Making Bombs For Hitler by Marsha Skrypuch

Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch continues her historical fiction series for young readers, this time focusing on the little known slave raids conducted by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Making Bombs For Hitler picks up the story of Lida Ferezuk whose kidnapping (in 1943 along with her younger sister, Larissa) by the Brown Sisters was mentioned in Skrypuch's earlier novel, Stolen Child. The narrator in that novel, Nadia Kravchuk, who is really Larissa, has a flashback remembering how she and her older sister were brutally taken from their grandmother's home in the village of Verenchanka, in the Chrenivets'ka region of the Ukraine. Making Bombs For Hitler backtracks, telling Lida's story from 1943 to 1951.

The novel opens with the two frightened girls arriving at a large building along with many other children. There they are sorted into two groups - those who will be slave labourers or Ostarbeiters for the Germans and those who will go into the Lebensborn program. Neither of them know what the two groups are for at that time. While Larissa is designated as Aryan and therefore suitable for the Lebensborn, Lida is shipped out of the Ukraine to Germany to become an Ostarbeiter. She is a mere nine years old.

Not knowing what has become of her younger sister, Lida must now face her fate along with many other young people, all the while worrying what has become of Larissa. Crammed into a cattle car with other Ostarbeiters, she is transported to Germany. She meets Luka Barukovich and fourteen year old Zenia Chornij both of whom are from Kyiv, as well as the very young Olesia Serediuk and Kataryna Pick.

When they arrive at the German factory, Lida quickly learns that to stay alive she must lie about her age and she must prove her usefulness to her German masters. Lida states that she is thirteen years old but when she is sorted into a group of younger children to be sent to the "hospital" she tells the officer that she is a good seamstress. She ends up working in the laundry and mending clothing and bedsheets. The fate of the younger children who are sent to the hospital, is horrifying to Lida. The desperate reality of her situation is finally apparent to her. She is slave working to help the Nazis win the war, and that death might come at any time.

Lida is eventually moved from one factory to another, finally making bombs by hand for the German war machine. This is a task that both frightens her and fills her with shame; she wonders how many people will die as a result of the bombs she makes. When the war finally ends, and Lida and her fellow labourers are liberated, it takes many months for Lida to recover from her ordeal and some time before she learns her sister, Larissa's fate.

Discussion

Making Bombs For Hitler is a well written, informative novel about this little known aspect of World War II. Skrypuch doesn't spare the reader any of the details about what occurred in the camps or the suffering Lida and the other Ostarbeiters endured, but at the same time the book is not gruesome. Instead it is a poignant recounting of a cruel time in which many, many people suffered because of a terrible ideology. Skrypuch is able to convey the horror, the humiliation, and the loss many of these young people faced during the war. For many, their suffering didn't end with the war, as Lida's did. In a cruel twist of fate, many Eastern Workers who were liberated and sent back to the Soviet Union were not welcomed, but instead sent to work camps or murdered because they were considered Nazis.

Lida is a strong character who evokes empathy and sympathy. It's hard to believe that she is so very young, for her voice is that of a wise, but terrified young teen. But Lida also displays courage, intelligence and a remarkable ability to find the beauty and good in small things. It is these qualities that help her and others to survive the degradation and brutality of the camps. When Lida is rewarded for her excellent work in the laundry, she selflessly uses it to help another girl, worse off than herself.

There are many supporting characters in this novel, one of whom is Luka, whom Lida seems to have a great deal of affection for. When he is injured in a bomb blast, Lida risks her life to know whether he is alive or not. And the ending of the novel suggests that these two have a future path to travel together, hopefully in the form of another novel!

The author also uses these supporting characters to portray the dignity some of the labourers brought to the camps despite being viewed as animals or spare parts for the German war machine. Whether it was older workers helping younger, newer workers adjust to camp life or sharing bread, many tried to retain their dignity in spite of the inhuman conditions.

Sensitively written, Making Bombs For Hitler, is highly recommended!

Book Details:
Making Bombs For Hitler by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Toronto: Scholastic Canada
186 pp.

Thunder over Kandahar by Sharon E. McKay

Sharon McKay's Thunder over Kandahar is the story of two Afghani girls, Tamanna and Yasmine, who have been brought together by circumstances beyond their control and who forge an enduring friendship that survives class differences, illness, war and separation.

Yasmine and her father and mother have come back to Afghanistan, so her father (Baba) can teach and help his beloved country rebuild after the ouster of the Taliban. She misses England very much and has a difficult time understanding her father's "call back to the land" of his birth. Yasmine cannot comprehend all the social restrictions, and the poverty of Afghanistan. She wants to return to England. 

One day while she and her mother are out walking and singing in Herat, they are targeted by the Taliban who severely beat her mother. Yasmine's mother suffers a badly broken leg in the attack and is bedridden. Baba decides to move the family to Grandfather's home in Bazaar-E-Panjwayi, Kandahar Province. There they will live in a small village where Grandfather is respected and where they will be near the American FOB (Forward Operating Base). 

In this village, a young girl named Tamanna lives with her Uncle Zaman and her mother. Three years earlier, when her uncle was beating her mother, Tamanna tried to stop the assault and her hip was broken by a kick from her uncle. Tamanna is now lame. Her uncle instructs Tamanna to sell naan to a new customer from Herat who is wealthy and important. That customer is Yasmine's father. Soon Baba requests that Tamanna become a companion for his lonely daughter, Yasmine. 

The two girls get along wonderfully, despite a language difference. Yasmine speaks English, French and some Dari, while Tamanna speaks both Pashto and Dari. Yasmine teaches Tamanna English, and Tamanna returns the favour by teaching Yasmine Pashto. They also study arithmetic in the afternoon and learn about the history of Afghanistan from Baba. Eventually the new school, built by the Americans is opened but on the first day of school, it is attacked by the Taliban, who injure Yasmine and threaten the teacher. 

One day Baba has to take Yasmine's mother to the FOB to be treated as she is now very ill. He tells Yasmine that she cannot come but that they are planning to leave Afghanistan after her mother is treated by the American doctors. Baba has decided to return to London, as the situation is worsening quickly because of the Taliban insurgents. However, on their way to the FOB, their cart is attacked and both parents seriously injured. They are flown to Kandahar for treatment, while Yasmine is slated to follow them in a car hired by the Americans.

 Meanwhile, Tamanna is to be married off to a older man to pay off her uncle's drug debts - a prospect that horrifies her. She is also very sick and losing weight, but she knows she is alone and there is no one who can help her.  Their lives intertwine once again when Yasmine, who is to be sent to Kandahar to meet up with her parents, does not forget Tamanna in her need. However, all does not go as planned for neither Yasmine nor Tamanna. Fleeing for their lives, their new found friendship is tested over the next few weeks as they struggle to leave Afghanistan.

Discussion

This well researched novel presents what appears to be a very accurate picture of life in Afghanistan during the Afghan War. McKay provides her readers with interesting tidbits of background history of the country, insights into the culture, how Westerners are viewed by the Afghan people and the views of the Taliban insurgents.  Some of the problems touched upon in this novel include the abuse of children by the Taliban, the crushing poverty of the country, the terrible abuse of women, the opium addiction problem which decimates many impoverished tribal villages, and the cooperation of the Americans/UN with the country's warlords.

Yasmine's parents are well educated Afghanis who hope for a modern and moderate society. Yasmine represents the Western outsider who doesn't know or understand the culture and Tamanna is typical of many Afghani who hope for a better life, especially for women. McKay very effectively conveys the hopes and aspirations that both young and middle-aged women in Afghanistan have for their lives, for the families, and for their country. Both girls are courageous, and selfless - willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice for one another.

There is a large cast of characters in the novel but these are introduced one after another with relative ease, and are easy to keep track of. McKay lets the reader know what happens to all the major characters over the years which adds a sense of closure to the novel. All the characters are realistic and well drawn and it is easy to empathize with all but especially the women and children who suffer so much.

