The Brightwood Code by Monica Hesse

Eighteen-year-old Edda Grace St. James had been a telephone operator with the American Expeditionary Forces, on the western front in France, in 1918. Her job was to "...answer the line, match the code name to a number, insert the right plug into the right jack, connect the telephone call." The codes changed every day so every night, Edda and the other girls had to memorize two pages of new codes. Then the next day they would sit down at their switchboards, "and when a caller asked to be connected to Montana or Buster or Wabash," Edda and the other operators would understand that they wanted to be connected to a specific division or general.  

Now back in America, in November of 1918, Edda is working at the Central switchboard in Washington, D.C. Her supervisor, Miss Genovese is not happy with Edda: she has incurred several "infractions" for her dress or not following proper protocol on the switchboard. Edda has been home from France for two months now. The last call of her night shift is a caller who tells her she has to tell the truth before it's too late and ends with the word, "Brightwood". Unable to find out more from the mysterious caller, Edda leaves work very upset.

She returns to her Aunt Tess's boarding house where she has a room on the fourth floor, along with other boarders including a young man, Theo Graybill who has a limp from a hip injury. Theo notices immediately that something is not right with Edda and he presses her to tell him. But all Edda will reveal is that she took a local call that was "odd". He tries to reassure Edda that the call was likely just random as it is impossible to choose the operator on a call. 

Unable to sleep after her shift, Edda decides to purchase new clothing instead of doing her laundry. While Edda is in Hecht's to purchase new white blouses and navy wool skirts, two women run in, announcing the war is over. An Armistice has been signed! This leads to partying and celebrating everywhere including at Edda's aunt's boarding house. Intoxicated after drinking champagne, and still deeply upset over the call, Edda finally tells Theo what actually happened that fateful day seven months ago in France.

She explains to Theo that as a "Hello Girl" and part of the American Expeditionary Forces, it was Edda's job as an operator to transfer calls between platoons, bases and generals, speaking and translating between French and English. Everything was in codes that changed daily. Ordered to place a call one night to Brightwood, the code Edda believes was for Baltimore's Forty-Eighth Regiment, Edda froze, unable to remember the code. The Forty-Eighth Regiment had advanced beyond the front and were trapped. Thirty-four men perished. The recent caller to her switchboard used the code, Brightwood and told her to tell the truth. 

Edda decides that she has to return to her home in Roland Park in Baltimore to retrieve a Polk's City Directory. When she calls Aunt Tess to ask her to bring money to the train station, Edda learns that one of the switchboard operators, Louisa Safechuck has killed herself. However, it is Theo who brings her the money and who accompanies Edda to Baltimore against her wishes.  On the train, Theo confesses to Edda that he shot himself in the leg to avoid going to the front.

In Baltimore, Edda and Theo have a difficult run in with her father, who is dismissive towards Theo and unkind towards Edda. After visiting the home of Charley Dannenberg, one of the soldiers who died that night, and meeting his angry father, the two return home. The very next shift, Edda receives yet another telephone call telling her she's the only one who can help them, once again mentioning Brightwood. Hysterical, her adjoining operator, Helen Gibson takes Edda to the break room where she is offered a chance to do a publicity shoot for the Hello Girls.

Back at her room, Edda tells Theo about the second call and the two sit down to try to determine which families might be the most suspect. But as Edda and Theo continue to investigate the families of the dead soldiers, Edda must finally face the reality of the trauma she experienced and tell the truth about what really happened that fateful night. 

Discussion

The Brightwood Code is a historical fiction novel set in 1918, at the end of World War I. The story focuses on Edda St. Clair, a former Hello Girl who has returned suddenly from France, traumatized by an event that led to the deaths of thirty-four young soldiers.  The story alternates between Edda in the present, in Washington, attempting to uncover the mystery of the caller and the recent past events that occurred while she was at the front in France.

