures in Xanadu. According to the opening of the story, it tells "the story of two adventurous hearts from thousands of miles and worlds apart: one from medieval Venice and the others from the royal court of the Mongol Empire."

Although she doesn't mention this in her forward, the fictional character of Emmajin in many ways resembles a real historical female Mongol warrior known as Khutulun who was born in 1260. One of the great-great-granddaughters of  Genghis Khan, Khutulun's father was Kaidu, a cousin of Kubilai Khan who came to rule over parts of eastern Asia and who challenged Kubilai Khan. Khutulun was a warrior princess who excelled in horseback riding, archery and wrestling and who was known as a formidable warrior. She often accompanied her father into battle and she also met Marco Polo who described her in his book about his travels. Khutulun is mentioned in Daughter of Xanadu by Marco Polo who tells a story to the Great Khan of "...a woman named Ai-Jaruk, daughter of King Kaidu...". Ai-Jaruk is one of the names Khutulun was known by. 

Daughter of Xanadu focuses on Emmanjin's relationship with Marco Polo and his influence on how she views her Mongol culture and how she views war. When she first encounters this bearded stranger with his green eyes and red hair and beard, she finds his exotic appearance and manners attractive. His accounts of knights and "courtly love" are very alien to Emmajin: the idea of a man serving a woman seem preposterous to her. "Could love for a woman actually enoble and inspire a man, rather than weaken him, and distract him from his duty?...Women were meant to serve men not the other way around." This foreign idea confuses Emmajin. "My ambition had always been to be a warrior, but thie foreign notion, courtly love, appealed to something so deep in me I had not known it was there."

As her friendship with Marco grows, Emmajin begins to feel conflicted over her assignment by the Great Khan to learn about potential weakness of the countries in the west, so that they might be conquered.  The possibility of someday riding to war to conquer his homeland disturbs her. Yet she believes she must remain loyal to her people and to the Khan.  It is only when talking to Marco's Uncle Matteo that Emmajin realizes how the Mongols might overtake Christendom: if they help to free the Holy Land, Mongols from Russia and Asia might attack Christendom while its warriors are in the Holy Land. In this way " ...the whole west would fall at once, into our Empire." 

Emmajin reveals what she has learned to Chimkin. Unexpectedly Marco learns what Emmajin has done and confronts her. "From the beginning, then, your purpose was to gather information about my homeland, so the Great Khan could decide how best to invade and conquer it."  Emmajin's words to Marco reveal her inner conflict. She explains that it was her assignment and if she did well she might be allowed to join the Khan's army. But as she tells him this, Emmajin wonders, "...What have I done? This man had never harmed me, never tried to control me. He had trusted me. Now I had sown the seeds of destruction of his homeland." 

Emmajin realizes that in spending time with Marco Polo she has learned to see the world through his eyes, offering her a different perspective. After the Great Khan watches Emmajin and Suren training, she tells him that she has no desire to be a part of an invasion of Christendom. The Great Khan reminds Emmajin that "...every man you kill in battle has a father, an uncle, a homeland, some skill...". At this time Emmajin sees her ability to identify with Marco as a weakness. Later on as a soldier, when she listens to Marco Polo speaking with General Abaji, she decides that her time with Marco "...had gradually reshaped my view of the world, polluting my Mongolian idealism...I was robbed of my central faith, faith in the absolute glory and wisdom of Chinggis Khan. " But Emmajin's experiences as a soldier will change that.

Emmajin's view of war and conquest changes with time. When Marco attempts to explain to her how the people of Christendom love peace and freedom. But Emmajin responds, "The only way you can make peace is through conquest.And the only way to keep it is to suppress rebels and bandits by force." Marco attempts to explain that sometimes peace can be achieved through talk. However, Emmajin believes that his country is better under the rule of the Mongols. Marco tells her how the Mongols known as Tartars are dreaded in the west. "If my people could see the splendors of Xanadu they might change their minds. But we hear horrible stories of the hordes that invaded Christendom. Those warriors raped, looted, massacred innocents by the thousands. They cut off the ears of each person they killed." However, to Emmajin, "Eternal heaven ordained that the Mongols conquer all lands, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun. This is out destiny."

As a soldier, Emmajin's first doubts come in Szechwan, when in a small village that has been burned to the ground by Mongol troops led by Kubilai Khan twenty years earlier, she sees an enormous pile of bleached bones. Realizing that some of the bones were those of children, Emmajin is horrified. "It seemed impossible that brave Mongol soldiers would kill so many. That the great Kubilai Khan, with his good humor and intellectual interests, could have ordered it..."  Emmajin has dreamed of gaining glory by killing many enemy soldiers, "...But a village of ordinary people, including women and children? In resisting the Mongols, they had merely been defending their homes. No wonder Marco wanted to prevent this from happening in Christendom." 

It is after the battle of Vochan in which Emmajin's beloved cousin, Suren dies that she begins to face the reality of war. While others including Marco Polo and General Abaji praise Emmajin for her fighting, she finds no satisfaction. "Suren was dead. Marco and I were alive. I had proved I could fight like a man. But there was no thrill in it." Her idealizing of war and facing its reality has changed Emmahjin. "Losing Suren and nearly losing Marco had made me rethink what was important to me. Before I had met Marco, all that had mattered was my ambition to join the Khan's army and achieve glory in battle. Now I had achieved those goals, but they were empty vessels. Glory on the battlefield had come with a price to high to bear."

As they begin the journey away from Vochan, Emmajin listens as the tales of the battle grow and she realizes that the stories the Old Master tells are false, enriching the glory of battle to encourage men to fight. Emmajin's perceptions of war, manhood, valor, and life and death are forever changed.This realization plus her affection for Marco lead to a crisis for Emmajin. After speaking with her father, Prince Dorji at the buddhist temple, Emmajin realizes that she wants to work to prevent war, specifically her Mongol people from attacking Christendom. With Marco Polo, she wants to work for peace. To that end, Emmajin who is now in love with Marco Polo is able to convince Kubilai Khan to allow her to travel with Marco Polo back to Venezia to attempt to bring peace between the Mongol Empire and Christendom.

