What The Night Sings: A Novel by Vesper Stamper

There are many young adult novels that tell the heart-wrenching story of the Holocaust, the increasing restrictions on  the Jewish citizens in Germany and throughout Europe, the forced removal of Jews from their homes and placement into ghettos and camps where they were worked and/or starved to death or outright exterminated.  However, What The Night Sings takes a different approach. It is a historical fiction novel that portrays the life of a Holocaust survivor in the year after the war. The novel is divided into five part spanning the period from April 15, 1945 to the winter of 1947.

The novel begins with Part I Liberation Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp April 15 - 1945. This first part of the novel tells the story of sixteen-year-old Gerta Rausch who has been at Bergen-Belsen for a year. She is barely alive and ill with typhus. Her previous three bunk mates have died; and old woman who was diabetic and had a seizure, two younger girls slowly starving to death. Her current bunkmate, Rivkah is from Koln and knew Gerta's parents. She is also dying of typhus.

But Gerta is saved when Bergen-Belsen is liberated by British soldiers on April 15, 1945. Gerta is taken from the filthy barracks, stinking of death. Lying on the ground next to her is a boy, "another skeleton" who "looks like a marionette, with glass eyes and a smile painted over his skin-wrapped skull." He tells her that they are free and the British are rounding up the SS. He is only starving, so once he begins to eat, his strength improves. The boy feeds Gerta and tells her the SS guards are now being forced to bury the thousands of dead.

Ten days later, Gerta watches as the British soldiers round up the women from neighbouring villages and walk them "...through the corpse-woods, past the stinking mass graves, into the storage rooms where luggage molders unclaimed and shorn hair piles up in a corner, destined to be stuffed into mattresses and woven into cloth for SS uniforms." A month post-liberation and Gerta learns the red-haired boy who helped her is Levi Goldszmit.Gerta and Lev share their past with Lev telling Gerta he is from Kielce, Poland. Reflecting back on her childhood, Gerta begins to realize that her father hid the reality of their life from her. She remembers thinking,  "The war was hard on everyone, but thank goodness we weren't Jews, I thought. How awful to be harassed, beaten and humiliated in the street, to not be allowed to work or go to school. At least that didn't apply to us."

Part II briefly tells Gerta's experiences in various camp. It flashes back to when Gerta was six-years-old and living in Koln. Music is a big part of Gerta's life: her papa is first chair-viola and she loves to sing. At age twelve, Gerta and her papa now live in Wurzburg with Maria Buchner, the renowned Kobratursporano diva and now Gerta's stepmother. Gerta is part of a choir composed of the children of the symphony musicians.  Maestra Buchner decides that Gerta should attempt a solo, so she begins to teach her operatic technique.

Shortly after she turns fourteen, Gerta's voice changes, meaning she can no long hit high notes. Life becomes more complicated and puzzling to the sheltered girl. She remembers that "...constellations of yellow-starred people filed out of town -men, women and children carrying bundles of clothes, blankets, books tied together in stacks, weaving through the streets to the train station." Gerta knows they are Jews and believes they are leaving by choice to a safer place. They rarely go out now and the doors are kept locked. Gerta is tutored at home. Many people are wearing yellow stars on their clothing but Gerta doesn't as she's is German. However her papa has only a few students and he is now last chair in his section of the orchestra.

On June 17, Gerta is awakened by pounding on their apartment door. Soldiers enter their apartment, ordering Gerta and her papa out. They quickly pack their bags, and with Gerta carrying her father's viola, leave as Maria watches. They are marched down Hofstrasse to the Residenz Square and then to the Wurzburg Station. There they are packed into cattle cars. In the train, Gerta's father reveals to her that they are Jews, their families having lived in Germany for generations. Gerta's mother was killed when she was four years old in a raid on the Jewish club. With her mother's wedding ring, Gerta's father was able to have their identification papers - the Ahnenpass forged. They became the German Richters instead of the Jewish Rausch's. They moved to Wurzburg and were able to pass as German until someone betrayed them.

Gerta and her father arrive in Theresienstadt where they are separated, he to the musicians building, she to the girls building. What at first looks like a quaint town with lovely buildings is in fact a camp, with filthy, cramped, lice-ridden barracks, little food and many dead and dying. Gerta meets Roza a girl who plays piano and works in the clothing shop. After a year, the camp now very crowded, hosts the Red Cross who are there to make a movie. Before the Red Cross visit, Gerta's papa breaks his leg when he is tripped by a guard. Afterwards they are sent by train to Auschwitz where once again Gerta is separated from her papa who is in terrible pain from his broken leg. Gerta has her head shorn, is tattooed with a number, stripped and forced into striped pants and shirt. She learns the awful truth about her papa, that he has been killed, the smoke from the crematorium stacks, the only thing that left of him and many others.

Part's III, IV and V return to the present year of 1945 as Gerta struggles to recover from her ordeal, and find her own identity amid the loss of everything that once mattered to her. Help comes from the one person who understands what she has suffered, unexpectedly blossoming into a love that both challenges and heals.

Discussion

What The Night Sings is an unforgettable, riveting portrayal of the immediate post-Holocaust years for a young teenage survivor. As Vesper Stamper writes in her Author's Note at the back of the the novel, that despite growing up in a Jewish home in New York City,  she had never made the connection between the pogroms in Europe, the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel. She found little information on the period between the end of the Holocaust and the creation of the new state of Israel. "I had never connected the two, and I was fascinated by the human stories behind this seldom-discussed era. The fact that survivors, after losing everyone they loved, made the seemingly illogical decision to get married and bring new children into the world -- this seemed to me the absolute bravest act I had ever heard of. At the core of what it means to be human is the ability to choose not just to survive, not just to hope, but to love. A fire rose up in me to tell this story."
What began as a short story, blossomed into a project that saw Stamper personally trace her character Gerta's journey from Wurzburg to Bergen-Belsen by visiting the locations of death camps.  This emotional journey left Stamper feeling that through her novel she "could invite others to remember with me."

The main character is Gerta who survives the Holocaust only to find herself facing the profound and frightening question of "Who am I?".  When she was forced from her home in Wurzburg as a fourteen-year-old girl along with her father, Gerta did not know she was Jewish. As the situation worsened in Germany Gerta remained unconcerned because as far as she knew she was German. She learns about her Jewish ancestry from her papa on the transport to Thereseinstadt. In an attempt to protect Gerta, her papa had assumed a fake German identity. He gave up all outward signs of his Jewish faith when Gerta is very young, meaning that their Jewish customs and identity were not passed on.

One of the many illustrations by Vesper Stamper in What The Night Sings

Once Gerta beings to heal physically she soon begins to struggle with who she is and what her life will be. Various people she meets in the displaced persons camp at Bergen-Belsen help  Gerta discover the answers to these questions. These people include Levi Goldszmit,  Michah Gottlieb, Roza and Helene.

In the camp Gerta meets the handsome Michah Gottlieb with whom she is infatuated and who is arranging passage to the Jewish homeland  - Eretz Yisrael. Gerta believes that she can go back to Koln but Michah tells her this is impossible. "...Koln is a total ruin. and where exactly do you think the Nazis went. They're back home, sweetheart, getting their jobs back, still in charge, but without the brown shirts. Do you think that once you get out of here, your neighbors will suddenly be in their right minds just because the war is over? That you'll somehow emerge into a sane world?"  Michah tells Gerta that they have no future in Europe and that the Jews need their own homeland where they don't have to worry about another pogrom. Gerta insists she is German but Michah counters that this hatred has existed for centuries, for two thousand years. But his reasoning only makes Gerta angry as she asserts, "...I'm not some Zionist. I'm - I'm barely anything at all. And I don't have to be. I don't have to do any of this!"

Gerta's best friend is Lev but Lev with his deep Jewish faith and a lifetime of Jewish customs to draw on, wants to marry Gerta, something Gerta is not ready for. She tells Lev, "Besides, until all this happened, I didn't even know I was Jewish. And my experience of what that means? It's this place. It's fear. It's death. I don't want that life. I don't know a god, I don't know a family, I don't even know myself..."  Lev is ready to  "rediscover what it means to be Jewish." and is hoping that together they can grow young together. However while Lev's faith is a comfort to him, to Gerta it is not. Gerta struggles with the age-old questions about God, suffering and evil. To Gerta, God "took away everything, everyone we loved..." But Lev challenges her to recognize who really was responsible. "I'm not sure who took them, Gerta...Who? Hitler? The SS?... Or was it our neighbors? The ones who wanted your house or your silver..."


It is Helene who voices Gerta's internal conflict after Gerta the painful truth about her friendship with Michah. When she first meets Helene, Gerta identifies herself as "a musician first" but Helene reminds Gerta that is not who she is. She tells Gerta, "I wonder how many other girls are walking in your shoes. So young, coming of age with no family, no sense of who you are. You keep to yourself, not wanting to lose anything more, not know what's next. Is that right?"   Helene invites Gerta to partake of the ritual bathing, in which she will wash away the terrible memories and begin to be healed.