Believing that she could forget what happened if she left France, and found work in a different city Edda's returns to the United States. However, her life begins to unravel. She returns home to Baltimore, her father describing her arrival "...like a ghost, telling us nothing is wrong but of course something is wrong. Her room is a pigsty. She has to be dragged into the bath." She flees from her own homecoming party and is unable to dance with the son of her father's boss. Soon after, Edda flees from Baltimore, to Washington where she is able to find work as a telephone operator with Bell. It is at this point that Edda receives two mysterious calls, mentioning the code word Brightwood and begging her to tell the truth. The past has come back to haunt her and Edda is determined to find out who is behind the calls.

Initially Edda believes that the mysterious caller is someone related to one of the dead soldiers, all of whose names she has memorized, and is asking her to claim responsibility for their deaths. Edda is certain that she is responsible because she failed to do her job. "Of course there are things I left out. But nothing that would excuse any of my behavior...Boys were dying on the front. My job was to answer telephones. My only job was to answer telephones." However as the story unfolds, it is not quite that simple.

Edda believes she must investigate each soldier's family to determine who is making the calls. Theo challenges her as to what she hopes to achieve, telling her, "But what kind of endings do you think you can give?....You can't rewrite what happened, no matter what you do. None of us can. Whatever happened is what happened." Edda tells him, "There has to be something. There has to be some kind of finality. Some kind of way of making peace. It can't be the case that something horrible happens and you just have to live, forever, with this feeling of..." 

 As Edda continues to struggle to solve the mystery of who is contacting her, her feelings of guilt and conflict intensify. "I need peace, and I need an ending, and I need to make amends and have amends made to me. And I need to bring my soul back from France. I cannot keep living divided this way, I cannot keep feeling as though I am still in that switchboard room, still in that switchboard room with Luc." 

When Edda meets Charley Dannenberg's father a second time she recognizes the "primal woundedness", the "pain stuffed down" and the "untended grief" he is experiencing because she is experiencing the same. But it's after meeting August Danneman's sister, Eliza, that Edda begins to make sense of what happened to her in France. "Is it possible that I did the best I could with the choices I had? Is it possible that what happened to the boys of the Forty-Eighth was because of something I did, but not my fault? Is it possible that I am to blame, but not to punish?"

When Theo explains how he got out of fighting in the war, he tells Edda that his choice to do anything to get out of the war means he is a coward. But Edda tells him that maybe our choices simply  show "who we were forced to be in the moment that we made them."

Early in the novel, Theo quickly and correctly surmises that Edda's trauma is somehow related to a man named Luc. Edda refuses every attempt to discuss him and it isn't until much later when she remembers the details of that night in the office that it is understandable why this is. Eventually, Edda discovers the person behind the calls and learns that they were not asking her to take responsibility for the deaths of the men of the Forty-Eighth Regiment but to expose a man who had harmed her and possibly many other Hello Girls. These revelations lead Edda to realize that she had been so focused on what happened to the young soldiers, she missed recognizing her own trauma. "I was so focused on the story of the boys who were hurt and lost at war that I missed the story of how I was hurt and lost at war. I missed part of the story. I missed my own part of the story." 

The novel highlights some of the terrible realities of World War I, a war that saw many young men humiliated into enlisting, believing that their honor depended upon doing so. The reality of the war was young soldiers were sent out again and again by generals behind the lines, to face the muck, machine gun fire and gas without any chance of success and little of surviving. As the war dragged on with neither side winning, many people came to see the war as a hopeless endeavor with little regard for the soldiers. Mr. Dannenberg states this to Edda when they meet a second time.  "The truth is that boys like him are expendable. They fought in trenches but the decision about their lives were made over the telephone by people who got to keep their hands clean. That boys like my son never belonged in France, died their because of people like you. Because you were cruel and careless. My son paid with his life, and the people who drove him to enlist, and the people who should have looked after him once he got there -- they didn't pay at all."