While Daughter of Xanadu is a novel that focuses on a fictional Mongol princess, Emmajin, her desire to become a warrior and her relationship with Venetian explorer and trader Marco Polo, it does incorporate a great deal of history into the story. Marco Polo was born while his father Niccolo and his Uncle Maffeo were away and after the death of his mother, was raised by an aunt and uncle. Niccolo and Maffeo travelled from Constantinople through Asia where they met Kubilai Khan who had founded the Yuan dynasty. Niccolo and Maffeo returned to Venice in 1269 but set out on a second voyage, this time with seventeen-year-old Marco with them. When a new pope was elected the Polos carried a letter from the pope to the Great Khan inviting him to send emissaries to Rome. They then travelled to Xanadu (also called Shangdu). The Khan sent Marco Polo on various missions throughout his empire, including India and Burma (now Myanmar). Marco would spend seventeen years travelling throughout China. The Great Khan would not allow the Polos to return to Christendom until sometime around 1291. They did arrive in Venezia until 1295. 

Although the novel's main theme initially focuses on Emmajin's struggle to become a warrior in the Mongol army, the story gradually becomes a romance that at times doesn't feel believable. And yet it is possible as there is a legend in the Veneto region of Italy, that Marco Polo fell in love with one of the daughters of the Great Khan, married her and returned with her to Venice, in 1295. His Chinese wife was not well accepted in Venetian society as she was different in appearance and culture and was not a Christian. The legend also states that when Marco was captured by the Genoese and imprisoned in 1298, his jealous sisters told his Chinese wife that he had been executed. In despair, she threw herself into the canal outside their home. The Malibran Theatre was built on the location of the old Polo house and excavations following a devastating fire uncovered the skeletal remains of an Asian woman along with a tiara and a robe.

  
Daughter of Xanadu is well written, with lots of detail about life in Xanadu and the customs of the Mongolian people in the late thirteenth century and even the Battle of Vochan between China and Burma. Young readers will find the romanticized story Marco Polo's time with the Great Khan appealing. Emmajin is a well developed character who, with her feministic character will appeal to young women readers.

Book Details:

Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jone Yang
New York: Delacorte Press 2011
336 pp.

Threads and Flames by Esther Friesner

The novel opesn with thirteen-year-old Raisa recovering from typhus. She is being cared for by Glukel, the neighbour who took in Raisa and her older sister Hena years ago after their mama died. Raisa discovers her hair has been cut short which Glukel explains was done because "...Too much hair drains away a sick person's strength."  Raisa learns that during her illness, Glukel's nephew, Nathan who lived with them, has also died.

It was because of Nathan that Henda left the shtetl in Poland for America four years ago. Henda had to leave because Nathan refused to leave her alone, determined that she should marry him.

When Raisa begins to feel stronger, Reb Avner, the rabbi comes to speak with her and tells Raisa that he knows Henda has been sending Reb Laski money so that she could also travel to America. Before she left, Henda gave Reb Laski their mother's jewelry and a pair of silver candlesticks. Once there was enough money for Raisa to travel, Reb Laski sent a messenger to the shtetl from Warsaw with the candlesticks and the message that there was now money for Raisa but he didn't know where she lived. Instead he was told by the innkeeper's son that Raisa had died and the messenger and the candlesticks returned to Warsaw. And Henda was sent a letter telling her of Raisa's death.

Glukel accepts that Raisa is leaving for America. During her recovery Raisa is visited by her friends Yitta, Avigal and Dina as well as the blacksmith Yossel and his wife Sarah. When she is well enough, Raisa travels to the train station by peddler trusted by Reb Avner and after various means arrives at the port of Bremerhaven in Germany. There she passes an inspection by the doctor and is allowed to board the ship for America. On board she is taken down into the ship where her berth is in the crowded, smelly belly. There she is befriended by another young Jewish girl, Zusa Reshevsky who is travelling for America to join her mother. Zusa speaks German, Yiddish and Polish and teaches Raisa how to read Yiddish. Their journey is uneventful until a little girl named Brina is orphaned and Raisa and Zusa decide to care for her.

When they arrive in Hoboken, N.J., the three girls along with the other steerage passengers are ferried to Ellis Island where Raisa and Brina become separated from Zusa. Raisa and Brina pass their physical examinations and  enter New York city. There, Raisa intervenes to help Luciana, an Italian girl she met on the boat, from being kidnapped by a group of people. Luciana is freed by her brother Paolo and his friends who arrive to help Raisa. In thanks for her help, Paolo and Luciana help her located Henda's apartment building and tell her that if she should need more help to come to Delvecchio's grocery on Mulberry.

Raisa discovers that Henda has been missing for months. She learns from Bayleh, a Jewish woman who lives on the fifth floor,  that Henda was sorking at the American Pride Ladies' Garment company until the big strike a year ago. Henda walked out but when the strike ended after four months,  she was not hired back because she was so involved in fighting for workers' rights. Bayleh also tells Raisa that her sister received a letter that deeply upset her and that a man Henda was seeing came and took her away. Raisa realizes that Henda received the letter falsely informing her that she had died from typhus.

Raisa and Brina stay for a short time with Bayleh, her husband Mottel and their family while they hunt for a place of their own. After a tiring day with no prospects, Raisa and Brina end up at a synagogue where they are helped by a young student, Gavrel Kamensky. He lives in a tenement with his mother, father and sister, Fruma who works at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Mrs. Kamensky offers Raisa and Brina a place to stay and Raisa begins working for a woman in her dress shop. But when the work proves to be tiring and poorly paid, Gavrel takes Raisa to his friend Rachel who teaches her how to use a sewing machine. Eventually an opportunity to work at Triangle happens: Fruma knows of a young woman who is expecting a baby and leaving her job. Raisa is able to secure that position and begins working on the ninth floor of the Triangle factory on Asch.

Raisa continues to search for her sister Henda, begins learning English at the and reunites with Zusa and Luciana, with all three girls soon employed at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Raisa also finds herself falling in love with the kindly Gavrel. When disaster strikes at the Triange factory on a March Saturday, Raisa's life is forever changed in ways she never thought possible.

Discussion

Threads and Flames is a fictional account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire which occurred on March 25, 2011. This disaster forever changed the way factories treated their workers and helped to create support for workers unions and workers rights. At 4:45pm at the end of a Saturday workday, workers were in the process of leaving the building and collecting their belongings when fire broke out in the scraps of material beneath a table of sewing machines.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company had the practice of locking all the doors and searching employees at closing time to make sure they did not steal from the company. All the doors in the building opened inwards which would have disastrous consequences for those trying to flee. The company also insisted that its building was fireproof and that the fire escape at the back of the building was sufficient to evacuate the building should a fire happen. Only 27 buckets of water were available to use in dousing any initial fire.