With her voice seemingly ruined, Gerta begins to realize that her life will not be what she thought it would be - that she would someday be a famous mezzo-soprano.  Gerta considers her lost voice the price of her survival, "We all paid with some part of ourselves. None of us escaped unbroken." Lev has a different more positive perspective. "We survived with the best part of us still intact" he tells Gerta, meaning that she has her music and he has his father's faith. It is Roza who helps Gerta recover what is really an important part of who she is - her voice. Before the transport, Gerta thought of herself as an aspiring singer. She learned to play her father's viola but it was her singing that she lived for.  In the displaced persons camp she cannot sing. Roza tries to understand why and Gerta explains "They took my voice...I have nothing to sing for." Instead she plays her father's viola because she'd "rather have that than try to sing form someplace dry and dead and empty." Roza tells Gerta not to let the Nazis take her voice and that sometimes you have to do things "out of brokenness." With Roza's help Gerta begins to sing again, discovering that her voice is not gone but just different. Although her first attempt to sing publicly in the camp fails, her reconciliation with Maria Buchner whom Gerta wrongly thought betrayed them to the Nazis, sets her on the path to recovering her gift of singing. Maria encourages her to continue, that her voice will ripen as she heals and lives.

Gerta, filled with happiness. Illustration by Vesper Stamper.

Eventually Gerta is able to fall in love with Lev whom she begins to realize does understand her. Both Lev and Gerta are trying to make sense of their new life, to  begin again but they soon realize that the past must be left behind. This is very evident when they return to Lev's hometown of Kielce, Poland and encounter intense anti-Semitism. Their only hope is to travel to the new Jewish homeland in Palestine, which eventually becomes Israel. 

The cover of What The Night Sings, features a black butterfly as it passes out the window, turning to a deep blue.The motif of the butterfly can be found throughout the novel as a symbol of Gerta's voice, innocence, hope and freedom. The butterfly comes to her when she's a child, giving her songs to sing but is lost during her suffering in the camps,  only to return when she enters the mikvah to cleanse herself of the haunting memories of the Holocaust. In Israel, as she rediscovers herself, her heritage and recovers her voice, the butterfly escapes through the window.

Accompanying the story of Gerta and Lev are the dark, sepia-like illustrations by the novel's author, Vesper Stamper, a gifted artist too. They are done in ink wash, white gouache, and graphite. These moving illustrations enhance the story's themes of war, fear, inner conflict, faith, and identity.

Stamper has included a detailed Author's Note explaining her writing process, a Glossary, a map of Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia and also Palestine, and a list of Resources. Born out of watching the movie Fiddler On The Roof, What The Night Sings is well-researched, deeply touching and very relevant to teenagers who often struggle with finding their path in life. This beautiful novel is a work of art in every sense of the term.

Readers are encouraged to check out Vesper Stamper's website, Vesper Stamper Illustration to see her artwork, books and to learn more about this amazing new author.


Book Details:

What The Night Sings: A Novel by Vesper Stamper
New York: Alfred A. Knopf       2018
266 pp, 

The Button War: A Tale of the Great War by Avi

It is August 1914. Patryk is one of seven boys who form a group in a small village in Poland, which at this time, is occupied by the Russians. On this late summer day the boys are hanging out at the old ruins in the forest. The group consists of  Makary, a small boy who is the fastest runner, Raclaw whose father is the village lawyer able to speak Polish, Russian and German, Jurek a boy who is caned often at school and who insists he is a descendant of King Boleslaw, Wojtex who is the chubby son of the village butcher, Drugi who is the smallest, a frail boy always trying to understand things and Ulryk who wants to be a priest.

Jurek believes the ruins are those of an old castle belonging to Poland's first king, King Boleslaw the Brave. He claims to be the descendant of this ancient Polish king and that he owns both the ruins and the surrounding forest. However, the boys mostly think this is a joke. Jurek is the leader of the group, the one who thinks up new things for them to do and who is always daring them. Jurek lives with his eighteen-year-old sister in a one-room shack on the edge of the village. His sister washes the uniforms of the occupying Russians and in this way supports them as their parents are both dead.

Patryk is more fortunate as he lives with his parents in a three-room wooden house with a main room that serves as his parent's bedroom, a kitchen and at the back, his father's workshop. Patryk's father is "a wheelwright repairing and making wooden wagon wheels." Patryk is learning this trade from his father.

One day Patryk finds a small rusty button near the castle ruins. Jurek wants the button and tries to get Patryk to give it to him. When he refuses, Jurek becomes enraged, screaming and threatening Patryk with a large stick. Patryk holds his ground and then tosses the button into the forest. He is shocked by the hatred he sees in Jurek's face.

Later in August, as Patryk is going to school he witnesses the bombing of the old wooden school house by the Germans. It burns to the ground, killing the school teacher and a nine-year-old boy named Cyril. Makary wants to know why the war has come to their tiny village. The boys tell him that although the village is in Poland it has belonged to Russia.

Raclaw reveals that his father was told by the Russian commandant Dmitrov that they are leaving the village because the Germans are advancing. Meanwhile Jurek and Patryk take Raclaw to Jurek's backyard where he too cuts a button off a Russian uniform hanging on the clothesline. Jurek claims that his button with the knight fighting the dragon is the best.

The three boys leave for home but Patryk, wanting to get a Russian button like Jurek's and realizing that with the Russians leaving this might be his only chance, sneaks back to Jurek's house. He steals a button, one that is exactly the same as Jurek's.

The next morning the seven boys watch from the village water pump as the Russians march out of the village.They discuss the withdrawal of the Russians and the coming of the Germans. Jurek brags about his button but when he sees that Patryk has the same button, he becomes enraged and then announces his dare. "Wait! Got a great idea! We'll have a contest! Whoever gets the best button wins. Winner gets to be king. Means everyone has to bow down to him. Best dare ever. Buttons." Jurek insists that they cannot ask for a button but must "get" one.

Shortly after this the German's bomb the retreating Russians. Jurek leads the boys out of the village, to where the bombing happened, and they find many dead Russian soldiers. Jurek determined to find a winning button, climbs into a bomb crater. All the boys follow him but Patryk who is disgusted. This doesn't resolve the button challenge however, and Jurek tells the other boys they must wait until the Germans arrive to get better buttons.

Back in the village the boys decide to scavenge through the ruins of the school house. Ulryk uncovers their late teacher, Mr. Szujski's wooden cane that he used to beat the students with. Jurek snatches the cane away from Ulyrk, insisting that the boy who wins the button dare - the button king - should have the cane. He promptly strikes Drugi hard on the arm. Remembering Jurek's anger in the forest, Patryk knows he cannot let Jurek win the cane or the button dare. "Knowing that if Jurek won the cane, he would use it in the worse way -- as he just had. And that told me that I absolutely couldn't let Jurek be the button king. He'd go crazy."

Patryk's worst fears are realized in ways not even he could have imagined, as the button dare escalates and pushes the boys into the most dangerous of situations.

Discussion

Avi whose real name is Edward Irving Wortiss is the author of many acclaimed children's and teen novels. Like many of the best stories, The Button War had its germ in a story Avi was told by his father years ago. On Avi's website he explains his father's story:
"The story he told was rather unusual. He was raised in a village somewhere in Eastern Europe, but with so many national boundary changes, he could not even say precisely which country. During World War One, he said, his village was invaded and taken over by now this army, now that, from different nations. When these armies took over his village, the soldiers commandeered the women to wash their uniforms. Once washed, the uniforms were hung out to dry. The boys in the village—so my father-in-law related—would sneak about, cut the buttons from the uniforms, collect them, and trade them amongst themselves. This in the midst of The Great War."

As Avi explains, the button dare, which escalates, becoming both increasingly reckless and violent, mimics the escalating conflict that was to become the Great War. The boys begin by stealing buttons from Jurek's sister's clothesline, but are soon retrieving buttons from dead soldiers. From this they quickly move to following the soldiers and eventually even becoming involved in the conflict. The consequences are terrible.Their desire to collect buttons knows no bounds and directly results in the deaths of several of the boys; Drugi is beaten to death by an Austrian soldier for attempting to steal a button and Wojtex is executed for having a Russian button because the German's believe he is a traitor. Jurek's desire to obtain the best button leads him to become involved with the Russians helping them to set up the ambush of German soldiers which results in Raclaw being seriously wounded. As the boys are either killed or drop out, the contest becomes one between Jurek and Patryk.

Through the character of Patryk, Avi demonstrates how its possible to lose sight of what is right and be drawn further into a conflict. While many of the boys are eager at first to partake in Jurek's dare, only Patryk seems to understand the consequences should Jurek win.Patryk was the biggest and the strongest of the boys. His father tells him that God made him this way "to help the weak." Mindful of this, Patryk stays in the dare to try to win because he knows that Jurek will treat the other boys in a brutal manner if he becomes the button king. However, fighting on Jurek's terms doesn't help, as Patryk discovers, because Jurek keeps changing the conditions of the dare. As long as Patryk continues to play by Jurek's rules, he loses and becomes more and more like Jurek and is drawn in deeper. Just as Jurek does, Patryk desecrates the dead by stealing buttons from them and he steals from the living. He risks his life several times, all for buttons. He just can't seem to quit and walk away.

It is actually Ulryk, the boy who wants to be a Catholic priest, who does the right thing. He goes to Father Stanislaw, confesses and then throws his buttons in the river. When Patryk tells him that if he leaves, Jurek will be king, Ulryk, responds, "Not for me." and walks away. Even after Makary is killed by Jurek, Patryk still doesn't give up. He still intends to beat Jurek but the war intervenes. It doesn't stop Jurek who will now kill anyone to win. Finally Patryk does what Ulryk did - he throws the one button he still has away in disgust and runs out of the village to find his parents.