The character of Theo Graybill is representative of those young men who were terrified to go to war, who in some way knew the measure of what was happening, but who had no say. " 'I was so scared, ' he continues. 'When my number was called, going was what I was supposed to do. Be a man. Be the first brave man in the family. I wanted to go but I was so scared to go, and I would have done anything not to go. And then I got there and I did. Do anything. I did anything I could do to come home again....' "

The novel also highlights the almost impossible predicament women who have been sexually assaulted faced in the early twentieth century. The conversation between Edda and her supervisor, Miss Genovese portrays the difficulty they faced in reporting Luc. When Edda asks why she didn't report him, Miss Genovese states that it didn't happen to her, that she needed someone who had been harmed by Luc L'Enfant, and that she would have been blamed for allowing the assault to happen to Louisa Safechuck. She knew that Edda was likely also a victim of Luc because of her premature arrival home from France and so she needed to try to get her to report him. And still she wasn't even sure if that was enough.  "It doesn't work to have just one girl's word against a man. You need two. You need twenty...Maybe twenty still would not have been enough. Maybe none of them would have been enough."

The Brightwood Code is a well written and thought-provoking novel that uses the historical fact of the Hello Girls as its backstory. What starts out as a character trying to solve a mystery, reveals a whole other story, in a twist that is heartbreaking. In spite of all that has happened, the novel does end on a positive tone, with Edda open to developing her friendship with Theo.

The Hello Girls were female switchboard operators in what was known as the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit during World War I. The unit was formed in 1917 and was made up of two hundred twenty three women, most of whom served in France.

The Brightwood Code is another excellent novel by author Monica Hesse and is highly recommended for older readers due to the issues explored in the novel.

Book Details:

The Brightwood Code by Monica Hesse

New York: Little, Brown and Company    2024

321 pp.

Trajectory by Cambria Gordon

It is May 1942 and seventeen-year-old Eleanor Schiff lives with her twelve-year-old sister Sarah and her parents in Jenkintown, a small suburb in Philadelphia. Eleanor's father is a brilliant mathematician who suffered a devastating stroke that left his speech slurred and his body damaged. Eleanor is called out of her father's study where she is pretending to read Life Magazine but is really working on calculus. Her mother wants her to help with the Shabbos meal preparations. Soon her Uncle Herman, Aunt Jona and their seven-year-old twins, Jacob and Lila arrive.

At dinner conversation turns to the events in Poland. Eleanor has been corresponding with her ten-year-old cousin, Batja, whose father, Azriel is a first cousin of her mother and Uncle Herman.  Her uncle tells them that all the Jews in the Stanislau ghetto must wear shite armbands with blue stars of David to identify them as Jews. The ghetto is guarded by the German Schutzpolizei and the Ukrainian militia. The Jewish police guard it from the inside, something that shocks Eleanor's family. The ghetto holds an unbelievable twenty thousand Jews within a few city blocks. Uncle Herman has also heard that there are "selections" or "aktions" where those who are unable to work because they are old or sick are sent to die.

After dinner, while out with her friend, Trudie at Oswald's Drug Store for a soda, Eleanor learns about a MathMeet being held at 11 AM at the Women's Club on Saturday morning. Even though she feels she shouldn't attend the meeting, Eleanor sneaks into the meeting without registering and handily solves all the problems including the last and most difficult one.  However, on her way out, Eleanor is approached by the organizer, Mary Mauchly, who wants to return Eleanor's notebook which she has left behind. Mary notes that Eleanor was the only one able to solve the last problem. Mary who is associated with the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, tells her that the MathMeet is a ruse to scout for women computers for the U.S. Army. She invites Eleanor to join a new team she's instructing but Eleanor turns her down and flees.

