I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

I Must Betray You is a chilling portrayal of life in communist Romania under the brutal regime of Nicolae Ceausescu just as the Soviet and Eastern Bloc are collapsing.

One gray October day in 1989, seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu is called to the school office by Comrade Director of MF3 High School. Terrified, Cristian finds himself being blackmailed by an agent of the Securitate, Romania's feared secret police, into becoming a spy. The Secu tells Cristian he knows about his "impressive vintage stamp collection" and that he has sold a vintage Romanian stamp, accepted foreign currency from a foreigner and is therefore guilty of illegal trafficking. Cristian suspects that his best friend, Luca is the one who has informed on him.

Cristian's mother, Mioara, works as a maid to a U.S. diplomat, Nicholas Van Dorn. While waiting for his mother to finish work, Cristian met and became friendly with the diplomat's sixteen-year-old son, Dan: they talked and traded stamps which is illegal in Romania. The Secu, whom he calls "Paddle Hands", threatens Cristian with this knowledge and coerces him into spying for the Secu. Cristian is ordered to "continue to meet with the son of the American diplomat" and "will report details of the diplomat's home and family." He will become an informer, code named "OSCAR". In return, Cristian's grandfather, Bunu will receive medicine to treat his leukemia.

On his way home after meeting with the Secu agent, Cristian encounters Liliana Pavel, the girl he's been trying for days to "co-incidentally" meet after school. She lives in the same building as Cristian's best friend, Luca who has a reputation for being sweet. Liliana is smart, quiet and often goes off to read. As they walk home together, they meet "Starfish" a boy a few years older than Cristian who is involved in the black market. Starfish lost an eye and the thick stitches on his closed eye socket resembled a crooked star. Starfish invites them to his video night on Saturday. To Cristian's surprise, Liliana wants him to come with her.

Cristian, his twenty-year-old sister Cicilia (Cici) who works at a textile factory, his parents, Mioara and Gabriel and his grandfather, Bunu live in a cramped, fourth floor apartment in Bucharest, Romania. Cristian sleeps in the closet by the front door. He keeps a journal hidden under the blankets on the floor. Cristian got the idea for a journal after seeing the notebook that Dan Van Dorn keeps for his college admissions essay. Because people believe that listening devices are hidden everywhere, at home everyone speaks in whispers except for his grandfather, Bunu. They hide Kents - Western cigarettes which are used for bribery, trade or the black market.  On the balconies of the apartments, the "Reporters", women who spy on their neighbours, are ever watchful.

Cristian begins spying on the U.S. Diplomat's son, Dan Van Dorn. Cristian believes he can outwit the agent at his own game so he starts by noting things he believes the Secu agent might be interested in, such as the location of rooms and furniture, information that he believes is harmless. Cristian meets up with Dan Van Dorn again and makes mental notes about the apartment while Dan looks for stamps to trade with Cristian. Dan brings out a sheet block of four U.S. stamps of dinosaurs where one has been mislabelled. Dan tells Cristian that even the U.S. Postal service makes mistakes and points to the light fixture indicating that he knows it is bugged. At this point, Cristian realizes that Dan knows he is under surveillance. He also meets Dan's parents.

At a second meeting with the agent, Cristian tells him about the Van Dorn's apartment and is tasked with noting what's on the father's desk and also to accompany Dan to the American Library.  The next day Cristian and his family, like every other family in Bucharest, must stand in line for anything they want at the Alimentara, the grocery store. It is bitterly cold, and Cristian reflects on how each member of his family takes their turn in the lines.

But when Cristian visits Dan in his home again, he cannot help but notice the stark contrast to his own living conditions. It is warm like summer, there is a large colour TV, and a video player with head phones. The contrast is even more extreme when Cristian watches a home made video of Dan's friends and is stunned to see the inside of a large refrigerator stuffed with food from top to bottom. "All kinds of food. In bottles, cans, cartons, dividers, and drawers. So many colors and quantities. Of food...Fresh. Ripe. Just waiting to be eaten." Cristian realizes that the movie he's watched is of "...real people, in a real house in the West, with real food." When Cristian confronts his mother about what he's seen at the Van Dorn's, she becomes defensive and angry, telling him it's no use dreaming about things they can never have.

At school, after a classmate confesses to being an informer, Cristian realizes that everyone is informing on everyone. "The teacher must be an informer. He informed on the students. The school director was an informer. He informed on the teachers. The secretary was an informer. She informed on the school director. The school director was an informer. He informed on the teachers. The secretary was an informer. She informed on the school director. Luca was an informer. He informed on me. I was an informer. I informed on Americans." This realization makes Cristian wonder if Liliana is an informer. He believes that Liliana leaving school the day they first met up, might be a sign she was also meeting with a Secu. 

Meanwhile at home, Bunu works to repair their broken radio. As he and Cristian discuss communism and the Secu, Bunu reveals that he was paid a visit by someone and given "medicine" to help him and that this was because someone in their home is an informer. He also doesn't know what he was given, if it will help him or kill him. At this point, Cristian believes his grandfather knows he's an informer.

When Liliana and Cristian meet up in the darkened stairwell of his apartment building they discuss what happened in Cristian's class. They hear someone on the stairs and it turns out to be Cristian's mother. When they return to the stairwell, Liliana she wonders if the world knows what is going on in Romania and if they would help them.  Thinking about how they can listen to broadcasts from Radio Free Europe, Cristian considers sneaking his secret notebook to Mr. Van Dorn with a request to send it to Washington. He believes that Ceausescu has fooled the Americans into believing Romania is a successful country. 

At his next meeting with Dan, Mr. Van Dorn writes the word TIME on paper and tells Cristian to look for the most recent edition at the American Library. This leads Cristian to believe that he can share the truth about Romania with him. When Cristian reads TIME Magazine at the American Library, he is stunned to learn that their neighbour, Hungary is free and no longer communist. He knows he has to tell Bunu. As it turns out, Bunu already knows because he's repaired their radio. Listening to Radio Free Europe, Bunu believes East Germany will be next. 

The brutal murder of Bunu leads Cristian to secretly leave Van Dorn his notebook so he can let the world know what is happening in Romania. Cristian's mother tells him that Bunu's murder is a warning to the young people of Romania not to follow in the steps of the other communist countries. Soon freedom spreads throughout the Eastern Bloc, with the fall of communist regimes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria.  When protests begin in Romania, at Maria Square in Timisoara, Western Romania, Cristian knows he has to act. He, along with Liliana, Luca and thousands of university students and residents of Budapest, begin protesting. Cristian is quickly drawn into the bloody uprising in Romania. But freedom will come with painful revelations and the loss of a beloved sister.

Discussion

Ruta Sepetys has crafted a brilliant historical fiction novel that effectively portrays the repressive regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu through the eyes of a teen character, seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu. Interspersed in his narrative are the Informer Reports, detailing the activities of Cristian and those around him.

In 1945, the Communists came to power in Romania due to the occupation and intervention of the Soviet Union. Prior to this, there had been a struggle as to whether Romania would adopt Western style democracy or Soviet communism.Fro m 1945 until 1965, Soviet-style communism with its antagonistic approach to the West controlled Romania. In 1965, with the death of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Rej, Nicolae Ceausescu came to power as leader of Romania's Communist Party. He worked to move Romania away from the Soviet sphere of influence, ending its participation in the Warsaw Pact military alliance and condemning the Soviet Union's invasions of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979. Unlike the Soviet Union and its Bloc countries, Ceausescu was not interested in shutting Romania off from the West: he was friendly towards the United States and signed trade agreements with the European Economic Community.

However this openness did not last. In 1974, Ceausescu became president of Romania but he also became increasingly authoritarian.  Romania had a much-feared secret police, called the Securitate and they began to develop a large network of informers. This caused much fear and division, as people never knew who to trust. It also made any form of resistance almost impossible. The Securitate was responsible for the torture and death of thousands of Romanians. 

Prior to the 1980's, Bucharest had been known as "the Little Paris of the East" for its cobbled streets, tree-lined boulevards, cafes, historic churches and monasteries, and many grand buildings. After the 1977 earthquake, Ceausescu was determined to remake the center of Bucharest into something more modern like what he had seen in North Korea. He demolished many parts of the city center including the Uranus district and levelled the Vacaresti Hill, the location of an ancient monastery. In place of these beautiful and historic buildings, Ceausescu built rows of concrete apartment blocks. He also built a huge, opulent palace while his own people did without the many necessities of life.

In the 1980's life in Romania became almost impossible. In debt to foreign banks, Ceausescu began exporting the country's agricultural and industrial products. As a result, people experienced shortages of food, fuel, medicine, clothing and other necessities. As glasnost and perestroika spread throughout the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the Communist regimes began to fall throughout the Eastern Bloc. A demonstration in Timisoara, in which the Romania army fired on its own people, became the flashpoint for the revolution and fall of the Communist Romanian government and the trial and execution of the Ceausescus.

In I Must Betray You, Ruta Sepetys uses her characters to describe life under Romania's dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. Cristian and Liliana Pavel discuss how their beautiful city of Bucharest has been destroyed as they walk home together. Liliana remarks, "My father said that Bucharest used to be called 'Little Paris'. There were trees everywhere, lots of birds, and even Belle Epoque architecture." Cristian recalls that his Bunu once told him that "...Bucharest was once a luxury stop on the Orient Express."

Cristian then describes the reality of what life has become under the repressive regime: "Families, like our family of five, were herded into one-bedroom, ashtray-sized flats. I looked at the cement apartment blocks we passed. Some weren't even finished. They had no doors, no elevators, no stair railings. Similar concrete hulks loomed around the city, gray staircases to nowhere. Concrete walls gave birth to concrete faces."