Thunder over Kandahar is an excellent, suspenseful novel for young people interested in Afghanistan and who wish to learn more about the conflict and how it has affected the people of the country. The author spent time in Afghanistan conducting research for this novel which was vetted by Muslims in both the West and Afghanistan and also by young teen readers.

Book Details:
Thunder over Kandahar by Sharon E. McKay
Toronto: Annick Press   2010 
260 pp.

DVD Series: Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey tells the story of the Crawley family of North Yorkshire at the turn of the 20th century. The Edwardian mansion is the home and life's work of Robert, Earl of Grantham, his lovely demure wife, Cora, the Countess of Grantham, and their three daughters, Mary, Edith, and Sybil.

The series opens with the family dealing with the consequences of the sinking of the Titanic in April, 1912. Two male cousins, next in line to inherit the Downton estate have drowned, meaning the estate will now be passed onto the third cousin of the Earl, Matthew Crawley, a lawyer in London. This throws the entire family into a state of shock and consternation because they expected Downton Abbey to go to a more upper class relative. Complicating the matter is the fact that Cora, who is American, brought a large amount of money to the Crawley estate when she married Robert. This entail cannot be separated from the estate, which means that she too will lose all her money upon the Earl's death, unless this entail can be somehow separated from the inheritance. Since according to British law, neither Cora nor her daughters can inherit the estate, it means they face the possibility of financial hardship and it also means the daughters must marry well in order to maintain their status in British society. It's hard to believe such laws still existed in the early 20th century, but they did.

The Earl, accepting this situation and believing he has no recourse under the law,  writes to inform Matthew of his new situation in life, - that he will one day be heir to the lavish Downton Abbey.  Matthew and his mother, Isobel Crawley, move to Yorkshire where they are installed in a small house near Downton. Matthew vows such an inheritance and a move up in British society will not change him. At first the upper class Crawleys, especially Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, try their best to dislike Matthew. But it is soon apparent that he is a good, intelligent man, who is willing to look into the matter of Cora's entail in the hope that some money can be rescued for the wife and daughters should they one day need it. In the meantime, Robert, Cora and Violet entertain the hope that Mary will marry Matthew and spare them all the possibility of losing Downton Abbey.

Into this setting, we follow the family through the next two years, until the beginning of World War I. Irreverent and disinterested Lady Mary behaves scandalously and despite efforts to conceal her misdemeanor,  rumours circulate throughout London about her ruined reputation. Middle daughter, Lady Edith, often passed over by men infatuated with her older sister, strikes back at Lady Mary with unexpected and heartrending consequences. And Lady Sybil gets mixed up in women's rights and politics while trying to help a lady's maid better herself.

Even more interesting than the Crawley family's feuds and foibles, is the shenanigans of the servants. Overseen by the butler, Mr. Carson, a stalwart and just man, the serving staff plot against one another, eavesdrop on the family, and try to cope with their own unique problems. There is the footman, Thomas, who is a most disagreeable character, and his partner in crime, the lady's maid Sarah O'Brien, both of whom are always plotting against Mr. Bates. The enigmatic Bates, a friend of the Earl, has a checkered past but now tries to be honest and live a clean life.

The entire first season's episodes are rife with characters in conflict, making the storyline interesting and mostly unpredictable. Downton Abbey is superbly cast, and fans of BBC period productions will no doubt recognize some familiar faces including Brendan Coyle (North and South, Larkrise to Candleford) who plays John Bates, Jim Carson (The Way We Live Now) as Mr. Carson, and of course, the incomparable Dame Maggie Smith who is brilliant as the Dowager Countess Grantham. Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern are wonderfully complimentary as the Earl and Countess of Grantham.


Downton Abbey does a wonderful job of capturing the expectation of change that everyone seems to have. Women are expecting things will change for them - that they will get the vote, be allowed to work, and possibly even inherit property. Men seem to sense that things will change politically and of course there's the beginning of World War I. Downton sees the installation of electricity AND the telephone. Change is definitely in the air by the end of season one.

The series is worth watching just on the basis of the costuming alone. With four rich women to clothe, the possibilities are endless and their dresses are absolutely beautiful - detailed brocades, flowing silks and rich velvets. Sybil's amazing harem pants, were a stunning coup de grace that should have been incorporated into more than just one scene! The series won an Emmy for Outstanding Costumes for a Miniseries 2011.

Downton Abbey, created by Julian Fellowes, is a collaborative effort between Carnival Films of the UK and WGBH Boston (PBS) in the US.
The series is filmed at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, although the servants quarters are shot on a set in London.

Below is the trailer for the first season:




I will be partaking of Season 2 shortly and I just can't wait.

Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez

Seventeen-year-old Carmen Bianchi is a violin prodigy. She's won a Grammy for best classical album and has been on the cover of many weekly magazines - the face of virtuosity in America. For the past four years she's be preparing for the prestigious Guarneri competition. Winning means being awarded one of the richest grand prizes in classical music; fifty thousand dollars, the use of the 1742 Guarneri del Gesu violin for four years, and the opportunity to perform with symphonies throughout the world. Carmen knows she will likely be one of the three musicians to make it to the final round and she desperately wants to win this competition. Winning the Guarneri will make Carmen a superstar. But Carmen has one major obstacle: Jeremy King.

Jeremy King is an eighteen-year-old violinist from London, England. He too is a virtuoso. When Carmen tries to catch a discrete glimpse of him outside the Chicago Symphony Center, he sees her and later sends her a nasty email. From this difficult beginning, Carmen and Jeremy gradually begin a love-hate relationship. However, Carmen's mother, Diana, learns of their relationship, and warns Carmen that Jeremy's motives are not honest. Carmen doesn't trust her mother and continues seeing Jeremy in an act of rebellion.

In the meantime, it is revealed that Carmen has been struggling with prescription drug addiction. While on tour in Tokyo last year, Carmen had a meltdown on stage. Her mother, who is also her manager, arranged for Carmen to take the anti-anxiety drug, Inderal. Although the drug calms her, it has begun to stifle her playing, removing the passion she once had. Soon Carmen finds herself taking the drug not just for performances but also for her lessons with her elderly Russian teacher, Yuri. Taking Inderal makes Carmen feel like she is a fraud, a fake who goes through the motions to make music. In an attempt to recover what she feels she has lost, and after witnessing Jeremy's impassioned playing, Carmen stops taking the Inderal for a period of time.

When Jeremy and Carmen make it to the semifinals, the Guarneri competition becomes much more complicated due to their entanglement and even more so when Jeremy makes an astonishing request of Carmen - to throw the competition and allow him to win because of a difficult family situation. Carmen, who is shocked by Jeremy's request, refuses to see him. When the three finalists are announced and Jeremy is not one of them, Carmen begins to suspect that something isn't quite right. A little investigating on her part, soon turns up the shocking reason for Jeremy's absence in the competition finals. Torn between her desire to win and her desire to do what is right, Carmen has a decision to make. It is one that will affect everyone's future.

Discussion

Virtuosity provides a fascinating look into the competitive world of classical music, and some of the issues young musicians must navigate around as they develop their careers. Martinez was herself a classical violinist and because she is writing about a subject she knows well, this novel is a realistic portrayal of the classical music world. Many young musicians experience extreme pressure from parents and teachers to lay down that perfect performance. In the competitive world of music, performances must be perfect, dynamic and unique - no small thing for a young person. This pressure is in addition to coping with memorizing huge amounts of repertoire, dealing with criticism that can at times be brutal and working through injuries. Some musicians struggle with eating disorders as well as with addictions to prescription medications. Others experience the same sort of self-doubt that Carmen experiences in Virtuosity.