All of this is an allegory for the madness of the Great War where countries fought for four years over small patches of mud-filled, cratered, blackened land for no reason and where men were executed for desertion or bullied into enlisting. Even when it was obvious that no one was winning and that millions of lives,both soldiers and civilians were being lost, no one country would call a truce and end the war. Like the boys in the button war, the leaders of countries involved in World War I lost sight of what they were fighting for and why they were fighting and if they should even continue to fight the war.

The Button War, reminiscent of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, is a dark, tragic novel. It is well written, with realistic characters and a well-created setting that portrays life in a village caught in the middle of a war.

Book Details:

The Button War: A Tale of the Great War by Avi
Somerville, Massachusetts:  Candlewick Press     2018
229 pp.

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty

Twelve-year-old Lucy Callahan was struck by lightning four years ago. Lucy was playing with her friend Cecelia, outside the apartment building she and Nana lived in when a sudden thunderstorm developed. Lucy decided to climb a chain link fence which was struck by lightning. The lightning strike knocked Lucy unconscious, stopping her heart, and her friend to the ground. Lucy's life was saved by the apartment maintenance man who was able to restart her heart with a defibrillator. Other than burns to her hands, Lucy seemed to be fine. That is until a week later.

While watching television with Nana, Lucy was inexplicably able to calculate the cost of a car from monthly payments in her head. Suddenly, Lucy who was in Grade 2 and learning addition and subtraction, could do difficult math calculations. Doctors diagnosed her with acquired savant syndrome, meaning she had developed a profound talent - in her case, the ability to do mathematics.

In reality, Lucy's brain was damaged by the lightning strike, part of the left lobe of her brain was shut down, resulting in the right side working overtime. Lucy can do advanced mathematical calculations, calendar math, recognize mathematical patterns and she "sees" math with every number having it's own colour and shape. Lucy also has a fear of germs which leads her to sanitize every surface she touches and she needs to sit/stand three times before she sits anywhere. She also needs to count all the words before she can read anything. Because of all her peculiar habits, Lucy has been homsechooled since her accident and now at the age of twelve has passed high school, the GED and gotten perfects chores on her SATs. She wants to attend college but her nana believes she is too young.

Lucy's beloved Uncle Paul who is a marine visits their apartment before he moves away to California. He gives Lucy a pendant of a lightning bolt. During his short stay, he supports Nana in her decision to have Lucy attend public school. Lucy doesn't want to go to middle school but instead wants to go to college. She believes she can do everything online. However she hasn't left the apartment in four weeks and her only friends are online ones that she's made through the various math forums.

After a brief tour and a meeting with Dr. Cobb, principal of East Hamlin Middle School, Lucy is enrolled in Grade 7. Nana insists she attend for a year, "Make 1 friend. Do 1 thing outside o f these walls. Read 1 book not written by an economist or a mathematician." Lucy is certain that attending school will be a disaster.

Despite her strange habits and the fact that she's new to the school, Lucy does make two friends; Windy Sitton who loves musicals and is intrigued by Lucy's strangeness and Levi Boyd, a boy with two moms who loves photography and is caught cheating off of Lucy during their assessment in math class. Lucy is  made fun of and her strange habits earn her the label "cleaning lady". She spends most of her time attempting to hide her mathematical genius. She calculates how many questions she should get wrong on tests to that it won't look like she is hiding something. Lucy uses her math abilities to help her group of Windy and Levi in their class project. As her friendship with her two classmates grows, Lucy calculates that she can let them in on her secret - that she's really a math genius. However, Lucy begins to realize that while numbers can help predict certain things, not everything in life can be determined mathematically. She might be a math genius but Lucy discovers she's making many miscalculations about trust and the meaning of friendship.

Discussion

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl is an enjoyable story about a young girl trying to come to terms with her differences while learning to trust and build friendships.

After her brain is damaged by a lightning strike, making her a math savant, Lucy Callahan believes her life is set, the equation of life has been solved - she will go to university and study math. Her unusual repetitive behaviours have forced her into the solitude of home, where she is taught by her Nana. But her wise Nana knows this is not healthy for Lucy and forces her into a year of school, to make a friend, and do something within the community. She knows this will be a difficult task for her young granddaughter who sees everything as numbers, but she hopes it will broaden Lucy's perspective.

And so Lucy enters school with the intention of simply surviving the year. However middle school forces her to interact with other people, something her mathematical abilities cannot really help her to do. Lucy uses her mathematical abilities to help her navigate life. She sees everything in mathematical terms. For example, the colours of clothing people all have numbers for Lucy. "I wear a teal-and-pink-striped shirt (like the colors of 107 and 42) and dark jeans." What Lucy can't understand are people and this difficulty leads to the inevitable crisis.

Initially she makes a good decision about who to tell about her mathematical gift. Although Windy is her budding friend, Lucy decides first to tell Levi about what happened to her at age eight. "I can't explain it, but I trust that Levi will keep my secret."  Despite the fact that Levi cheated off of her on their assessment and got them both in trouble, Lucy reasons, "Unlike Windy, he rarely talks about other people. I know I should get it over with and tell her, too. She's my best friend, and she shares every detail of her life with me...The problem is, she also tells me about everyone else. From her mom - who needs to wax a mustache - to which kids repeated kindergarten. There's no controlling information once it's in Windy's head. No vault. No lock and key. No secret combinations."

As it turns out Lucy was correct in her assessment of both Levi and Windy. She does eventually tell Windy who is upset that Levi knew before her. Levi explains to Windy that Lucy struggles to trust people. "Give her a break," Levi says, opening another box of candy. 'She did tell you a minute ago. Lucy's like a nervous teacup Chihuahua. She takes a while to trust someone.' " Levi likens himself to a trusty golden retriever.  Windy breaks Lucy's trust by revealing her secret at her birthday party.

While Lucy can understand advanced mathematical concepts she cannot understand Windy's betrayal of her secret. "For someone who is supposed to be smart, I can't figure out how to get Pi adopted, and I can't figure out Windy. Why did she tell my secret to someone who is always mean to her. She chose Maddie over me. Maddie." Lucy's miscalculation results in her feeling betrayed and angry. But when Windy confronts Lucy, apologizing for her actions, she forces Lucy to really listen to her. Lucy believes Windy told her secret "to get the other girls to like you by making fun of me..." however, Windy reveals that she wanted her friends to be Lucy's friends too. Lucy questions why Windy wants to be her friend and Windy states,  "You never complain about my love of musicals or my causess. You don't try to change people. It's like you're only trying to understand people."  Windy tells Lucy that she feels accepted. However for Lucy people will always be an unsolvable equation. "I will never understand people. In algebra, you can solve an equation when you have 1 unknown variable. People are equations with dozens of variables. Basically unsolvable."

By the end of the novel, Lucy is beginning to understand that life is not an equation with a set solution. For example, where she once thought that she would just want to move on to college, she now has several possibilities for schooling in January: she can continue on at East Hamlin, she can attend NCASME or she can home school. Attending school has also helped Lucy understand that others have their own problems something she comes to realize about classmate and mean girl, Maddie.

McAnulty has crafted a delightful novel about friendship, forgiveness and acceptance.  The Miscalcuations of Lightning Girl is populated with realistic, endearing characters: the trustworthy Levi, Windy who thinks big and wants to save the world, and the understanding, kind Mr. Stoker who pushes Lucy to share her gift with the world. Overall  The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl is an enjoyed read.

Book Details:

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty
New York: Random House     2018
293 pp.

House of Dreams by Liz Rosenberg

Lucy Maud Montgomery is perhaps best know for her  novel, Anne of Green Gables that told the story of a red-haired orphan, Anne Shirley who is adopted by  siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. Published in 1908, the novel is set in the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island during the late 1800's. Based on many events in her life, the novel was immediately popular. L.M. Montgomery went on to author many other novels, including Emily of New Moon, The Blue Castle and The Tangled Web and a large number of poems and short stories.

In House of Dreams, Liz Rosenberg delves into the life of Maud as she preferred to be called. Maud was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island on November 30, 1874. Her father, Hugh John Montgomery was the son of Senator Donald Montgomery and her mother was Clara Woolner Macneill, whose family was one of three founding families of Cavendish, P.E.I.

The Montgomerys and Macneills could not be two more different families. Maud's great-great-grandmother Mary Montgomery was responsible for the family settling on the island. As the story goes, profoundly sea-sick, Mary refused to return to their boat marking the end of their voyage. Maud's paternal grandfather, Donald Montgomery was a Conservative who served in the provincial legislature for over forty years, and had a career in the Senate too. In contrast, the Macneills were Liberals. Maud's maternal great-great-grandmother was not happy to be settled on Prince Edward Island. In protest, she refused to take of her bonnet.

Maud at age 6

Maud was born almost nine months after her parents married. Hugh John and Clara struggled to make a living from a small country store they operated. Neither were adept at managing a small business and the store failed. Clara soon became ill with tuberculosis, and John Hugh moved his family to Cavendish where the Macneills could care for their daughter. Sadly Clara died in September of 1876, when Maud was not quite two years old.