Even worse than the destruction of beauty is the fear and paranoia of life in Romania during the Ceausescu dictatorship. Like everyone else, Cristian tries to pass unnoticed.  "I pretended to follow the rules. I kept things to myself, like my interest in poetry and philosophy. I pretended other things too...I pretended that studying English was a commitment to my country... Many things were illegal in Romania - including my thoughts and my notebook." However, he soon discovers that no one goes "unnoticed" by the Secu.

Life in Ceausescu's Romania is one where anyone might be an informer. People are blackmailed into becoming an informer on family and friends, hence the title of the novel. When Cristian is sent to meet the Securitate agent he nicknames "Paddle Hands", he is terrified and doesn't know what he might have done to be in this situation. "What had I done? The truth was, most Romanians broke the rules some way or another. There were so many to break. And so many to report that you had broken them."  He learns that somehow the agent knows about his vintage stamp trade with Dan Van Dorn and the dollar he has come to possess. This situation creates a sense of betrayal and paranoia in Cristian, who wonders, "The agent had a file. Who informed on me? I threw a quick glance over my shoulder into the shadows. Was I being followed?"

Cristian being forced into becoming an informer, leaves him deeply conflicted, filled with disgust at not being able to refuse. He doesn't want to be an informer, but does it in the hopes of getting medicine for his beloved Bunu. He must betray Dan, his new American friend. He tries to assuage his conscience by hoping that he can beat the Secu at his own game, but soon learns this is not the case. 

However, the Secu's forcing of Cristian into meeting with Dan has an unintended consequence: it offers him a window into what life is like in a free country like America. Watching a home-made video, Cristian is stunned by the amount of food in a family's refrigerator in America, how people interact freely with one another. He even notices how Mr. and Mrs. Van Dorn show natural affection for one another by their touches and looks, something he's never seen his parents do. He realizes that everything he's been told about America is a lie. 

Sepetys uses the character, Bunu, Cristian's grandfather, to explain how the Ceausescu regime has been able to control the Romanian people. Bunu tells his grandson, "...Ceausescu may be near illiterate, but even I can admit that he's a statesman and a mastermind...And think about it, Cristi, he starts with toddlers. The little ones are just four years old when they're indoctrinated....Four years old. it's cunning."

Bunu is the voice of  truth and courage, telling Cristian, "They steal our power by making us believe we don't have any...But words and creative phrases - they have power, Cristian. Explore that power in your mind." But he also reminds Cristian that the Securitate cannot control what he thinks. Bunu explains to Cristian how he can survive in such a repressive environment. "...You see, communism is a state of mind...The State controls the amount of food we eat, our electricity, our transportation, the information we receive. But with philosophy, we control our minds. What if the internal landscape was ours to build and paint?" 

Later on Bunu tells his son Gabriel, Cristian's father, "Mistrust is a form of terror. The regime pits us against one another. We can't join together in solidarity because we never know whom we can trust or who might be an informer....You see, even out here in the street, you're paranoid to be speaking with your own father! You've become a man without a voice. Mistrust. It's insidious. It causes multiple personality syndrome and rots relationships." 

The reader learns in the Epilogue that Bunu was informed on by his daughter-in-law, Cristian's mother, who hoped to save her two children. His voice of dissent had to be silenced and so he was poisoned by radioactive coffee and then beaten to death as the threat to the regime deepened. Bunu's brutal murder demonstrates how the Ceausescu regime tolerated no resistance, even that of an elderly, dying man. He was murdered because he was able to recognize and counter the lies of the state. 

I Must Betray You is a stunning novel, and a timely one. Romania's experience with Communism mirrored that of most other Eastern Bloc countries and the Soviet Union: food and fuel shortages, rampant poverty, state police who tortured and murdered their own citizens, constant surveillance with almost no personal freedom. It is a reminder of the brutality and inhumanity of Communism at a time when some see it as an plausible alternative to the struggles Western democracies are currently experiencing. As Cristian writes in his notebook that is eventually published, "If communism is such a Paradise, why do we need barriers, walls, and laws to keep people from escaping?" Historical fiction can remind us of the lessons of the past, ones that must not be repeated.

The novel includes many historical, black and white photographs at the back, along with a detailed Author's Note and a Research and Sources section that explains the incredibly detailed research Sepetys undertook to write I Must Betray You. A map of Europe in 1989 opens the novel along with a dedication photograph of Romanian students in 1989. Sepetys's extensive research is evident in the believable characters she has crafted and her realistic portrayal of life in Romania in 1989. I Must Betray You is an absolute must-read!! As author Ruta Sepetys ends her Author's Note: "Together we can give history a voice." 

Book Details:

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
New York: Philomel Books        2022
319 pp.

Thirst by Varsha Bajaj

Minni lives in Mumbai, in a part of the city that is very poor, where there is often not enough water. Her family doesn't have running water in their home: instead they rely on an outside tap that they share with their neighbours. Minni's Ma must wake up early to fill their buckets with water because the taps only supply water for two hours in the morning and one hour in the evening. 

Minni's fifteen-year-old brother, Sanjay dreams of becoming a chef one day. Currently he is working doing food prep in a restaurant. Minni's Baba, runs a tea shop named Jai Ho where the neighbourhood loves to hang out and hear the local gossip. Minni's best friend is Faiza, who is Muslim.

One night, Sanjay's friend Amit tells them that his uncle Ram, who is a chauffeur, has a new car tonight. Amit offers to take Sanjay for a ride. Both Minni and Faiza beg to be included. Ram Uncle agrees to take the four of them for a ride and they drive through Mumbai in delicious air conditioning. During the ride, Uncle stops at a building near the Western railway tracks. Behind the tracks they see a large water truck . Instead of obeying Uncle, Amit and Sanjay leave the Mercedes, promising only to go as far as the fence by the tracks. However, they climb over the fence and Minni, worried about her brother, steps out of the car. 

In the dark, Minni sees that a hose attached to the tanker truck is draining water from the pipeline nearby. When Sanjay sneezes, revealing their presence, a man begins searching the area where Sanjay and Amit are hiding. In the light of the flashlight, Minni notices that the man has a pale scar on his cheek. He grabs Sanjay but Amit kicks him in the leg and both boys manage to flee, crossing the tracks before an oncoming train. Ram Uncle returns to the car and they speed away to safety. 

When they tell Ram Uncle what happened, he is furious, admonishing them not to be curious about what "tankers are doing in the night." Amit tells him that Ravi who is from their neighbourhood, recognized them but told them to run. They believe he will not say anything. 

The next day, any hopes that this will blow over are dispelled when Minni returns home after to school to find Ram Uncle and Amit at their house. Minni's parents are furious and terrified, especially when they see the newspaper headline, "Mumbai Ruled By Water Mafia". Uncle tells Minni's family that the water mafia are dangerous people and that they need to send Sanjay and Amit away. He tells them that Ravi has been talking about them, believing them to be part of a rival gang. Uncle explains that they steal water and sell it for huge profits.  When Minni suggests going to the police, her father tells her that they wouldn't be believed because they are uneducated slum dwellers and that the police are often bribed.

Amit and Sanjay are sent away to Delhi where they will be taken to Uncle's relative's farm so they can work for him. Sanjay doesn't want to leave, but after quickly packing he and Amit leave with Uncle. The next morning Minni explains to Faiza what has happened and both girls are scared.

A week after Sanjay leaves home, Minni and Faiza receive their packages to help them study for the final exam which is less than a month away. However, Minni's mother seems to be ill: she is tired all the time and doesn't eat much. Minni takes her to the clinic where the doctor tells her to rest and takes blood for tests. Minni's mother decides that she will go to stay with her mother and youngest sister in their village. There, she can rest and be cared for. However, this means big changes for Minni. She will take on her mother's job as housekeeper at Anita Ma'am's home after school.

Minni faces a daunting next few weeks: she must do all her mother's chores, study for her final exam and work at Anita Ma'am's house after school. With the help of her neighbours and friends, Minni manages to do all of this. But then she uncovers the identity of the man responsible for stealing water. How can she tip off police while keeping herself and her family safe?

Discussion

Thirst presents young readers a window into the lives of the very poor, the slum dwellers of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. Most young people in North America, take for granted having water, hot and cold, at the twist of a tap. But for residents of the slums of Mumbai, it's not so simple. 

According to an article in The Indian Express there are over ten thousand wells in Mumbai, but more than two thousand tanker trucks steal water from these wells and sell it to residents at high prices. Instead of dealing with the so called "water mafia" to prevent water theft, the local government is pursuing the development of a desalination plant.

Bajaj provides some information on the water mafia in her story. Mumbai is built on seven islands and its water supply comes from these islands. However, many residents in the lower income neighbourhoods where Minni and her family live, must line up in the morning and evening to fill containers with water. Many buildings do not have water during the day. Bajaj demonstrates the risks poorer residents of Mumbai face as a result of a lack of clean water: Minni's mother is found to be suffering from Hepatitis A, a water borne illness that is easily preventable with clean water and also through vaccination. There is also the risk Sanjay, Amit and Ravi encountered, of stumbling onto water theft and losing their lives for this knowledge.

In Thirst, Bajaj has crafted a clever, kind heroine in Minni, who like many young girls around the world, aspires to an education and often achieves it while overcoming enormous obstacles. The author also portrays the close-knit community that helps Minni achieve her dreams in whatever way they can, whether it is through meals, carrying water or sharing work. Bajaj shows them to be resilient, and hard-working.

