Mangilaluk by Bernard Andreason

In the graphic memoir, Mangilaluk, Bernard Andreason describes his life-long struggle to find a place to belong and to understand his own identity.

Bernard was taken away from his mother at birth and spent the first two years in several homes. He was given to the Andreasons who provided Bernard with the basics of life. Initially he felt loved at times but tragedy struck with the death of his foster mother. The Andreason family life soon became less than ideal with alcohol abuse. 

When he was eight years old, Bernard was sent away to a residential school in Inuvik. At Stringer Hall Residential School, Bernard found life harsh, often experiencing fear and shame. One Christmas, Bernard was forced to stay at the residential school over the holidays. Bernard and his friends would often get smokes. One time, his friend Dennis took smokes from a supervisor. She knew they had been stolen and was angry. The next day the three boys left the school and spent the day in the bush. They didn't want to return to the school to face their punishment so they decided to walk home. When they came to a raging creek, Bernard felt they had to go back but Dennis decided to continue on.

As the weather turned rainy, Bernard and Jack decided to turn around and find Dennis. Unable to find him they once again headed to Inuvik. But Jack became too ill to go on so Bernard made him as comfortable as possible and decided to journey to Tuk. He continued walking along the powerline and was eventually rescued. 

Once safe, Bernard felt that he was loved and cared for, but devastated that his friends were gone. As he could not return to the residential school, he continued his schooling in town. At school he continued to learn but at home he experienced "...a roller coaster of verbal and physical abuse, neglect, and an introduction to alcohol."

As a teenager, Bernard struggled, sometimes attending school, often drinking. In high school, Bernard found some teachers believed in him and tried to help. Eventually he came to believe that to find who he was, he needed to leave home. After drifting for several years, Bernard enrolled in the Indigenous Journalism program at Western University in London, Ontario. He soon found friends in the Six Nations Reserve community who made him feel accepted. He wrote, was published learned a lot about himself. 

It was in the early 1990's that Bernard was diagnosed as HIV positive. He felt isolated, an outcast and began to withdraw. He left London and moved to Vancouver, at first living rough. It was Dr. Catherine Jones who helped Bernard get back on track, prescribing a drug cocktail to manage his symptoms. A social worker helped him obtain a disability income. As his health recovered, Bernard became a student at the Native Education Centre in Vancouver, obtaining his Adult Upgrading. He felt capable of achieving anything.

He moved to Prince George to study at UNBC but found that while the campus was beautiful, the people were not. He felt out of place, perceived as just another unemployed Indigenous man. But when his biological father passed away in the middle of the semester, Bernard decided to head back to his family in Tuk. This would set in motion the old, destructive patterns that destroyed most of what he had built upon in Vancouver and Prince George. After more than a decade of living rough in Prince George he returned to Vancouver where he began to recover physically, mentally and spiritually. It was the efforts of a young teacher from Inuvik who would set in motion Bernard's healing from the events of his childhood so long ago.  

Discussion

Mangilaluk is a graphic memoir about one Indigenous man's perseverance, resiliency and tenacity. 

Bernard Andreason was born in an Inuvailuit hamlet, Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, Northwest Territories in 1961. As a child he was sent to Stringer Hall Residential School in Inuvik, NT. On June 23, 1972, Bernard, along with two friends, thirteen-year-old Dennis Dick and eleven-year-old Lawrence Jack Elanik decided to runaway from the school. Dennis had stolen a pack of  cigarettes from one of the dorm supervisors. They knew the punishment would be severe and so they decided to walk home to Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, despite the fact that in two days time, they would be flown home for the summer.

In 1972, there was no road from Inuvik to Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, an Inuvialuit community of the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The three boys decided to make the one hundred thirty kilometer journey on foot, wearing only the clothes on their backs. They began their journey by following the telephone poles through the tundra and bush. Andreason stated that they believed they could make the journey in several days. It was June so the sun shone all day and at the start of their walk, the weather was sunny and warm. They were able to eat berries and found plenty of fresh water to drink.

However, after a few days the weather changed, becoming cloudy and rainy. When they were unable to cross a raging river, Jack Elanik was beginning to feel unwell. At this point, Andreason wanted to return to Inuvik because Jack was sick, but Dennis decided to continue onward. They never saw him again. Eventually Jack became too sick to continue on. Making his friend as comfortable as possible, Andreason set out once again for Tuktuyaaqtuuqt. For two weeks he continued walking, alone. Because of the twenty-four hour daylight, Andreason often lost track of time and would hallucinate. 

Andreason was eventually found eight kilometers south of Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, in early July, walking the NCPC powerline. He was spotted by an Eldorado helicopter pilot flying between Inuviut and Tuktuyaaqtuuqt. Upon his rescue Andreason was taken to the nursing station in the community, suffering from exposure. When Andreason was rescued, he believed he had only been walking for two days instead of weeks.  Jack Elanik was eventually found dead but Dennis Dick's body was never recovered.

This tragic event would have significant repercussions in Bernard Andreason's life. The loss of his friends led to survivor guilt which was compounded by growing up in a dysfunctional family, and later on by alcoholism, and an HIV diagnosis. It seems that without a supportive family and the loss of his cultural identity, Bernard struggled throughout much of his life. 

Despite this, Mangilaluk is a story of tenacity, perseverance and determination. Bernard's HIV diagnosis came at a time when he was making significant progress in his life. One wonders, had he the support of a loving family, how things might have been different. As an Indigenous person, already somewhat marginalized, the HIV diagnosis would have exacerbated his feelings of isolation and lack of belonging. However, he managed to seek out better treatment protocols in Vancouver and restart his life by upgrading his education at NEC.  

Although Bernard succumbed again to his demons and ended up on the streets, this time in Prince George, he managed to return to Vancouver to get himself well again. And showing great courage, Andreason agreed to participate in a reconciliation ceremony that would address what happened to he and his two friends so long ago. It would be a healing ceremony that would follow a speaking engagement to students in Inuvit. Andreason undertook this despite his self-doubts. 
He would have to face his family and face the devastating memories of what happened back when he was an eleven-year-old boy. 

"The ceremony was beautiful. Every moment was infused with a love and respect I had only just begun to understand was possible for me. And I received it. I opened my heart and I let them in to help heal it. I felt the power or their prayers over me and the admiration of all these people who felt I had lived a life worth honouring. I felt my story come alive, and I felt a weight lift from my shoulders...." This ceremony was healing for Bernard, whose Indigenous name is Mangilaluk. 

Bernard Andreason's story is told through the beautiful artwork of Mark Gallo, whose colourful panels are effective in portraying the emotions, and settings. Mangilaluk is another significant contribution to the Indigenous experience in Canada.

Book Details:

Mangilaluk by Bernard Andreason

Iqualuit, Nunavut: Inhabit Education Books Inc.
96 pp.

In The Tunnel by Julie Lee

In The Tunnel is the follow-up novel to Julie Lee's debut, Brother's Keeper.  The novel opens in October, 1952 with sixteen-year-old Myung-gi Kim and other young South Korean soldiers running up a hill when a grenade flashes in front of him. He falls down the hill breaking his ankle and rolls into part of the enemy tunnel dug by Chinese soldiers. The tunnel collapses trapping Myung-gi in a portion that is four feet long by five feet high. In other parts of the tunnel, Myung-gi hears South Korean soldiers fighting North Koreans and their Chinese allies.

Now trapped, Myung-gi flits back and forth between the present situation and the years leading up to this moment. These memories begin when he was nine-years-old in 1945 when he had the Japanese name, Ichiro and Korea was occupied by Japan. On August 15th, the Japanese surrender, having lost the war in the Pacific. His father, Kim Junho (Ahpa)  tells Myung-gi his real name is Kim Myung-gi and that his seven-year-old sister's name is no longer Hideko but Yoomee. They live in Changang Province. Myung-gi is smart, loves to read and gets good grades in school.

But for Myung-gi and his family, freedom lasted only one night, as the Japanese soldiers were replaced by Soviet soldiers soon they learned "that Korea had been divided in half at the 38th parallel...the Soviets occupying the North and the United States occupying the South." While some believe the Soviets are their liberators from Japanese oppression and protecting them from the imperialist Americans, Myung-gi notices Ahpa isn't happy. He tells them the Soviet soldiers are looting homes and decides they will get rid of their valuables. Ahpa also makes Uhma remove her makeup and her jewels and to wear only her plainest clothing so she doesn't attract the attention of the Soviet soldiers.

A year later, life under Soviet rule is even worse than under the Japanese. The soldiers take what they want including most of the harvest, leaving little food for the Koreans. As a result, people are starving and factories close. Ahpa's fabric business has closed because people cannot afford new clothes. He now works as the principal of the boys' school that Myung-gi attends. Ahpa and Myung-gi travel by bus to the city where visit a bookseller. On the bus Myung-gi tells his father he aspires to be a writer. Myung-gi loves "...al kinds of books - history books, fantasy books, even the nonfiction ones that made his eyes grow wide in wonder." At the bookshop, the shop owner tells Ahpa that the authorities told him he cannot sell European American or Japanese books or even Korean books if they are against communism.