Although Maud worshiped her father, he struggled to support her and increasingly left her in the care of her strict Scottish grandparents, Alexander and Lucy Macneill who had a farm just outside of Cavendish, on the north shore. John Hugh eventually moved to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, abandoning Maud when she was just seven-years-old  and beginning a new life, remarrying later on and starting a new family. Instead of being angry with her father, Maud continued to adore him.

Maud's grandmother, Lucy Macneill was to play an important role in her life, advocating for her granddaughter, and paying for her education, when Alexander refused to support her.  The Macneills were staunch Scottish Presbyterians, who took few trips and kept to themselves. They did visit relatives at Park Corner, John and Annie Campbell. Maud's cousin Frede Campbell would become Maud's closest friend. The Macneill home was cold in the winter so Maud had to sleep downstairs but in the spring and summer, her favourite seasons, Maud was able to live upstairs. She had her own bedroom, and a den which "became her essential and cherished place to dream and work." Throughout Maud's life, her "moods soared or plummeted according to the seasons." It is likely Maud suffered from seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Maud at age 28.

Rosenberg traces Maud's life through her youth, adult life and into old age. Maud was able to attend Prince of Wales College and earn a first class teacher's license. She also attended Dalhousie University in Halifax. Her adult life was filled with many troubles and much literary success. Maud seemed unlucky in love; she was courted by John Mustard whom she had no intention of marrying,  became engaged to her cousin Edwin Simpson whom she felt she could never marry, had a romantic relationship with the already engaged Herman Leard during this time, broke off her engagement and eventually married Ewan Macdonald, a minister who unbeknownst to Maud had serious mental health issues. However, in 1908, her novel Anne of Green Gables, which had been repeatedly rejected by publishers only a few years earlier was published by L.C. Page of Boston, Massachusetts. This marked the beginning of Maud's extensive literary career.

Sadly Maud's life was not always happy. She had a difficult marriage to Ewan Macdonald, who had serious mental health issues. Maud and Ewan moved to Toronto after their marriage where they had two children and a baby that was stillborn.  Her oldest son Chester was a difficult child and grew into a man with serious problems. Despite her many personal challenges, Maud continued to write. Her books were enjoyed around the world and her successful literary career allowed her to earn enough to live comfortably.

Lucy Maud Montgomery will be forever remember for Anne of Green Gables, but House of Dreams shows there was much more to her story than just this one novel.

Discussion

House of Dreams is Liz Rosenberg's revealing biography of Lucy Maud Montgomery presents many details of her life, gleaned from the extensive primary sources. Rosenberg used Maud's many journals, daybooks and letters to family and friends as her primary source material. Sadly almost all of Maud's early writings, poems and journal entries were destroyed before the age of fifteen by the author herself, something she later regretted. Despite this Rosenberg is able to piece together Maud's early life for her readers.

While some might know that L. M. Montgomery had an unsettled life, many probably did not know just how troubled her personal life was. Her journals paint a picture of a woman suffering from depression and anxiety, who may have had manic episodes and who was prone to debilitating bouts of deep despair.

Her youth and early adult life were certainly difficult as Maud had an intense desire to be a writer, but this dream was definitely not supported by her stiff-necked grandfather, Alexander Macneill. Maud was an excellent student but did not have the finances to fully achieve the education she desired. A good education would have allowed her to support herself and write. Instead her grandfather refused to help in any way refusing both money and transportation and it was her grandmother who gave Maud the necessary money to attend school. Maud showed resiliency and determination, often taking two years course load in one because she did not have the financial means to attend for two years.

Green Gables Heritage- farmhouse

Rosenberg demonstrates that many events and people in Maud's life were the germ for the characters in her novels. "Everything in Maud's early life led to the writing of that book, but she had to overcome a hundred obstacles to achieve it."

Maud grew up in a family of storytellers so it's not surprising she felt compelled to write her own. Her grandfather Alexander and her great-aunt Mary Lawson were especially influential as they had reputations a great storytellers. Anne was also influenced by one of her teachers, Miss Hattie Gordon who encouraged her Cavendish students to write.

Maud took everyday events of her life and worked them into her most famous novel, Anne of Green Gables. The novel grew out of an idea Maud had had a few years earlier about an elderly couple who decide to adopt a boy but end up with a girl instead. Maud "...transformed her own history of abandonment into a story of rescue. Maud put herself into the fictional Anne: her own vivid imagination; a passionate love of nature; her habit of naming inanimate objects; the imaginary cupboard friends; her hungry affection for books; her own vanity, pride, stubbornness; and a deep, abiding attachment to those she loves."

The fictional Avonlea was based on Cavendish, the Lake of Shining Waters was the pond at her cousin's home in Park Corner. Rosenberg writes that "Anne's house, Green Gable, was loosely based on a house belonging to two other cousins, David and Margaret Macneill."  Maud took some of the characteristics of her father John Hugh and her grandmother, Lucy Macneill for Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. However, although Matthew Cuthbert shared John Hugh's shy disposition, he was a devoted father to Anne, unlike Maud's own father. And Marilla's "keen sense of humour and understanding" was very different from Maud's grandmother.

"Anne of Green Gables is a book about creating lasting family. It is a celebration of place, a story about belonging.No one but Maud Montgomery, with all her checkered history and heart-hungry longing, could have created it."

Although modern readers mostly focus on the love story between Anne and Gilbert in Anne of Green Gables, it is as Rosenberg points out and as Canadian author Margaret Laurence has stated,  really the growing love between Marilla and Anne that dominates this first novel. Anne and Gilbert's relationship blossoms into love in a later novel.

House of Dreams will appeal to keen fans of Anne of Green Gables. Reading Liz Rosenberg's biography will give readers a true sense of L. M. Montgomery's life and how her own story shaped those she created. Julie Morstad has produced lovely line drawings done in ink which can be found at the beginning of each chapter.What this books lacks are photographs of Anne and her family, and perhaps  Nevertheless, House of Dreams is well written, definitively researched and engaging. Rosenberg includes an Epilogue in which she explores the circumstances surrounding Maud's death. There is also a Time Line of L.M. Montgomery's life, Source Notes and a Bibliography.

Fans interested in further exploring the life and writings of Lucy Maud Montgomery are encouraged to check out the University of Prince Edward Island's  L.M. Montgomery Institute at

https://lmmontgomery.ca/about/l-m-montgomery/

The Canadian Encyclopedia has a detailed entry on Lucy Maud Montgomery.

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/montgomery-lucy-maud

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on Lucy Maud Montgomery.:

 https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/montgomery_lucy_maud_17E.html

Images of Lucy Maud Montgomery are from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography:

age 6: https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/montgomery_lucy_maud_17E.html#lg=1&slide=6

age 28: https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/montgomery_lucy_maud_17E.html#lg=1&slide=11

Green Gables Heritage Park - farmhouse image: http://cavendishbeachpei.com/members-operators/green-gables-heritage-place/

Book Details:

House of Dreams: The Life of L.M. Montgomery by Liz Rosenberg
Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press   2018
339 pp.

The Game of Hope by Sandra Gulland

Fifteen-year-old Hortense Beauharnais is a survivor of the French Revolution. It is 1798, four years after the Reign of Terror ended with the beheading of its architect, Robespierre. Hortense's father, Alexandre was guillotined days before the end, but her mother barely survived, due to be executed the next day. After the murder of her father, twelve-year-old Hortense was sent to the Institute, an all-girls school run by Maitresse Campan and located in a chateau that used to belong to a wealthy family in Montagne-du-Bon-Air. Hortense's mother, Rose, now called Josephine, is re-married to General Napoleon Bonaparte who is with the French army in Egypt, as is her older brother Eugene.

Also attending the boarding school are her cousin Emilie and Maitresse Campan's niece, Adele Auguie who is nicknamed Mouse. Emilie attends the school because she has no family to care for her; her father fled during the Reign of Terror and her mother was imprisoned but is now married to her former prison guard. Emilie is newly married to Captain Antoine Lavalette, an arranged marriage to an officer in Napoleon's army in Egypt. Almost every girl in the boarding school is from the aristocracy and has terrible memories of the revolution.

Hortense has just recently returned to the school after spending three months caring for her injured mother. The story opens with Hortense suffering from a yet another nightmare of her father approaching and reaching out for her, his body headless. Her school mates believe that Hortense has seen a ghost.

As a "Multi", that is an older girl who wears a multi-coloured sash, Hortense is responsible for helping the younger girls who are divided into levels by colour. She helps them get up and get dressed in the morning, get to the dining hall and to learn proper etiquette. Her charge is 4-year-old Nelly.

One of the Multis is Bonaparte's sister, Annunziata who like the rest of the family, has changed her name, calling herself Caroline. She has been late at least five times, so Citoyenne Florentine who is the night monitor, assigns her to the Table of Repentance. Maitresse Campan takes time to speak to Hortense, concerned about her recurring nightmare of her father and telling her she once met her father and saw him dance with the Queen. Maitresse also informs Hortense that she will be taking music lessons from the new music instructor, Citoyen Hyacinthe Jadin, who also teaches at the Conservatory in Paris.