Carmen is a strong, honest character, who faces some hard realities in both her personal life and also her musical career. As it turns out, Carmen's real obstacle proves to be her mother, Diana, who is stifling Carmen by controlling every aspect of her life, and who is also willing to do anything so that Carmen can have the career she never had. Because of this, Carmen is at risk of losing her integrity as a person and also as a musician. She has been doing everything for someone else - her mother and her wealthy grandparents who purchased a Gibson Stradivarius for her. In making the decision she does, she allows herself the time to discover again, why she is playing violin. She has to find out what it is that she truly wants for her life. Those teens who are involved in pursuing a musical career will relate to the themes in Virtuosity. 

Book Details:
Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez
Simon & Schuster 2011
294 pp.

Movie Review: The Iron Lady

The Iron Lady is biopic about former UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, her rise to power in 1979, and her remarkable ten plus years governing a country experiencing both political and economic turmoil. The movie opens with Thatcher,  played by award-winning actress, Meryl Streep, in her old age, frail and suffering from dementia. She cannot remember that her beloved husband, Denis Thatcher is deceased and sometimes doesn't even know herself. She has hallucinations of him living with her and often speaks as if he were in her presence. Margaret cannot bring herself to let go of Denis's clothing.

In a series of flashbacks, viewers are taken through the significant milestones of Margaret Thatcher's life. At age twenty-four, the young Margaret Roberts, daughter of a grocer, made an unsuccessful bid for election as an MP in Parliament. Although discouraged at this "disaster", she is persuaded by Denis, who loves her, to not give up on her ambitions. Denis proposes to Margaret, with the full knowledge of exactly the type of woman she is. "One's life must matter." she tells him, emphatically stating that she will not be the type of wife content to muddle about at home cleaning tea cups.

In 1959, she finally does win a seat in the election as Conservative MP for Finchley. Her strong personality stood her in good staid in the man's world of British politics, where heckling and derision by opposition MP's in Parliament was a frequent occurrence. In 1974, Margaret decided to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party mainly because she wanted to force the party to remain true to its principles. "Someone must force the point - say the unsayable!". She doesn't believe she will win but she does.

As history tells us, Thatcher is elected as Prime Minister in 1979 and the film runs through many of the major crises she experienced as leader of the British Commonwealth; the 1983 strikers, IRA bombings, the Falklands War and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Her rule was characterized by uncompromising resolve and she was soon dubbed "The Iron Lady" by the Soviets who were more familiar with the vacillating leaders of the West.

Discussion

Although The Iron Lady is not a captivating film, and at times is dry, it's impossible not to be amazed at Steep's ability to capture the mannerisms of Margaret Thatcher and effect a brilliant portrayal of the woman who was the first head of state in the West. Streep effectively juxtaposes the youthful Thatcher's strong personality with that of the elderly Thatcher who is shown as a frail, elderly woman, unmoored by the loss of her beloved husband. In the end, The Iron Lady was after all, human - something the film attempts to portray and succeeds.

Streep has a strong supporting cast especially Jim Broadbent as Thatcher's husband, Denis. Alexandra Roach's performance as the young Margaret Roberts was especially well done and the film would have been more encompasing if it had delved into more of young Margaret's life.

To aid in the film's realistic portrayal of the Thatcher era, there is news footage of Thatcher and also specific events that occurred during her years as Prime Minister. This footage defines the cultural setting Thatcher existed within and the magnitude of the problems she faced head on. For those who lived through the 1980's, these clips will bring back many memories.

 The Iron Lady is a film about a one of the most important world leaders in the late 20th century. It is also yet again, a vehicle showcasing the fine acting talents of Meryl Streep.

The Watch That Ends The Night by Alan Wolf

The Watch That Ends the Night tells the story of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912 in verse.

It opens with the undertaker, John Snow, aboard the cable ship Mackay-Bennett, off the Grand Banks, six hundred miles from Halifax, on Saturday April 20, 2012.  John is lying down on the empty coffins to ease his queasy stomach. He prefers the dead to the sea, which is so unpredictable. He bids Captain Larnder good night. In the morning his work will begin.

In Prelude Preparing to Sail, the time between Monday April 1 to Tuesday April 9, 1912 is portrayed, introducing most of the twenty-five narrators beginning with the Rat who follows the food.

Bruce Ismay - The Business Man who conceived of building "three immense sister ships". They would palatial, attracting the world's most wealthy but also those seeking to flee the continent paying for a nice berth. But he doesn't want to focus on life boats, because having life boats on the boat deck - the sun deck as he calls it, would clutter the view of the sunsets at sea.

E.J. Smith - the Captain who plans to go as fast and as straight as he can with Titanic. The ship is big, but he too is not concerned about the only twenty life boats on Titanic. After all, that's four more than required.

Thomas Andrews - The Ship builder. His uncle is the great Lord William Pirrie who is Ismay's associate and who also was involved with Titanic's conception. He learned his trade through a five-year apprenticeship and has overseen the Titanic.

The Iceberg - has seen the passage of time from Abraham and Noah through to the caveman's spear and the woolly mammoth's tusk. It was conceived within Greenland's glacial womb.

Olaus Abelseth - The Immigrant who writes Marie Stene in Norway, begging her to join him on Titanic. Eventually he manages to convince a group of Norwegians to join him including his cousin Peter, two neighbours and his brother-in-law, Sigurd.

Jamila Nicola-Yarred - The Refugee who is fleeing Lebanon along with her father and her brother Elias.  They arrive in France only to learn that that ship they booked passage on, has already left. When they try to book on Titanic, her father is told he cannot go because of his infected eye, so he sends on Jamila and Elias to Cherbourg, where they will board Titanic.

John Jacob Astor - The Millionaire who along with his pregnant, young wife, Madeleine, her nurse and his servant are returning from their honeymoon in Egypt.

Margaret Brown - The Socialite. She is in Egypt along with the Astors, and her daughter Helen when she learns that her little grandson, Lawrence Jr. is ill in America. They are returning via the Titanic.

Harold Lowe - The Junior Officer. He is a natural seaman, at ease in rowboats or on large ships. But he knows that most of the "crew" are not much use in a crisis. He tested the life boats, but wonders what will happen if they actually need them.

Frankie Goldsmith - The Dragon Hunter is only nine years old. His brother Bertie died last year from diphtheria. He along with his mother and father and an older lad named Alfred Rush will be travelling to America on the Titanic. Their final destination is Detroit, Michigan.

Harold Bride - The Spark. He is the assistant telegraphic operator, Second to Jack Phillips. Harold is excited that Titanic is equipped with the "most powerful wireless system on the sea."

Charles Joughlin - The Baker. As chief baker, he boards the Titanic in Belfast so he can test the ovens and appliances.

Frederick Fleet - The Lookout. His job is "to watch and say what he sees." By his account, he's a born watcher.

Lolo - The Tailor's Son. This little boy has been taken away by his papa along with his little brother momon.

Louis Hoffman - The Tailor. His real name is Michel Navratil and he has taken (kidnapped)  Lolo and Momon from their mother, Marcelle and her mother. He has used his friend's name to secure a place on Titanic.

George Brereton - The Gambler. He's a cardshark, a trickster who cheats people out at the card table, like the young, wealthy man he just cheated out of a lot of money. This will pay for his transportation to America and to his sister's place in Los Angeles.

With twenty-two of the voices now introduced, the readers meets the final three narrators in The First Watch Setting Out as Titanic travels from Southampton, England to Cherbourg, France on Wednesday, April 10, 1912.

Thomas Hart - The Stoker. After showing his papers, Thomas, or Tommy as he likes to be called learns that his berth is on F deck in the bow. 

Oscar Woody - The Postman who tells the new man, Mr. March that the noise is from the racquet court next door.

Jock Hume - The Second Violin has a girl, Mary Costin back in Dumfries who will soon have his child and whom he will soon marry. But he has two lovely ladies with him, his violins, Eberle and Guadagnini. One of them will be "the voice of his soul".

With all the narrators now introduced, the fateful story of the Titanic is ready to be told through their voices in the remaining six watches: The Last Port, The Open Sea, Frivolous Amusements, Turning the Corner, Whiskers on the Light, and The Watch That Ends the Night. The aftermath of the sinking is told in Postlude: Morning.