When the fire broke out on the eighth floor, it spread quickly due to the large amounts of cloth, bins of rags, hanging patterns and sewing machine oil. Trapped by the locked doors, barred windows and a fire-engulfed stairwell, many young women chose to leap from the eighth and ninth floor windows. The other choice was to burn to death. Witnesses at the scene describe the sickening sound of body after body hitting the pavement. In all 146 people either burned to death or leapt to their death.

More than anything, it was the sight of young women leaping to their deaths that motivated people to seek changes in the fire prevention laws and also in workplace safety laws. Although the owners of the factory were prosecuted, they were acquitted because they broke no existing fire laws.

Friesner's novel starts off slow, carefully building both setting, background and characters. The story opens with thirteen year old Raisa as she is recovering from typhus. There is a foreshadowing of the future catastrophe in Raisa's life in the description of Raisa's illness. "Raisa's world was fire. The blaze was everywhere. She was lost in the heart of the flames. Wherever she turned, walls of heat beat against her like hammers. The air throbbed and rang, filling her head with merciless thunder."

The story follows Raisa as she travels to New York city, taking on the responsibility of caring for a young orphaned girl and finally obtaining a job at the Triange Shirtwaist factory. Along the way she makes new friends in Zusa and Luciana, takes in an orphan named Brina, and falls in love with a young Jewish scholar.  Raisa is shown as an honest, resilient, hard-working young woman. She is also determined to locate her older sister Henda, who has gone missing after learning by letter that Raisa had died from typhus.

Friesner incorporates many details about young immigrants coming to America: the promise and expectation of a better life and the difficulties faced due to language barriers, as well as the poverty and discrimination many faced. Readers learn about the obstacles encountered without the story becoming overwhelmed by details.  Friesner also portrays how segregated American society was at this time, with each ethnic group having it's own insular community often prejudiced towards outsiders as well as the strong class distinctions that still existed at this time.

The novel also portrays the struggles and conditions these immigrants encountered in factories through various characters. For example, Raisa describes conditions in the Triangle factory, " We're packed together at these tables like canned sardines swimming in sewing machine oil, she thought. Then when it's quitting time, we turn into sheep, hereded together to wait our turn apt the exit while they search us, one by one, to make sure we havent stolen anything."  Luciana describes an event at a smaller shop where she used to work, in which a girl was injured by a broken sewing machine needle. "It was a freak accient; sewing machine needles broke all the time under the stress of so much intense use. Who had the time to check for wear and tear during the height of the weekday rush? And who wanted to ask the foreman for a new needle too quckly, especially when the cost came out of the worker's pay? So they ran the machines until something gave, when the needle splintered off and the shard went spinning."  Even the small shops cheat workers as Raisa discovers when she works for Madame doing piece work. And Zusa and Luciana speak of bosses who touch the girls.

The climax of the novel is the fire at the Triangle factory and the loss of Zusa and the believed loss of Luciana and of Raisa's fiance, Gavrel. However, Friesner offers a happy twist to her novel, that involves many reunions. 

Threads and Flames is historical fiction that incorporates a mystery as well as a touch of romance. The mystery which is mostly in the background of the story, is the disappearance of Raisa's sister Henda. The romance involves Raisa's growing affection for Gavrel Kamensky, the young Jewish scholar who rescues her and Brina from destitution. Despite the tragic setting of the novel, readers will find the conclusion satisifying and will have learned something about American society during the early 1900's.

Highly recommended.

Book Details:

Threads and Flames by Esther Friesner
New York: Viking Group 2010
390 pp.

Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein

Cate of the Lost Colony is a fictional account of the settlement of Roanoke Island in Virginia Colony in 1587.

The story begins in England in the 1500's. Fourteen-year-old Catherine (Cate) Archer was the daughter of a Hampshire gentleman, Sir Thomas Archer who died fighting in the Netherlands. With her mother dead and only a blind, elderly nurse left to care for her, Cate was taken in by her aunt and uncle who had three daughters. Without an inheritance, Cate's aunt did not really want her. But two months later, a letter dated October 13, 1583 from Queen Elizabeth I requested that she attend her as one of her ladies-in-waiting.  This was a favour for the sacrifice of her father to his country.

Catherine is met at the queen's palace by Lady Mary Standish and taken to the maids' dormitory which is under the rafters. There she meets two other maids of honour, Emme and Frances.

In the morning the queen treats Catherine kindly telling her to think her as her mother. At Whitehall Palace Catherine's job is to help Emme and Frances care for the queen's clothing. She learns that the queen has an extensive wardrobe that includes many bodices, skirts, chemises, coifs, pantofles and shoes. The mistress of the wardrobe is Lady Veronica who explains that clothing out of fashion is either remade or given away to whomever of her ladies is in her favour. Catherine finds caring for the wardrobe a demanding task.

One day Catherine, Emme, and Frances accompany Queen Elizabeth and her court on barges along the Thames River to the Tower of London. Accompanying Catherine and Emme on their barge is Robert Dudley the Earl of Leicester, whom Emme claims the queen loves but who is married, Thomas Graham, Lady Veronica, and Lady Anne, the queen's cousin. Along the way they see Walter Ralegh's ship, the Roebuck. Emme tells Catherine that Raleigh was sent to Ireland to put down the rebellion there, and then to the Netherlands. This leads Catherine to believe that Ralegh possibly knew her father.

The Tower of London is where Elizabeth's mother, Anne Bolyen was beheaded. Elizabeth is visiting the menagerie which includes a lion, a leopard and a bear, but Catherine doesn't see them as she is overcome with fear and has to leave. After leaving their barges upon returning, Catherine is stunned to see Walter Ralegh offer his beuatiful embroidered cloak for Elizabeth to walk on instead of the mud. 

Meanwhile, Walter Ralegh wants to continue the work of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and explore North America with the hope of finding the northwest passage to China and the Indies. His attempts to earn her permission for such are initially not successful, despite poetry and gifts of a diamond. At a banquet hall, Ralegh spies Catherine Archer, the daughter of Sir Thomas whom he knew in the Netherlands. Ralegh finds her black hair and grey eyes attractive. Finally on March 27 1584, Ralegh writes that the queen has granted him Humphrey's patent to explore and bring back silver and gold. Ralegh has two ships, captained by his servants Barlowe and Amadas, and piloted by Portuguese sailor, Simon Hernades to conduct reconnaissance voyates.  However, since the royal treasury will not be financing the voyages, Ralegh must find investors. 