Thirst offers a satisfying, happy ending, with resolutions to the many crises in the novel. Readers wanting to learn more about Mumbai's water issues can check out the website The Water Story (https://thewaterstory.com.au/). 

Book Details:

Thirst by Varsha Bajaj
New York: Nancy Paulsen Books    2022
179 pp.

Fashionopolis. The Secrets Behind The Clothes We Wear by Dana Thomas

Shopping for clothing is a favourite activity the world over. So it's not surprising it is a three trillion dollar industry which produces about one hundred billion items every year. But as you walk through stores with racks of clothing, have you ever wondered how and where the clothing you buy was made? Do you ever think about who made that garment you just purchased? 

In Fashionopolis, Dana Thomas describes how our clothing today is made by a manufacturing process that has been corrupted by greed causing harm to people and the environment.  The fashion business is constructed like a pyramid with haute couture and bespoke fashion at the top, ready-to-wear clothing that is found in department stores and boutiques (Gucci and Ann Taylor) in the middle, and fast fashion - cheap, trendy clothing found in H&M, Zara, and Joe Fresh (a Canadian retailer).  It is fast fashion that most of us buy and it is the most problematic. 

To understand the modern fashion industry, Thomas begins by going back to the Industrial Revolution in 1771 with Richard Arkwright's opening of the world's first water-powered textile mill near Manchester, England. Arkwright combined two inventions, the carding machine and the cotton jenny to spin cotton into yarn and then made yarn into fabric. The factories employed poor men, women and children for low wages in dangerous working conditions. Shifts were long, the air was filled with cotton fibres and workers lived on factory property in brick houses. The mills were so profitable, that by 1790, Arkwright owned nearly two hundred mills in Great Britain.  At this time, clothing was still hand-sewn.

This factory model was imported to the United States by Francis Cabot Lowell in the early 1800's and it was profitable because Black slaves planted and harvested the cotton. After 1830, the invention of the lockstitch sewing machine meant clothing could now be made faster. Eventually large factories were located in the Eastern United States, in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania where underwear and work clothes were made. In New York, in the late 1800's clothing copied from couture designs in Paris were made by European immigrants who knew how to sew. Eventually, there were so many garment factories, that whole sections of cities became known as the "Garment District". Until 1980, most clothing worn by Americans was made in the United States, but that would change with the coming of free trade.

Thomas then moves on to explore tariffs, protectionism and free trade. In particular, she  focuses on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the United States and Mexico. Those who supported NAFTA believed that without tariffs, good would cost less, and there would be more jobs in the U.S. However, opponents believed that factories would relocated to the country where the cost of production was the cheapest, in this case Mexico. As it turned out, opponents were correct. As the process of globalization continued, manufacturers relocated factories from North America and Europe to Southeast Asia, China, Turkey, India and Pakistan. While the prices of other goods we purchase increased, this was not the case with clothing. In fact, prices dropped, leading consumers to buy more, wear them less and throw them out faster.

From this point on, Thomas goes on to outline the cost of fast fashion to workers in illegal sweatshops in the United States which employ illegal immigrants, as well as workplace abuse in factories in the developing world. She also traces the history of fashion's abuse of workers, the use of slaves and child labor in factories both in the Great Britain and in the United States. 

There is a fascinating chapter, titled Dirty Laundry which explores the making of blue jeans, both the history of jeans, the use of indigo dye and a revealing look into the jeans finishing industry in Vietnam and China. Thomas recounts the history of the Levis Strauss company to show what can happen when a business loses its conscience and becomes focused on profit.

This leads into Part II of the book which focuses on how the fashion industry can be reset, producing clothing in an honest way that doesn't damage the environment or harm workers. Thomas profiles many different people who are trying to do fashion differently such as designers Natalie Chanin and Billy Reid. Chanin and Reid are doing "slow fashion", that is slowing down production of fashion, using locally produced textiles and dye for their designs. In this chapter readers are introduced to many new concepts related to slow fashion such as reshoring which is bringing back the manufacturing that moved to other countries after NAFTA and rightshoring which is the reopening of those abandoned factories that were closed due to NAFTA and installing the newest technology to produce clothing. 

In Part III, Thomas highlights designed Stella McCartney's  efforts to change the fashion industry for the better. Many of McCartney's materials are vegan based, produced and sold in buildings that are environmentally friendly. Fashionopolis also explores the work to recycle fabrics of discarded clothing. Thomas writes that since "...the Industrial Revolution, we have been consuming mass-manufactured products in a linear manner, like a timeline. The product is made; we buy the product, we use the product; we throw away the product. Then we start again....It's a straight line, with a beginning, a middle and end...In a circular system, products are continually recycled. reborn, and reused." To do this we need to figure out how to recycle fashion which is predominantly made from some combination of polyester and cotton. Stacey Flynn states that "we fail to innovate on so many levels because we've been reliant on nineteenth-century equipment' - spinners, looms, sewing machines - 'and the way we think about that equipment is with a twentieth-century mindset - that resources are infinite, that cash is the only thing that matters."

Discussion

Fashionopolis: The Secrets Behind The Clothes We Wear is an eye-opening look into the world of fast fashion, how it all began, and what might be done to change the industry so that it is more sustainable and ethical.

In this young readers edition, Thomas describes how with the Industrial Revolution, the making of clothing moved out of the home and into the factory, becoming fast fashion, and an industry filled with questionable practices. The fashion industry has become a "business obsessed with profits, corrupting the supply chain, from raw materials to labor. That greed has given us offshoring, layoffs, poorly paid and treated workers, shoddy factories, tragedies."

Fashionopolis also features those designers and insiders who are trying to change the industry and its practices, restarting the fashion and textile industries in the United States by sourcing locally, ethically produced textiles and dyes and "slowing" down fashion. Thomas explains new terms such as "false economy" and "right shoring" in an easy-to-understand way and offers readers ways they too can help to change the fashion industry by purchasing fewer new clothes, wearing vintage and secondhand, by washing and repairing the clothing they currently own, as well as learning to sew and knit. There are some new ideas such as renting clothing too.

 

Hopefully, Fashionopolis will encourage young readers think twice before they shop at Ardene, Old Navy or the many other fast fashion outlets. Fashionopolis is persuasive in its presentation, filled with interesting details about how our clothes are made and offers concrete suggestions for a more sustainable, ethical fashion industry, if we all do our part.

 

Book Details:

Fashionopolis: The Secrets Behind The Clothes We Wear by Dana Thomas
New York:  Dial Books For Young Readers       2022
196 pp.

Black Birds In the Sky by Brandy Colbert

In Black Birds In The Sky, Brandy Colbert describes the events leading up to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the aftermath of that tragedy on the Black community and America as a country.

The story begins with the events of May 30, 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Many stores and businesses were closed for the parade scheduled later that morning. However, the shoeshine business that employed nineteen-year-old Dick Rowland was open. Rowland had been born Jimmie Jones. His early life had been difficult, as he and his three sisters were homeless and orphaned. He was eventually taken in by Damie Ford, a divorced black woman. Damie moved to Tulsa to be closer to her family, the Rowlands and to take advantage of the better job prospects in the booming city.

They eventually moved to the Greenwood District, a prosperous Black community that included many different Black professionals. These professionals supported one another and the Black community, with the area becoming so prosperous that it was given the nickname, Black Wall Street. When Jimmie started elementary school, he took on the name of Dick Rowland. Initially a good student, Dick dropped out during high school and began working at a shoe shine business owned by a white man. 

On that May Memorial Day in 1921, Rowland needed to use the bathroom, but because of the Jim Crow laws, he was required to use a "colored" bathroom. However, there was no "colored" washroom in the white shoe shine parlor, so Rowland went to use the bathroom in the Drexel building, something he had done many times previously. When he went to step into the elevator, operated by a young white woman named Sarah Page, it is believed Rowland tripped and grabbed her arm to steady himself. Page screamed in surprise and police were called by a clerk on the first floor who had heard her scream and saw Rowland leaving the building. Very quickly, Rowland became a suspect for attempted rape. This event became the trigger for the what would become one of the most horrific acts of racial violence in America.

 Discussion

Black Birds In The Sky is the heartrending story of the race riot in 1921, that saw hundreds of Black Americans injured or killed and their thriving Black community in the Greenwood District almost completely destroyed, razed by fire and looted.

Brandy Colbert begins by describing the events that were to ignite the Tulsa Race Massacre on September 1, 1921, namely the alleged interaction between Dick Rowland and Sarah Page. From there she goes on to describe the history of the land that would eventually become the state of Oklahoma. Colbert begins with the early Indigenous peoples who lived on the Oklahoma land, the European colonizers who explored and fought over ownership of the lands, and the forced settlement of Indigenous peoples (the Five Tribes which included Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole) from their ancestral lands in the eastern and southern United States onto the lands of Oklahoma and Kansas. This history emphasizes the deceitful manner in which European settlers and the American government dealt with various non-white peoples.

This deceit continued with the land runs in Oklahoma and Kansas. Now settled onto new lands, the Five Tribes were further subjected to traitorous land runs in which Americans and Europeans could simply claim "empty" land as their own. Colbert describes the land runs, which also included the migration of Black people to Oklahoma land and their eventual re-settling into towns. Despite these new areas of the continent not having a history of slavery, racial discrimination and segregation became entrenched.  By the time Oklahoma entered the Union in 1907, Jim Crow laws, which forced the segregation of Blacks, were already being enacted.

Colbert also describes what it was like to be Black in America during the post-Civil War period. The author discusses the Fifteenth Amendment which allowed Black men to vote and saw the election of Blacks to political office, the failure of Reconstruction,  and the rise of the Klu Klux Klan. The corruption of law enforcement towards the Black community is detailed. This includes the connection of American policing to slave patrols in the pre-Civil War period, and the rise of vigilantism and lynching towards Black men who were almost always assumed to be guilty of assault, rape or murder. 