Discussion

Alan Wolf's The Watch That Ends The Night is a uniquely crafted novel that tells the story of the Titanic tragedy in both rhyming and free verse, using twenty-three voices of those on Titanic plus two nonhuman narrators, The Rat and The Iceberg. Wolf uses real people from the tragedy - those who were on the passenger list - and successfully builds an engaging storyline for each through verse.  These stories, when woven, together not only tell the larger story of the maiden voyage and the sinking of the Titanic, but also convey a sense of the magnitude of the tragedy on a personal level; the fathers never to be seen again, the lovers lost, the new life in America never to be realized.

The novel opens with a  Prelude which tells of preparations to sail and sets the story for many of the characters and closes with a Postlude; Morning which tells of the aftermath of the sinking. The novel is divided into seven watches, the seventh being "The Watch That Ends the Night", which covers the time the survivors are in the boats and watch in horror, the sinking of the great ship, supposedly unsinkable. 

The many voices include those of immigrants such as Jamila Nicola-Yarred and socialites such as John Jacob Astor and Margaret (Molly) Brown, Bruce Ismay, the director and head of the White Star Line;  and Thomas Andrews, the chief naval architect at Harlan and Wolff ship builders. Also included are many different Titanic crew members including Captain E. J. Smith known as "the Storm King", a stoker, Junior Office Harold Lowe,  wireless operator, Harold Bride; and Frederick Fleet, the lookout. Each  voice offers the reader a different perspective on sailing the Titanic, on life in the early 20th century and on the tragedy. These many voices make the storytelling realistic and appealing.

Added to the human voices are those of the Iceberg and The Rat, who wanders the ship in search of food. The Iceberg is portrayed as a malevolent entity whose purpose is to meet with a ship - seeking out human hearts! We learn its history, from its birth in Greenland, its thousand year existence to its calving off the glacier and its ocean voyage southward.

I am the ice. I see tides ebb and flow.

I've watched civilizations come and go,

give birth, destroy, restore, be gone, begin.

My blink of an eye is humankind's tortoise slow,

Today's now is tomorrow's way back when.....

I am the ice. I've seen the ebb and flow.

I watched as Abraham and Moses spoke.

I watched the prophets met with wine or stone.

I watched as Christ was nailed upon the cross.....

I am the ice. I've seen the ebb and flow.

Conceived by water, temperature, and time,

gestating within Greenland's glacial womb,

I carved out massive valleys as I moved.

At last the frozen river made its way

and calved me with a splash in Baffin Bay.

Since I've traveled southward many weeks,

for now that my emergence is complete,

there is a certain ship I long to meet.

Especially poignant is the voice of the undertaker, John Snow, who sailed on the cable ship, Mackay-Bennett, out of Halifax, Nova Scotia to collect the bodies of Titanic's victims. John Snow's poems capture the horror sailors experienced when they arrived at the site of the sinking.

I turn again to the far-off flock of gulls --

smudges of white floating on the green waves --

and I admit to myself what I knew at the first sight of them:

Those are no seagulls at all. Those are bodies.

More bodies. Each one waiting in a bright white vest.

My God. My God. My God.

Bodies scattered for miles, in every direction.

Bodies as far as my indifferent eyes can see.

Many of the poems use the element of foreshadowing mingled with irony, hinting at the coming tragedy. Wolf also uses concrete poetry with Thomas Andrews, Titanic's shipbuilder, to convey, typographically the sinking of the Titanic. Another poem, with its random words in the center of two pages, suggests the terror and confusion of people as they drown in the icy waters.

Alan Wolf includes detailed notes at the back of the book, on each of the voices/characters, all of which were real passengers on the ship, as well as an extensive Titanic bibliography.

The Watch That Ends The Night is brilliantly conceived, and succeeds beyond measure, in capturing the essence of the Titanic tragedy, one hundred years later,  for avid teen readers and interested adult readers alike.

Book Details:
The Watch That Ends The Night by Alan Wolf
Candlewick Press: Massachusetts    2011
466 pp.

My Mother The Cheerleader. A Novel by Robert Sharenow

My Mother The Cheerleader explores a very specific event in 20th century American history; the desegregation of schools in 1960 in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. This event is recounted through the eyes of thirteen-year-old Louise Collins, who lives with her mother, Pauline, in their boardinghouse, Rooms On Desire.

Life for young Louise is uneventful until desegregation is ordered for the Ninth Ward's all-white elementary schools. In November 1960, four Negro girls are permitted to attend the schools; three are attending McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School, while one of these girls, Ruby Bridges, is enrolled in Louise's school, William Frantz Elementary School. 

This has resulted in the white students being pulled from school in protest and a group of mothers is formed to taunt the little first-grade students as they enter the schools. These mothers are dubbed "the cheerleaders".  But the "cheerleading" that Louise's mother is doing is "so full of foul language that the newspapers couldn't even print the words." And what they say is not really reported on television or radio.

"The cheerleaders" also draw the ire of writer John Steinbeck, one of Louise's favourite authors. He writes about the cheerleaders in his book, Travels With Charley, a book about Steinbeck's travels across America in 1960 with Charley, his large poodle.  His views on the Cheerleaders didn't really sit well with Louise because, like those opposed to segregation, he too tended to dehumanize those he didn't agree with. "They were not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors, playing to a crazy audience." To Louise, her mother is both a mother and a human being." But Louise believes that what we see on the outside isn't necessarily the full picture. "I don't blame Mr. Steinbeck for writing what he did. He saw my mother and the other Cheerleaders from the outside looking in. From that point of view, I'm sure he thought he was painting a very accurate portrait. However, I saw my mother and her friends from the inside. And I've found that people always tend to look different from that angle, when you can really get in close and get a good look at all the details that hang just below the surface."

And so Louise Lorraine Collins tells the story of her mother, over a period of a few days, and what happens when she meets a friend of John Steinbeck who comes to stay at their boardinghouse. 

Louise had been attending William Frantz Elementary School until November 1960 when little Ruby Bridges, a first-grade student was enrolled. At this point her mother pulled her out of school and she spent the days helping out at her mother's boarding school.  The Ninth Ward is one of the poorest wards in New Orleans, with rough streets without sidewalks and no sewage system. When Ruby Bridges is allowed to attend William Frantz, Louise wondered why she wanted to go to such a terrible school. So instead of going to school Louise is working at her mother's rooming house which is located at the corner of Desire and North Galvez Streets. 

The rooming house, Rooms On Desire, a play on its location at the corner of Desire and North Galvez streets is "just a plain pea-green wood house with white trim, featuring three stories, six bedrooms  A Negro lady, Charlotte Dupree helps Louise's mother run the house, which has one long-time boarder, seventy-six year old Cornelius Landroux. Steinbeck's friend, Morgan Miller, arrives in the Ninth Ward with the intention of reconnecting with his brother. Unlike most of the men who frequent Rooms on Desire, Morgan is a gentleman, confident and "usually comfortable in his own skin and with the world in general." He treats Pauline with respect and Louise with a gentle kindness, often helping smooth things over for her, when her mother is harsh.

Louise who has been pulled from school decides to spend her time "snooping" on Morgan. She wants to know who he is, because he's so different from anyone who has ever stayed at the boardinghouse. However, Louise's snooping reveals secrets she's not prepared for, about her mother, about herself, and about the world.

Discussion

My Mother The Cheerleader is a novel about the integration of schools in the southern United States. Set in 1960, in the Ninth Ward in the city of New Orleans, it focuses on the desegregation of two schools in the city over the period of several days. The events are related by the daughter of a white woman, deeply opposed to desegregation. The main characters in the novel are fictional, but Ruby Bridges, the little Black American girl who was allowed to attend William Frantz school is real.