Hortense's mother Josephine returns to Paris and has her daughter accompany her to a "civic celebration of Bonaparte's victorious Battle of the Pyramids and his triumphant entry into Cairo"  Hortense is concerned for her mother who seems deeply upset but who won't let on what is troubling her.  However, when Hortense returns to the school she learns from Eliza that the entire French fleet has been sunk by the British - all thirteen ships and that they now control the Mediterranean.

Out of concern for her brother Eugene, Hortense continues writing him letters which she does not mail. In these letters she also mentions her concern for Major Christophe Duroc whom she is infatuated with.

Hortense Beauharnais

Then terrible rumours circulate that Napoleon has been assassinated by an Arab. However, they soon learn that this is not true, but that Eugene was injured. In the summer of 1799, Hortense returns to her mother's home, Malmaison. Hortense questions Emilie about her father because Caroline has hinted that he is not really her father. Emilie reveals to Hortense the difficult situation between her parents and their separation but does tell her that in the end her father acknowledged that she was his daughter. Unfortunately, the two girls quarrel when Hortense tells Emilie that her affections as a married woman for Louis Bonaparte are wrong. During the summer Emilie is stricken with small pox and although she recovers, her face is badly scarred.

Hortense, Emilie, and Caroline return to the Institute but soon after Hortense becomes ill and is forced to return to her mother in Paris. Meanwhile Josephine attempts to convince the Directors to send a fleet to rescue Bonaparte, but they refuse. Then she learns that Bonaparte and Eugene have managed to travel to the port in the south of France. Determined to meet her husband before his family, Josephine along with Hortense travel to the south of France but they miss Bonaparte. Instead they journey back to Paris to find Bonaparte already there and refusing to see Josephine. Eventually it is Hortense and Eugene who convince him to see her and they reconcile. Josephine's home becomes Napoleon's base with many soldiers coming and going. This results in Hortense seeing Eugene's fellow aide-de-camp, Colonel Christophe Duroc.

Napoleon survives a coup and the Directors running the government are disbanded. A three person Consulate is formed that consists of Napoleon Bonaparte and two previous directors. Napoleon moves Josephine and her family into the Petit Luxembourg. They do not know it yet but this is beginning of Napoleon's rise to rule France. For Hortense. it marks the beginning of her life in French society with many opportunities to meet Christophe Duroc. Soon enough she will be pulled into the political intrigue of Napoleonic France.

Discussion

The Game of Hope was authored by Sandra Gulland who has written extensively on Hortense's mother, Josephine Beauharnais Bonaparte. She was asked to write a YA biography on Josephine's daughter, Hortense but Gulland was curious to know if Hortense's life would be interesting enough to write about and she learned that it was. To that end, Gulland has crafted a fascinating account of Hortense Beauharnais's life and a revealing account of life in France in the years immediately after the Reign of Terror and during the rise of Napoleon. Not only do young readers learn about Hortense but also about her mother Josephine, the rapidly changing political scene in France during the period immediately following the Reign of Terror and Napoleon's rapid rise to power.

Gulland had to pick and choose what she was going to include in her story. For example she states in her Afterword that in real life there were many more relatives and friends than could be reasonably included in the story. Families in Catholic France were much larger and many well-to-do families had servants. To keep the number of characters manageable, many were left out of the novel.

The Game of Hope portrays a France struggling to come to terms with the horrors of the Reign of Terror. Hortense has recurrent nightmares of her father's execution. While Hortense is aware that her mother escaped being guillotined by only a day, her cousin Emilie's mother - Hortense's aunt was not so lucky. She jumped to her death the day before Robespierre was executed, so as to save her daughter from being impoverished. Convents are empty because all the nuns have been executed. 

Gulland has crafted a believable portrayal of Hortense Beauharnais, a young woman who was a gifted composer and who was tutored by Hyacinthe Jardin, a promising young composer who died prematurely of tuberculosis. Hortense struggles to come to terms with the past that includes her father's tumultuous relationship with her mother and his horrific death at the guillotine. But she also must reconcile her view of her mother who seems to be romantically involved with Citoyen Hippolyte Charles, while her mother's second husband and Hortense's stepfather, Napoleon Bonaparte is in Egypt. Hortense dislikes the entire Bonaparte family.  Gulland portrays a young Hortense coming of age, discovering her attraction to the older Colonel Christophe Duroc and their blossoming friendship as they attend balls and other social functions.

The novel takes its name from a card game that was originally invented as a parlour game to be played with dice. It was forgotten but resurfaced in 1799 when Mlle. Lenormand began using the cards for fortune telling, an activity still forbidden by the Catholic church. Gulland's novel is divided in to eight parts featuring a card from the Game of Hope.  Gulland has Hortense use the cards on several occasions, in an attempt to predict what her future holds at a time in France when life was very unpredictable. Of course, no card game can predict one's future life, as Hortense soon learns.

Gulland in her extensive Afterword, reveals how Hortense's life really played out. She was never able to marry her love, Christophe as both her mother and Maitresse Campan counselled against it and wanted her to marry Louis Bonaparte. Hortense did relent and marry Louis but their marriage was not a happy one, nor was Christophe Duroc's marriage to a wealthy and beautiful woman. Marriages at this time were often made to cement political alliances and the feelings of those involved were not really considered. This was demonstrated in the novel by her cousin Emilie's arranged marriage to an older man, Antoine Lavalette whom she despises. Eventually his care towards her after her beauty is marred by small pox, kindles her love for him.

Although Game of Hope is well written, it will likely appeal mostly to die-hard historical fiction fans and those with a specific interest in the post-French Revolution era and Napoleon. The story is mostly character driven, with Gulland's fine attention to historical detail. The author has included a Cast of Characters, a Glossary, a map of Paris as well as a list of the cards from the Game of Hope. 
Hyacinthe Jardin's compositions are still performed today and some like her F Minor Op. 1 No. 3 written for violin, viola and violoncello can be found on YouTube.

Her biography may be accessed from the Foundation Napoleon website:

https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/biographies/beauharnais-hortense-de/

Hortense image: By Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - www.rijksmuseum.nl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1228587

Book Details:

The Game of Hope by Sandra Gulland
New York: Viking, an Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC     2018
370 pp.

Small Things by Mel Tregonning

Small Things is a picture book without words about the timely topic of anxiety in children.

The book begins with a young boy in school gym class. He wants to fit in with his classmates, to be chosen to play but gets excluded. After class he grabs a basketball to bounce, trips and falls, causing the other children to laugh at him.

Lunch hour isn't much better as he tries to join a group of children sitting in a circle but no one welcomes him. He is waved over to a picnic table. Tiny creatures, his first feelings of anxiety begin to appear.

After lunch, the boy finds himself taking a math test. Word problems are horrible at the best of times and this test has word problems. The math test means even more anxiety. As the clock ticks on, his test is marked and a grade of C is the result. Upset, the boy goes to see the teacher who encourages him. But the boy knows his marks have been slipping over the past weeks. At first he had marks of A+ and A but now his grades have fallen to a C.

Walking home, the boy's anxiety is intense, manifested by the tiny demon-like creatures following him, taking chunks out of his arms and legs. Looking at his bedroom wall the boy sees many certificates of merit and student awards. This does not comfort him but only increases his anxiety.

That night while trying to do math problems, he struggles and is overwhelmed by his anxiety. He takes this out on his older sister who is practicing her violin. She tries to comfort him, to reassure him, but in bed that night he is overwhelmed by anxiety. The tiny demons representing his anxiety swirl around him and the bed.

The next day another math work sheet receives an even lower mark. The anxiety the boy feels eats away at his very self. Overwhelmed, the boy strikes out at his only friend, a girl who has invited him to eat lunch with her when others have turned away. She received a mark of a B on the test. At home, the boy's anxiety is so great that he feels as if huge chunks of his very self are being eaten away. He cannot sleep.

His big sister comes in to see him and at this point the boy shares his anxiety and his pain, showing her the huge chunk missing from his arm. His sister rolls up her sleeve, revealing the wound on her arm - she too suffers from anxiety. Her anxiety is related to her music and in fact her hand that holds the violin contains many cracks. His sister convinces him to tell their parents about the math test and his marks.

Their parents offer him comfort and sit down at the kitchen table to help him work out the problems. That night the boy goes to sleep with the anxiety demons still present but not near him or his bed. When the boy returns to school the next day, he sees that many of his classmates, including his new friend also carry anxieties with them.

Discussion

Small Things is a graphic picture book created by Mel Tregonning  a young Australian illustrator. It began as a comic strip about a boy struggling with his inner demons of anxiety but was never completed. Sadly Mel took her life in 2014. Her family realized that the comic strip reflected her own struggles with anxiety and depression.

Mel was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1983. When she was sixteen-years-old, Mel had a short comic, titled Night published in 2009 by Gestalt Comics. In this comic, a young girl struggles to cope with the demons of anxiety. Mel knew about anxiety and depression having struggled with both throughout her life. Unfortunately, her moment of crisis came in 2014, after having been recently released from hospital.

Although Mel died before she completed her book, her family decided to finish her work and have it published as a way to spread awareness about mental health issues. To complete the last three pages of the book, award-winning illustrator Shaun Tan was contacted. Tan had already been contacted by Mel so her family felt that he was the one to complete those last few pages. Her original illustrations had been done in soft graphite on medium weight paper. Tan carefully considered those drawings so that he could emulate them sufficiently.