The attitudes of white people towards Black Americans, even those who fought valiantly for America in World War I, was one of superiority and fear of social change. White Americans believed that Black veterans would demand equality and would use their weapons to obtain it. As a result, white Americans used political and justice systems to re-instate a new kind of slavery, one that denied Blacks their rights even when the Supreme Court ruled in their favour.  

 

Before she recounts the events of the Tulsa Race riot, Colbert explains the history of the Greenwood District, its founders Ottowa W. Gurley and John the Baptist (J.B.) Stradford. "By 1921, Greenwood was home to a Black hospital, a Black public library, two Black schools, two Black newspapers, two theaters, three fraternal organizations, five hotels, eleven boardinghouses, and about a dozen churches." In Deep Greenwood, the commercial district, "...one could find just about anything they needed in Deep Greenwood, with reportedly six hundred businesses within its thirty-five city blocks by 1921." Colbert writes, "...Greenwood was beginning to resemble neighborhoods in big cities like Chicago and New York, with its doctors and attorneys, theaters and restaurants, booming real estate market, and millionaires in the making."

According to Colbert, Greenwood was unique among other Black communities. "While Black people were still being disenfranchised in the Southern states from which many Greenwood residents had migrated, Greenwood was absolutely thriving. The community's focus on businesses that were Black-owned, Black-operated, and patronized primarily by Black people meant that each dollar spent in Greenwood would circulate throughout the businesses and people there around thirty times; the wealth stayed in the community and continued to grow it."  This all made for a great deal of resentment by white Tulsans who believed the Black community had no right to such success and wealth. 

All of these factors came together on May 31, 1921, to create a terrible firestorm of hatred and murder. From this point on, Colbert describes the events of the riot and its aftermath. Not surprisingly, "Black people were blamed for the massacre and punished for crimes they did not commit" while "...no white people were ever imprisoned for the murders and property destruction over the eighteen hours they terrorized Greenwood." What is perhaps even worse, was the erasure of the Tulsa Race Massacre from public discourse and from social memory. It would be fifty years before someone would publish an article on the massacre, bringing the events of the past to light once again. Today Black Tulsans focus on achieving a resolution to this tragedy, something that remains challenging to date.

Colbert's account is detailed, interesting and connects the many facets of American history to show how the groundwork was laid for the massacre and how Americans simply refused to acknowledge the tragedy afterwards, nor accept responsibility for what happened. Black Birds In The Sky is an important book in that regard, because it breaks that barrier of silence, informing a new generation and demonstrating the harm hatred does to people, communities and a nation. The book takes its title from the airplanes that were flown over Greenwood during the riot, firing on groups of Blacks. They appeared to those looking up, like black birds in the sky.

The Afterword explores the parallels between the events of 1918 to 1921 with a pandemic and race riot and the events of 2020 with the U.S. Election, the killings of Black Americans by police, and the Covid pandemic. Colbert notes "...how many harmful elements of US politics and culture have endured despite the progress we have achieved." The back matter contains a detailed Source List and Image Credits as well as an Index.  Black Birds In The Sky is a must read for all teens.

Book Details:

Black Birds In The Sky by Brandy Colbert
New York: Balzer + Bray      2021
216 pp

Fighting For Yes! by Maryann Cocca-Lefler

When Judy Heumann was a little girl, life in a wheelchair meant not being able to do many things. When she was five-years-old her mother attempted to sign her up for kindergarten but the principal refused, saying that Judy was a fire hazard. They then decided to try enrolling her at the Jewish School. The principal told Judy's parents if she learned Hebrew she could attend in September. Despite taking Hebrew classes in the summer, Judy was refused admittance in the fall. 

Judy spent years studying at home with a teacher who would come to their home. However, Judy loved to learn and the teacher was only able to come a few hours each week. In the afternoons, Judy played with her friends in their neighbourhood. They would tell her all about their day at school, going to the gym, the library and music classes. Judy's mother signed her up for activities after school but getting into the buildings for them was difficult. It meant taking her wheelchair up stairs and over bumpy curbs.

When Judy was nine-years-old she was accepted to the Health Conservation 21 class at Public School 219. However, she soon discovered that her class, held in the basement,  was made up of only eight students, all of whom were disabled. Regular students attended class in classrooms upstairs.

As Judy and her friends were growing up, they were able to go to many places she was not, such as restaurants, public transit or the library. Most buildings had entrances with stairs, and there were no ramps. One place Judy loved was Camp Oakhurst, a summer camp for children with disabilities. There she had the freedom to do many things and she felt included.

When she was fourteen-years-old, Judy attended high school, the first student from her Health Conservation 21 class to do so. Despite having few friends and feeling left out, Judy worked hard and graduated. The principal didn't want Judy to be on stage with the other students, but her father insisted. She was placed at the back, where her wheelchair was hidden. Judy had won a leadership award, but it was given to her at the back of the stage where she couldn't be seen.

Judy attended college, became a teacher and became active in politics after she met other people with disabilities. However, when it came time to obtain her teacher certification, Judy was told she was a danger to students!  Judy had had enough and she decided to sue the New York City Board of Education. She had taken all the required courses and was qualified. This was during the 1960's when the civil rights movement was taking place and Judy's struggle was also seen as an important one. Her suit was to be the beginning of serious challenges that would obtain the right of people with disabilities to participate fully in society and in the workplace.

Discussion

Fighting For Yes chronicles the fight for equality for people with disabilities from the perspective of Judy Heumann. Born in 1947, Judith Ellen Heumann had polio when she was eighteen months old, spending three months in an iron lung. For the next three years she was repeatedly hospitalized. Her parents refused to consider placing her in an institution, as the doctors suggested.

Judith had a strong desire to learn and had to fight to be included in the education system in the United States. As mentioned in Fighting for Yes, when she was not allowed to enroll in the public school just down the street from her home, she was given a teacher from the Board of Education for a total of two and a half hours a week! The only way Judith was able to attend high school was due to the efforts of her parents and other parents of children with disabilities, demanding the Board of Education make some of the high schools in New York City wheelchair accessible, which they did. 

Judith was able to attend university, obtaining her Bachelor's degree in 1969. When she applied to obtain her teaching license, Judith passed the oral and written exams but failed the physical exam because she had had polio. The Board of Education was afraid she would not be able to lead her students to safety in the case of a fire. So her license was denied. When her situation became public through an article and editorial in the New York Times, she received both public and legal support.  After this, Judith decided to sue the New York City Board of Education. She won the case which was heard by the first African- American woman judge, who as Judith described in her Ted Talk, "knew discrimination when she saw it." Judith was hired as a teacher and taught elementary school for three years. In 1975, she received her Masters in Public Health from the University of California at Berkley. 

In 1977,Joseph Califano, the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare refused to sign the regulations that were needed to make Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 into law. Section 504 prohibited any entity from receiving public funding if they discriminated against persons with disabilities. Both the Nixon and Ford administrations refused to move ahead with the legislation because of the potential costs to hospitals and government buildings. So Judith, along with many others organized sit-ins across the United States. Califano signed the regulations and 504 became law. 

As the disability rights movement grew there were more protections added: the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990. Judith was named Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services from 1993 to 2001. Among other positions she has held, she was appointed by President Obama as Special Advisor on International Disability Rights in 2010, and has been a Senior Fellow at the Ford Foundation from 2017 to 2019.  

In Fighting For Yes, Judith Heumann demonstrates how one person can make a significant difference, by having the courage to fight for what they believe in. Fear and lack of understanding about disabilities resulted in discrimination that removed the most basic of rights such as attending school, and being able to access basic amenities like libraries, theatres and government buildings. Judith wasn't willing to accept this and became a tireless disabilities rights activist. Fighting For Yes focuses on her determination to get several important pieces of legislation passed, including Section 504. Despite all that she has achieved, Judith knows that there is still much work to be done to make life easier and more accessible for those with disabilities. 

Illustrator Vivien Mildenberger has portrayed Judith's story using gauche and digital media. The back matter contains a Note From Judith Heumann, an Author's Note and an offering of Selected Sources.

 

Judith's TED talk, given in 2016 is highly recommended. Her website is Judith Heumann.

Book Details:

Fighting For Yes! The Story of Disability Rights Activist Judith Heummann by Maryann Cocca-Lefler
New York: Abrams Books For Young Readers         2022

March Book Three by John Lewis

"The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men."

In March, Book Three, John Lewis chronicles the efforts of Black Americans to obtain true equality, peace and brotherhood in their country.

His story continues with the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. This church was a headquarters of the civil rights movement in Birmingham. Sunday September 15 was its annual "Youth Day" and hundreds of young people were attending. The bombing killed four young girls: Addie May Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair. Dr. King told those at the funeral that they needed to look at "the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers."

Diane Nash had a plan to have thousands of young people to peacefully demonstrate Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, cutting off roads, trains, airports, the government and shutting down everything. The goals were to force segregationist Governor George Wallace out of office and obtain the right to vote for every adult in Alabama. Dr. King did not agree with this plan but Lewis and Nash felt that SNCC had to do something. They decided to target the city of Selma in Dallas County, where sixty-three protestors had been arrested. 

Lewis, who was chairman of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) believed they needed to focus on "One Man, One Vote" because Blacks faced enormous odds attempting to register to vote. Protests in front of the Dallas County Courthouse saw many arrests, including John Lewis.