Despite the United States Supreme court ordering that desegregation be implemented with "all deliberate speed", Louisiana and the city of New Orleans were not willing to integrate black students into white schools. As the state continued to create legal and other barriers to either stall or make integration almost impossible, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, finally ruled the many bills designed to make integration illegal in the state were struck down and on November 14, 1960, schools were desegregated. 

The two schools chosen for integration were located in the very poor Ninth Ward.  White parents protested, and began withdrawing their children from the two schools, just as Louise mentions in the  novel. Shortly after this, a group of housewives, rabidly opposed to integration formed and began harrassing little Ruby Bridges, only six-years-old.

Ruby Bridges spent her first year at William Frantz being escorted each and every day by U.S. Marshals, through the lines of white working class women known as "the cheerleaders" whose sole purpose was to confront Ruby and block her path into the school. Many adults helped Ruby through this difficult time in her life, especially her mother who encouraged her and reminded her of God's love and protection, and her white teacher, Mrs. Henry, who recognized Ruby's dignity and personhood.

Looking back on this event, almost 52 years later, it seems almost incredible that a little 6 year old black girl would need a contingent of federal agents to see that she got to school unharmed. It's hard to believe people held these views but it's even more disturbing that many still do hold onto racial prejudice. My Mother The Cheerleader provides readers the opportunity to try to understand the views people held in 1960 about race and civil rights and does so very effectively. These people were judges, lawyers, teachers, mothers, fathers and children, and just like anyone else living in the United States in 1960. Some were outstanding citizens, while others were just ordinary folk.

The southern white view of desegregation is portrayed through the character of Louise's mother,  Pauline who violently argues with Morgan about why black children shouldn't be attending white schools. Her prejudice, like those of her peers, goes much deeper though and doesn't just include black people. When Pauline is attacked and Louise goes to the home of their black cook, Charlotte Dupree, for help, the reader learns why each race can't help the other, even if they wanted to, even in deadly circumstances, simply because of the class restrictions in place at that time. What would be needed is an act of supreme courage, to go against the conventions of society at that time. And we come to see what happens to those in the segregated South, who believe all men are created equal, and who stand up for that belief. All of these are teachable moments, woven seamlessly into this brilliant story by author, Robert Sharenow.

The author includes many realistic characters in the novel. While some of the characters are stereotypical, (there's the typical "red-necks" and earthy no-nonsense black maid) they are believable. Each person, Pauline,  Louise, Charlotte Dupree, Morgan Miller and even minor characters, are well drawn, having depth.  For example, Louise's mother, Pauline is the stereotypical single mother; lazy, not a good mother to her child, a heavy drinker, and a woman who becomes involved with men. She is loud, self-absorbed, and vain. Yet later on in the novel Pauline is shown to care for her daughter Louise and to have compassion.

There is the wonderful theme of courage throughout the novel, not just on the part of Ruby Bridges, but also in the characters of Morgan Miller and surprisingly, depending on how she is viewed by the reader,  Pauline Collins. Courageous acts come in all sizes and ways.

Readers are advised there are some sexual references in this novel.

Ruby Bridges image is in the public domain:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/US_Marshals_with_Young_Ruby_Bridges_on_School_Steps.jpg

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ruby-bridges

Book Details:
My Mother The Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow
Laura Geringer Books (HarperCollins Publishers)    2007
289 pp.

Starters by Lissa Price

Starters is Lissa Price's debut novel set in an America decimated by war and a deadly sickness. Lissa Price has created a fascinating post-apocalyptic world in her debut novel, Starters.  

America is comprised of very elderly people, Enders, and very young people, Starters. Price's post-apocalyptic world arose after the Spore Wars between America and unnamed Pacific Ocean countries (does she mean China?). Fearing a bio-war, America began vaccinating its citizens, with those considered most at risk, the very young and the elderly, being the first to be vaccinated. When the spore bombs were unleashed earlier than expected, all people between the ages of 20 and 60 died, leaving many children orphaned and uncared for.

Sixteen-year-old Callie Woodland and her brother, seven-year-old Tyler, are two such children, orphaned and living in an abandoned office tower with a friend named Michael. They spend their time hiding from the Marshals who capture unclaimed children  and scavenging for enough food to eat. With Tyler sick, Callie decides to pay a visit to Prime Destinations located in Beverly Hills. She has heard about this company out on the street and knows that she can earn a great deal of money but she needs to know more.

At Prime Destinations, Callie meets Mr. Tinnenbaum, a tall Ender with silver white hair and a deep artificial tan. He explains that the renter or Ender has a cap with electrodes fitted on her/his head which connects them to a BCI or Body-Computer Interface and they are put into a "twilight sleep". Meanwhile the donor or Starter has had a  neuro-chip embedded into their brain connecting their brain to the computer. The Ender (renter) and Starter (donor) are connected via a computer.  After an Ender chooses a Starter, the Starter comes to Prime Destinations and is put under anesthesia and the connection between the two brains is made by the computer. The Renter simply uses her mind to take oer the body of the young teen whose conscious mind is now asleep. The Ender can then use the teen's body for however long the rental period is. The teen-donor remembers nothing of what happened while his/her body was being rented.  After the rental time is finished the Ender brings the body back to Prime Destinations and the computer connection is shut down. The Ender is taken out of twilight sleep and the Starter or donor has her/his brain functions restored. The neurochip blocks renters from participating in illegal activities. The donor gets the chip removed after three rentals.

After the explanation, Callie decides to defer signing a contract with a bonus, despite desperately needing the money and even in spite of the intense pressure by Mr. Tinnenbaum to sign immediately. She returns back to the office tower she is living in with Tyler and Michael. When their building is set on fire by Enders to smoke them out, Callie and her brother and Michael flee but are chased by the marshals. They have lost their sleeping bags, water bottles and the remnants of family photos. With Tyler sick, Callie makes the decision to return to Prime Destinations. She tells Michael to care for Tyler and that she will return in a few days.

At Prime Destinations, Callie is assigned to an Ender named Doris who is her personal mentor. She is tested in the sports she claimed to be able to do including her ability to shoot a rifle. Prior to renting, every Starter gets a complete body makeover, with all scars and imperfections being completely removed. Callie has the neurochip put in and is given the lunch she thought about, proving that the chip is functioning. Callie is given clothing that has been chosen by her renter and has her makeup done by makeup artist Clara. Doris tells Callie that her first rental will be only for a day and that she is a "lovely woman". When Callie presses to meet her, Doris tells her the exchanges are always confidential. Doris attempts to reassure Callie, telling her that "We do have your best interests at heart..."  Callie also learns that the tall Ender she saw talking to Mr. Tinnenbaum when she arrived yesterday is the CEO of Prime, whom they call "Old Man".

Everything goes well for the first rent but when she requests to leave, Callie is told that it is not an option. The second rental is for three days however after this rental Callie awakens with a four-inch gash on her arm and no one will tell her how this happened. When she learns that her third rental will be for a month, Callie panics. She presses her case with Mr. Tinnenbaum who agrees to allow Callie three hours to go visit her brother.  He assigns a body guard, Rodney to watch over her and her warns her to be careful with her body,  "Because right now, it still belongs to us." Tyler is angry that Callie has been gone for seven days. She promises that when she returns, they will have a home once again. Callie finds herself growing more attached to Michael and thanks him for caring for Tyler.

When Callie returns to Prime Destinations, she learns that her renter wants to go that night. Callie is dressed in all black and sent off to her third rent. But during the third rent, something unusual happens. Callie wakes up a week into her rental  to find herself in Club Rune in Los Angeles. Confused, Callie quickly realizes that something is not working right with the renter. Callie begins hearing a voice in her head warning her not to return to Prime Destinations and she realizes this is her renter. She can hear the renter in her mind.

At the home of her renter, Callie discovers that her renter is Helena Winterhill and that her universal ID has been changed from Callie Woodland to Callie Winterhill who lives in a luxurious mega-mansion in Bel-Air. On a date with Blake Harrison, the boy she met at Club Rune, they go horseback riding and visit his great-grandmother Marion.  During this visit Callie  learns that Blake is the grandson of Senator Clifford C. Harrison. Believing she can trust Blake who is not an Ender, she sends him with money to the abandoned office building Tyler and Michael are living in.