The following day, while Eleanor and her mom walk her dad through the Morris Arboretum in his wheel chair, she considers what happened after the MathMeet. Afterwards at home, Eleanor recalls her father's stroke and how she feels responsible for what happened to him. As a result their life changed drastically: no more faculty banquets, no more volunteer work. Their vibrant life lost. Eleanor's unique math abilities were recognized in kindergarten but she ripped up the teacher's note. She has spent her childhood hiding her ability, throwing math tests, trying not to sound too smart or too dumb and quickly earning the nickname "Nervous Nellie". Eleanor feels that because she took away her father's gift she has no right to hers. Thankfully a phone call changes everything. Mary Mauchly tries again to recruit Eleanor, this time telling her the pay is $1400 a year plus overtime. This would be enough money for Eleanor's family to hire a nurse for her father and to buy extra ration stamps. When Eleanor decides to accept Mary Mauchly's offer, her life is changed forever. Her work offers Eleanor the chance to make a significant contribution to the war effort and finally address the trauma of what happened years ago.

Discussion

In Trajectory, a family tragedy forms the backstory of a young woman whose remarkable mathematics abilities see her recruited as a human computer to help the American war effort during the Second World War. 

Seventeen-year-old Eleanor Schiff believes she is responsible for her brilliant mathematician-father's stroke when she was six years old. This trauma leads Eleanor to believe that because she took away his math mind she's doesn't deserve hers. So Eleanor nurtures her abilities in secret. It isn't until she is discovered by Maud Mauchly that Eleanor decides to use her abilities during the war, as a human computer. 

In the novel, Eleanor's abilities are quickly realized when she is transferred from the Philadelphia Computing Section (PCS), a secret unit of the US Army to the Muroc Army Air Base in California to work on the Norden bombsight which is supposed to guarantee high altitude precision bombing during the day. When her work there succeeds, she is transferred to Pearl Harbor to teach the bombardiers "... how to compute for turbulence and adjust trail and drift accordingly." There she encounters a pilot, Captain Haines who knew her father because he was his math professor in Pennsylvania. This encounter causes Eleanor's intense guilt and self doubt to resurface leading to an emotional and mental crisis. Eleanor's crisis is also tied to events happening overseas in Europe with the Holocaust and the "liquidation" of the Jews in the Stanislau ghetto in Stanislau, Poland. She learns that no Jews survived meaning that her relatives, Azriel, his wife Rosa and their daughter, Batja have been murdered.

Fortunately, Eleanor is able to unburden herself to her parents who reassure her that her father's stroke was not her fault. This resolution is well portrayed by the author and is very moving. Ultimately, with the help of her parents and the army rabbi, Eleanor is able to experience forgiveness and self-acceptance, allowing her to move forward and complete her mission. In the end, Eleanor grows into a more confident young woman, confident in her mathematical abilities and confident that she can contribute significantly to the war effort. 

Gordon also includes a lovely side story of a blossoming romance between Eleanor and a pilot named Sky. Although Sky is seriously wounded in a plane accident, the novel ends on a positive note with the promise of more to come for these two characters.

Gordon weaves many historical details into her story. For example when Eleanor is reading the headlines in the Philadelphia Inquirer, she learns about how the racists attitudes common in America at this time, are influencing domestic and wartime policy. When she sees the headline, "First Negro Division Forms at Fort Huachuca:, Eleanor wonders, "Why do Negroes need their own division in the army? Aren't we all fighting for the same cause?" Another headline, "Los Angeles Japanese Americans Relocate to Santa" makes Eleanor realize, "That's the stables where they race the horses Uncle Herman likes to bet on. It disgusts me the way they're ripping all those people from their homes and tossing them together in dirty, cramped quarters. Like the Germans are doing to the Jews." 

When Eleanor is going through her security clearance she has to deal with sexist remarks from the men who ridicule her "Don't get P-W-O-P."  meaning don't get pregnant without permission. Eleanor notes "Ever since FDR signed the bill into law establishing an army women's corps, the newspapers have been full of stories by male reporters worried that females in the military will wreak  all kinds of sexual havoc on poor unsuspecting servicemen. Petticoat army, they call us. Wackies, too." 