On October 7, 1963, SNCC mobilized dozens of people lined up outside in the hot sun to register to vote. Major Joe Smelley in charge of the state troopers and Jim Clarke, the mean and violent sheriff of Dallas County, refused to allow anyone to leave the line and return for bathroom and water breaks. Despite this, people stayed in line, while only twelve Blacks were allowed to register. 

Lewis became involved in the Freedom Vote, an event conceived and organized by Bob Moses, a Harvard graduate and Al Lowenstein, a white activist and former dean at Stanford University. Freedom Vote was a staged "mock election" with Black candidates, in which Black men and women could participate. The goal was to give them a sense of what it was like to participate in the electoral process.

Freedom Vote placed ballot boxes all across Mississippi, in churches, barber shops, grocery stores and beauty parlors. Then in November, 1963, John F. Kennedy Jr. was assassinated. Lewis and others wondered what it would mean for the civil rights movement, which Kennedy and his brother Robert had come to support.

Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president; he was committed to passing a civil rights bill even though he had voted against racial equality in the past. But he wanted civil rights groups including SNCC to stop their protests. They did not.

In the final meeting of 1963, Lewis and the SNCC executive decided to work to obtain the right for all citizens of Mississippi to vote in the election year of 1964. At the convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Lewis and others reminded reporters that anyone interfering in any way "with the right of a Negro to vote in Mississippi commits a crime against the Federal government" per Title 18, Section 594 of the United States Code. 

They also announced that working with other civil rights groups, they planned to place one thousand summer workers in Mississippi, teaching in Freedom Schools and staffing community centers. These would register up to four hundred thousand Negroes on mock polling lists and would also do voter registration. Lewis told reporters they would challenge the right of white Mississippians to chose congressional representatives if none of the Black candidates were elected. They also intended to challenge the Democratic Convention in August over full recognition, the Federal Government on the illegal intimidation/arrests during voter registration. Freedom Summer was going to be about real votes. 

They also created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to challenge Mississippi's "segregation-based Democratic party" and its white-only delegation for their seats at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City, N.J. This would be done by following proper procedures at all levels.

In late June, three Freedom Summer volunteers went missing in Neshoba County.  They were Mickey Schwerner, Andy Goodman and James Chaney, a Black Mississippian. Their burned out station wagon was pulled from Bogue Chitto Creek without their bodies. The FBI and Navy were called in to search for them.  Meanwhile the violence continued throughout Mississippi with shootings and harassment of Blacks by whites. 

On July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act became law but Lewis and SNCC were determined to test if the law would be enforced. After the discovery of the bodies of the three missing Freedom Summer volunteers in August of 1964, Lewis and others became more determined than ever to see Black Americans register to vote.

The summer of 1964 proved to be a crucial one with the State Convention of the MFDP to elect delegates to send to Atlantic City, the Republican Convention in Daly City, CA which saw Barry Goldwater elected as the presidential nominee, and the events that rocked the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, including the testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer.

In 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer lost her job, was arrested and beaten for trying to register to vote. She became a part of the SNCC in Mississippi after this. At the Democratic convention, Hamer recounted her attempt to register to vote, in front of of cameras from all the major networks, along with many others including Dr. King. Furious, President Johnson attempted to pre-empt her testimony but this backfired on him. Lewis also describes the struggles of the MFDP at the convention, his eye-opening trip to Africa with Harry Belafonte and his meeting with Malcom X in Kenya, internal struggles within the SNCC including gender equality as more women joined the civil rights movement, Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize, and the assassination of Malcom X in New York. 

But the fruit of all of Lewis and other activists' unrelenting efforts to obtain the vote for Black Americans culminated in the marches in Alabama, from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Those marches,  known as Bloody Sunday and Turnaround Tuesday, were met with violent opposition by  Mayor Jim Clark and police as well as George Wallace, governor of Alabama. The ensuing violence, broadcast on national networks, seared the conscience of the nation. The actions in Selma led to President Johnson signing into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed the many discriminatory practices occurring the mostly the southern states. The Voting Rights Act enforced the rights given in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment enacted almost one hundred years earlier, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For John Lewis it was the end of one long journey and the beginning of yet another.

Discussion

March Book Three is the conclusion to John Lewis's outstanding graphic novel trilogy about his work in the civil rights movement.

In this final book, Lewis focuses on the determination of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other groups to obtain true equality and participation in American society. They could only achieve this if if they had to right to vote, something that was guaranteed to Black men at least, in 1870. However, the southern states in particular, devised every method to deny this right to Black Americans. 

The Civil Rights Bill had given Black Americans the rights of citizens and Black men were allowed to vote. In fact, Black men not only voted but they ran for office, with twenty-two serving in Congress over a decade. The 15th Amendment banned the restriction of voting rights based on race, colour or having previously been a slave but it also allowed individual states to decide the qualifications for obtaining that privilege. White Americans still controlled policy in the south and they began to enact many different types of qualifications that restricted Blacks from being able to register to vote. Some jurisdictions required literacy tests, or poll taxes.

These restrictions allowed White Americans to effectively control voter registration and eliminate Black Americans from participating in the democratic process. With no say in government, it was impossible to move forward on equality. This would remain the case for almost one hundred years until the civil rights movement in the late 1950's and throughout the 1960's. In the end, the Voting Rights Act dramatically increased voter registration and voting turnout in elections among Black and minority communities.

Lewis is frank about the violence he and many others experienced at the hands of  politicians, law enforcement, armed forces and the general public. Peaceful protests were met with brutality and cruelty for black men, women and children, and for any who joined them including people of other races and faiths.  Graphic artist Nate Powell realistically portrays all of this, capturing the violence, some of which resulted in the murders of activists and Black citizens who were part of the protests. The panels showing the deaths of the missing Freedom volunteers and the march from Selma to Montgomery are especially well done. They capture the grief and sense of loss, the determination and courage Lewis and others experienced.

The struggle for equality and the right to vote is juxtaposed with the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first Black president and Lewis's attendance at the inauguration. It is meant to show how far America has come in the last fifty years when a Black American becoming president would have been unthinkable. Nevertheless, the struggle for true equality in America is an ongoing one.

The March trilogy should be required reading for all high school students in both the United States and Canada. To learn the lessons of acceptance, tolerance, equality and learning that all of us are brothers and sisters, we must study the past and learn from it. March allows us to do just that.

John Lewis passed away at the age of 80, in 2020. He was the last surviving member of the "Big Six" civil rights leaders that included Martin Luther King Jr. and James Farmer.

Book Details:

March Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions          2016

246 pp.

Lion Lights: My Invention That Made Peace With Lions by Richard Turere and Shelly Pollock

When Richard Tuere was a nine-year-old boy guarding his father's cows, his biggest fear was the lions lurking in the nearby grass, waiting to grab an animal. Richard's family's farm bordered the south side of Nairobi National Park in Kenya. This meant many different wild animals including lions were roaming nearby. Their cows were valuable to Richard's family because they provided meat, milk and hides. But to the lion, a cow was a source of easy food!

Richard and his family are Maasai, a people who once wandered throughout Kenya's vast plains with their cows and goats. They travelled across the plains, following the wet and dry seasons. Now however, they live in small villages called manyattas. Their animals still need good grass and water, so during the dry season, they have to herd them further away from the manyatta. But this also meant risking an attack by lions.

At night Richard made sure the family's cows were inside their boma, an area fenced with thorny acacia branches. Although these branches kept the cattle in, they did not prevent the lions from attacking. 

Richard and other Maasai herders tried different ways to keep the lions at bay but nothing seemed to work. Richard tried a scarecrow, conservationists tried chain link fences, and the government tried payments to farmers for their lost cattle. But still the lions kept killing cattle and the Maasai kept killing lions.

The lions were an important part of Kenya's tourist industry: people came from all over the world to see them. So a solution needed to be found.

Richard loved to tinker with electronics, taking apart televisions and radios. Then one morning, when he was eleven-years-old, he found his father's bull dead inside their boma. This only made Richard more determined to find a solution to the lion problem.

His clue came one night when he noticed that whenever he walked around the boma with a flashlight the lions stayed away. Maybe he could use this discovery plus his skill with electronics to keep the lions away.

Discussion

Lion Lights tells the remarkable story of  a young Kenyan inventor, Richard Turere who designed "lion lights" to keep lions from preying on his father's cattle.

 Richard grew up on a farm bordering the southern, unfenced area of Nairobi National Park. The lack of fencing meant that zebra, wildebeest and other wildlife freely roamed out of the park onto nearby farms. They were followed by the lions who fed off these animals. However, lions, and to a lesser extent cheetahs found cattle to be much easier prey. Cattle are very important to the Maasai, as they are the currency in their culture. Their wealth is in their cattle.

After continuing attacks, Richard, at the age of eleven, discovered that lions were frightened of someone walking around the boma with a flashlight. He decided to develop a system of flashing lights set up around the perimeter of the boma. Initially, these were LED lights set up to flash using the light indicator from a vehicle, powered by a battery. This worked, reducing lions attacks almost immediately. He called this invention, Lion Lights.

In 2011, Paula Kambuhu, director of the Kenyan Land Conservation Trust and chairperson of the Nairobi National Park and her colleagues learned about Richard's unique invention during their field work that year. He had devised his Lion Lights without having had any prior training in electronics. Impressed, Kambuhu was able to help him obtain a scholarship to one of Kenya's top schools, Brookhouse International School. 

In 2013, Richard was invited to give a talk at the TED 2013 Conference in California. He was able to patent his invention, but not soon enough to receive money for what he had devised. Now twenty-two years old Richard is a graduate of The African Leadership University located in Kigali, Rwanda.