By 1948, North Korea is now a Communist state, twelve-year-old Myung-gi meets his friend Sora, bringing her a folktale book and a book of Kim Sowol's poems. As they sit underneath the willow tree, Myung-gi is attacked and beaten by a group of boys accusing him of wanting the Americans to save him.

In September of 1949, Myung-gi witnesses an older boy, Yongshik from his school, kidnapped by soldiers on his way to school. That evening Ahpa brings Myung-gi more books: Twenty thousand Leagues Under The Sea and Ivanhoe. Ahpa has taught Myung-gi several language including English. To hide these banned books, Ahpa cuts a hole in the wall behind Myung-gi's wardrobe.

In June of 1950, Myung-gi is now fourteen years old. He has read through a large number of banned books from Frankenstein to Kim Yeoung-nang's poems. Then one Sunday morning upon arriving at the school for the mandatory weekly communist youth meeting, Myung-gi encounters a huge commotion. Comrade Lee announces that South Korean forces have invaded the North and also that the boys' school has a new principal, Comrade Ahn. This shocks Myung-gi and he races home.

At home, Ahpa tells Uhma, Myung-gi and Yoomee that he was let go and that his work organizing student protests and getting banned books may be to blame. Uhma is terrified at this revelation, worried that Ahpa may be taken away. But Ahpa tells her he has been planning their escape to the south for years, and now with the war as a distraction, it is time to leave. They are to head one hundred miles south, to the mouth of the Yesong River at the Yellow Sea. From there, boats are smuggling people south, to the west coast of South Korea. They will then take a boat to Inchon and walk to Busan on the southern coast.

Ahpa tells them they will leave in a few days after he's confirmed the boat and speaks to the Paks to offer them the chance to accompany them. Ahpa also tells his family that should anything happen to him. they should leave at once and follow the escape route. He tells Myung-gi not to be afraid to go on without him and that they should ask for Ko Jusung when they get to the Yesong River.

For several days, Myung-gi goes to school while his mother packs rice, clothing and money. After school one day, Ahpa tells Myung-gi to keep watch for anything suspicious while he continues to pack the jigeh back carrier.  So Myung-gi takes a book about the solar systme with him and sits behind the house on the other side of the wall to read. As a result, he doesn't see the army men creeping along the side of the house and doesn't warn Ahpa. He learns of their presence by the sounds of struggle inside the house. Too late, he sees Ahpa being pushed out of the house, his hands bound behind his back, his eye swoolen and his face bruised. His father is pushed into a car and taken away. Shame floods Myung-gi. He was supposed to keep watch. When Uhuma and Yoomee arrive home, Myung-gi tells them what happened.

Shock quickly leads to indecision as to what to do. Myung-gi tells them that Ahpa has said if anything should happen to him, they need to follow the escape plan and he would meet them in Busan. After careful consideration, Uhma decides they will do what Ahpa asks.

For Myung-gi, the journey south is filled with anger and shame that he failed to protect his father and that he is not the man his father is. In a desperate attempt to redeem himself, he signs up to fight the Communists will be the beginning of self-forgiveness, acceptance and learning to live amid profound loss. 

Discussion

In The Tunnel is the second book about the Korean War written by Julie Lee. The novel was born out of Lee's research for her first book, Brother's Keeper which showed that stories like Myung-gi's were a reality: children who were never reunited with family, and child soldiers who were used in a war and never later acknowledged. Lee decided she had to write a story "...in which wrongs inflicted upon the characters were never righted... about this history, because sometimes life is terribly unfair, and I needed to figure out a way to reconcile this reality with being able to move on and be happy..."

The novel features a story within a story, opening with sixteen-year-old Myung-gi Kim fighting the North Koreans in a battle that came to be known as The Battle of Triangle Hill which occurred in the Osong Mountain region from October 14 to November 25, 1952. This was a fierce battle that saw the United States and Republic of Korea Army gain ground, forcing the Chinese to hide in the tunnels they had dug. During the night, the Chinese would regain the territory they lost during the day. Myung-gi, who joined the ROKA with the objective of finding his father, is trapped in one of these tunnels during an attack on the hill. While in the tunnel, Myung-gi remembers back to how this all started in 1945 with the end of World War II and the retreat of the Japanese who had occupied Korea. But instead of freedom, Myung-gi and his family experience increasing oppression and terror as North Korea becomes a communist state. The two stories eventually merge with Myung-gi struggling to survive in the tunnel, while at the same time talking to an enemy Chinese soldier trapped in a separate but adjacent part of the tunnel.

In the flashbacks, the reader learns that Myung-gi's father is kidnapped by North Korean soldiers for his anti-communist resistance. His nose in a book, Myung-gi fails to warn his father of the soldiers and as a result he blames himself for his father being taken. But prior to this, Myung-gi is already filled with self-doubt, believing he doesn't measure up to his father. On a trip to the bookseller to buy books banned by the state, Myung-gi's father questions him about which career he aspires to, principal or professor. Myung-gi reveals he wants to be neither, but instead a writer. Ahpa's response to this makes Myung-gi wonder, "Maybe a writer wasn't big enough, important enough." Later on when Myung-gi is badly beaten by a group of boys, he lies to his parents about what happened because he is ashamed about not being able defend himself. "Ahpa would've never lost a fight, not with his judo and street smarts and muscles."

Once  Myung-gi and his family are safely in the south and living in Busan, he continues to struggle with what he believes was his failure to protect his father, with the cultural expectations as the only son and with what his father told him, "Don't be afraid to go on without me." Several times, every day, Myung-gi visits the church where refugees are camped on the lawn, asking if anyone has seen his father. Unable to sleep, and not interested in school Myung-gi begins carrying water to make some money for his family. When Myung-gi is identified as one of several boys who are recommended to take the specialty high school entrance exam in a month's time, he is filled deeply conflicted,  "Because the idea of applying to a specialty high school felt a lot like moving on...which felt a lot like giving up on Ahpa... He wasn't ready to start something new without Ahpa."

After Uhma cuts her hair to make money to buy them new shoes, Myung-gi decides to leave school. He is still overwhelmed with guilt for reading when he should have been watching for the North Korean soldiers and cannot bear to pick up a book. He also learns that with the Chinese joining the war, Northern refugees can no longer cross the 38th parallel anymore, meaning that the likelihood Ahpa will escape is now slim. In desperation, Myung-gi decides to enlist, with the hope that being in the North he will be able to find Ahpa and bring him back. "It was his fault Ahpa got taken -- now it was up to him to get his father back. If something happened to Myung-gi in the process, well, that would be the punishment he deserved." This desperate act shocks Uhma, Yoomee, Sora and their families.

Trapped in the tunnel and facing death, Myung-gi faces the prospect of dying alone. With only a small mouse for company, Myung-gi begins to remember some passages from the banned books he's read like Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and The Hobbit by Tolkien. He realizes that as Victor Hugo wrote in his novel,  his own father loved him in spite of all his weaknesses and inadequacies. And after three years  of futile hoping and wishing, Myung-gi remembers to words of Victor Hugo,  "... that it is frightful not to live." As Myung-gi comes to the realization he will not be able to find his father in this war, he want his father to be happy and to live his best life. "But if you're alive, don't be sad, don't stop living, don't spend your days alone. Find a family you can love, and who will love you back -- because we can't be with you anymore. I can't be with you anymore. Be happy!"

As Myung-gi is being rescued his entire perspective has changed: he will live his life as it is now, to the fullest. "And soon he will be set down in the right place -- at home, in Busan, where he will hug Uhma tight and thank her for being both mother and father. Where he will tell his artist sister how proud he is of her and then gaze upon her portrait of their father. Where he will go to Sora, the girl he will always love, and finally say he is sorry...Where he will dig up that book from Teacher Chun and read it from beginning to end. Where he will take that entrance exam and hope for the best. Where he will write their history, his family's, the one he already started. Where he will finally do as his father said and not be afraid to go on without him." Myung-gi, being extracted from the tunnel, experiences a rebirth, coming to accept what he cannot change, that his father is gone and that they likely will not meet again in this life. He realizes that he must go on and live his life and that Ahpa foresaw this possibility and gave him the permission to do so. In the Epilogue, readers learn how well Myung-gi fulfilled his father's desire for him.

The Korean War ended in a stalemate, with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953 in Panmunjom by officials from North and South Korea, The People's Republic of China and the United States. According to the Korean Red Cross, nearly ten million families were separated due to the Korean War. What was originally believed to be a temporary situation has resulted in these millions being denied the basic human right to reunification of their families for the past seventy years. Although there have been some state-sanctioned visits, as the years pass, older members of families are passing on, while younger members suffer from the lack of connection with older family members like grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles. There is not only this trauma, but brief, temporary reunification of families also causes tremendous trauma. 

In The Tunnel portrays the trauma of separation experienced by Myung-gi and his family but also the trauma he experienced as a child soldier. Myung-gi was one of at least thirty-thousand child soldiers conscripted into the war by South Korea. Some of these soldiers enlisted, intent upon finding lost family members as Myung-gi did.  

In The Tunnel is one of several recent novels to explore the Korean War from the perspective of children. The novel offers readers the themes of forgiveness, the effects of war on civilians including the separation of families, the refugee experience, and living without a resolution to that separation.

Book Details:

In The Tunnel by Julie Lee
New York: Holiday House    2023
332 pp.