There are a few weak areas the novel's storyline. One of them is Eleanor's efforts to hide her ability to do math when she is very young. In the novel, Eleanor is in kindergarten when her gift to do math is discovered by her teacher. Excited, her teacher places a note in Eleanor's lunch bag for her parents but Eleanor destroys the note so her parents won't know that she has the same gift as her father.  Somehow her parents never learn of her math abilities. Did Eleanor's kindergarten teacher never follow up when there was no response to her note? Did Eleanor's parents never meet her kindergarten teacher or any other teacher in elementary school?  How is it that no teacher even suspected her unusual abilities? And regarding her father's stroke, there also seems to be some confusion as to how old Eleanor was when this traumatic experience occurred. In Eleanor's mind it was prior to kindergarten but later on in the novel when she is talking with Rabbi  Richmond, it is revealed that she was six years old when her father had his stroke.  

Despite these small plot weaknesses, Trajectory is a well-written story and one of the few historical novels offered for young adult readers this year.

Book Details:

Trajectory by Cambria Gordon

New York: Scholastic Press     2024
285 pp.

Safiyyah's War by Hiba Noor Khan

Eleven-year-old Safiyyah wants to travel and explore the world. She loved spending afternoons in the library where Madame Odette would bring out the right maps for Safiyyah to explore the places she was interested in. Places like Jerusalem, Manila, Harare or Manaus in Brazil. Often this led Safiyyah to lose track of the time and arrive home later than she should have. This would lead her mother, Yemma to worry, ever since autumn last year when the war began.

When she arrives at the mosque, Safiyyah sits down beside her grandma, Setti in the mosque courtyard. Setti advises her to use each breath she is given wisely and the knowledge she gains too from her reading of maps. Safiyyah's grandmother had moved to Spain from Algeria when she was a teenager. Safiyyah's great-grandparents had farmed large fruit orchards in Algeria. When they moved to Andalusia in Spain, they brought with them orange, lemon and cherry trees. Setti loved oranges and they brought back found memories. From the taste of an orange she could tell where it was grown.

Soon Safiyyah's mother arrives and takes her back to their apartment in the mosque complex to help prepare dinner. They are expecting her father's friend Ammo Kader for dinner. At dinner Baba tells them that the Germans have crossed the French border at the Ardennes. While they don't know what this will mean for them as Muslims, they do know it will not be good for their Jewish friends.

Baba works at the mosque, while Ammo Kader is the rector, liaising with politicians. Ammo Imam is also involved, helping to run the mosque smoothly. Safiyyah often attends their Saturday morning meetings. Baba hopes one day Safiyyah will attend college and he sees her involvement in the mosque affairs as preparation for this. At the meeting the discussion turns to the war and what might happen. Baba had fought for France in the First World War and had lost his hearing in his left ear. But the brutality had also affected him too. 

On Saturday afternoon, Safiyyah travels to the sixteenth arrondissement with Baba to see her best friend Isabelle. Because Isabelle's father works in the French government, her parents know important ministers and ambassadors. Normally Isabelle's mother was dressed with makeup and her hair in a chignon, but on this day she is still in her dressing gown, talking on the telephone in a panicky voice. Isabelle's nanny, Nounou took the girls to the park. There Isabelle reveals that her family is leaving Paris, going south to their chateau in Provence. Isabelle has no idea how long they will stay at the chateau and she also tells Safiyyah that they may flee to England if things worsen. Although Isabelle and her family are not Jewish they are frightened. Safiyyah is devastated by this news.

After Isabelle leaves Paris, Yemma and Baba take Safiyyah and her younger sister, Fatima to Baba's sister's house to visit their cousins. Sixteen-year-old Tarek, who has just finished high school and who wants to be an engineer, announces that he is enlisting. This shocks everyone. When they return to Paris Safiyyah goes to the library to ask for Madame Odette's help locating a book for Monsieur Cassin. He is an elderly friend of Baba and Ammo Kader who Safiyyah delivers medication to once a month. Monsieur Cassin is a botanist, researching plants in India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia and has just finished writing a book. But he needs a specific book to finish his appendix on insect species. Madame Odette promises to help locate this book. Safiyyah also learns that the librarians are packing books to send to soldiers in the war. However, other books such as special volumes and rare collections are being packed to be sent into the countryside, hidden from the Nazis.