You can listen to Richard's TED Talk here. You can learn more about Richard's work through his website, lion-lights.org

Lion Lights offers young readers Richard Turere's remarkable story, highlighting is determination and creativity in spite of enormous odds. His story is one that demonstrates how one person can make a huge difference in the lives of many. Perhaps the more important message is that Richard also showed that sustainable solutions can be found to human-wildlife conflict.

Accompanying Richard's account are the realistic illustrations by artist Sonia Possentini. Lion Lights also includes a detailed note, About The Maasai, a list of Maasai words, and where to find more information on subjects relevant to this story. There is also a short biography of Richard Turere at the very back.

Book Details:

Lion Lights: My Invention That Made Peace With Lions by Richard Turere and Shelly Pollock
Thomaston, Maine: Tilbury House Publishers      2022

The Turtle of Michigan by Naomi Shihab Nye

In The Turtle of Michigan, Shihab Nye continues the story she began in the first novel about Aref and his parents who are moving to America to study.

The story picks up where The Turtle of Oman left off, with Aref and his mother boarding a plane, on their way to America. Aref's father left a week prior, for Ann Arbor, Michigan, to set up their apartment. After a week of refusing to pack his suitcase and being unhappy about leaving his friends and all that is familiar in Oman, Aref is excited to be flying.

The long plane journey, from Muscat to Paris, to New York City and then to Detroit, Michigan is uneventful but tiring. The reunion with his father is tearful but happy. However, their arrival at their apartment is marred by a small disaster. Aref's other trips over a yellow parking divider and breaks her wrist. They are helped by their friendly neighbours, Mr and Mrs. Finnegan, an older Irish couple. At the hospital, Aref's mother has her wrist placed in a brace and is told to return to have a plate put in. 

When Aref finally does get to see his new home, an apartment, he likes it but finds it smaller than their "real house" back  home. In his room he has a terrarium that he hopes to use for a Michigan turtle.

After his mother's surgery, Aref settles into help his father with the chores and shopping. While waiting for his own school year to start, Aref accompanies his parents to their lectures at the University of Michigan. One day Aref and his father went to Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School to fill out papers for him to enroll at the school. While there Aref notices the poster about the Arts Camp and decides to join. For Aref it is the beginning of a new adventure that sees him make new friends and have new adventures. There is the good food at an Italian restaurant, their neighbour Hugh and his guide dog Honeybun, the Michigan turtles Aref and his father find on a fall hike, his first snowfall and his first Christmas. But the biggest and best surprise is about to happen, one that will make Aref very happy.

Discussion

The Turtle of Michigan is another gentle, positive story by poet and writer Naomi Shihab Nye. In this novel, eight-year-old Aref with the help of his parents, a kindly neighbour named Hugh and his teachers quickly adjusts to life in America. Although he misses Oman and his beloved Sidi, Aref learns to find places, people and things to love about his new life in America.

Shihab Nye chronicles Aref's journey in a very gentle, affirming style.  Before schools starts, Aref wonders if he will find friends. "Would he find new friends and walk with other people soon? Would he belong? Would he still feel like himself? Or would he keep feeling a little lost, like those birds in the air port terminal?" It is Aref's father who helps him to settle in by taking him to explore shops and going on hikes near their home.  Aref's parents' openness to new people, and new cultures  helps him to adapt quickly. This leads Aref to bravely decide to attend art camp even though he doesn't feel he's a good artist. But Aref does make new friends at the art camp. The result is that, Aref finds that their apartment complex feels like home. "Home happened fast" he notes.

Like his father who is a biologist, Aref is interested in animals such as bats and turtles. When he first arrives at his family's new apartment in Ann Arbor, he sees that his father has placed a terrarium in his bedroom.  At first Aref is anxious to find a turtle for his terrarium. In October when Aref and his parents go on a hike to the Nichols Arboretum, they spot many turtles happily swimming in the water. There are baby turtles and larger turtles. Aref's mother suggests they just take a small turtle and bring it home for his terrarium. This horrifies Aref who cannot imagine separating the turtles. When Aref considers the situation, he tells his friend Robin that "It would be very bad to live in a glass tank." Eventually he decides to use his terrarium for growing a herb garden.

Shihab Nye incorporates many different issues into her story, briefly exploring each. The character Hugh, a neighbour who is blind and has a support dog, is portrayed in a way that demonstrates his disability doesn't preventing him from enjoying a rich and varied life. He cooks a gourmet dinner for Aref's family and a mutual neighbour's family. He recently traveled to Arizona to help his sister who is also visually impaired. Shihab Nye broaches the topic of a blended family by having Aref's friend, Robin tell him about his father and step-father. The issue of bullying is also explored when Aref decides to join the anti-bullying club at school run by first-graders (a rather strange way to run an anti-bullying club).

The Turtle of Michigan is a well-written sequel to the first novel, offering a positive immigration experience and encouraging young readers who might be faced with adjusting to a new culture to consider not what they have lost culturally, but what they might gain both from new friendships.

Book Details:

The Turtle of Michigan by Naomi Shihab Nye
New York: Greenwillow Books      2022

322 pp.

Blue. A History Of The Color As Deep As The Sea And As Wide As The Sky by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Blue explores the history of the colour blue asking where the colour came from and describing how the colour we know today came to be.

The earliest known record of the colour blue comes from the gorgeous rock, lapis lazuli, a deep blue metamorphic rock. It was mined in Afghanistan as early as 4500 B.C. Lapis lazuli was used in jewelry. 

It was Queen Cleopatra VII who was known for wearing a bluish mixture around her eyes, made with a mixture of lapis lazuli and other ingredients.

However, through the centuries dyers and merchants continued to look for easier and cheaper methods of creating the colour blue. One myth holds that a dog on the seashore snatched up a snail which turned his mouth a purple-blue. This turned out to be very labour intensive and just difficult to produce. 

As a result the colour blue was considered a holy colour, only to be used for special items such as the the blue drapes in King Solomon's temple or the colouring of the robe of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

Eventually, people discovered other, easier ways to produce the colour blue. One such person was the scientist Adolf von Baeyer who would be awarded the 1905 Nobel Prize for creating a chemical blue. 

Discussion

Blue is a fascinating account of history of the  colour blue, written for children but equally interesting for readers of all ages.  Brew-Hammond takes readers through the earliest known beginning with the Ancient Egyptians to the present day. It's a history most people do not know about what is arguably everyone's favourite colour!

The history of the colour blue is filled with many fascinating facts, including some that this picture book doesn't touch on. For example, the Greeks and Romans did not have a word to describe the colour blue and the colour was not found in their descriptions of rainbows. However, we know they used the colour in clothing and paintings because of archeological evidence. We also know the Ancient Egyptians used the colour blue as Brew-Hammond describes in her picture book, but we also know that they loved the gem, turquoise and that they created blue by mixing silica, lime, copper and alkali.

In the Middle Ages, blue became the colour of the nobility mainly because it was expensive to produce. During this time period, it extracted from the leaves of the woad plant, Isatis tinctoria. This meant that artists during the Renaissance used the pigment for important subjects in their paintings such as the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Eventually other shades of blue were developed such as ultramarine and indigo, to be used in porcelain and clothing. Ultramarine was developed from lapis lazuli while the indigo colour came from the indigo plant, Indigo fera. Today's denim, a fabric dyed with indigo, evolved from the original fabric produced in Genoa, Italy in the 17th century, copied in Nimes, France and eventually used by Levi Strauss in the United States in 1873.

Brew-Hammond's informative text, which covers some other interesting facts about blue, not mentioned here, is accompanied by the lush, vibrant illustrations of painter/illustrator/art educator, David Minter. The artist created the illustrations using "layers of acrylic wash on heavy watercolor paper."

The back matter includes an Author's Note about the colour blue, A Few Blue Facts and a list of Selected Sources.

Book Details:

Blue. A History Of The Color As Deep As The Sea and As Wide As The Sky by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond  
New York: Alfred A. Knopf        2022

Written In Stone by Rosanne Parry

Written In Stone  is the story of thirteen-year-old Pearl Carver, a member of the Makah tribe. The story begins in 1999 with eighty-nine-year-old Pearl walking to the beach with her great-granddaughter, Ruby to see the whales. The smell of the beach and of the whales bring back memories of the summer when Pearl was thirteen.

The story flashes back to the summer of 1923. Pearl's father is Victor Carver, the best whaler of the Makah Nation. Her father and grandfather were Makah whalers, her "mother was a Tlingit princess from the northern tribes, a weaver of the famous Chilkat blankets." Her grandmother was from the Quinault Nation in the south. Pearl's mother and baby sister died five years ago, in 1918, leaving just Pearl and her father. The war in Europe was over and returning soldiers brought home the deadly influenza. For two days her mother and sister were sick before they finally died. In their village of one hundred, sixty-one graves were dug.

Now Pearl and her village, including her uncle and her grandmother, are anxiously awaiting the return of the whalers who left three days ago. After relieving her cousin Charlie from watching at the look-out, Pearl thinks back to how her people have given up their traditions. On her watch, Pearl spots the returning whalers and runs home to inform the village. But when the whalers arrive, Pearl's father is not among them.

Reeling from this loss, the village is visited two days later by the Indian agent on a "condolence" call. Instead, he dishonours  Pearl's dead father with the frequent use of his name and suggests that Pearl be sent to the Indian school, Chemawa in Oregon since she is now an orphan. 

Because holding a potlatch leads to jail and the confiscating of tribal regalia, Pearl and her family decide to have a secret one. The feast and gift-giving is held in a secret location in a cave,  on Tatoosh Island with only the men in attendance. But Pearl makes a plan to secretly attend. Having witnessed her father burning all of her mother's clothing and belongings, she desperately wants "something of my father's to keep". 