Suliewey by Mi'sel Joe and Sheila O'Neill

Suliewey is the sequel to My Indian by Sawamw Mi'sel Joe, continuing the story of Mi'kmaw guide Suliwey (Sylvester Joe) as he searches for the last remaining Beothuk.

Suliewey has left the white man William Cormack in Nujioqollek, after guiding him during the fall,  across the island in search of the last Beothuk. The Elders had cautioned Suliewey to instead guide Cormack away from the Beothuk camps which he willingly did. Cormack had wanted Suliewey to accompany him by schooner back to St. John's, as far as Bay d'Espoir and even onto Spain or Portugal. But Suliewey wanted to see how his Beothuk brothers and sisters were managing to stay safe, hoping to find their winter camps. His plan is to travel to his friend, Gabriel's camp, then to Miawpukek. However, as Suliewey is leaving Chief Gontgont's house, the chief comes out and asks Suliewey to stay over longer, until the snow hardens. Chief Gontgont tells him that he will be able to rest more and eat well and perhaps learn more about the Beothuk winter camps from returning Mi'kmaw trappers.

Suliewey agrees and stays with Chief Gontgont. He is given several gifts including "...a beautiful qalipu hide bag made by his wife..." that could be used as both a bundle or a bed. The Mi'kmaw trappers have no new information to offer to Suliewey regarding the Beothuk winter camp. They tell him "...it was as if the Beothuk were hibernating like the Mui'n do during the winter." This does give Suliewey a potential clue as to where and how he might find the Beothuk.

Eventually Suliewey begins his journey "...to find the winter camp of the last of the remaining Beothuk." Chief Gontgont walks a short ways with Suliewey who leaves with gifts of snowshoes, skin boots, qalipu skin coat and the sleeping bag. He tells Suliewey to stop by Gabriel's camp to rest before journeying to Miawpukek to see his family.

After five days, Suliewey reaches Gabriel's camp on Hatchet Pond where he finds a note from Gabriel that they are taking their ill daughter to St. George's Bay to see the medicine woman. They have left some food for him in their wikuom. Suliewey wonders how the Beothuk are doing as they have been driven from the coast which supplies their food of salmon, seal, eggs and shellfish. He decides to head northeast and not travel to Miawpukek. As he journeys, Suliewey continues to look for smoke rising, believing that will be a sign of a Beothuk camp.

At this time, a large grey wolf appears at Suliewey's camp. At first he throws sticks of wood from his fire to drive the wolf away. But later after snaring a kopit, Suliewey throws bits of meat to the hungry wolf. As the wolf continues to follow him on his travels, Suliewey names him Hungry and they soon grow to tolerate one another.

In his travels, Suliewey discovers a Beothuk summer campsite near a lake along with a birchbark gwitn. Back at his brook camp, Suliewey encounters a mysterious woman who has lu'skinikin cooking and has made tea. The woman tells Suliewey he must go back. He decides to return to the Beothuk summer camp to search for any clues as to where "...they spend their winters and how man of them are left, of the hundreds of Beothuk people who lived on this land before the arrival of the aqualasiew." He does find a circle of stones outside the wikuom with an arrowhead pointing south and believes that this might a hint as to where he should travel. 

With Hungry sometimes following, sometimes leading, Suliewey travels along the lake and finds another wikuom, this time with more signs: an unfinished stone pipe and a qalipu leg bone scrapper. Because the stone may have come from Pipe Stone Pond, Suliewey decides to travel there.  Near Pipe Stone Pond, Suliewey discovers an abandoned wikuom and a cave containing the remains of a young pregnant woman and her unborn baby. The hole in her skeleton tells Suliewey that she died from being shot by a musket ball.

After this sad discovery, Suliewey decides it is time to return to his family in Maiwpukek. His whole village celebrates his return with a meal, and set up the sweat lodge to pray and give thanks for his safe return. He decides he will continue his search for the Beothuk people in the late fall and through the winter. He wants to help them and keep them safe. Suliewey's search will almost cost him his life, but it will also reveal the last remnants of the Beothuk and their desperate struggle to survive. As the Beothuk once saved Suliewey's grandfather, he will now return the favour.

Discussion

In the first book, My Indian, Suliewey recounts his journey with the white man, Cormack to find the remaining Beothuk. In this sequel, Suliewey recounts his own journey to find the last of the Beothuk and offer his help. 

The Beothuk, in the pre-contact era, were an aboriginal coastal people who lived in small bands in Newfoundland. In the pre-contact era there were likely less than one thousand of these Algonkian hunter-gatherers who survived on seal, salmon, and sea birds and their eggs. These were preserved as food stores for the harsh winter months.  The Beothuk painted their bodies, homes, canoes and weapons with red ochre. It was considered an integral part of their identity and newborns were painted to welcome them into the tribe. 

With the coming of the Europeans, the Beothuk were forced out of their traditional coastal hunting grounds. This often led to conflict between the two with the Beothuk usually on the losing end. Unlike other Indigenous peoples, they avoided contact with Europeans. This meant moving further inland away from the seals, salmon and sea birds and forced the Beothuk to hunt caribou. This was not enough to sustain the Beothuk and they began to starve. It is likely that the loss of their traditional hunting grounds and food sources, exposure to the European diseases of smallpox and tuberculosis, and deadly encounters with English and French trappers, and fisherman were the cause of their extinction.

The Mi'kmaw people have long maintained they are related to the Beothuk. Recent genetic research has shown that there are genetic descendants of the Beothuk people in Newfoundland and Labrador. The research used DNA harvested from the molars of Demasduit and her husband, Nonosabsut who were the aunt and uncle of Shanawduit, the last known member of the Beothuk. Demasduit was kidnapped by a European trapper, John Peyton Jr. in 1819. Nonosabsut was murdered attempting to rescue her. Demasduit was eventually taken to St. John's, living with her captor as a servant. She died in 1820 of tuberculosis. Demasduit and Nonosabsut were buried at Red Indian Lake but Newfoundland explorer, William Cormack took their skulls to Edinburgh. They were not repatriated until 2020.

While there are no direct descendants of Demasduit and Nonosabsut, their family tree does have living descendants according to Memorial University professor Steve Carr. His research suggests that the Beothuk had "friendly relationships" with other Indigenous peoples that resulted in family lines that continue today.

It is these friendships between the Indigenous peoples of Newfoundland that becomes an important part of the narrative in Suliewey.  In The Book Club Questions found at the back of the novel, the authors write that the settler narrative has been that these two peoples were enemies. This goes against Mi'kmaw oral history.  In an attempt to reclaim this narrative, we see that Suliewey considers the Beothuk his brothers and sisters and wants to help them. His own grandfather was cared for by the Beothuk. 

In Suliewey, the young Mi'kmaw Suliewey eventually does find a small remnant of Beothuk, including a young woman. Her husband has died and she is the only woman in the group that consists of her great-grandfather, her brother, and four Elders. At the request of her grandmother, Suliewey agrees to marry the beautiful, young woman and they have a daughter together.  The Book Club Questions state, "... that the authors wanted to offer possible context to the recent Beothuk DNA studies conducted by Miawpukek First Nation in partnership with Terra Nova Genomics... which provides evidence of a possible survival of Beothuk genetic lineage in modern populations of Mi'kmaq."  

Suliewey is filled with many interesting descriptions of Mi'kmaq knowledge in living off the land, particularly in the frigid winter months. There are descriptions of building a healing lodge and making medicine to heal consumption, as well as spiritual rituals such has leaving offerings to the spirits and praying to the Creator for safety. Mi'sel Joe uses Suliewey to inform readers about many different types of Indigenous knowledge including making various types of camps in caves and in the forest, making a narrow type of snowshoes, tanning a kopit pelt, smoking meat, and fashioning a bow and arrows along with a quiver, a spear and other tools. Suliewey describes how most parts of the kopit and the qalipu are used by the Mi'kmaq. Through the main character of Suliewey, readers come to know the deep connection between the Mi'kmaq and the land and the animals who live there. After Suliewey sets a trap for a mui'n he sees that the animal is old and changes his mind, out of respect and also because he takes only what he needs.

As a result of the detailed descriptions of Indigenous knowledge, the first half of the novel may seem slow and uninteresting to some readers. However, there is foreshadowing in the novel, especially at the beginning when Suliewey dreams of "a beautiful young woman with long black hair and red skin." This foreshadows his meeting of the beautiful Beothuk woman who he names Wtatapn, and who helps Suliewey heal from the injuries of his fall and whom he marries. 

Suliewey's fall off a cliff is an unexpected plot twist that forces the meeting between himself and the remaining Beothuk who have hidden inside a long cave. There his broken leg is set and he is cared for.  From an Elder and Great-Grandfather, Suliewey learns of the Beothuk's struggle to survive with the coming of the Europeans. The cave they are wintering in has drawings that portray their history and their struggles. Great-grandfather tells how the Beothuk were cheated in trades with the white men, how their women were captured and enslaved, how the long guns allowed the white men to kill them easily, and how their food was taken leaving them will little to hunt and store. When Suliewey learns their story he is heartbroken for them and promises to tell their story so it doesn't fade into history. 