Meanwhile Catherine earns the nickname "Cat" from the queen which pleases her. Like the other ladies in waiting, Catherine is determined to earn the favour of Elizabeth and being given such a nickname is a sign of favour. Frances tells Catherine that if she wants to know what the queen thinks about anything she should ask Walter Ralegh. On a trip to Durham house with the Queen and Frances, Catherine wonders how she will approach Ralegh, but before the trip Emme advises her to keep quiet for fear of making the queen jealous. While the queen is with Thomas Harriot in his room viewing his radius astronomicus, Catherine questions Ralegh about his plans to travel to America. He explains that he travelled with his relative, Sir Humfrey Gilbert twice but that on last year's voyage they were forced to return and Gilbert was drowned in a storm off the Azores. his goal is to bring back riches as Francis Drake did. The two talk quietly and Ralegh gives Catherine his hankerchief.  When Elizabeth returns she tells Ralegh that the purpose of his voyage "...must be to bring the true religion to the pagan peoples and induce them to follow the laws and customs of England."

After their meeting, Catherine discovers that the hankerchief Ralegh has given her was a gift to him by Elizabeth, while Ralegh cannot remember what he's done with Elizabeth's hankerchief. The two begin a romantic correspondence and at a meeting in the palace garden, Catherine urges Ralegh to take back his hankerchief. She suspects the queen knows about it but Ralegh tells her that Elizbeth is simply "sporting" with her. As Catherine learns that Elizabeth is concerned about her cousin Queen Mary she begins to realize that corresponding with the queen's favourite courtier may not be safe. But although she attempts to end her correspondence with Ralegh, he persists in writing to her.

As Walter Ralegh's expeditions do not succeed in the New World, Queen Elizabeth is faced with the dilemma as to what to do about her cousin Queen Mary of Scotland. Meanwhile Catherine  learns that he has been sending her letters but she has not received them. Eventually Catherine is betrayed by Frances who steals her letters from Ralegh and gives them to the queen.  Elizabeth is furious when she discovers the relationship between Catherine and Ralegh and she imprisons Catherine in the Tower of London.

After several months of imprisonment, Catherine learns from the Earl of Leicester that Elizabeth has decided to banish Catherine by sending her along with the colonists to Roanoke. This prospect delights Catherine who had told Walter Ralegh that she wanted to be a part of the colony. She had advised him that for it to succeed he needed to bring families there and not soldiers who had no interest in forming a colony but in privateering. Unknown to Catherine is that Emme accosted Ralegh and scorned him to beg the queen to forgive her former maid. Ralegh does this but manipulates the queen into sending Catherine to Virginia with Ralegh's ships. However, he is outplayed by Elizabeth who tells him he will not make the journey but will remain by her side in England. And so Catherine boards the Lion, on her way to an uncertain future in the New World. What will be her fate?

Discussion

Cate of the Lost Colony is a romanticized fictional account of the Roanoke Island Colony also known as the "Lost Colony".  Lisa Klein incorporates some of the history into the beginning chapters of  her novel. Sir Humphrey Gilbert was awarded a charter in 1575 by Queen Elizabeth I to colonize the unclaimed areas of the New World. He claimed the land known as Newfoundland in 1583 but drowned on the return voyage to England.

After Gilbert's death the charter was divided between Sir Gilbert's brother Adrian and his half-brother Walter Raleigh. Raleigh's portion was the lands south of Newfoundland and he was to establish a colony by 1591 or lost the charter. As Raleigh was not allowed to undertake the voyages by Queen Elizabeth who wanted him at court, he had to arrange and oversee everything from London.

The first voyage in April 1584 consisted of two ships captained by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, with Simon Fernandes as pilot. Eventually they reached the West Indies in July and then travelled north where they arrived at Roanoke Island. The Indigenous peoples, the Secotan were friendly. This expedition returned to England along with two Indigenous passengers: a Secotan named Wanchese and a Croatan named Manteo. Both would return to their people in the New World. The English claimed the land was good for settling. This impressed Queen Elizabeth who knighted Raleigh and named the land "Virginia" and Raleigh as its governor. 

The first colony was a military one on Roanoke Island in 1585. The voyage from England to the New World was beset with many problems including lost ships and encounters with the rival Spanish. The military outpost was founded by Ralph Lane but was abandoned in early 1586. Just over one hundred colonists had settled in Lane's colony due to a lack of provisions - most of which had been lost due to the wreck of one of the ships. A supply ship was redirected elsewhere during that year, meaning the colonists had to rely on the Indigeous peoples for help. Exploration by the colonists failed to locate gold or silver. In June 1586, Lane and the colonists returned to England with the help of Sir Francis Drake. It was at this time that tobacco, corn and potatoes were introduced to England.

Despite the unsuccessful military colony, Raleigh was given a charter in 1587 to found a new colony with John White as governor. Approximately one hundred fifteen colonists signed up including White's daughter Eleanor who was pregnant and her husband Ananias Dare. The colonists were Londoners and included women and children. Three ships left England on May 8 1587 and arrived  at Croatoan Island in mid-July. White located Lane's colony but found it deserted. Fifteen men had been left at Roanoke to continue Raleigh's claim by Richard Grenville, whose supply mission to the colony had been delayed in 1586. Those men were never seen again.

Unfortunately, the relationship between the Indigenous peoples and the English colonists was strained especially after the death of one of the colonists by a native. In August, Eleanor Dare gave birth to a daughter christened Virginia. As the situation became more desperate, the colonists moved and persuaded John White to return to England with the ships to ask for help. It was his intention to return with supplies in 1588 but war between England and Spain prevented this until 1590. The Spanish were aware of the attempt by the English to develop a colony at Roanoke, but a search of Chesapeake Bay in 1588 revealed nothing. Eventually White returned to the New World in the summer of 1590 and although his party found smoke and fresh tracks they were unable to locate any of the colonists. The houses had been scavenged and White's trunks looted. A palisade post was found with the word "Croatoan" carved into it. Eventually White was forced to return to England, and subsequent expeditions failed to locate the colonists and it became known as the "Lost Colony". It is widely believed that the colonists simply assimilated into the Indigenous peoples near them.