At the feast in their longhouse, Pearl learns what happened on the whale hunt, how they saw an old scarred whale with a fresh wound. Her father was about to drive the harpoon into the whale when Uncle Jeremiah's son, Henry yelled and the whale dove deep. Pearl's father leapt into the water hoping to harpoon the whale but it dove deep taking him with it and overturning their boat. All that surfaced was the harpoon broken into two pieces. On their way home, they encountered a whaling ship that has hunted more than twenty whales. Stunned by this waste, the Makah whalers now know where their whales have gone.

 

When her grandmother realizes that Pearl intends to secretly travel to the potlatch, she offers something better for her: she has Pearl do a naming of family attending the potlatch while Grandma tells her the gifts they will receive.

After the potlatch and the feast, Pearl and her family must now decide how they will survive, without the prospect of whale meat and oil. Pearl considers whether she should live as the white man does or is there perhaps another way? As she struggles to deal with her own inner conflict, a deceitful wildcatter looking for oil and gas but masquerading as an art dealer, shows up. In a race to return home to protect her father's Raven masks, Pearl unexpectedly gets marooned at the Seal Hunter's Beach, where she makes a startling discovery that changes everything.

Discussion

Written In Stone is the heart-stirring fictional story of a young Makah girl who's determined to preserve her way of life and the memory of her culture for herself and her future children during a time of enormous change. In this beautifully written novel, Parry portrays an Indigenous way of life deeply connected to the natural world while greatly at odds with the European culture overtaking them.

The story is set in 1923, in the Makah village of Ozette located on the Pacific Northwest Coast in Washington state.  Pearl has lost her father, the best Makah harpooner, at sea. This means there is no whale meat for her village, no oil to trade and possibly a hungry winter ahead. Faced with an uncertain future, Pearl and her grandparents, and extended family consider their options. One of these options is to sell her father's Raven regalia, which angers and upsets Pearl. Another option, which her family comes to plan out, is to harvest and sell oysters. 

But as Parry shows, Pearl's struggle is not just to find a way to earn money for her family. It is also about saving  herself , preserving her way of life and the culture she belongs to. This sets up a fierce inner conflict within Pearl that she wrestles to resolve.  

After her family makes enough money to support themselves through the winter by selling oysters, they decide to visit the theatre. It is while in the theatre where she notices how they are shunned, that Pearl considers what living like the white man might  cost her. "I could do it if I wanted to. I could put on a white woman's clothes and high voice and little steps. But then I would never be able to sing or dance in my own language, never be able to bring a visitor or a token from home to the boardinghouse in town."

When Pearl struggles to teach herself how to weave she comes to realize that she may be losing all that is dear to her and that those who follow her may having nothing of their culture to learn and instead become part of the white man's world. "What if I couldn't remember my father's dances either? What if I could only see how beautiful they were and how easy he'd make it look to dance like Raven? What if my sons received the masks and never learned to dance?

I thought of the footprints of my descendants on the beach. Would those feet ever dance, or would they trudge after me to factories and lumber camps and cities far from home?"   The mention of footprints on the beach is foreshadowing the novel's framing story which is set years later in 1999 when Pearl is on the beach with her granddaughter Ruby.

Pearl already knows every song and dance of her tribe, every birth and marriage in the family and could recite all of her grandmother's stories. However, when she is stranded on the Seal Hunter's Beach she discovers a hidden carvings of Chitwin the bear and of a whale in the sea above two whaling boats facing a human face with closed eyes and open mouth. Pearl wonders why she has never known about these carvings and what they might mean. "Every other carving my family made - totem, mask, canoe - was a public work mean to proclaim the strength and prosperity of our name. Why would this stone carving be kept a secret from all but passing birds? Then she realizes that the whale hunt is made real by the teller, the whale hunter who tells what happened on the hunt. Pearl's father was that teller. She decides that now she will be the teller of the Makah stories.  The decision to become the storyteller offers her a resolution to her internal conflict, and leads her to immediately begin writing down what she has seen and all she knows about her tribe's stories.

Experiencing once more the beauty of her own culture and traditions reinforces what Pearl felt earlier about living as the white man does. "I imagined that life. Me, alone in the city, working as a washerwoman or living in one of those orphanages where they taught you to be a white person. How to stand and dress and pray, until the bread-loaf brown faded from my skin and the words of my childhood were erased like chalk marks. What a grub they would make of me, a pale, blind weevil that thinks of filling its belly and nothing more. I raised a fist against that path. Something worse than the Pitch Woman would be waiting for me at the end of that road." She now knows she doesn't need to go down this path. There is another - that of being the teller of her people's traditions, stories and families.

Pearl's story is one of courage, determination and integrity. She and the other Indigenous peoples of the Pacific coast struggle with deep distrust of the white man and outsiders whom they view as dishonoring the land. This is shown in the story of the whale hunt that her Uncle Jeremiah tells. He explains that they saw "...a battleship making war on the whales. The cannon held a harpoon. Dead whales were pumped full of air, chained up, and dragged along behind, only to be eaten away by sharks. Twenty whales were pouring out their blood, and still they steamed after more. The waste. The dishonor. We wanted to curse their white greed, but these sailors had faces like ours. They flew the red sun of Japan. Hours later, we passed more battleship whalers, one from America, one from Russia. We saw more dead whales in one day than this village has seen in three generations."  

This distrust is also portrayed by the events surrounding the visit by an "art dealer" seeking carved Totem poles and masks. When Arthur Glen shows up at the post office in Kalaloch looking to travel to Ozette, Pearl believes that he is after her father's Raven masks. However, with the help of Henry, Pearl learns that Glen is actually a wildcatter, looking for oil and gas resources under the pretext of being an art dealer and a photographer. Pearl knows well what will happen to them if Glen's discoveries are made known, because she knows the treaties they have signed are worthless when there is something the white man wants. "My friend Anita from Nitinat had cousins in Montana. They used to live in the Black Hills, but gold miners came and now they live in a rail-yard shack in Helena with strangers all around them and no clean water or view of the mountains. The schoolmaster called it assimilation. He called it admirable. I knew piracy when I saw it."

It is Susi who tells Pearl that despite what they have discovered about Mr. Glen, they cannot act with dishonor but instead should use her words to tell the truth - about the "art dealer". Her stories help save her culture. In the end, Pearl lives long enough to see the whale hunt resume and her own granddaughter learn the traditional weaving lost so long ago with the death of her own mother.

Rosanne Parry includes a map of the story's setting as well as an extensive Author's Note that covers many different topics mentioned in the novel including the potlatch, petroglyphs, Makah and Quinault rituals and stories and much more. There is a list of resources as well as a Glossary of the Quinault words used in the story. Parry spent some of her first years as a teacher on the Quinault Reservation in Washington state. She writes, "The resumption of whaling was a key inspiration for this story, and I am grateful to the Makah Nation for having kept their whaling history alive for all the generations it took  for the whales to recover from near extinction by industrial whaling."

Written In Stone is a captivating story that offers readers a strong female Indigenous main character and plenty of themes to explore including the intergenerational relationships within Indigenous culture, the exploitation of the Indigenous people of North American, racism, Pacific Coast Indigenous tribes and culture and its preservation and the relationship of man to the natural world. This well-written short novel will appeal especially to readers in Grades 6 to 8. Yet another thought-provoking novel by author Rosanne Parry.

Book Details:

Written In Stone by Rosanne Parry
New York: Yearling    2013
196 pp.

March Book 2 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell

 "By the force of our demands, our determination and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them back together in the image of God and democracy."

                                                                                                                John Lewis, 1963

In March Book Two, John Lewis continues the story of  he and his fellow Black Americans efforts to fight segregation and gain basic civil and human rights for all. Their story is set against the backdrop of Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony in 2009. 

As he became more involved in the civil rights movement, John's parents were humiliated at his prior arrest, so he stopped visiting so often. John F. Kennedy had defeated Richard Nixon and won the November 1960 election and the NSC began a new campaign. In 1960, when non-violent sit-ins successfully ended segregation in lunch counters in Nashville, TN,, the Nashville Student Movement (NSC) turned their attention to fast food restaurants and cafeterias. However, when they attempted to order from restaurants, they were met with violent resistance.

In February, 1961, they began action to desegregate movie theatres by repeatedly attempting to buy tickets. Ironically, Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments was playing. This action was also met with violent opposition. Rev. Will Campbell and those on the central committee questioned putting young people in harm's way, but John was determined the protests would continue. They were arrested the next evening and John spent his twenty-first birthday in jail.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) wanted to test the Supreme Court Decision, Boyton v. Virginia, which outlawed segregation and racial discrimination on buses and in bus terminals. They decided to do this by having Freedom Ride 1961 with a small group of integrated students riding buses into Birmingham, Alabama. 

In April, 1961, John met his fellow freedom riders, Jim Peck, Elton Cox, Dr. Walter and Frances Berman, Jimmy McDonald, Charles Person, Ed Blankenheim, Genevieve Hughes, Albert Bigelow, Hank Thomas and their leader James Farmer. They all signed wills and then split into two groups. They also mailed their civil disobedience plans to President Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover and others.

 

In Rockhill, South Carolina, the group met with trouble and were attacked while police stood by and watched. John left the group after being offered an interview in Philadelphia for a volunteer program through the Quakers, in India. He planned to rejoin the Freedom Riders in Birmingham. However, his group never made it there - their bus was firebombed and the riders beaten with pipes and fists. The second bus made it to Birmingham but was also attacked. Eugene "Bull" Connor, Birmingham's Police Chief did nothing, promising the KKK they could have fifteen minutes with the riders. Dr. Bergman, still recovering from the beating in Anniston was so badly beaten in the Birmingham bus terminal, he sustained brain damage, had a stroke and was permanently paralyzed.