Suliewey comes to help the Beothuk in a way he least suspects: the young woman's great-grandfather asks him to marry her and take her in the Mi'kmaq tribe as a way of protecting her and continuing the Beothuk line. Suliewey agrees to do this and they are married. To protect Wtatapn, Suliewey tells her she must remove the red ochre and dress like the Mi'kmaq, otherwise the white men will know she is a Beothuk. For Wtatapn, this means giving up her identity as a Beothuk, in order to survive. This final act highlights the price Wtatapn must pay to survive and it also reminds readers of the loss of identity and culture that many Indigenous peoples paid as a result of European contact.

While Suliewey is a tragic story about the last remnants of the Beothuk, it is also one of hope. Although culturally the Beothuk did not survive, it would seem that, as Mi'kmaq oral history and modern DNA analysis indicate, there were some Beothuk who integrated into other Indigenous peoples, producing descendants. Suliewey is highly recommended for those readers who wish to know the Beothuk story from an Indigenous perspective.

Book Details:

Suliewey by Mi'sel Joe and Sheila O'Neill
St. John's, NL: Breakwater Books     2023
202 pp.

Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers by Lawrence Matsuda and Matt Sasaki

In Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers, six Nisei soldiers from the Pacific Northwest are profiled. All six men are now deceased. These are Army medics Jimmie Kanaya and Tosh Yasutake, Army Infantrymen Frank Nishimura and Turk Suzuki, Army Infantry Sergeant Shiro Kashino and Military Intelligence Roy Matsumoto. All were members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) or MIS.

First profiled is Shiro Kashino's experiences. He was born in 1922 in Seattle, Washington, the sixth child of Bujinosuke Kashino and Hatsume Oda. His family had lived in Denver, Colorado but moved to Seattle. Shiro was raised by his older siblings from the age of thirteen, after the deaths of his mother in 1934 and his father in 1935. 

A good athlete, Shiro received a football scholarship to Willamette University in Oregon but he never attended. Shiro delayed attending to work and earn money first and then Pear Harbor happened. Shiro ended up at Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. He volunteered for the 442 RCT in 1943 and "fought in all the major battles of the European campaigns."

The second profile is of Frank Nishimura who was born in 1924 in Seattle, Washington to Ritoji and Kiku Nishimura. Frank had five older siblings: Toshimi, Shizuko, Hiromi, Yuki and Toyo. HIs parents brought and sold hotels through a Jewish attorney as Japanese nationals could not purchase land in Washington state.

Frank attended Cascade and Bailey Gatzert School. Like many Japanese children he attended the Japanese Community Language School after regular school. In the fall of 1938, he was enrolled at Broadway High School. Frank was a newspaper carrier for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He delivered papers in his 1937 Plymouth automobile that he had purchased used.

Life was carefree and good for Frank and his friends: they went to various beaches to clam and picnic. They also attended the annual Japanese Community Day at Seattle's Playland Amusement Park. But life took a drastic change on December 7, 1941.

Jimmie Kanaya was born on October 3, 1920 to parents who were farmers in Clackamas, Oregon. He enlisted in the U.S. Army when he was twenty-years-old and became a medic. In 1942 when Japanese and Japanese-Americans were sent to concentrations camps, Jimmie accompanied his family to the temporary detention center, Portland Assembly Center. However, because he was in his U.S. Army uniform, he wasn't allowed in with his parents, brother and sister.

He was stationed at Camp Crowder upon completing his medic training, then transferred to Camp Shelby in Mississippi. From there Jimmie was assigned as a medic to the all Japanese-American 442 RCT. As part of the 34th Infantry Division, Jimmie saw action in Italy and then in France with the 36th Infantry Division. He was captured by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains while attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers. Jimmie was taken to a prisoner of war camp for officers, Oflag 64 which was located in Szubin, Poland. When the Red Army occupied Poland and German forces fled, Jimmie and the other prisoners were marched four hundred miles to Hammelburg, Germany and another camp. The death march was done in subzero temperatures in deep snow.

The fourth profile is that of Roy Hiroshi Matsumoto who served with the 5307th Composite Unit in Burma as a Military Intelligence Service language interpreter. This unit was nicknamed Merrill's Marauders after Brigadier General Frank Merrill.

Roy was born in Laguna, California on May 1, 1913. He was sent to Hiroshima, Japan to attend Japanese school when he was eight-years-old. When Roy was seventeen, he and his brother returned to the United States while his parents and family remained in Japan. After graduating from Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1933, Roy worked at a Japanese grocery stroy where he learned many different Japanese dialects. 

After Pearl Harbor, Roy was sent to the concentration camp at Jerome, Arkansas. He volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army as a Japanese language specialist. Merrill's Marauders was tasked with opening the Burma Road connecting India and China.

Tosh Yasutake's father Jack left Japan in 1907 when he was sixteen-years-old to live in San Francisco. He did not wish to be a farmer like his father. Jack attended high school and then Stanford University studying engineering. He left his university studies in the U.S. travelling to Japan to marry Hideko Shiraki in 1918, and returning to the States after the marriage where he was hired as a translator for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Their first son, Seiichi, was born in 1920. Tosh was the second oldest of four boys: he was born in 1922, followed by his brother Mitsuye born a year later in Japan and the youngest brother Joe who was born in 1932. 

Because Jack and Hideko were Japanese Nationals, they were not allowed by law to purchase land in Washington State, so they had an INS secretary do so for them. Tosh attended Beacon Hill School, then Cleveland High School and was studying science at the University of Washington when Pear Harbor happened in December of 1941. The very next day, FBI agents came to the Yasutake home for Jack who was not at home. Jack was arrested at the Japanese poetry club meeting he was attending and incarcerated in various concentrations camps. At this time Tosh left his studies at the university.

The entire family including Jack were incarcerated at Minidoka War Relocation Center concentration camp. In April, 1942, Tosh and his siblings along with their mother Hideko were taken from the Seattle area to the WCCA Puyallup Assembly Center.

Teruyuki "Turk" Suzuki was born in 1923. Unlike the other Nisei profiled in Fighting for America, both his parents were college graduates and Christians educated in Japan. Turk's father had also served in the Japanese Navy prior to the war. The Suzuki's immigrated to Seattle and operated a hotel called the Spring Lodge Hotel located near the downtown library. Turk and his friends loved to play in the area.

Teruyuki got his nickname from a good friend, Willie who could not pronounce his name. Turk's four siblings were also given American names when they entered school. All the Suzuki children walked to Baily Gatzert School located east of Japantown.

Even though Turk's parents could not become American citizens (this wasn't possible until 1952), his father stressed to him that he was an American citizen. Like Tosh's father Jack, Turk's father was also arrested after Pearl Harbor and taken to the INS building. And like Turk, Tosh also joined the 442nd all Japanese-American RCT.

Discussion

Fighting For America is an intimate look at the war from the perspective of six Japanese American soldiers and their families. Fighting For America is divided into six chapters, each featuring the biography of one of six Nisei soldiers. What started as a graphic novel on Nisei veteran Shiro Kashino, quickly expanded into a project that included the "personal war accounts of other Nisei veterans Frank Nishimura, Jimmie Kanaya, Turk Suzuki, Roy Matsumoto, and Tosh Yasutake."  Each chapter begins with an Introduction, followed by a series of graphic novel panels detailing some aspect of each soldier's life based on their personal experiences and closing with an Epilogue about their life in the post-war period as well as photographs of the men . Each account tells of the incarceration of their families and their combat experiences as part of the most decorated unit for their size in U.S. history. 

In the Introduction, author Lawrence Matsuda writes, "Approximately 14,000 Nisei or second generation Japanese Americans fought as members of the 442 Regimental Combat Team (RCT) during World War II against Germany and Italy. The 442 RCT consisted of three infantry battalions (originally 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 442 Infantry, and later the 100th Infantry Battalion in place of the 1st.), the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, the 232 Engineer Company, an anti-tank company, cannon company, service company, medical detachment, headquarters companies, and the 206 Army Band." 

For the six men profiled in Fighting For America, life as teenagers and young adults was filled with school, sports and jobs. However, their parents bore the brunt of the discrimination so common at that time: they could not become American citizens and couldn't own property. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, life changed quickly and drastically: fathers were jailed, they lost their homes, businesses and possessions, school ended and they were forced into concentration camps with guards and barbed wire.

Nisei volunteered from the mainland United States and Hawai'i. Most from the mainland volunteered after being incarcerated in concentration camps. They would go on to fight in France, liberating towns and in Italy overtaking German positions blocking the Allies path into Europe. That the Nisei would volunteer to fight for a country that treated them and their families so terribly is all the more remarkable and reflects the loyalty, patriotism, and bravery of these men and their families. As Matsuda writes in his Foreword, "The story must never be forgotten for it was their heroics that opened the doors for future generations of Japanese Americans."

Despite their tremendous personal sacrifices and patriotism for their country, many Nisei continued to experience discrimination and prejudice in the post-war period. Frank Nishimura found it difficult to purchase a home and was told he would never be hired as a welder. Shiro Kashino was certified in refrigeration and air conditioning but faced discrimination from unions in Seattle. Despite this climate of systemic racism, all six men made significant contributions to America. Turk Suzuki had a long career as an engineer and Tosh Yasutake had a distinguished career as a fish histologist. Jimmie Kanaya had a long army career reaching the rank of colonel while Roy Matsumoto became a career Army soldier. Frank Nishimura was an amazing scoutmaster and a postal worker, while Shiro Kashino worked for forty-four years in the automotive industry. 