The tiny demons that surround the young boy are his anxieties and worries. They are black, complex and fearful looking as only anxieties and worries can be. They are so consuming, they eat away at him, causing him tremendous physical and emotional pain. Each worry takes away a bit of his self, seeming to diminish him. But Tregonning's message seems to be that children with anxiety should be encouraged to talk to an adult, a parent and/or a friend. Her message is one of hope - the demons of anxiety can be held at bay, with help. One illustration near the end of the book, showing the boy sleeping, tucked safely in his bed while his anxiety demons hover in the distance, implies that reaching out will help, will keep those demons at bay. Reaching out also means we discover we are not alone.

Anyone suffering from anxiety, whether they be a child, teen or adult will find Small Things very relevant. Young children will learn from Small Things that they are not alone, that we all have our struggles and that there are people who care. My hope is that Mel Tregonning is at peace. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.

Book Details:

Small Things by Mel Tregonning
Toronto: Pajama Press Inc.   2018

Words On Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton

 Sixteen-year-old  Adam Petrazelli has schizophrenia. He is unusual in that his symptoms appeared when he was young, around the age of eight. Adam sees things that other people do not see, like beautiful, tall, blond Rebecca, or huge bats. Since Adam won't communicate verbally with his therapist, he writes journal entries. He's also on an experimental drug, ToZaPrex. Because of problems at his previous school his mother and stepfather have decided to move him to a private school, St. Agatha's.

On his first day he is assigned a school ambassador, Ian Stone, whom Adam recognizes as a "douche". True to form, as soon as Adam goes to pick up his PE uniform, Ian ditches him. At this point he meets a girl, whose name he soon learns is Maya, who helps him get to his next class. There Adam meets Dwight Olberman  with whom he has most of his classes.

Adam is able to get out of religion homework by rewriting "the mysteries of the rosary, the Prayer of St. Augustine, and the Hail, Holy Queen from memory." But this has consequences in that he is signed up for the Academic Team. One day after gym class, Adam hears splashing in the pool and when he goes to investigate, discovers Maya floundering and drowning. He saves her and they soon become friends and then a couple.

Adams entries tell about his abandonment by his father, his mother remarrying a lawyer named Paul, his love of cooking, and is growing relationship with Maya. But soon, the new drug Adam is taking presents health risks, resulting in researchers slowly lowering the dosage and withdrawing him from the study. Adam hasn't told his friend Dwight nor his girlfriend Maya. It isn't until a disastrous situation at prom, that the truth comes out and Adam must confront the reality of life with his secret revealed.

Discussion

Readers looking for a novel that tackles the topic of schizophrenia in an honest, accurate way without getting bogged down in tropes, won't find it in Words On Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton. Although Walton's character, Adam, a young teen diagnosed with schizophrenia, is witty and intelligent, the portrayal of this mental illness is decidedly one dimensional and the novel unrelenting in its misrepresentations about the Catholic faith.

Although Adam is in therapy he won't talk to his therapist. "I don't always say the things I mean to say when I talk to someone. It's impossible to swallow words after letting them out, so it's better for me not to speak at all if I can help it..." Instead he writes about their sessions afterwards in the form of journal entries. These entries, dated from August 15, 2012 to June 26, 2013, form the story of Adam's life as he struggles with his mental illness.

Adam claims that he is an expert on his condition. At the beginning of the novel he tells readers,  "There really is no clear path for the disease to travel. Some people have visions. Some people hear voices. And some people just get paranoid." To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, specific diagnostic criteria must be fulfilled. According to the current DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5) Manual, two or more of the following symptoms must be present for a significant period of time to merit a diagnosis of schizophrenia: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behaviour, and negative symptoms (flat effect, avolition, and anhedonia). Yet Adam has only hallucinations (seeing/hearing things that are not really there) and technically doesn't meet the criteria for someone with schizophrenia.

Walton's portrayal of stigma surrounding mental illness is well done. Adam admits that his greatest fear is that "someday I won't be able to watch the parade of hallucinations without doing what they tell me to do because I'm afraid the drug will stop working. And everyone might have a good reason to be afraid of me." This is a fear that anyone with any medical condition requiring medication might have, but must be particularly acute for those with a mental health condition.

Adam's worry about losing control is brought to the forefront after the Sandy Hook shooting and a classmate's suggesting that the shooter should have just killed himself. Adam doesn't say anything in response because he fears it will show sympathy for the shooter. "...I was angry because whoever had said it has no idea what it's like to lose control. They don't know what it's like to be haunted by your own mind. They don't understand the mad desire to make the voices stop even if it means doing what they tell you to..."

While this is supposed to be a novel about a rare situation of a teenage boy with schizophrenia and all that entails, the author has gone out of her way to mock Catholics and the Catholic faith. In fact, readers may question the author's true motive here - is it to bring about understanding of mental health issues or to bash Catholics. It seems the setting of the story in St. Agatha's, a private Catholic school was chosen so that every possible trope about Catholics, Catholic schools, the sacraments, nuns and the Catholic faith could be employed. By his own admission, Adam has received all the sacraments, but doesn't regularly attend Mass and doesn't believe in God and isn't a practicing Catholic. So it is puzzling that his mother would send him to a Catholic private school when she herself places little value on her faith and her son isn't practicing.

Adam's cynical, derisive voice is especially strident when describing anything Catholic. Holy Communion is "You know, where they hand out pieces of Jesus made of stale wafers." Adam states he doesn't " like the idea of some old guy shoving food in my mouth." or sharing a wineglass with someone with a cold sore (very few churches offer Holy Communion under both species.)  Sister Catherine who teaches Adam religious theory is often described in derogatory terms, "...Sister Catherine's mouth was twisted in a maniacal grin..." Some of his worst remarks are saved for the Knights of Columbus who are "...old men with papery skin and knobby knees" with a "creep factor". Adam's mother doesn't like them because "...it's they way they protect family values, but only families that are like theirs. I think it's also the way they like to quote Leviticus." - a reference to the Catholic church's teaching against same sex marriage. No one is forcing Adam's mother to stay in the Catholic church - if she doesn't believe in its teachings she is free to leave. And no one forced her to place her son in a Catholic school, so why did she?

The author brings in the Sandy Hook shootings in which twenty children and six adults were shot to death by Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. Lanza had the same first name as the novel's main character but was not schizophrenic - a fact never clarified in the novel. He had been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, depression, anxiety and OCD. Walton uses the shootings to bring up the discussion around mental illness and mass murder.

But here again Walton has Adam inexplicably attack the Catholic faith. The school board head, Ian Stone's father, has a meeting with Adam's parents which upsets Adam greatly. Apparently the school board has objected to the secrecy surrounding Adam, a student they did not have to admit. Adam views this with his typical derogatory cynicism, "I knew they'd want to have a board meeting, perhaps a public inquisition to keep things Catholic." So the entire situation seems unreasonable and ridiculous. Adam, who in the first one hundred plus pages has ridiculed almost every aspect of Catholicism complains "This conflicts with the church's actual teachings though, which is highly inconvenient for them. The Bible teaches tolerance. I doubt that that Jesus would have encouraged people to 'out' me as a schizo."

Walton's attack on Catholicism reaches a new low when Adam and Maya have sex in a school closet, after having just rehearsed the "Stations of the Cross" (really a passion play) Adam still in his costume as Jesus Christ and Maya who portrays Mary Magdalene. It's a portrayal that most Catholics would consider blasphemous.

Walton had the chance to demonstrate how faith can help people to cope with mental illness. A study done by University of Missouri researchers found that "better mental health is associated with increased spirituality." Adam, as a Catholic, could have received significant emotional support by having a good spiritual director in the form of a regular confessor. Instead Adam and his family see their church as unsupportive, intolerant, and controlling. So why be a part of something you don't believe in?

Words On Bathroom Walls could have been a great book that explored the issues surrounding mental illness, especially schizophrenia, which many people misunderstand and are therefore fearful. While there are some excellent passages, such as Adam's thoughts on what it feels like to lose control, most of this novel is unrelentingly anti-Catholic and deeply offensive. I can't imagine the same novel set in a Muslim school, as it likely would have been refused publication.

The premise of Words On Bathroom Walls is to ask for tolerance, understanding and acceptance for people with mental health issues especially those who have a serious illness like schizophrenia. Ironically this novel does not encourage that same tolerance, understanding and acceptance to those who are Catholic.

Addendum:
For those who are experiencing mental health issues please know that your Catholic church loves and cares for you. Most Catholic high schools recognize the struggles of young people today and have social workers and youth workers as well as other resources available. Many Catholic school boards have specific policies on mental health and work to foster a climate of respect, love, compassion and concern for those dealing with mental illness. Bullying of those with mental health issues is not tolerated.

National Catholic Partnership on Disability

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops statement on the Newtown tragedy.

There are several renewed teaching orders of sisters in the United States and Canada including but not limited to the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady Mother of the Eucharist and the Sisters of Our Lady Immaculate.   As evidenced by their websites, these orders a young, vibrant and faithful to Catholic teaching.

Book Details:

Words On Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton
New York: RandomHouse Children's Books     2017
pp. 288

Missing Mike by Shari Green

Eleven-year-old Cara Donovan's world is turned upside down when her family is forced to flee from raging wildfires and her beloved rust-coloured mutt, Mike goes missing in the chaos.