Callie blacks out in Helena's car and awakens eighteen hours later in Helena's bedroom holding a Glock 85 with a silencer.  When she is warned yet again not to return to Prime Destinations, Callie decides to check into Helena's background. She discovers that Helena's granddaughter Emma lived with her and died two months ago. Even more disturbing is that Callie discovers a charm bracelet similar to that Doris gave her, in Emma's bedroom. Callie realizes that Emma sold her body to the body bank. 

 At Club Rune, Callie meets Helena's friend, Lauren who is renting the body of a girl named Reece. Lauren reveals that they are using the bodies of teens to stop Prime Destinations from victimizing thousands of teens. From Lauren she learns that Helena is planning a murder but Helena hasn't told Lauren who the target is. Lauren's grandson, Kevin, and Helena's granddaughter, Emma, signed up at Prime Destinations but never returned. They lied and did it to get the body makeovers, not realizing that Prime takes Starters who have no living relatives. This way if they do not return, they have no family who will investigate their disappearance. Some Starters are released to recruit more teens. Callie learns that many Enders besides Lauren and Helena, have lost grandchildren who have simply disappeared after becoming body donors for Prime. Callie finds this all very daunting.

Callie reaches out to Blake who meets her and is very angry. She discovers that while blacked out, Helena took over, and angrily took back the money Callie had given to Blake to give to Tyler and Michael. She asks him again to take the wad of money to them and he agrees to do this. After her meeting with Blake, Callie dumps Helena's Glock and determines from her phone calendar that whoever she is planning to murder it will be on November 19 at 8:00 PM. 

Callie receives a memo from Helena on her phone warning her not to return to Prime. She does not know that Callie knows about her plans.  Once more Callie blacks out only to find herself in the lobby of an office building preparing to kill Senator Clifford Harrison, Blake's grandfather. Callie doesn't know  how Senator Harrison is connected to Prime Destinations. As Callie grows closer to Blake, she is determined to find out why Helena wants to kill his grandfather.

On the day Senator Harrison is scheduled to present at an awards ceremony, Callie finds herself with an assault rifle scoping the ceremony. She suddenly is able to communicate with Helena who tells her that she needs to go through with the assassination. Helena reveals that Callie's biochip has been altered and the stop-kill switch which prevents Renters from killing while they are in a Starter's body has been turned off. Helena wants to stop Senator Harrison because of his connections to Prime Destinations. Harrison is hoping to persuade the president to use Prime to conscript teens for government use. But she also discovers that Prime has a far more insidious design for the teen donors.

Helena and Callie begin working together to try to determine what has happened to her granddaughter Emma. Helena gives Callie money to get a place for Michael and Tyler to stay and asks Callie to visit Institution 37 to talk to a girl named Sara who may know about Emma. In Institution 37 Callie learns from Sara that there is a special program beginning next week where some of the girls will be given special makeovers and important jobs where they will earn money. Only the prettiest Starters will be chosen by the body bank. 

Callie meets Madison at her home and together they watch Senator Clifford Harrison at a news conference in Washington. He announces the Special Circumstances Youth Employment Act in which certain institutionalized and unclaimed minors will be able to now be employed. The first company to do this will be Prime Destinations. So it appears that what Callie was told by Sara is really happening. Then Madison receives a special, private and confidential broadcast from Prime Destinations, as a Titanium subscriber. Chad Tinnenbaum and Doris introduce the head of Prime Destinations, the Old Man whose face is pixelated and voice disguised. He informs his Titanium Premium subscribers that they will be able to try the bodies of different nationalities and  soon be able to own the body of the Starter they rent while their "birth body" is kept safe in the chair at Prime Destinations until it reaches the age of two hundred years. As the owners of their new bodies, they will be able to keep them as they age through the body's twenties and thirties and even longer. 

Callie is now convinced of what Helena has been telling her. And she suggests to Helena that her granddaughter Emma may not be dead but may have been permanently rented.  However, a major setback occurs when Callie discovers Helena has been killed and someone is trying to kill her.

When Helena gone, Callie is now on her own to prevent Prime from gaining control and implementing its evil plan. She meets up with Helena's friend Redmond who initially modified their (Helena/Callie) neurochip. Callie asks Redmond to remove it but he tells her it cannot be removed as it is integrated into her brain. Instead he covers the chip with a magnetic plate to prevent Prime Destinations from tracking her. 

It becomes increasingly difficult for Callie to know who she can trust. No one is who she thought they were: she discovers that Briona is actually Doris and that Lee is Tinnenbaum. After a brief incarceration in Institution 37 for attempting to kill Senator Harrison, Callie escapes and is helped by Madison, the real Lauren who is a 150 year old Elder and her attorney, Mr. Crais. Lauren reveals that she was in the process of claiming Callie and so Prime Destinations has no claim over her. They bring together the grandparents of missing body bank donor teens and hope to enlist the help of Redmond who had altered Helena's chip. However, Redmond's compound is discovered destroyed by a bomb and he is missing. The next day Callie visits Prime Destinations to see the Old Man and offers her life for that of her brother Tyler. While she is bargaining with the Old Man, a team of marshals are arresting the body bank employees. The Old Man escapes via his heli transport. 

In the lobby of Prime Destinations, the Renters have returned having watched Lauren's broadcast that told them to return to the body bank because their chips were having issues. Many are not happy to have to leave their Rentals but all are returned to the Elder bodies and the teens to their Starter bodies. Tyler is found to be hiding at Prime Destinations and with Prime now destroyed, Lauren informs Callie that Helena left her half of her estate: her home and a country home. Callie takes Tyler to live in Helena's home and then goes to see Blake. 

Callie makes a shocking discovery: Blake has no knowledge of who she is nor any memories of Callie. Senator Harrison then reveals that his son was kidnapped by the Old Man so that his father would be forced into cooperating and making the deal with the president for Prime Destinations. With the Old Man using Blake's body he was able to learn of Helena's plans. Senator Harrison asks Callie to never reveal to Blake what happend to him. 

Prime Destinations is destroyed but the Old Man contacts Callie through her neurochip and asks her to join him. She refuses...

Discussion

Starters is a young adult dystopian novel that focuses on a post-apocalyptic America in which the elderly (Enders) use the bodies of teenagers (Starters). Not surprisingly this deeply unethical practice leads to even more abuse. 

Starters is a plot-driven novel with little world building and not much in the way of character development. America is in a post war period, a war that started over three years earlier in the Pacific Ocean. No one was winning the war, not America nor the Pac Rim. They launched genocidal spore weapons at America while America launched their EMP weapons at the Pac Rim countries, disabling their computers, planes and stock markets. The spore weapons killed anyone not vaccinated - those between the ages of twenty and sixty died, including Callie and Tyler's parents. Anyone under the age of nineteen was not allowed to work. This means survivors like Callie and Michael are destitute. They have been living on the streets, hiding in abandoned buildings to avoid the marshals who round up unclaimed children.

Author Lissa Price does and especially good job of explaining the science fiction premise of the novel, one that is reminiscent of James Cameron's Avatar movie in which an Elder can connect to the mind of a teen donor and use that body for a period of time. Everything seems to work fine for Callie's first two rentals but on the third rental, she discovers that she is awake in her own body but living her Renter, Helena Winterhill's life and that Helena is on a mission to assassinate someone. The rest of the novel involves Callie's determination to solve who her renter wants to assassinate and the reason behind such a drastic action.

At the crux of the mystery are the ethical questions that such a practice poses especially when it is revealed that the corporation behind the rentals is determined to make the use of a teen body no longer a rental but permanent. 