The artwork of illustrator Matt Sasaki ably portrays the many emotions of the events experienced by the soldiers and their families, whether it be the fear and worry of impending incarceration, the joy of being with family. the desolation and anger at the lost of friends and comrades, or the terror and violence of combat.

Fighting For America serves to remind readers that the experiences of Nisei and their families during World War II demonstrate the incredible patriotism, loyalty, and self-sacrifice made for the country that treated them so badly. It also highlights the forgiveness, industriousness, humility and charity they offered the American people, in spite of that discrimination. 

Book Details:

Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers by Lawrence Matsuda
Seattle: Chin Music Press     2023
167 pp.

The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond: A Civil Rights Icon by Rachel Kehoe with Wanda Robson

Viola Davis was born in  1914 and grew up in the North End, where Halifax's Black community was located. Viola's ancestors had fled slavery in the United States in the 1800's. They came to Nova Scotia where they were free. However, life in Nova Scotia was not easy for Black people as society was segregated just like in the U.S. Black people did not live in the same neighborhoods or attend the same schools as white people. Few jobs were open to Black people and they were often refused service at local businesses.

Viola's parents, James Davis and Gwendolyn Irene Johnson had married secretly in 1908. Gwendolyn was of mixed-race heritage, but she considered herself Black. They moved in with James's parents in the North End and started what would be a very large family. Viola was the fifth of fifteen children, however only eleven of the children survived. Viola survived a bout of pneumonia, the illness that took the life of her younger sister, Hazel. She also survived the Halifax Explosion which severely damaged Halifax and in particular, the North End.

The Davises attended Trinity Anglican every Sunday. Viola took classes at Joseph Howe Elementary School which was integrated. She worked hard at her studies and was a top student at Bloomfield High School where she excelled in history, English and geography.

With the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, the loss of jobs and a drought on the prairies, Viola's father worked occasional jobs. Viola graduated from high school when she was sixteen-years-old in 1930. She wanted to be a teacher, but because the teachers college in Truro did not admit Black students, Viola's application was rejected. Nevertheless, Viola was able to teach at the segregated schools when she was nineteen, after passing the provincial exam. As someone who held herself to high stands, Viola also held her students to the same level.

Viola also became and advocate for her younger sister, Wanda who was twelve years her junior and experiencing racism in her class. Wanda attended Alexandra Elementary School in Grade 2. Her teacher, Ms. Reid, placed Wanda at the back of the class along with other Black students who she ignored. Ms. Reid had a rule that children who achieved top marks could sit at the front of the class. However, when Wanda achieved top marks and was moved to the front of the class, her teacher seemed upset and refused to let her answer questions. Then she sent Wanda to the Grade 3 class where she told the teacher not to assign Wanda any work. Eventually Wanda was returned to her Grade 2 class but was placed at the back of the room. When Parents' Day came around, Viola and her mother had to intervene.

Viola eventually made the decision to become a beautician, as there were almost no Black beauty salons in Canada. Black women were unable to attend beauty school in Halifax, so Viola saved her money and travelled to Montreal to attend school there in 1936. During her time in Montreal, Viola married Jack Desmond. In 1937, Viola, now a trained beautician, opened Vi's Studio of Beauty Culture in Halifax's North End.

In 1939, Viola attended the Apex College of Beauty Culture and Hairdressing in Atlantic City, N.J. to learn more about Black beauty techniques. By 1944, she opened the Desmond School of Beauty Culture so Black women could train to be hairdressers and beauticians.

But on November 8, 1946, Viola's life would take a very different turn. She travelled to Sydney, Cape Breton to deliver beauty products. When her car broke down, Viola found herself stranded in New Glasgow for the evening. She decided to take in a movie, The Dark Mirror at the Roseland Theatre. Viola bought a ticket for the downstairs section of the theatre. Patrons could sit downstairs or in the balcony. Because Viola had poor eyesight she wanted to sit close in the downstairs area. 

Viola took her seat in the downstairs section when she was told by the usher that her ticket was for the balcony. Puzzled, Viola returned to the cashier to pay extra for the downstairs ticket but was told she was "not allowed to sell downstairs tickets to you people." Viola knew that the woman at the desk was referring to Viola being Black. Viola refused to be intimidated and returned to her seat downstairs. With the movie starting, the usher returned, now advising Viola that if she didn't move, he would call the manager, Henry MacNeil.

The manager arrived and soon the police were called. Viola was on her way to jail for sitting downstairs in a movie theatre. Viola spent the night in jail and was taken before a judge the next day, without legal representation and not given the chance to make a phone call. "She was was accused of not paying the difference in tax for the downstairs ticket - a single penny." She was found guilty and fined twenty dollars plus the cost of Henry's court fees. This would be the impetus for the civil rights movement in Canada. It would be over forty years later that Viola would receive a pardon and her efforts to be treated equally would be recognized.

Discussion

The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond traces the life of Black Canadian, Viola Davis Desmond from her family's early roots in Nova Scotia in the 1800's to her untimely death in 1965 and her legacy into the 21st century. The authors were able to write an informative biography of Viola based on the interviews with her younger sister, Wanda Robson.

Viola Desmond, like her family and other Black Canadians spent most of her life dealing with racism. The systemic racism that existed in Canada in the first half of the 20th century was to shape their lives in almost every way. Slavery was abolished across the Empire by the British parliament on August 1, 1834. Although people of African descent living in the British colonies were legally free, they continued to face prejudice and inequality, even ninety years after the legislation. 

In the early 20th century, in Nova Scotia, schools, churches and theatres were segregated. The segregation was not uniform either within the same town or from community to community. Some hotels and restaurants would not serve Black people. Canadians of African descent lived separate from white people in their own neighborhoods. Black schools were similar to those in the United States, lacking in books, blackboards and other basic supplies. Black people couldn't work as teachers because the teachers college in Truro wouldn't admit them.  There were few jobs open to Black men and women, and those available were low paying.

Viola and her family encountered many of these prejudices and inequalities which affected the choices they made in their lives. Viola wanted to be a teacher but was refused entry into the college at Truro. Although she did teach for a time in Black schools, Viola decided to become a beautician. As a Black woman who prided herself on always looked her best, Viola would not have been able to be served in a white beauty shop. It is also possible that many beauticians of this era would not have known how to treat or style the unique hair of Black women, and likely had no inclination to learn. Viola set about learning her craft and bringing that knowledge back to Nova Scotia where she eventually opened her own shop and beauty school, and made available beauty products designed for Black women and men. 

All of this would set the stage for Viola's act of resistance in the New Glasgow theatre in 1946. She was jailed for simply wanting to sit in the downstairs area of the theatre. Her inequality extended into the Nova Scotia court system where she was found guilty and fined and then to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court where she lost her case. In that instance, the case was not about segregation. However, one judge, Justice Hall knew that Viola was treated this way because she was Black.

Although Viola Desmond was not the first to resist (journalist Carrie Best was turned out of the Roseland Theatre in 1941 for the same reason), her actions marked a turning point in the fight for equality that was beginning in the post-war period in North America. Kehoe and Robson highlight some of those individuals in sidebars. For example, Pearleen Oliver a community activist and cofounder along with her husband, Rev. Dr. William P. Oliver of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP),was successful in getting Black women the right to attend nursing schools in Canada. However, progress was slow. It wasn't until 1959 that the Fair Accommodation Practices Act was passed in Nova Scotia, banning discrimination in housing. In 1963, racial discrimination was outlawed with the passage of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act.

Viola never lived to see the changes that happened after her untimely death in 1965. Her small act of resistance was mostly forgotten but not by her sister Wanda who had initially been embarrassed by Viola going to jail. But as she matured, Wanda came to understand and began speaking about what happened. Viola eventually received a full pardon, posthumously in 2010. Today Canadians are reminded of Viola's desire for equality by her picture on the ten dollar bill. 

The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond is a well written biography incorporating the "personal experiences" and "treasured memories" of Viola through the interviews of her sister Wanda Robson. Readers will learn about what it was like for Black Canadians living in Nova Scotia and Canada in the early 20th century and how they fought for equality. 

What is lacking in this chapter book for young readers, are photographs of Viola Desmond and her family, and many of the places of importance in her story. It would have been extremely interesting to see items available from the Nova Scotia archives: for example an article from a provincial newspaper covering her Supreme Court case (noting that she was charged with fraud ), articles from The Clarion, one of the first Black newspapers in the province, and the Notice of Motion to take the case to the Supreme Court. At issue also is the over-use of digital illustrations which are so common in juvenile nonfiction and biographies. The authors include a Time Line, a Glossary, a list of Resources and an Index. 

Book Details:

The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond: A Civil Rights Icon by Rachel Kehoe with Wanda Robson
Orca Book Publishers Ltd.     2023
87 pp.

The Scarf and The Butterfly: a graphic memoir of hope and healing by Monica Ittusardjuat

The Scarf and The Butterfly is a short graphic memoir of Monica Ittusardjuat's life, exploring how the residential school experience impacted her life and her identity as Inuit.