Determined to continue, ten riders including John Lewis set out from Nashville to Birmingham where they were met by an angry mob of white citizens. They were held on the bus for three hours and then arrested and put in jail, supposedly for their own protection. Connor arranged to take them back to Nashville, but he dropped them at the Tennessee state line, in the depths of Klan country. It was a frightening experience for John and the others. But it was to set the tone for the many sacrifices he and many others would make in order to enforce the Supreme Court ruling, to begin to rid the country of segregation and create an equal society for Black Americans.

Discussion

March Book Two takes readers from the Freedom Rides of 1961 to the March on Washington in August, 1963. In this second book of his graphic memoir, John Lewis highlights the repeated violence he and other members of the various groups fighting for equality experienced. It's difficult to comprehend the level of hatred towards Black Americans that existed in the southern United States in the 20th century, so a graphic novel seems one of the best formats to truly highlight what happened.

Lewis describes the firebombing of the Freedom Rider's buses, the physical beatings many, if not all the Freedom Riders experienced, the terror of being caught deep in Klan territory, and the attack on First Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL in which white supremacists surrounded the church and the National Guard had to be brought in.

March Book Two highlights some of the key events in the blossoming civil rights movement including the jailing of the Freedom Riders in the Mississippi State Penitentiary after they refused to pay a fine, the development of the movement into two branches, one devoted to activism, the other to registering black voters. Lewis also describes the many actions and demonstrations by the civil rights movement and those devoted to segregation: the protest against segregated swimming pools at Cairo, Illinois, the demonstration accompanying James Meredith when he became the first African-American to enroll at the University of Mississippi, the swearing in of Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace Jr., a devoted segregationist and racist in 1963, the arrest and incarceration of Martin Luther King Jr during the march on Birmingham, AL, the march of African-American children to protest segregation and their brutal treatment by Birmingham police, and the events leading up to the historic march in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963.

 

In his graphic memoir, Lewis doesn't shy away from portraying the violence and hatred he and most civil rights advocates encountered in the 1960's. Black Americans were beaten, harassed and murdered, often with no consequences to those perpetrating the violence. Politicians such as George Wallace, a vocal racist who believed in segregation, and who supported Jim Crow laws, were determined to prevent African Americans from obtaining any sort of equality. Many southern states refused to accept the Supreme Court decision, Boynton v. Virginia in 1960, which held that racial segregation in public transportation spaces was illegal because it violated the Interstate Commerce Act. It took the actions of the Freedom Riders, which were violently opposed, and ultimately the actions of the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in response to the violence, to enforce that court decision. For Lewis and others, it quickly became apparent that each step to desegregate American society was going to be difficult and require determined, forceful action. They knew they were risking their lives to create a better future for themselves and their children.

In that regard, Lewis's memoir captures the determination, courage and sacrifice civil rights activists and many others, made in the fight for civil rights. Set against their struggles in 1960, are panels that portray the swearing in of Barack Obama - the first Black American president - in 2009. It was an America George Wallace and Ross Barrett could hardly have imagined.  Lewis continues his story in March Book Three.

The back matter contains the text of John Lewis's speech to the Washington March as well as author biographies.

Book Details:

March Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions     2015
182 pp.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

They Called Us Enemy is the graphic memoir for actor/author/activist George Takei who along with his family endured imprisonment in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.

George and his younger brother, Henry are woken up during the night by their father and told to get dressed quickly. As they are packing, police come to the door and tell George's father, Takekuma Norma Takei, that under Executive Order 9066, the must leave immediately. He is given ten minutes to pack. Both George and Henry do not understand and watch their mother tearfully carry their baby sister out of the house.

George, speaking at a TEDxKyoto talk in Japan in 2014, tells the audience he was never able to forget that scene and goes on to describe what led to it and what happened afterwards. Takei tells the audience he is a veteran of the Starship Enterprise whose mission was "to explore strange new worlds, seek out new live and new civilizations...to boldly go where no one has gone before." Takei was "the grandson of immigrants who went to America. Boldly going to a strange new world."

His father, Takekuma Norman Takei, was born in Yamanshi, Japan and came to America as a teenager. He attended high school and then opened a dry-cleaning business in Los Angeles. Takei's mother, Fumiko Emily Nakamura was born in Florin, California and educated in Japan to avoid school segregation. Takekuma and Fumiko married in Los Angeles and George was born in 1937.

The Takei's had lost their first child at three months of age. They named George after King George VI of England. Henry came next, named after Henry VIII, followed by a girl they named Nancy Reiko after a beautiful woman the Takei's knew.

But on Sunday, December 7, 1941, their lives would change forever. While preparing for Christmas, the Takei family learned of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. That day, President Roosevelt signed a proclamation declaring adult Japanese citizens as "alien enemies". They would now have to follow strict regulations.

In a speech broadcast over the radio, the nation listened as Roosevelt asked Congress to declare a state of war with Japan because of the attack on the Hawaiian Islands. Earl Warren, Attorney General of California, aspiring to be Governor of California, made very racist remarks about the Japanese Americans. Because there was no evidence of Japanese spying, sabotage or fifth column activities and because the Japanese Americans are "inscrutable", they should be locked up before they do anything! The major of Los Angeles, Fletcher Bowron testified that the Japanese would always be loyal to Japan no matter how many generations have been in the United States.

The result was that on February 19, 1942, the President signed Executive Order 9066. It authorized the military to create areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded." It never specifically identified "Japanese" Americans or mentioned "camps"  but it soon became obvious that it was people of Japanese heritage who were targeted.

In the spring of 1942, civilian exclusion orders were posted, ordering all Japanese living in specific districts "to report to their designated landmark for processing and removal." The bombing of Pearl Harbor had led to the U.S. Government freezing bank accounts and financial assets of Japanese Americans. George Takei's parents found their bank account frozen. With the signing of E.O. 9066, the property and business of almost all Japanese Americans was seized. Japanese farmers had their crops seized by private citizens.

Attorney General Warren was unsympathetic to their plight. Lt. General John L. Dewitt, Commander of the Western Defense Command stated that the implementation of a curfew for all people of Japanese ancestry was to prevent sabotage and fifth column activities. 

It wasn't long before George and his family were forced to leave their home. In the spring of 1942, they were taken by bus to the Santa Ana Racetrack and made to live in the stables that reeked of horse manure. It was the beginning of a journey that would see them sent by train across the country to Camp Rohwer in Arkansas, and to the notorious Camp Lake Tule. 

Discussion

 

In They Called Us Enemy, actor and author, George Takei takes readers through his family's loss of all their possessions and family business, their imprisonment in two different camps: Camp Rohwer in Arkansas and then in Camp Tule Lake, notorious for this three layers of barbed wire, machine gun towers and tanks.  He also relates how his parents were "no-no's" - Japanese Americans who responded "No-No" on the loyalty questionnaire. This mandatory questionnaire attempted to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans the government had imprisoned. America needed soldiers and in 1943, even Japanese Americans would do. Like many Japanese Americans, George Takei's parents answered no to two questions regarding their willingness to serve in the US Armed Forces and to swear allegiance to the United States of America.

George also attempts to convey to readers how the war and imprisonment affected his parents. His parents were shocked by the conditions they were required to endure, but knew they were powerless to change things. His mother worked hard to take special care of the children, and her act of resistance was to save her beloved sewing machine! Takei's  mother was devastated to learn of the bombing of Hiroshima, where her parents lived. Reports of the destruction were incomprehensible and left many without hope for their loved ones. In the post-war period, when the Takei's had to start completely over, without any government help, they endured living first on skid row and then in rundown lodgings in Los Angeles. They were resourceful and determined.

Takei notes that many of his memories were coloured by the innocence of childhood but once the war was over and he began to grow up, the reality of what the camps were and what they represented began to become apparent. As he went through the American school system, George began to notice that American history books never mentioned the imprisonment of thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry, nor the loss of all of their possessions and businesses. There was no reflection on what had happened - after all America and its allies had won the war. But in this graphic book memoir, George Takei effectively shows that the reaction by key political figures was racist and a form of hysteria and fear that was completely unwarranted.

Takei acknowledges the major influence his father had on him especially after the war as he was growing up. Takei's father was actively involved in the camps, helping his fellow prisoners and attempting to make their lives easier. At first Takei criticized his father for what he saw as a lack of action and passivity in not standing up to the order sending them to the camps. He writes that his arrogant outburst demonstrated that he did not understand "...a man who knew the anguish of those dark internment years more intensely than that boy could ever understand. " Despite what happened, all the loss and hardship his father had endured, Takei's father was a firm believer in participatory democracy and took the time to fill in the gaps that his young son missed during those years. His belief in the American form of democracy and that people can effect change, was a huge influence on George Takei's own life.

They Called Us Enemy is important memoir for all people.  The events George Takei and his family experienced, along with thousands of fellow Japanese Americans, demonstrate what can happen when hate and racism, fueled by hysteria take hold. Prejudice against people of Asian ethnicity had existed unchecked for decades in the United States. Pearl Harbor became the catalyst for government leaders to act in ways that dehumanized an entire race of people, stripping them of their Constitutional rights. The imprisonment of over one hundred, twenty thousand Japanese Americans reminds us that these events can happen again unless we all work to counter discrimination in all forms. Takei's lesson, learned from his father, is that ordinary people working together within the framework of democracy can work to make the world a better place for all.

 

Book Details:

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions     2019

204 pp.