Cara's town of Pine Grove in British Columbia has been on evacuation alert for days. Cara's mother has her and older sister Sloane pack keepsakes into plastic bins just in case they need to leave quickly.Cara packs her overnight bag with a change of clothes and a few special treasures.

Then one day a police officer shows up at their door. They must evacuate immediately. Cara was in the backyard with her dog, Mike but when she goes to retrieve him, he is no where to be found.Cara is forced into the family, leaving her beloved dog behind. The drive out of Pine Grove is harrowing and slow, with sparks flying across the road, smoke billowing and deer rushing to safety.

Cara is devastated at the loss of her dog Mike. She got him two years earlier at the animal shelter in  Braeburn. While her parents were interested in the cute fluffy goldendoodle puppies, Cara was drawn to Mike, a
"skinny
grown-up
already-got-in-a-fight
dog
with one eye
and a tattered ear?"

The man at the animal shelter raved about Mike's sweet nature and so they took him home.  Once in the city they arrive at the evacuation center. Because Cara's family rescued a cat on their way out of Pine Grove they are taken to the gym where found animals are taken. Immediately Cara questions a woman if she's seen a rust-coloured dog with one eye, despite the fact that it's unlikely Mike is at the shelter. After registering, Cara's family is slated to stay with a host family, Jasmeet Bains and her husband Bill. The Bains have two children, two boys who are away at camp and a foster child, thirteen-year-old Jewel.

Jewel is very sympathetic to Cara's feelings of loss over Mike. Cara believes that she has abandoned Mike, but Jewel tells her
"No," she says,
"he got lost.
It makes a big difference what words you use
to tell something."

Jewel helps Cara to cope by making posters to put up for Mike. She finds a website for pets lost due to the wildfire and posts Mike's picture online. At the evacuation center, Cara and Jewel put up a poster of Mike. As the wildfire advances and consumes parts of Pine Grove, Cara becomes increasingly distraught about Mike. She imagines terrible scenarios and eventually makes some poor choices that endanger herself and Jewel. As Cara struggles to keep faith and be hopeful, she wonders, will she ever see her beloved Mike again?

Discussion

Missing Mike is a timely novel that explores the meaning of family, the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of community in times of disaster.Green uses wonderfully descriptive free verse captures the danger Cara and her family experience as they travel to safety with the flames raging around them.

"It's dark as night
--black smoke so thick
I can barely see the car ahead of us.
Wind hurls glowing embers
across the road
orange sparks fly
like hailstones made of fire.
Sweat beads on my forehead."

The wildfire forms the backdrop for the story of an eleven-year-old girl who has inadvertently left behind the one thing most precious to her, her beloved dog Mike. Mike isn't a cute little puppy but a dog who has had a rough past as evidenced by his torn ear and missing eye. Despite his fear of coyotes which leads Cara's family to believe that he was once attacked by them, Mike has stood his ground against one to protect Cara. He is special to Cara.

While Cara and her family stay with a host family, the Bains, Cara begins to considers what defines home. When Cara first leaves Pine Grove, she is pre-occupied with the loss of her dog Mike. She doesn't worry too much about her home, after all it will still be there after the fire she thinks. While working on a crossword puzzle, Jewel asks Cara for a 5 letter word for "home" and reveals that she "lived in a car once and it was home." Jewel explains to a shocked Cara that although she's lived in many houses after the car, the car was home because she was with her mom. However, now Jewel feels it isn't necessary for her to have her mother with her for a place to be called home. Instead being safe and wanted make the Bains' house "home". Cara wonders if it possible to have a home without family.

Later on at the shelter, Cara meets her music teacher Miss Francesca Passerini who
"lives in a house surrounded
by overgrown gardens
chock full of flowering plants
and an unusual number
of bird feeders."
In other words, Miss Francesca has a beautiful home which contains her music and her beloved piano which she might lose to the wildfire. But she tells Cara that it doesn't matter because she still has her music inside her. Cara realizes that  "music is Miss Francesca's word for home."

Cara and her older sister Sloane meet a young single father, Wesley who has a little daughter named Angeline.When Cara questions him about if he loses his home, Wesley tells her
"But you know what?" he says softly. "This girl
has my heart.
As long as I've got her
I'm home."
For Wesley being with his daughter is all that matters and that is "home". Remembering this, Cara wonders if having family is what really matters and is what defines home.

When they learn that their house has been destroyed by the wildfires Cara wonders,where they will go and where they will belong if they have no home, no place that's theirs. If a house with it's rooms "where a family lived, shared celebrations and sadness, big moments and boring days" is nothing but a pile of bricks is home? Cara wonders if
"...there's something that remains
through it all
like if Wesley has Angeline
Miss Francesca still hears music
in her heart
Heather is with her relatives
and Jewel is safe
and wanted."

Thinking back on her and Jewel's struggle with the crossword puzzle to find that elusive word for home, Cara realizes that home means something different for every one.
"Turns out
home isn't always with family
but often it is.
It isn't always a place
but sometimes it is.
It isn't always within your grasp
but when you find it
you know to
hold on."

For Cara home is love, friendship and loyalty - something she has with her family and Mike (who she finds waiting at their burned out home). Cara realizes she hasn't lost her "home" at all, instead she's discovered what home really is for her. It is the not only her family but the bond she has with her beloved dog, Mike.

In light of the many wildfires in the past few years, especially in British Columbia, Alberta and northern Ontario, Green's book is very timely. Missing Mike will help young readers understand just how devastating disasters like wildfires can be for those who experience them. Cara and her family lose everything except what they were able to pack before evacuating and at one point Cara wishes she had packed certain special momentos. Maintaining an attitude of hope throughout their ordeal was a struggle for Cara and her family. The novel also portrays how the efforts of the local community at large helped make this challenging time more bearable for Cara and her family.

Overall, Missing Mike is a well written, touching short novel in free verse by Canadian author Sheri Green. Younger readers who love dogs and animal stories in general will enjoy Missing Mike.

Book Details:

Missing Mike by Shari Green
Toronto: Pajama Press     2018
245 pp.

Da Vinci's Tiger by L.M. Elliott

It is January, 1475. Sixteen-year-old Ginevra de' Benci Niccolini is seated in the front row with her friend Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci at a joust being held in the Piazza di Santa Croce."The Medici had organized this joust to celebrate Florence's new diplomatic alliance with Venice and Milan." Simonetta, "the publicly celebrated Platonic love" of Guiliano Medici, the younger brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, has been honoured as the joust's "Queen of Beauty". Prior to the joust there had been a parade through Florence to Santa Croce, led by Guiliano, nine trumpeteers and two men-at-arms carrying pennants of the Medici coat of arms. Guiliano himself carried an enormous banner with Simonetta depicted as Pallas, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. Considering all of this makes Ginevra jealous of Simonetta's appeal, but her friend informs her that the new Venetian ambassador, Bernardo Bembo has shown an interest in her.

After having unseated one opponent already, Guiliano's next opponent in the joust is Signor Morelli. When it appears the two combatants are tied, Signor Morelli graciously concedes the round, and offers his exquisitely painted banner of a reclining nymph to the Queen of Beauty. Ginevra believes the banner to be better than the one Botticelli painted for Guiliano. Simonetta tells Ginevra that Maestro Verrocchio painted the banner with the help of one of his apprentices named Leonardo from Vinci.

The rounds continue until well into the evening. Guiliano's opponent is Renato de Pazzi who enters the lists on a large black horse belonging to Guiliano's godfather who refused the horse to his godson. Simonetta explains the political power play that exists in Florence, how the Pazzi, who are nobles, continually attempt to undermine the powerful influence of the Medici. The challenge is made "a la guerre", meaning "Unhorsing a rider would be the aim and the only honorable way to win." The joust between Pazzi and Medici is violent but Guiliano unseats Renato and is declared the champion of the joust.

As she is leaving, Ginevra is introduced to the Venetian ambassador, Bernardo Bembo by Lorenzo de Medici. Lorenzo tells Ginevra that Bembo is interested in meeting citizens of Florence who love poetry. Lorenzo invites Ginevra to a dinner in his honour and to share one of her poems at the function. Ginevra's Uncle Bartolomoeo accepts the invitation on her and her husband Luigi Niccolini's behalf.

The next morning Ginevra greets her husband, Luigi and briefly discusses the joust with him. He is a member of the cloth merchant guild, the Arte di Calimala.  Ginevra wears a scarlet soft wool cape with a gold border and a dress "embroidered with intricate flower blossoms of red and emerald threads".  Although Ginevra and Luigi have consummated their marriage, she sleeps alone. Ginevra's marriage to Luigi Niccolini had been arranged on the previous January, against her will. Ginevra's father died in 1468, after which her Uncle Bartolomoeo had sent her away to Le Murate's convent school. She left the convent permanently, her uncle was now head of the family and in exchange for a position on one of Venice's eight priori, Ginevra was sold in marriage to the Niccolini family.

Ginevra does receive an invitation to the Medici dinner which is held in early March. When she and Luigi attend the function, they meet Verrocchio and his former apprentice Leonardo da Vinci. The latter believes Ginevra would make a "excellent subject". At the Medici dinner, Ginevra is enthralled by the naked bronze statue of David, the courtyard centerpiece done by Donatello. A discussion with Bernardo Bembo makes Ginevra blush. Bernardo's advances become more prominent and more transparent leading Ginevra to experience deep inner conflict.