The memoir opens with a memory of Monica and her friends, Umik, Ilupaalik, and Akittiq out for a walk to catch butterflies. Monica is wearing a beautiful scarf her mother gave her before going into the hospital. During their walk, Monica lost her scarf but she was able to find it. This was Monica's life before she was taken away to attend the residential school at Chesterfield Inlet.

Monica was born prematurely in an iglu at her family's winter camp at Akkimaniq on the western side of Baffin Island. Because her mother was very ill and in danger of dying, Monica's aunt took her for a time. Her mother recovered and Monica was reunited with her family.

Monica's family lived a subsistence way of life along with her two uncles, Mamattiaq and Tattiggat and their families. The evening was a time to relax and listen to hunting stories and legends, and play traditional games. In the spring, they traveled from one camp to the next, hunting and fishing. Summer saw the families hunt caribou, walrus, beluga, and seal.

Monica was sent to residential schools beginning in 1958, entering the Qallunaaq world. She returned home in the spring of 1969 after having attended three residential schools in Chesterfield, NWT, and in Churchill and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her experiences at these residential schools changed Monica.

She married a residential school survivor and the marriage was violent and dysfunctional. Their children witnessed many horrible things. Later on, Monica would discover that her husband had been abused. Like her, he has also experienced "the loss of culture and spirituality." So like many other Inuit, Monica set out on a personal journey to reclaim her culture and her identity, a process that continues today.

Discussion

The Scarf and the Butterfly focuses on the effects of the residential school experience, rather than the actual events that took place during the author's time at the various schools. It is memoir of the journey to healing and hope. Monica writes that her healing journey began when her granddaughter, Grace turned six-years-old. Witnessing Grace's free spirit and happiness, made Monica remember that she was once like this before attending school. She realized some of what she had lost and this caused her to grieve.

Monica explains how being sent to a residential school, far away from her family, affected her mother and their relationship. Each fall, as her children were sent back to the school, her mother noticed the silence in their home, making it as though "...someone had died." And in a way, the residential schools were killing the relationship between Indigenous children and their parents and elders. When Monica's mother became ill later in life, she wanted to know what had made them so emotionally distant. Monica explained that the bond between them was broken because of her being at the residential school. She learned to stop crying and accept this loss.

In the residential school, Monica witnessed abusive behaviour by a teacher towards students. These events brought about a deep sense of guilt and shame as she questioned whether she was to blame in some way. Even bringing a claim forward years later was devastating to Monica as it was traumatic to admit that she had been "damaged" by her experiences. She experienced feelings of "...self-hatred, shame, guilt, helplessness, and despair..." that led to reviving old addictions.

When reflecting back on her experiences at a retreat in 2002, Monica came to realize that she was "stripped of my identity and there was nothing of my culture left in me." Some of her earliest memories were of sleeping next to her parents in the deep cold of the Far North and feeling safe, and of watching her father in the early morning darkness prepare for the day's hunt. These early memories reminded Monica of her Inuit identity.

Through her difficult personal journey, Monica has been able to reclaim some of her Inuit culture: she can make Inuit clothing and jewelry, cook country food, drum dance and sing ajaajaa songs. She continues to struggle to understand what has happened to Inuit culture and her place in that culture. The process of reclaiming her own identity continues and is an ongoing one. This includes self-forgiveness, self-affirmation and forgiving those who harmed her.

The Scarf and The Butterfly portrays to readers just how complex and difficult this process has been and continues to be for residential survivors like Monica Ittusardjuat. Despite this difficult journey, Monica's memoir is one filled with hope, faith, acceptance and perseverance. She writes, 

"I am who I am, and I've become comfortable with that. I am Inuk and I have had a Qallunaaq upbringing, and I accept a bit from each. I am not the same as my Inuit friends or family, and I offer no apology for that. I have fought to become who I was meant to be. Adversities have not broken me; they have made me, and the victory is sweeter when you have fought for it than when it has been given to you."

The rich illustrations in this memoir by artists, Coco Apunnguaq Lynge and Scott Plumbe capture the beauty of Canada's Far North and our Inuit brothers and sisters, and accentuate Monica's message of healing and hope. Highly recommended for adults, teens and older children.

Book Details:

The Scarf and The Butterfly by Monica Ittusardjuat

Toronto: Inhabit Education Books Inc.    2023

67 pp.

The Cricket War by Tho Pham & Sandra McTavish

Eleven-year-old Tho Pham loves challenging his best friend, Lam to cricket fights. Lam, who lives next door, spends much time training his crickets but they rarely win. Tho lives with his parents, his older brother Vu, and his two sisters, Thao and Tien. Tho's father lost his well-paying job at the bank after the Communist takeover of Sai Gon in the spring of 1975. Now even though both his parents work, they don't make enough money. As a result, they have been selling off furniture and other possessions.

On Monday morning, Tho waits for Lam to meet him outside his house but after ten minutes, he still hasn't appeared. Even after calling his name, Lam doesn't come out of his house, so Tho leaves for school. Lam doesn't show up at school either. After school and a pick-up game of soccer, Tho asks Lam's sister, Mai if Lam is fine. She tells him that Lam and An have gone to visit a sick uncle at his farm. However, Tho knows Mai is not telling the truth. Since the Communist takeover, people from their neighborhood just disappear. Sometimes one person or two, or even a family. Boys who come of age are conscripted into the Communist army, so to avoid this fate, they are sent away by their families. Tho knows Lam and An are gone and will not be returning.

When Tho sees two soldiers banging on Lam's family's door, he tells them that soldiers have already come to take away An. Vu overhears this and admonishes Tho for doing this, telling him that he will be punished instead. Vu is also worried because he is almost eighteen and will be conscripted soon. In an attempt to prevent this, Vu wants Tho to chop off his trigger finger. Fortunately, they are stopped by their father.

One day in May, 1980, Tho and Vu are told by their father that he has arranged for them to leave Vietnam. They will travel on a boat owned by someone he knows. They leave immediately, taking an xe lam to the home of Mr. Binh. However, Mr. Binh tells their father he can take only one boy, as their father has only paid enough gold for one. They leave the older brother, Vu behind to escape with the help of Mr. Binh. A month later they receive a telegram from Vu stating that he has arrived safely in Malaysia. A few letters later on reveal that he is most likely in a refugee camp there.

A year later, in May 1981, Tho is now a year older. Tho knows that the disappearing furniture is an indication that his parents are trying to earn money for his passage out of Vietnam. With the disappearance of Mr. Binh, Tho's parents take him to his mother's sister, his Aunt Linh, who has learned that a boat is leaving near her village. Linh's husband and their five oldest children have already fled Vietnam. Only Aunt Linh and her youngest son, Phat remain. Tho's mother gives him a plastic bag with a pair of shorts, a T-shirt with a gold chain sewn into the hem. He is also given his Uncle Quang's address in America. To travel to Linh's home, Tho and his mother make the journey of over two hundred kilometers, first taking a long bus ride, then making two ferry crossings. 

After a feast of roasted pig, vermicelli and spring rolls, Tho and his mother, along with Phat, are led by Aunt Linh to the back of the house which faces the river. With a full moon to see by, they board a small boat, along with six other people. After a long trip, Phat docks the boat and Tho and the others quietly board a larger boat. Phat waves good-bye to Tho, who never was able to hug and say good-bye to his mother. 

Tho's journey to escape Vietnam has begun, as the larger boat travels towards the sea. Tho falls asleep but when he awakes in the morning he vomits in the boat. He is astonished to see Mai and her parents in the boat. She tells him her mother found out about the boat from his mother. For Tho, having Mai and her parents with him makes him feel less lonely and that someone will be there to help him. But his journey is only beginning. It will test Tho's courage and resiliency as he encounters pirates, hunger, death and even the loss of friends.

Discussion

The Cricket War is another personal account of a Vietnamese refugee from the Communist takeover of the country. Almost fifty years after this event in 1975, many memoirs and children's nonfiction books are being published about the experience of fleeing Vietnam in the aftermath of the war and the fall of Sai Gon. 

The events in this short novel are based on the experience of Tho Pham as he fled his homeland in 1981 and landed as a refugee in Toronto, Canada. Tho was twelve-years-old when his parents arranged for him to escape Vietnam alone. Unlike the character Tho in The Cricket War, the real Tho was the only member of his family to escape Vietnam at the time. His two brothers and his parents remained in Vietnam, and his older brother was eventually conscripted into the Vietnamese army. Many of the events in the novel are based on Tho's experiences during his journey from Vietnam. These are explained in the Afterword found at the back of the novel.

The authors do provide a short note on Vietnam's history in A Brief Recent History of Vietnam at the back of the novel. The Cricket War explains why many Vietnamese chose to make the dangerous journey to freedom, despite knowing it could cost them their lives. This is done through the character of Tho and Vu's father, who explains to his sons how the Vietnamese have endured centuries of occupation and simply want to rule themselves. However, to many Vietnamese, the Communists are simply another occupier. He explains, "It is torture living in a Communist country...If you had money, or a big house, or lots of land before the Communist regime, they took it from you. The control what you learn, what you say in public, even how you practice your religion. If you vocally disagree with them, they will silence you by force or intimidation, or send you away to what they call 're-education' camp. At these camps, people are treated like prisoners and forced to do hard labor. Sometimes they die of starvation or beatings. If you try to leave the country and are caught, you are sent to prison. You also might be tortured or simply disappear."