The novel employs three narrators: Catherine Archer, Walter Raleigh (spelled Ralegh in the novel), and Manteo, a member of Croatoan tribe. While the main character, Catherine Archer is fictional, many of the characters in the novel are historical figures. To help her readers Klein has provided a list of characters in the novel, identifying the historical figures and those who are fictional. The personal details of all the characters have been imagined. It is evident that Lisa Klein did significant research on Elizabethan England, the voyages, and the Indigenous peoples for her novel. Elizabeth I, who reigned from 1558 to 1603, is portrayed as a jealous, quick-tempered woman who demanded absolutely loyalty. Walter Raleigh, a staunch Protestant English stateman, was one of Elizabeth's courtiers who was in and out of favour with the queen. Raleigh secretly married Elizabeth (Bess) Throckmorton, one of Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting, incurring the queen's wrath and the couple being committed temporarily to the Tower. 

The character of Catherine portrays the English sentiment towards Catholicism and the Pope, a mere fifty years after Henry VIII's break with Rome. By Elizabeth I's reign, state Protestantism (Anglicanism) had replaced Catholicism. However, Catherine's understanding of her own country's religious roots is flawed. For example she states, "I only knew that Spain was wicked for wanting to rule England and to force its Catholic religion on the people of Britain"  England was a Catholic nation until the rebellion of Henry VIII against Rome in 1534 when he severed ties with the Catholic Church and made himself head of the church in England. If anything, Catholic Spain was attempting to restore Catholicism to the Netherlands. and eventually England. The attitude towards Catholics is further seen in the reaction of the colonists when they discover they have several "papists" as Catholics were called, among them. 

The first one hundred and fifty pages of the novel focus on Catherine's in the Elizabethan court as a maid to Queen Elizabeth. Klein incorporates much of the information that is known about the Elizabethan era of the late 1500's and what is known about the English attempts to start a colony in the New World. As historical documents indicate, the English did not settle on Chesapeake Bay but instead returned to Roanoke Island because the pilot, Simon Fernandes refused to take them there. Many details of the settlement on Roanoke Island were integrated into the story, making Cate's narrative feel authentic. For example, Cate describes the condition of the settlement they find on Roanoke Island: "The dozen cottages built by Grenville's men had fallen into decay. Their doors sagged and the rush roofs were collapsing. Weeds grew waist high and melons with their thick, wide leaves twined like snakes through the windows." There are interesting historical "tidbits" incorporated into the story: for example the planting in Ireland of the potato plant brought back from the New World. 

Cate of the Lost Colony digresses from the historical narrative in that Elizabeth I gives permission for Walter Raleigh to sail to the New World to support the English colonists in Virginia. At this time there was a blockade as England was at war with Spain. To get around the blockade and the likely refusal of her ministers, Elizabeth makes it known, falsely, that Raleigh is being sent to Ireland. As Klein notes in her Author's Note, there is no evidence Raleigh ever journeyed to the Virginia colony but there is a gap between March and October of 1590 in his biography. Klein used this time frame to imagine Raleigh accompanying John White to Virginia.  

In a reimagined history of the "Lost Colony", Raleigh in fact does locate the sixteen survivors of the Roanoke colony including the fictional Cate Archer. Out of desperation, hunger and survival they have abandoned the colony to live with the Croatoan people and married into their community. Having taken everything with them to the New World, and having given up hope of being rescued or resupplied, they have made new lives and do not wish to return to England. When Raleigh does finally find Catherine, she refuses to return to England with him telling him she does not love him and that he does not love her. Her life is with Manteo and his people.

After his encounter with Cate and his return to his ship, Sir Walter Raleigh's narrative is decisive "When we returned to the ship, I told the captain we had found no Englishmen on the island and no sign of their recent habitation. I decided we would give the same report to the queen, reasoning that because the colonists would not return to England, they should be considered as lost." Although White believes the queen would want to know the truth, Raleigh tells him that Elizabeth would order him back to hang the colonists, something he does not have the heart to do. It is likely that either all of the colonists eventually died due to illness, starvation, or at the hands of the Natives, or that they were eventually assiimilated into the native populations.

Cate Of The Lost Colony is an interesting read, well-researched, offering what is a plausible scenario of the fate of the colony. Because there is some mature content, this novel is for older teens.

Book Details:
Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein
New York: Bloomsbury 2010
329pp.

When Rose Wakes by Christopher Golden

When Rose Wakes by Christopher Golden is the penultimate twisted fairytale. Golden takes the basic story of Sleeping Beauty and adds elements of horror while bringing it into a modern high school setting that young adults can relate to.

Rose DuBois wakes after a two year coma to find that she doesn't really remember anything or anyone from the time before the coma. She recognizes her two aunts, Fay and Suzette who tell her that they use to live in France and that they have brought her to America to receive the finest medical treatment possible. After going through physiotherapy, Rose is brought home to Boston's Beacon Hill to live with her aunts.

As she struggles to regain her life, Rose is haunted by terrifying nightmares she cannot understand but which seem vaguely familiar and appear to hold the clue to her past. When she mentions the dreams to her aunts they try to comfort her by telling her that they are "only dreams" that have no meaning.Instead they tell her to drink a bitter tea they make for her every day to help her regain her memory.

Eventually, Rose begins classes as a sophomore at St. Bridget's High School in Boston's Back Bay where she is known as "Coma Girl". Rose struggles to fit in and cope with the typical high school cliques and conflicts. It doesn't take her long to meet and befriend a handsome junior, tall, muscular, Jared Munoz and make a best friend in Kylie O'Neill. But she also makes enemies with Courtney Sauer who takes an instant dislike to Rose often becoming confrontational with her.

As time goes on bizarre happenings continue to plague Rose. Besides the increasingly detailed nightmares, there is also a strange woman who Rose discovers is following her as well as the creepy presence of black crows who appear to be watching her every move. Her Aunt's persistent warnings that she stay away from boys - all boys move Rose to rebel against their warnings and to pursue a relationship with Jared. She feels that Aunt Suzette and Aunt Fay are out of touch and unreasonably old-fashioned. Yet there are hints from her nightmares that guys are dangerous.

Eventually Rose begins to realize that her dreams are very similar to the fairytale story of Sleeping Beauty.Is she the princess? Is there a curse on her too and if so what part of it includes love and intimacy?