The protagonist, Callie Woodland is carefully sketched as a caring, moral person who tries to do the correct thing. Due to the extreme poverty she and her brother are experiencing, Callie is driven to sell her body to the body bank at Prime Directives. It's a statement on how extreme poverty forces women (and men to a lesser extent) to use their bodies to survive. In a previous time it might have been for prostition. In this post-apocalyptic world, it is a prostition of a different kind, young people allowing the elderly to use their bodies to live out their fantasies once more. Athough there are restrictions on the use of the bodies, such as not engaging in risky behaviour, the concept is disturbing. Callie also begins to recognize that Prime Destinations already holds the view that her body belongs to them. When she requests a break before her final rental, Tinnebaum reluctantly grants her request but warns her "Keep this body exactly as it is. Because right now, it still belongs to us."

At first Callie refuses to kill even though her Renter, Helena is determined to go through with the assassination. Callie resists, discarding weapons and insisting that she needs proof about what is happening before acting. It does seem convenient that she comes out of her blackouts just as Helena is about to act. And when the reality of what Prime Destinations is revealed, Callie fights back against what she believes is truly evil - the permanent kidnapping of teens. 

When the CEO of Prime Destinations reveals that the Renters will now be able to keep the body of the teen they are given, Callie is horrified. However Madison sees no ethical issues only possibilities to live out her life as a young woman again with a new, younger body. She tells Callie, "Why not? Of course it's fun to try different bodies, but instead of all the back-and-forth and in-and-out, it would be nice to settle with one and be done."  Howevcr Callie counters, "It's not like picking out a new dress or a car or a house. These are people. Living, breathing teen who have their whole lives ahead of them. But not if you steal it from them." It's clear that Madison hasn't thought through what is happening and what she's participating in. Callie tells her, "...if you are I are permanently in somebody's body, it means that girl will never get a break. She'll never know what it's like to go to college, fall in love, get married, have children. You might have those experiences - again - but she won't."  

The Enders were especially well done and it was clear that Callie and her generation  deeply fear and despise them. Many of the  Enders in the novel are portrayed as self-absorbed, superficial people concerned only with living longer and experiencing as much as possible, preferably in the body of a teenager. They also have no qualms using other people's bodies. However, it is with the help of some Enders such as Rhiannon, Helena and Lauren that Callie is able to stop Prime Destinations and rescue her brother.

While Starters has an interesting concept, its complex storyline meant that some things weren't always clear or explained. Price never really expanded on why the government should or would get involved in using the bodies of teens supplied by Prime. We don't know why the Enders live to be so old. We also don't know the outcome of the war for other parts of the US or for the Pacific countries involved in the war. Readers know very little about the Old Man, his true identity and how he came to be. His use of the snake head when Callie meets him was overly dramatic.  It's possible Price will develop this further in the next book, filling in the details as required.

Starters is a suspenseful, intensely satisfying book that will leave readers anxiously anticipating the next installment. This novel  has a magnificent book cover that was brilliantly designed by Melissa Greenberg.

Book Details: 
Starters by Lissa Price
Random House: Delacorte Press    2012
336 pp.

Remembering The Titanic: Photographs, Books, and Movies

One hundred years ago tonight, April 14, 1912, 23:40PM (ship's time - UTC-3), the RMS Titanic, with 2,224 people on board, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Deemed "virtually unsinkable", the Titanic, at that time, was the largest ship in the world and the most luxurious passenger ship afloat. That the ship sank on it's maiden voyage, that over 1,500 passengers and crew died, this most devastating maritime disaster has been immortalized in 20th century culture through books, movies and music.

My favourite movie, and one which I think best portrays the Titanic disaster, is A Night To Remember (1953), which is based on the book of the same title by Walter Lord. The movie was directed by Roy Ward Baker who used the testimony of some of the survivors.

Walter Lord's book, A Night to Remember is also a well written account of the disaster and remains one of the best books about Titanic. A new book, Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived by Andrew Wilson was published in March, 2012 and considers the profound effect the disaster had on the lives of those who survived. Wilson used memoirs, unpublished letters, and diaries to assess the aftermath of this tragedy.

There are many stories that were well known at the time of the tragedy but today are not well publicized. One such story is that of Father Thomas Byles, a Protestant convert to the Catholic faith. Father Thomas boarded the Titanic to travel to America for the upcoming wedding of his brother William who lived in New York. William and his fiance, Isabel Katherine Russell,  were to be married at St. Augustine's Catholic Church. Father obtained a ticket for second class berth and arranged with Captain Smith to say Mass for those aboard the ship. April 14 was the first Sunday after Easter and Father Thomas said Mass for those on board.

Father Thomas was reading his breviary on deck when the ship struck the iceberg. He went about helping people, especially the third class passengers whom he calmed and administered the Sacrament of Confession. Several passengers related later that Father Thomas twice refused a seat in a boat, preferring instead to offer comfort, confession and absolution to the many passengers who were about to die. At 2:20am when the boat was finally sinking into the ocean, Father Thomas led more than one hundred souls in reciting the Act of Contrition and gave them absolution.

Upon learning of the tragedy, William and Isabel hoped that Father Thomas might be among those rescued, but it was not to be. His body was never found. There is a website devoted to Father Thomas Byles,  who chose to continue his priestly ministry until the very end.

When the wreck of the Titanic was discovered in 1985 by Robert Ballard, the world was awestruck by the first eerie pictures of the silent, broken ship. For those of us for whom the sinking was a historic event,  the scope of the tragedy was again made all too real. Interest in the Titanic was reignited and resulted in James Cameron's blockbuster movie hit, Titanic in 1995. I am not a fan of this movie, which I believe trivializes the disaster with its storyline of two men fighting over a disillusioned and unhappy woman whilst the ship is sinking and over a thousand people are soon to perish. It is a rendition typical of an era in which post-modern culture focuses on mundane, irrelevant themes while ignoring the more noble.

The discovery of the Titanic also allowed scientists to do forensic research on the wreck and this has resulted in new theories about exactly how the ship, considered state of the art in both luxury and engineering at the time, could sink so quickly. An example of the such recent research can be found in scientific journals such as Materials Today with its article, What Really Sank The Titanic.

The discovery also allowed some artifacts from the ship to be recovered and these have been on exhibition this year, in remembrance of the tragedy. We now know that the wreck will not live forever as it is being rapidly consumed by iron-reducing bacteria. What we do have to remember Titanic and to preserve her memory for future generations, is a fascinating archive of photographs from the first part of her maiden voyage.

Father Frank Browne, a Jesuit priest, was an accomplished Irish photographer who recorded the first part of Titanic's maiden voyage, the journey from Southhampton to Cohb, Ireland. His uncle, Robert Browne who was Bishop of Cloyne, gave his nephew a ticket for the first part of the Titanic's maiden voyage. Despite his desire to continue onto New York, Father Browne disembarked at Cohn and his record of the Titanic survives today. You can view his amazing photographs here.

At 2:20 am, April 15, one hundred years ago, over 1,500 people died in a tragedy that could have be averted.

Eternal rest grant unto to them, O Lord.

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

"Every new year Mother visits

the I Ching Teller of Fate.

This year he predicts

our lives will twist inside out."

Ten year old Kim Ha lives with her family in war-torn Saigon, South Vietnam. Her family includes her older brothers Quang, 21 - an engineering student, and Vu who is 18, as well as younger brother, Khoi who is 4, and her mother. Her father, a Vietnamese navy officer, was captured nine years ago while on a mission. Ha's family continue to hope he is alive and will return some day. It is 1975, what will eventually be the final year of the Vietnam War, and for Ha this means celebrating her birthday and waiting for the delicious papayas to ripen. Little does she know how dramatically her life will soon change.

At first, despite her father's absence, the war seems to have little effect on the family. When war finally does come to Saigon, Ha, along with her family make the decision to leave their beloved country and flee via boat. Crammed onto a navy vessel along with thousands of other Vietnamese who do not desire to live under communist rule, they are rescued by the American navy. Their boat is towed to Guam where they are placed in a refugee camp. Eventually the family is sent to South Florida and are sponsored by a man and his wife from Alabama. Despite the good intentions of the couple from Alabama, the transition from Asian culture into what is essentially the American Bible Belt proves to be intensely confusing and painful for everyone.