The Vietnamese refugees were called "the boat people" because this was the primary escape route out of the country - often by rickety, unseaworthy boats across the South China Sea to Malaysia and the Philippines. As in The Cricket War, these refugees were attacked by sea pirates, often the boats sank with considerable loss of life, or they were captured by the Vietnamese and towed back to land to end up in re-education camps. 

Tho Pham's experience fleeing Vietnam mirrors that of most other Vietnamese refugees. The wooden boat was barely seaworthy and was overloaded with over seventy people, many who quickly became "sick, tired, hungry and scared." They were exposed to the scorching sun, the cold at night and violent storms. During Tho's journey, his boat was attacked daily by pirates, who robbed them of food and any valuables. Later attacks saw the pirates leave some food and water for the refugees. As in the book, Tho was fortunate to have survived multiple pirate attacks, even hiding on one of the pirate boats! He was rescued by the Cap Anamur, a German ship dedicated to help Vietnamese refugees, and brought to a refugee camp.

The Cricket War captures all of the terror and suffering the refugees experienced but it also portrays the resiliency and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people. For example, the refugees devise a way to catch fish and are able to cook their catch on the charcoal stove on the boat. They actively help one another, working together to try to survive. The novel, written for young readers is never graphic in recounting life under the Communists in Vietnam, nor in describing the pirate attacks, while still conveying what life was like in these circumstances. 

Canada was one country that took in many Vietnamese refugees. They have repaid our country many times over by contributing in almost every area of life in Canada. Many like Tho, were sponsored by individuals and church groups. 

The authors have included a map of Vietnam and neighbouring countries as well as a Pronunciation Guide to Vietnamese names and words. The Cricket War is highly recommended.

Book Details:

The Cricket War by Tho Pham & Sandra McTavish
Toronto: Kids Can Press Ltd.
160 pp.

Stars of the Night by Caren Stelson

Stars of the Night relates the incredible story of Nicholas Winton and the Czech kindertransport.

In 1938 Czechoslovakia, life for young children in the old city of Prague was good. There were picnics in the park with dark bread with cheese and slices of their mother's sweet honey cake. In the winter, skating on the rivers was followed by a trip to the local coffeehouses for hot cocoa with whipped cream. The children, who were Jewish and eight, nine and ten years old played with friends who were mostly not Jewish. This didn't matter to them. They attended school. Prague was a peaceful city.

But in November of that year, things began to change. Tent camps were set up outside the city, filled with people, who the children were told, were refugees. In Germany, the stores and synagogues of Jews were vandalized and burned. The people in the tents were seeking safety. Soon the Jewish children of Prague found they were being yelled at too. Their parents began to worry, but were too busy to explain. Soon they decided they had to meet the man who was offering to make arrangements. But what man were they meeting in Prague?

In March 1939, the German army entered Prague, with their leader Hitler standing in a car, his arm straight out in front of him. Everywhere the red flags with the black zigzag were hung.

When the childrens' fathers received replies to their letters, the packing of suitcases began. The children were told they were taking a trip to England. And they were told, "There will be times when you'll feel lonely and homesick. Let the stars of the night and the sun of the day be the messenger of our thoughts and love."

The childrens' journey beganat Prague's Wilson Railway Station. The train station was filled with mostly Jewish families who were saying tearful goodbyes to their children as they boarded the trains. At the German border, the children alone, on their train without their parents were afraid of the gruff German police who checked travel documents and searched suitcases. From Germany they travelled through the Netherlands to the English Channel where they boarded boats. After another train ride in England, the children arrived in London where they were welcomed by the English families who would care for them. The children didn't know that the man their parents had written to was a man in London who had made this all possible. 

In England, they soon learned that war had broken out and as the years passed they saw pictures of people being made to wear yellow stars, and being forced into cattle cars on trains and sent to terrible places. Were their parents safe at home in Prague? They didn't know. When the war ended, many of the children were much older, seventeen and eighteen and were able to travel back to Prague to search for their parents. They soon realized that their parents were gone, that they were some of the people put on the cattle cars and sent away.  Many years passed, the children grew up, married and had their own children.

Then one day a scrap book was found with the names and photographs of children, their passports and letters and a plan of escape. In the scrapbook was also the name of the man who organized all this - Nicholas Winton. The children, now older adults, finally met him to thank him.

Discussion

Stars of the Night tells the story from the perspective of  669  brave children, who made the journey from Czechoslovakia to Great Britain just as Hitler began his rampage across Europe. As children, at the time, they didn't really know what was happening in their communities, and in the world at large. They were told they were being sent away, but they couldn't possibly understand what that really meant. These children were part of the larger kindertransport - an attempt to save the children of Jewish parents from inevitable death. One person determined to do that was Nicholas Winton. 

Nicholas Winton was born in 1909 in West Hampstead to parents of German Jewish ancestry. He worked as a stockbroker. In 1938, Winton's life was about to change forever. Germany had taken over areas of Czechoslovakia that were predominantly German-speaking, called the Sudetenland. This was allowed by the Munich Agreement. After this, in November, the Nazis conducted an organized attack on Jewish citizens in Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland in what became known as Kristallnacht. As a result, Jewish refugees from these areas began to arrive in Czechoslovakia, on the outskirts of Prague.

Due to this attack, the British government decided to allow children under the age of seventeen from Germany and other areas annexed by Germany, to enter Great Britain. The requirements were that they have a foster family willing to take them in and that there were certain financial commitments made.

It was at this time in December, 1938 that Nicholas Winton's friend, Martin Blake asked him to visit Czechoslovakia instead of travelling to Switzerland for a ski trip. Winton arrived in Czechoslovakia as an associate of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, an organization created in response to the refugee crisis in Prague. There he met Doreen Wariner who arranged for him to visit refugee camps filled with Jews and political opponents of the Nazis.

Winton knew of the Kindertransport to rescue Jewish children from Germany and Austria, and he decided to organize a similar operation for Czech Jewish children. He first began organizing from his Prague hotel room and then in an office. Winton soon had thousands of distraught parents attempting to apply. He returned to England to raise money for the transport of Jewish children to England.

The first kindertransport organized by Winton from Czechoslovakia left Prague on March 14, 1939. Seven more transports would follow, these by train and ship, as portrayed in Stars of the Night. When Germany invaded Poland, and Great Britain declared war on Germany, the transports ended. Nicholas Winton's remarkable efforts remained hidden until his wife Grete discovered a scrapbook with the names and photographs of the children he saved. In 1988, the year the scrapbook was discovered, the children, now adults, were finally able to meet the man who saved them, on a British TV show.

Author Caren Stelson, who is Jewish, focused on five children from the Kindertransport in her story, giving each a different colour that is consistent throughout. Sisters Eva and Vera Diamantova wear orange and red respectively. Eva and Vera were ten and fifteen-years-old when they left their parents on July 20, 1939 and boarded the Czech Kindertransport to England. Vera would use the diary her father gave her, to write about her experiences and to write down the words her mother told her, about the stars of the night and the sun of the day being the messenger of their thoughts and love for her. Vera remained in England becoming a writer while Eva moved to New Zealand and became a nurse.

Brothers Josef and Ernest Schlesinger are portrayed wearing dark blue and light blue respectively.  Josef was eleven and Ernest, nine-years-old when they left Bratislava to travel to England. Sadly, Josef and Ernest's parents did not survive the Holocaust. Canadians will know Joe Schlesinger as a famous foreign correspondent for CBC. Renata Polgar wears green in Stars of the Night. She was only eight-years-old when she left her parents in her hometown of Brno to live with the Daniels family in Britain. She remembered happy times with this family. Renata was one of only five children whose parents both survived the Holocaust.

The illustrations in Stars of the Night were created by artist Selina Alko with acrylic paint, colored pencil and collage. 

Stars of the Night is a picture book that introduces the Czech kindertransport to younger readers in a simple manner, allowing for further exploration and learning about this event and the remarkable Nicholas Winton who orchestrated one aspect of it. His story demonstrates how one person can make a significant difference in the lives of many. As Joe Schlesinger remarked about Nicholas Winton, "This is the man who gave me the rest of my life."

Book Details:

Stars of the Night by Caren Stelson
Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books 2023

Courage To Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust by Neal Shusterman

In Courage to Dream, five historical fantasy stories are presented by award-winning author, Neal Shusterman.. 

In He Opens A Window, three sisters, Anna, Gretchen and Katja are in hiding in an upper room in Frau Muller's house. The secret room is hidden behind a bookcase and Frau Muller keeps the door locked. Every day a delivery book brings food which she brings to the girls. One day the delivery boy is late, held up by a parade of German soldiers of to the battlefront. After making his delivery to Frau Muller, he notices that the upper middle window of her house is missing!

That night when Anna wakes up and opens the curtains she sees an amazing sight: a brilliant sky filled with stars and suns. The next day the delivery boy brings more food from Herr Baumann, the grocer, to Frau Muller. However, Baumann has seen him stealing chocolate bars. Enraged, Baumann who promised the boy's parents to care for him, refuses to pay him and tells him he will be joining the Hitler Youth.