It isn't until Rose is violently attacked at school by Courtney that her Aunts tell her the truth about her past,the present about themselves and about the actual curse on her. I won't reveal how Golden weaves into the modern setting the story of Rose's past and the Sleeping Beauty fairytale because that would simply give away too much plot. But from this point on, the story moves breathtakingly fast. There is an epic battle between good and bad that involves Rose, her Aunts and their spurned sister.

The ending is bizarre and unsatisfying in some aspects. For me, this bizarreness ruined the book. It was strangely out of character with the situations and the characters involved. If someone were really trying to kill you and you knew they would never ever stop, would you spare them? I also found the entire premise of the fairytale element unworkable because the present day situation and that which occurred in the past is actually based on the dishonourable behaviour of Rose's father, the Duke of Rigauld.

There is an element of horror in this story but it's not overwhelming and Christopher Golden writing is well done in this regard. I wished there had been more character development for Rose's aunts but Golden does a great job developing the sweet romance between Rose and Jared. It is this romantic element which helps to hold the reader's interest in the middle of the novel when there is not much action occurring.

Overall, I think most young readers will enjoy When Rose Wakes, especially if they are fans of Golden's previous books. When Rose Wakes is a good blend of romance, mystery and horror. But I hazard that they will ultimately be very disappointed in the bizarre ending.

Book Details:

When Rose Wakes by Christopher Golden
New York: Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster) 2010

312pp

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

"I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house because a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling..."

Unfortunately, I began to dislike Amy Chua as early as page 8 of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Chua's byline is that "this is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen year old."

What I found instead, was that this was really a book about a highly educated woman who used emotional and verbal abuse, manipulation and fear to coerce her two young daughters into over achievement until one of them snapped. A clash of cultures? Not really since Amy Chua's style of parenting is something not common even in China today. Instead, "only children" are more often coddled instead pushed to achieve. Many are not abused as Chua's children were. Her daughter didn't rebel because she wanted to be Western. She rebelled because Chua broke her spirit and she'd had enough of the abuse. If this had been the story of a low_income, uneducated family you can bet they would have lost their children to social services. What is even more saddening, is that her husband and the rest of the adults in these two young girls lives looked on and did virtually nothing to stop the abuse, even while they could see it taking their toll on the children. And that makes me angry.
Instead, we see a picture of a dysfunctional wealthy family whose purpose in life is over achievement.

Chua and her husband Jed Rubenfeld are Yale University professors and parents to two daughters, Sophia and Louisa (Lulu). From the beginning of the book, Chua pontificates on how American parents (read mothers) are lax and over concerned with their children's self-esteem while placing little emphasis on academic achievement. "The vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be the best students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting". Filled with generalizations, the first chapter is full of these kinds of statements about both Western and "Chinese" parents.

Her premise is that "Chinese" mothers are superior because they "have higher dreams for their children" and greater expectations. They don't believe in playdates and sleepovers (I don't either but for different reasons) and they alone choose every activity their child participates in.

I quite agree that in North American society, there has been a long-standing problem with mediocrity in academics - all levels. This problem existed when I was in high school 30 years ago. I was a keen student and loved to learn. My parents valued education since they were unable to complete their high school education. They encouraged us and in elementary school drilled basic skills such as multiplication and spelling.

The high school I attended had many Asian students from overseas, many of whom (but not all) excelled at their studies, particularly math.Some of my Asian friends noted that Canadian students were content to get a mark of 60% or even to just pass. I agreed with them that this was definitely a characteristic of many of my fellow students. But there is a large segment of North American parents who do want their children to do well. Many of these parents have abandoned the public schools for homeschooling because they can motivate their children to achieve in a balanced manner while excelling at other activities as well. Many parents are not as well educated as some of the Chinese immigrants and therefore do not have the skills to help their children achieve. And yes for many parents, academic achievement is not a priority.

What Chua appears to be offering at the beginning of her book is that the "Chinese" way of parenting leads to success and creates high achieving children and successful adults. It is superior to North American parenting because the "Chinese" parent believes their child is strong enough emotionally to take the abuse and manipulation, the constant nagging and emotional abuse and that the parent chooses the activities for their child and that the child must do these activities whether or not they enjoy them.

I would like to go through a number of examples from the book. I would also like to mention that I am the parent of FOUR children, all of whom studied music. One of my children, is an emerging classical pianist who studied both Suzuki violin and Royal Conservatory of Music piano. She regularly competes against Asian musicians and wins (much to their chagrin).

What is evident from many of the situations Chua describes is that she lacks a basic understanding of child development and she also does not understand the effect her actions have on others. She comes across as excessive, bloody-minded, and cruel. After her 7 year old daughter would have a 3 hour lesson block with Suzuki violin, Chua would try to "sneak in an extra postlesson practice session".
"I admit that this schedule might sound a little intense."

A little intense? Amy Chua might be an authority on democratization and ethnicity. She might even know a little about Debussy and Mozart. But she is woefully deficient in understanding the nuances of the Suzuki method and the theory behind it. She knows about parents attending every music lesson and taking notes. This would have been ideal for her control-freak nature - micro manage everything. But she forgot about a major component of the Suzuki method - nurture and love. From the Suzuki website:

"The Suzuki Method is based on the principle that all children possess ability and that this ability can be developed and enhanced through a nurturing environment."

Chua's home environment was anything but nurturing. She told Sophia that she was getting worse and "If the next time's not PERFECT, I'm going to TAKE ALL YOUR STUFFED ANIMALS AND BURN THEM!" Shinichi Suzuki would have been horrified.

It's also obvious, as one continues through Battle Hymn, that Sophia and Lulu had no choice over anything in their lives. "I wanted her (Lulu) to become concertmaster of the best youth orchestra....to be the best violinist in the state - and that was for starters. I knew that was the only way Lulu could be happy."

"At Crystal Lake, Florence (Chua's mother-in-law) felt that her granddaughters should be able to swim, walk, and explore wherever they pleased. By contrast, I told them that if they stepped off our front porch, kidnappers would get them. I also told them that the deep parts of the lake had ferocious biting fish. I may have gone overboard, but sometimes being carefree means being careless....
The truth is I'm not good at enjoying life...."