For Ha, the transition proves to be almost impossible until one day she meets Miss Washington, a neighbour who agrees to tutor Ha and her family in English. However, learning English only adds to Ha's pain because she now understands the insults made by her American classmates. Eventually, as Ha grows to trust Miss Washington, she confides that she has been hiding at school, eating lunch in the bathroom and is being bullied by her classmates. Efforts to make things better only worsen the situation. But, as Ha and her family begin to acquire more language skills, the transition to their new life begins to go more slowly.

Discussion

In her novel, Inside Out & Back Again, Thanhha Lai poignantly captures the essence of what it was truly like for an refugee from Vietnam in 1975. This was a time when the world was a much smaller place and a profound lack of cultural understanding permeated the well-intentioned help offered to Asian refugees in America (and Canada). The prejudice that Ha and her family experience are due not only to racial intolerance but also to ignorance. Settling immigrants in an area of America with very different customs and beliefs, and especially in a part of America known for its staunch biblical beliefs, made integrating into American society much more difficult. In Canada, many Vietnamese refugees settled in Montreal, Quebec, where they at least had the familiarity of the French language.

Some of the intolerance may also have been due to the anger and pain Americans especially felt in the aftermath of losing the Vietnam War. Many Americans were angry at their government and military for the country's involvement in a guerrilla war they couldn't possibly win. Still others were angry at the Vietnamese people, whom they saw as being ungrateful towards the sacrifice made by American soldiers.

In eloquent and moving free verse, Thanhha Lai chronicles Ha's journey from February 11, 1975 until January 31, 1976. The novel's simple poems allow the reader, through the voice of Ha, to experience the raw emotions of hope, loss, and fear, thus making the character very realistic. One such poem captures the joy Ha feels about papayas.

Two More Papayas

I see them first.

Two green thumbs

that will grow into

orange-yellow delights

smelling of summer.

Middle sweet

between a mango and a pear

Soft as a yam

gliding down

after three easy,

thrilling chews. 

April 5

It's hard not to feel a deep empathy towards Ha, whose entire life has been turned inside out. Beside being in a new and strange country, she must also come to terms with the loss of her beloved father, and cope with the frustration of repeating a grade because she is struggling to learn in a new language.

Inside Out & Back Again provides young readers the opportunity to explore the situation immigrants face when coming to a new country. It also provides an opportunity to discuss the Vietnam War, an almost forgotten conflict that consumed America and Asia during the 1960's and early 1970's.

Book Details:
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
New York: Harper Collins 2011
262 pp.

Documentary: Kinshasa Symphony

In Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a remarkable and wholly improbable cultural entity exists amid the poverty and chaos of this troubled Third World nation. That entity is the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste (Kinshasa Orchestra) - Central Africa's one and only symphony orchestra.

The orchestra grew out of the efforts of founder and conductor, Armand Diangienda. Diangienda who is a cellist and also a composer, began fifteen years ago to bring the gift of music to his community with a few instruments which were shared amongst beginner musicians. Some of the instruments were donated, others rescued from the trash and repaired.

These self-taught musicians had to practice in shifts when there weren't enough instruments. The dedication and discipline demonstrated by the members of the Kinshasa Orchestra was evident from the beginning as many came to rehearsals after long workdays, and often had to make long treks into Kinshasa on foot or by taxi. Orchestra rehearsals were challenging but Diangienda proved to be a man with much patience and a deep love of music. Such perseverance has paid off. The Kinshasa Orchestra has performed the music of many composers including Beethoven, Handel and Orloff.

If the orchestra's conductor impresses, so too do the orchestra's two hundred musicians and vocalists, many of whom have risen above difficult personal and social circumstances to learn classical music well enough to perform in an orchestra or to sing in a choir. Their music not only overwhelms and impassions the listener, but the participants themselves.

For many involved in the Kinshasa Orchestra, it is a sanctuary, a reprieve from a world filled with tragedy, war and poverty. As one woman put it, "When I play music, I become myself."

The documentary, Kinshasa Symphony, directed by Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer explores this unique orchestra from three perspectives; the people, the city, and the music. All three have influenced the orchestra's development and its current musical direction.



CBS has done a wonderful segment on the orchestra in its show "60 Minutes". The video may be watched below:



In conjunction with the WDR Symphony Orchestra and Choir from Cologne, Germany, the OSK is working towards the establishment of a classical music school in Kinshasa. It will be fascinating to watch how this cultural force will influence further development of the arts in the Congo, and throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

The Night She Disappeared by April Henry

The Night She Disappeared is young adult mystery writer, April Henry's latest offering. Gabie Klug, Kayla Cutler and Drew Lyle work at Pete's Pizza in Portland. One night Kayla goes missing after delivering a pizza order to a male customer. Her car is found abandoned down by the Willamette River, driver's door open, keys in the ignition, and her purse on the front seat. Both Drew and Gabie feel that Gabie was the intended victim because the man who phoned in the order specifically asked if Gabie, who drives a Mini Cooper, would be delivering the pizza. The police however, don't seem to want to explore this connection much, preferring initially to keep their options open.

As Drew and Gabie try to come to terms with what has happened, they are drawn together into a budding romance. But they are two people from very different parts of society. Gabie's parent's are trauma surgeons and as such, her family is well off, living in a large, well kept home. She's alone much of the time, due to her parent's being on-call, and Pete's Pizza is like a family to her. In contrast, Drew lives with his mother in a run-down, cluttered apartment. His mother is a thief and a meth addict and Drew is her main support. 

Pete, owner of the pizza store, decides that no women employees will be delivering pizzas and as a result, the store schedule is reworked. For Drew who relies on the shifts at the pizza place for his income, this is a disaster. Gabie steps in and agrees to let him use her car to deliver pizzas. It is this action that will have positive ramifications later on.

When someone phones in a tip about a white pick-up truck having been seen in the vicinity of the river and second tip comes in identifying a young male, Cody Renfew , the repercussions are deadly. Police focus on Cody without much further investigation into the crime and the suspicion results in terrible consequences for him. With police convinced now that Kayla is dead, despite the lack of a body, and little evidence, Drew and Gabie are determined to find their lost friend. It takes Drew, out on a delivery in Gabie's Mini Cooper, who unwittingly provides the bait that leads to the novel's breathtaking climax.

Discussion

April Henry uses many characters in The Night She Disappeared to tell the story; Kayla, Drew, Gabie, Gavin (a diver, which isn't evident at first), "John Robertson" who is the kidnapper, and Todd and Jeremy (two kids who discover Kayla's car). This works surprisingly well because Henry keeps the storyline simple. "John Robertson" is suitably creepy and disturbing as the villain in the novel. He's not happy with the girl he got, especially since he really wants Gabie and still plans to grab her.

There are significant holes in the story-telling though: the police seem to ignore the fact that the perpetrator had initially targeted Gabie, and in the end conclude that Kayla, after 13 days, is dead. In real life, this simply wouldn't happen. With only circumstantial evidence, most of it quite weak, and no body, the police somehow arrive at this conclusion, resulting in Kayla's family  having a funeral service. Most family's wouldn't give up this easily and if they found the police efforts lacking, would be working hard to find their own leads. So this aspect of the novel was unrealistic, unbelievable, and wasn't  necessary to the novel's storyline.

Despite this plot weakness, The Night She Disappeared,  is a book that will appeal to younger teens interested in a good suspense novel. The plot is simple, there's an element of first love and conflict between the two main characters, and a crime to solve. It's also a short read that is fast paced, with added pieces of information to draw a reader in. There are police reports, pieces of evidence from the victim, lab reports, web information and 911 transcripts, all of which engage the reader and make the storytelling feel somewhat authentic.

Book Details:
The Night She Disappeared by April Henry
New York: Henry Holt    2012
229 pp.