As Ginevra is drawn further into the world of Florence's cultural elite, she finds herself drawn into a Platonic relationship with Bernardo Bembo. It is a relationship that pulls her into the Medici circle and into Florence's rich artisan culture, leading to a portrait that immortalizes her for posterity.

Discussion

Elliott has crafted an impressive fictional account of the life of sixteen-year-old Ginevra de' Benci's life and the painting of her portrait by Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci. Set in the High Renaissance, the mid-15th century in Florence, Italy, Elliott weaves a masterful story that incorporates many details of life during this era including cultural and religious practices, political intrigue in the Italian city states, and detailed descriptions of a working art studio. Elliott undertook significant research so that she could give her readers an encompassing view of life in the city-state of Florence in 1475.

All of the characters in the novel were real people who lived at the time Ginevra's portrait was painted except for Sancha, her maid. The basic details of Ginevra's life are incorporated into the story: she was born into a family of Florentine notaries who were connected to the wealthy and powerful Medici family and educated at Le Murate, a convent run by Abbess Scolastica Rondinelli and patronized by Ginevra's family. Ginevra was known in Florence as a poet. In 1474, she was married to  Luigi de Bernardo Niccolini, a widower and wool merchant, who was much older than Ginevra  The marriage was likely arranged by Ginevra's Uncle Bartolomeo who may have known Niccolini.

Many aspects of life in the High Renaissance are portrayed in Da Vinci's Tiger.  In the fifteenth century, Italy was comprised of a series of city states. The main republics were Florence, Milan, Genoa, Pisa and Venice. Unfortunately these city states were often at war with each other and at various times with the Pope. Eventually a peace was negotiated between Venice, Florence, Milan, Naples and the Papal States (areas controlled by the pope).

This period of peace and its recovery from the devastation wrought by the Black Death, allowed Florence to flourish as a center of business and trade. It soon became the cradle of the Renaissance, a movement that saw the rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman art and a focus on understanding the natural world through direct observation. Florence gradually came under the influence and control of the Medici family whose bank, became increasingly important. They were the leading family in Florence, their influence beginning with Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici who was involved in negotiating peace with Milan. His grandson, Lorenzo (the Magnificent) de' Medici received a humanist education and became a significant patron of the arts. Great families like the Medicis began to build beautiful estates, forgoing the austere homes of the Middle Ages. They began to build churches, convents, hospitals and held special feasts and entertainment. 

In Da Vinci's Tiger, the importance of the Medici family is explained by Ginevra, who states that they exerted their influence in subtle ways, through the patronage of the arts and festivals, "granting favors and loans", brokering "advantageous marriages and business partnerships." Lorenzo Medici was seen as especially as a patron of literature, inviting "artists, writers, and scholars to his country villas at Fiesole and Careggi to listen to music and poetry read aloud. They discussed the nature of man's supreme good, his summum bonum, as explored within classical texts. He also sponsored a Platonic Academy within the city, led by the great philosopher Marsilio Ficino..."

In Da Vinci's Tiger, Elliott portrays the sumptuous pageantry and the ongoing political intrigue and rivalries that marked life in 15th century Florence. For example, in June 1475, Ginevra like most other Florentines attends the Festival of John the Baptist. Elliott describes it for her readers through the eyes of Ginevra. "Florence had nearly a hundred public holidays during the year, but St. John's Feast was its grandest -- a two-day extravaganza celebrating both our material successes and our earnest piety." The festival begins with a "government-ordered mostra -- a lavish display of the city's riches as homage to the blessings out patron saint bestowed upon us...Festooning their shops with colorful banners, merchants put out their best merchandise --gold cloth, silver plates, painted panels, tapestry, jewelry, carved wood, embroidered leather...Florence's clergy donned elaborately embroidered vestments and processed through the streets with Florence's holy relics -- a thorn of the Holy Crown, a nail of the cross, a finger bone of John the Baptist. Following them came the city's secular dignitaries dressed as angels and biblical figures, with musicians of all sorts playing and singing."  On the morning of the second day of the festival "The city's guildsmen circled the Duomo cathedral to approach the ancient, octagonal Baptistery and its gates of paradise -- huge bronze doors decorated with scenes of St. John's life. Carrying painted candles, they slowly marched under blue canopies painted with stars and lilies that were stretched across the streets to replicate the night sky."  The palio, the horse race that caps the festival is a vibrant, heart-pounding event that Ginevra finds thrilling. "Now I could see the leading horses, legs flying, dirt churned up and sprayed, jockeys hunched and clinging to handfuls of mane. They had little hope now of steering their mounts, frenzied by the competition, frantic at the mass of humanity and their guttural shouts of encouragement.""

But there are also troubling aspects to life in Florence. For example the tamburi, "locked wooden boxes placed near major churches by the Ufficiali di Notte, the Officers of the Night. In those boxes, Florentines could denounce their neighbors for vice by leaving secret accusations of crimes against decency that brought arrest and trial in front of a tribunal of old men." Early in the novel, Ginevra and her maid Sancha witness Leonardo da Vinci attempting to break into a tamburi. It is a foreshadowing of an accusation made against him later on in the novel.

A significant portion of the novel revolves around Ginevra's relationship with a young Leonardo da Vinci. Elliott provides readers with much detail involving Leonardo, his physical appearance, his thoughts, his relationship with master Andrea del Verrocchio as well as his artistic endeavours in this early period. In her detailed Afterword, Elliott writes that "Much of Leonardo's dialogue comes from his own writings..." The reader learns much about Leonardo through the character himself as his friendship with Ginevra develops and he tells her about himself.

Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero, a notary in the village of Vinci and Caterina, a peasant girl who worked for the family. Leonardo lived with his mother when he was very young but eventually went to live with his father and grandfather. He spent much of his time with his tutor and uncle, Francesco who instilled in him  a curiosity about the natural world. At age fifteen, he was apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio of Florence. Leonardo was a polymath, having substantial gifts in many areas of science, art, architecture, music and engineering.  His paintings, sculptures, and many scientific discoveries continue to amaze today.

Ginevra de Benci by Leonardo da Vinci

The novel highlights the significant contributions Leonardo was beginning to make in the art world. While Verrocchio and Leonardo were adept at using egg tempera to paint, Elliott, through the character of Ginevra states, "But Leonardo was one of the first in Florence to attempt using the oils preferred by the northern painters in Flanders. Oil paints did provide subtler, more varied, and translucent tones but were difficult to mix evenly and to spread with the brush."

His portrait of Ginevra marked an innovative change in how portraits were painted, in that her portrait was painted in the three quarter pose. Elliott suggests in her novel that this was the (unlikely and feminist) idea of Ginevra who saw this as "the chance to make men listen -- and see -- what women had in their hearts and minds."  Ginevra wanted a "larger metaphor" for herself. In the novel she states, "My eyes would gaze unblinking to allow people to look into them and wonder about me. I, a mountain tiger, like the one that showed no fear when hunted, whose fierce dignity prompted imaginings about her soul and her courage -- a creature with her own past and own story."  However, it was Leonardo's decision to paint her in this way, to show her as a real person.

Da Vinci's Tiger deals with some mature themes including the attempted seduction of Ginevra by her Platonic love, Ambassador Bernardo Bembo. The concept of platonic love is explored throughout this novel. During the Renaissance, the renewed interest in Greek and Roman thought led to the practice of choosing a platonic love. This questionable practice, is explained by Ginevra as such, "According to Ficino's Neoplatonic philosophy, if a man could keep his ardor for a woman to a Platonic friendship -- in a look-but-do-not-touch idolization -- and only contemplate her physical loveliness as being manifestation of her virtuous spirit and absolute beauty, then his soul was purified. His love would, in essence, replicate the selfless love of Christ for us and bring the man closer to God." As Scholastica warned, Ginevra discovers this is often not what happens. Instead such relationships were often used to hide sinful behaviours and sometimes  led to the birth of illegitimate children.

Elliott also incorporates Leonardo's arrest for sodomy after someone denounces him and three other men. The accusations are serious because as Sancha indicates, the punishment can be severe especially for homosexual men. At dinner, Luigi tells Ginevra that he obtained Leonardo's freedom as a favour to the Medici family. But he also intimates indirectly to Ginevra that he too is a homosexual, thus explaining his lack of romantic interest in her. Whether Luigi Niccolini's homosexuality is fact or fiction is not addressed in Elliott's Afterword.

There are plenty of interesting historical aspects to investigate in this novel and Elliott has done a good job portraying the era and giving readers a sense of the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and the background behind the painting of one of his more famous works. Ellitott's characterization of Ginevra de Benci Niccolini is inspiring and realistic, that of a young woman of conviction, strength, intelligence and compassion, who wrote poetry and inspired one of the most famous artists of all time. One only needs to gaze at her portrait to see that Leonardo da Vinci succeeded in portraying  her as a real person, whose "motions of the mind" can be entertained simply by the pose portrayed.

Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginevra_de%27_Benci#/media/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_-_Ginevra_de'_Benci_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Book Details:

Da Vinci's Tiger by L.M. Elliott
New York: Katherine Tegen Books      2015
287 pp.