Meanwhile, the three girls eat the chocolate bars in their secret room. They tell Anna they also have seen the strange sights out the window. When Anna opens the curtains, this time they see islands floating in the sky above Hamburg. Anna tells them they cannot tell anyone and that the curtains must stay closed. 

Disaster strikes when Frau Muller picks up papers approved by Consul Ho for Shanghai but is hit by a truck on her way home. The girls' only connection to the outside world is lost and locked in their room upstairs they begin to starve. When they open the curtain, they see a devastated city of Hamburg. 

The delivery boy, now in the Hitler Youth, is questioned and pressured by the Gestapo to reveal who he's been supplying food . He is tricked into revealing the house and the soldiers break into Frau Muller's home. When Anna hears the soldiers climbing the stairs, she devises a plan to protect the girls using the magic window. 

In Legend Speaks of a Hero: The Golem of Auschwitz, the Jewish myth of the Golem comes to life.  The Golem was "a man formed from clay, infused with the name of God and inscribed with a brand of truth", called to life in the 16th century by Rabbi Judah Loew Ben Bezalel. The Golem came to the rescue of Jews in the city of Prague. Legend is that he either ran away or crumbled into earth once the special attributes given to him by the Rabbi were removed.

Duvid had heard about the Golem but a blow to his head had hurt his memories and thoughts. In Auschwitz some of the prisoners have heard the Golem came to Treblinka and despite the Nazis attempting to gas him and burn him, he survived and feed everyone. However, others believe this is a lie. The Rabbi believes that it is good to have hope, even if it is false hope. 

Trains arrived daily, packed to bursting with most people who were made to walk to the Birkenau two miles behind Auschwitz, to their deaths. One day a prisoner named Ben attacks a guard who had just beaten another prisoner. Ben is shot in the head in front of everyone. At night, Duvid is awakened to see something punching its way into the Nazi soldiers barracks. Duvid is awoken by the Rabbi who tells him to get back inside. At dawn, all the prisoners are lined up and told that an officer is missing. Duvid tells the Nazis that the Golem is responsible but they think he is joking.

When the prisoners are lined up for inspection to be send to Birkenau, to the gas chambers, Duvid learns his true identity and acts to free some of the prisoners.

In Spirits of Resistance, Baba and Izbushka watch as intruders invade their forest: a boy, Yosef and a girl, Hannah are being pursued by Nazi soldiers. They are found by Abe, a soldier of the Resistance who takes them to his camp deep in the forest. Yosef and Hannah escaped a transport to a death camp.

In the camp, Hannah tells Yosef she saw a house moving through the woods, and an old woman flying in a bowl. A resistance fighter tells her that was Baba Yaga who roams the forests of Eastern Europe, and eats little children. During the night, Yosef and Hannah are awoken to see the Fools of Chelm capturing the moon in a barrel.

The next day the Resistance plans to attack a train travelling to Treblinka, to save as many people as possible. Baba and Izbushka watch the attack and then confront Yosef and Hannah back in the resistance camp. Hannah tells Baba they want her help to fight the Nazis. After giving the children a piece of meat from Ibushka's left leg, Baba visits the resistance camp later that night and tells them she will help them. To aid her efforts, she enlists the help of the Chelmites. Meanwhile, the Nazis are preparing to lead a major offensive against the resistance fighters in the forest. But with the help of Baba, Ziz, Isbushka and the Chelmites, the Nazis have little chance.

An old family heirloom saves lives in Exodus. Jory Svedberg and Soren are friends even though Jory is Jewish and Soren is Lutheran. They simply consider themselves Danes. Denmark is under Nazi occupation but it wasn't until the summer of 1943 that they began to plan to deport Danish Jews to camps. One night when Soren stays for dinner at Jory's home, Jory's mother complains about how the curtain rod is always tearing their curtains. But Mr. Svedberg tells her it is a family heirloom, the staff of Moses. Jory reminds his mother it brings plagues and doesn't clean his room!

As the German army floods more soldiers into Denmark, the peaceful occupation ends. On August 29, 1943, the Danish government resigns as rumors suggest that the Danish Jews would be deported to concentration camps. Jews in Copenhagen began to flee or go into hiding. Then the Nazis come for Jory's family. But Jory has no intention of going with them. Picking up the rod, he quickly knocks out all three Nazi soldiers. But this is just beginning as Jory uses the rod to save Copenhagen's Jews and get them to safety across the Oresund Sound, separating Denmark and Sweden.

The Untold is a story of lives and a world that could have been. Caitlin's Grandmother Ida is dying. Caitlin loves her grandmother but is scared to see her because it means confronting death. Her grandmother tells her there are many stories that remain untold. She gives Caitlin a box and tells her to open it when she is feeling strong and when her heart is ready. After this, Caitlin's grandmother dies.

Puzzled and driven by curiosity about the unique gift, Caitlin finally opens the box weeks later. Inside, she finds a crystalline seashell. When Caitlin places the shell to her ear she hears hundreds of voices. When she goes downstairs for dinner, Caitlin is shocked to see a much larger dining room table and sees two strange boys in the living room. Caitlin is told they are Grandma Ida's grandnephews. Her mother tells her she should know this based on the family tree she did last year. But when Caitlin pulls out the family tree from her desk, she sees that is has many more branches than what she remembers.  When she lifts the crystalline shell to her ear again, she hears silence. 

Upon returning to the dining room, Caitlin finds everything as she expects with just herself, her brother and mother. And the family tree is as she remembers. The next day sees her not only experience a different home but also school is different. There are new kids she doesn't know and her history book states that World War II ended in 1942 with Germany not even in the war. When she shows her best friend Adam the shell, he disappears. Putting the shell back to her ear, Caitlin again hears the voices and she is back into the altered time line when she arrives home. There she learns that a brick has been thrown through a window in their house, and that anti-Semitism is on the rise in America. Her large family talks about emigrating to Palestine, and Israel doesn't yet exist. Not being able to deal with this Caitlin puts the seashell to her ear and she is back in her own timeline. She promises herself to leave it there until the 4th of July celebrations when she finds she is missing the large family in the alternate timeline. 

Using the seashell again, Caitlin returns to that timeline, a house filled with many family, "to be surrounded by a family you never had." But talk is about a book written by a congressman, on the front cover the Nazi symbol on the American flag. Horrified, Caitlin encounters her grandmother who explains what has happened and why she gave her the crystalline seashell.

Discussion

Courage To Dream is another very unique book by author Neal Shusterman. In this graphic novel, Shusterman who is an American Jew, has written "fantasy stories with a Holocaust theme". Most of the stories are a mashup of Jewish history during the Holocaust and Jewish folklore. In his Imagination and the Unimaginable note at the back of the novel, Shusterman mentions that writing from this perspective was both exciting but uncomfortable and asks, "Where is the intersection of fantasy and the grim reality of murdered millions?"

As the author notes, "These are stories of wish fulfillment where the tragedy lies in the fact that they can never be fulfilled." How many Jewish men, women and children imagined the Golem or some other hero coming to their rescue in the death camps? How many hidden Jews wished to fly out the window of their secret hideaway to a glorious world of freedom and safety? How many survivors of the Holocaust wondered what might have been had parents and siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, husbands and wives survived?  As he wrote his stories, Shusterman began to realize the stories were "..a unique way of addressing the Holocaust and perhaps engaging readers who might not otherwise go there."

In the last story, The Untold, Shusterman tackles the idea of a world where the Holocaust never happened in the 1940's but instead could possibly happen in the twenty-first century. In the Untold, the main character, Caitlin discovers a huge family in an alternate timeline because World War II ended in 1942, before the implementation of Hitler's "Final Solution" - the systematic murder of European Jews. Her huge family is the result of people living to produce the succeeding generations. 

In that alternate timeline Caitlin wanted to believe that a world without the Holocaust was a better one, but instead she finds it is just as flawed as her own time, maybe even worse. When she confronts her Grandmother Ida in that timeline she tells her granddaughter, "The world that might have been always looks glorious at first but there are twists and turns in its spiral and depths that no one can see." Caitlin realizes that her grandmother gave her not the choice to live in an alternate world but a vision, enabling her to understand who she is mourning, when she remembers the Holocaust. 

The unique stores are told primarily by the wonderful artwork of illustrator Andres Vera Martinez who researched historical photographs so he could "...accurately depict clothing, architecture, uniforms, and even landscapes of the time." He also did considerable art history research into the various aspects of Jewish folklore/  The panels are set in a somber tan tone. Many of the illustrations are rich with detail and capture the fantastical element of the stories being told while also portraying historical events.

Shusterman who is known for his fantasy and dystopian novels,  has also included an extensive Bibliography and a Note about the Hebrew Letters In This Book. The first five letters of the Hebrew alphabet appear at the beginning of each story and are relevant to the story. Courage To Dream is a book that twelve years in the making, but rich in themes for readers and students to explore.

Book Details:

Courage To Dream: Tales of Hope In The Holocaust by Neal Shusterman
New York: Graphix, an Imprint of Scholastic Inc.  2023