Unfortunately, Chua needs to understand that things must be done in moderation. One's view of childhood depends in part on one's view of life - the purpose of life. It appears that Chua's view of life is that success, no matter how it is achieved is the only thing that matters. But to many people, living a good moral life by being kind to others (including our children), taking time to worship God (most likely a big waste of time in Chua's strictly timed lifestyle) and helping others are very important.

When Chua returns Lulu's birthday card because it doesn't measure up, the entire scenario seemed immature and ridiculous. The entire event is related in an angry tone, "'I don't want this,' I said. 'I want a better one - one that you've put some thought and effort into.... I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I reject this.' I threw the card back."

The fault was not her daughter's for making a poor card, although by this time in the book it is apparent that Chua is an expert on finding the faults of others and blaming everyone but herself. Did either of Lulu's parents show her how to make a birthday card or in their highly overscheduled lives as Yale professors running amok between music lessons, concerts and dress fittings, did they just tell her to do it and expect she would come up with something amazing? Did they ever sit down with either of their girls with pencil crayons and scissors or look at craft books showing how to make pop-up cards or write fancy letters? Probably not.

While she berated "Western" parents for being coddling and not being focused on the right (according to her) aspects of childhood, Chua now appears surprisingly similar to her lax and inferior "Western" counterparts. She admits to being a parent who hires magicians and grand slides for her daughter's birthday party, who "purchases high ice cream cakes shaped like penguins", and who spends half her salary "on stupid sticker and eraser party favors". Many Western parents can't afford these things. I know I couldn't and didn't. Birthdays were always kept simple so as to remind my children that they have a great deal compared to most other children in the world.

It was disturbing to read descriptions of Chua's insane and ridiculous schedule of racing from her job as a Yale professor to Lulu's school and lessons. This demonstrated the frenetic and dysfunctional lifestyle foisted on a young girl andher family by a woman whose god is achievement and success.

Eventually, Chua's domineering parenting style finally breaks Lulu who abandons both the violin and piano. It was at this point in the book that I felt very badly for Lulu mainly because the book details an episode in a young girl's life that is not of her own making and that is humiliating and will be read by millions.

In a masterful way, Lulu takes control of her life. I think this young girl understands very well the dynamic that exists within her family. With Sophia as the "good daughter" who does everything her mother wants, Amy Chua doesn't "need" Lulu to succeed. And as Sophia astutely recognizes, Lulu is the heroine. She was able to stand up to their mother in a way that Sophia likely can't or won't.

By page 171 I was not only fed up with Amy Chua but in some ways more angry with her husband Jed who seemed disengaged (except for brief moments of guilt) and who allowed Chua to run the family and abuse his daughters on many levels. When Lulu rebels, what does Harvard educated Chua do? "I told her I was thinking of adopting a third child from China, one who would practice when I told her to, and maybe even play the cello in addition to the violin and piano."

Ultimately Chua's book does not achieve it's aim. There's no real conclusion (which she admits to) and we are left wondering if Amy Chua learned anything at all. Her attempts to put things in perspective in a humorous manner and to demonstrate that she has changed and learned from all this felt flat and insincere. One gets that feeling that she gave in only because she knew she lost. In writing this book after these events Chua repeated refers to decisions that "sealed her fate". And early in the book she mentions how she knows now that "parental favoritism" is "bad and poisonous" but then goes on to describe how certain forms CAN be useful.

Why the story of her adopting two dogs was included is puzzling - perhaps Chua wanted us to see that she was human. It seemed to me that the dogs were treated better than her own daughters. At any rate, this was a distraction from the real story here.


Read this book if only to learn how not to parent. And definitely read it if you are the parent of a gifted non-Asian musician. You will understand why so many Asian children who study music burn out in their teens.

Book Details:

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
New York: The Penguin Press 2011
229 pp.

The Good Daughter. A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life by Jasmin Darznik

Iranian born Jasmin Darznik came to America when she was three years old. The daughter of a German father and Iranian mother, all she wanted was to fit into American culture. She dump her cucumbers and quince fruit into the trash before school. Her father, an alcoholic was unable to cope with American life and it was her mother who ran their motel in California. Her mother Lili admonished her to make something of herself and Jasmin did becoming an attorney and receiving her PHD in English from Princeton. But all through the years of growing up in America, her mother would tell her about the Good Daughter - the Iranian daughters who were polite, quiet and obedient. The Good Daughter was the one who "heeded her mother's words". Jasmin did not want to be her mother's Good Daughter.

As it turned out, five weeks after the death of her German father, while going through her father's belongings, Jasmin discovered a photograph of her mother, Lili, as a young bride, married to a man who is not her father. It was a photograph that "had survived revolution, war, exile, and something else besides: my mother's will to forget the past." When Jasmin asked her mother about the picture, she refused to talk about it. However, months later Lili began sending her daughter tapes, 10 in all, which tell the story of her past. A past that began before the photograph and a past that was very different from the one Jasmin had been led to believe.

What Jasmin discovered about her mother's life led her reconsider her relationship with her mother and her heritage. And that led to the desire to write her mother Lili's story. Lili's story begins with the story of Pargol Amini, Jasmin's great-grandmother, and the birth of her ninth child, Kobra who was Lili's mother. Kobra was Pargol's favourite child and the only child she was able to personally name. Kobra's life is altered forever when she is married to an older man by her brother to pay off his gambling debts. Kobra and Sohrab have a daughter Lili who is married off at 13 to an abusive man. When Lili realizes that she might eventually die at the hands of her husband, she leaves the marriage, giving up her daughter Sarah to be raised by her husband's mother. Lili is eventually able to forge a new life through sheer grit and determination as well as bringing home a damad farangi (foreign groom) from her time studying in Germany.

Kobra and Lili's story is one common to many Middle Eastern women. Both women had difficult lives filled with abuse and sadness but also with much support from other women. They were resourceful, intelligent women who struggled against circumstance and tragedy to make a life for themselves and for their children. What impressed me most was that they still retained the courage to love and live. Lili's story changed Jasmin's perspective of her mother - she was not the Good Daughter. She had a past from which she remade herself - an almost impossible feat considering the culture she came from.

Darznik's family story is gripping, poignant and filled with power. It is a story that women of most cultures can relate too.

Book Details:
The Good Daughter by Jasmin Darznik
New York: Grand Central Publishing 2011
324 pp.

A Girl Named Mister by Nikki Grimes

Blame it on my mother.
She's the one who named me
Mary Rudine.
The name is some throwback
her old-fashioned thinking
came up with.
Nobody but Mom
has called me Mary Rudine
since forever.
First it was Mary,
then it was M.R.
Mister is all anybody
calls me now.


So begins this novel in verse about a 14 year old girl nicknamed Mister, who falls (literally) for a sweet-talking, good for nothing, boy named Trey. When Mister discovers she's pregnant she has to deal with Trey's shocking heartless indifference, her regret at not being faithful to her values, a crisis of faith (will God still love her after what she's done?), her classmates and a whole range of decisions that will impact her future.

Nikki Grimes contrasts Mister's plight with that of a young Jewish maiden named Mary, 2000 years ago. For Mister this is a new story - that of Mary of Nazareth who is betrothed to Joseph and who becomes pregnant during her betrothal. Mister finds Mary's story in a book her mother has. The Jewish Mary, without sin and righteous in the eyes of God must make a leap of faith and trust God will care for her in what is possibly a situation that could lead to her death by stoning. Mister, unlike Mary, is no less deserving of God's love and she too must learn to trust in God.
I always thought
Mary had it easy,
her knowing all along
God was the one
who wrote her story.
Guess I was wrong.
Turns out she needed God
as bad as me.

When the people at her church offer her support and love in place of condemnation Mister realizes that
"Maybe it's God
reminding me
I'm not as alone
as I thought."

Mister also comes to learn her mother's secret and though initially angry at her for what she perceives as her mother's lie, Mister realizes that how hard her mother has worked and that she truly loves her.

Written in beautiful free verse, A Girl Named Mister is a quick read. The story of pregnancy and birth is told in the alternating voices of Mary of Nazareth and Mary Rudine (Mister).

Book Details:
A Girl Name Mister by Nikki Grimes
Zondervan   2011
240 pp.

Pearl In The Sand by Tessa Afshar

Pearl In the Sand is a wonderful historical Christian novel about Rahab, a Canaanite woman who aids the Israelites when they attack the city of Jericho.

Rahab is a 15 year old girl living with her family outside of Jericho. Her father Imri is unable to find work and there is a drought. His family is on the verge of starvation. In desperation, Imri sells Rahab into sexual slavery to Zedek for a bag full of gold. She will go live with Zedek, the goldsmith in Jericho for 3 months.

"He didn't need to finish his words. Horror seized her so tightly it nearly choked off her breath. With rising dread she realized her worst fears had come to pass. The nightmare she had dismissed as a misunderstanding the night before was real. Her father meant to sell her into prostitution. He meant to sacrifice her future, her wellbeing, her life."

After 3 months of slavery to Zedek, Rahab decides that she is a ruined woman without a life and therefore will continue in her life of prostitution. However, she decides to take only a few men as lovers over the following years and only one at a time. As time passes, we see that Rahab does not worship the gods of her people. Instead, she shudders at the sacrifice of children to Molech and the prostitution in the temples. She is revolted by Baal, Asherah and Molech. Her life of prostitution disgusts her and to such a sensitive soul, slowly destroys her self esteem and her spirit.  "There were days when she would kiss her lover good-bye, smile at him as though he were the center of her world, close the door and vomit. She hated what she did. But she did not stop. She believed she had no alternative. What else could she become after what she had been? Her life was locked into this destiny."

By the time Rahab was seventeen, she had enough silver to purchase an inn on the city wall of Jericho. The walls of Jericho were so thick that homes and businesses could be built into them. Inns during this time period were synonymous with brothels, but Rahab kept a reputable inn known for comfort and refinement where ordinary guests could rest. Rahab learns about Israel and the one true God through a lover who tells her about the recent Hebrew victories over the various cities in Canaan. When she learns of the victories of the much smaller and poorly equipped army of the Hebrews over Sihon, the great king of the Amorites and of further victories over other walled cities, she hungers to know more about them and their God. "Who is this God?", she wonders.

Gradually Rahab learns more about the Hebrew God, the Lord, who looks after slaves, the poor, and the forgotten. While Jericho quakes at the thought of the coming of the Hebrews, Rahab turns to the Lord, praying to the God of the Hebrews to give her life and to save her and her family. It is then that Rahab decides to leave her life as a harlot behind. Her choice will have incredible consequences for her and her family. When the Hebrews send spies into Jericho, Rahab takes the side of the God of the Hebrews with life altering results. She saves the spies and they in turn promise to spare her house if she hangs a red cord outside the window of her home.

When Jericho is destroyed and Rahab and her family are taken in by the Hebrews, she now faces the challenge of being accepted by them. Her previous life as a zonah however means this task will be a daunting one that may never come to be. The warrior in charge of assimilating them into the Hebrews is Salmone who wants nothing to do with Rahab. He is scandalized by her past and believes her to be insincere in her repentance. But God has other plans and Salmone soon learns otherwise.

Discussion

In Pearl In The Sand, Afshar has crafted a poignant and deeply moving fictional account of the biblical story of Rahab, the Canaanite woman who helped the Israelites take the city of Jericho. What could have been a racy read given the nature of the story is, in the hands of this competent author, a delightfully romantic and thoughtful story, that explores the issues of prejudice, forgiveness, trust, healing and acceptance.

Afshar does a wonderful job of helping her readers understand the Hebrew mindset of the time and even better demonstrates how Rahab's previous life in prostitution has so terribly affected her. Arshar explores the issues of trust and love both human and divine. Rahab must overcome the spiritual and emotional degradation she has experienced, and learn to love again. She must learn to overcome her own personal shame, to forgive and begin healing.

Both historical fiction and romance, this wonderful novel makes the biblical story of Rahab come alive. The development and growth of Rahab as a person and as woman who comes to understand that she is loved by God is captivating and enlightening. She must learn to overcome her humiliation and lack of self worth to understand that she is worthy of God's love. It is only when Rahab looses something of great value to her that she begins to understand this. It is this incident which gives the book its title.

Afshar realistically develops the relationship between Salmone and Rahab. Despite their love for one another, they also had to overcome prejudices, misunderstandings and weaknesses. These are issues all couples must deal with no matter how strong their love might be.

Christian fiction can be preachy and overdone, but Afshar finds the right tone in this novel, engaging her readers while offering them a thoughtful treatment of  forgiveness and acceptance. 

Book Details:

Pearl In The Sand by Tessa Arshar
Chicago: Moody Publishers
316 pp