By June 1940, the situation rapidly changes. Safiyyah is no longer welcome in Baba's office for his weekly meetings. While Safiyyah is on her way to bring a book to Monsieur Cassin, Paris is bombed by the Germans. Safiyyah is caught in the bombing but survives and is help by the elderly scientist. Safiyyah, her parents and the mosque work to help the people of Paris and the refugees flooding the city, giving out food and water.

Eventually Safiyyah learns that her friend Isabelle is safe with her parents in England, at her grandfather's cousin's home in Dover. While she misses her best friend she makes a new friend in a young refugee, Timothee who is in Paris with his father. Her family help Timothee and he soon becomes an important helper in what soon happens.

With the arrival of the Germans and the implementation of a curfew, life changes even more. Safiyyah leaves school for several weeks. Then Monsieur Cassin is attacked, his completed book manuscript stolen and his apartment wrecked by the Nazis. Incredibly Safiyyah is able to rescue most of his manuscript from the Nazi soldiers and she and Baba return to help him. However, Baba is far from pleased with Safiyyah who he considers to have placed herself in terrible danger stealing Cassin's manuscript from the Nazi soldiers. However, she confronts him about what she has noticed: that he is exhausted and troubled, out late at night and that the librarians, Madame Odette and Claude have been at the mosque.  Eventually Safiyyah learns the reason behind all of the strange things she's seen and soon finds herself drawn into helping those most in danger, the Jews of Paris.

Discussion

Safiyyah's War is a historical fiction novel that is centered around the help provided to French Jews by the Grand Mosque of Paris during the Nazi occupation of France. 

The Grand Mosque of Paris was built between 1922 and 1926 to honour the sacrifice by mainly Algerian Muslim sharpshooters during World War 1. Like the character, Setti whose grandparents left Algeria for France, many Algerians immigrated to France after World War I. These Muslims were Kabyles and they eventually would join the French Resistance in 1940.

During the Second World War, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the founder and rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris provided refuge and Muslim identity cards to Jews. At this time, France had a large population of Sephardic Jews. They looked similar to the French Algerian Muslims,  spoke Arabic and had similar traditions, including not eating port and male circumcision. While the mosque was a place of prayer it was also a place where people could find a calming quiet, take food and rest. 

It wasn't long after occupying Paris and the northern part of France that the Nazis and their Vichy collaborators began rounding up Jews. There is some confusion as to who was involved, if it was Benghabrit or individual Muslims and the extent of the help offered by the Grand Mosque. According to Benghabrit, he offered sanctuary to French and Algerian Jews in the mosque's apartments occupied by Muslim families, and he also created false identity papers. The sewers of Paris were used as escape routes to the Halles au Vins on the Seine River where they were hidden aboard empty wine barrels on ferries and barges. They were then taken out of Paris to Spain or the Maghreb (northwest Africa). The exact number of Jews aided cannot be confirmed with estimates of dozens to just over one thousand. There is also some evidence via personal testimony of Ashkenazi Jews being saved as well.

It is this history that forms the back story of Safiyyah's War. In the novel, Benghabrit is referred to as Ammo Kadr. According to Noor Khan, the name of the imam who was "the soul of the mosque's Resistance activities" is lost to history and is simply referred to in the story as Ammo Imam. Noor Khan has incorporated many details of the mosque's resistance activities into the story including the underground tunnels, the use of the wine barrels and the bell system to warn Jews of a Nazi raid.  Also many historical figures are represented such as master forger, Adolfo Kaminsky who is "the kind man", Noor Inayat Khan an Indian aristocrat who became a British spy who is represented by the character Madeleine and Madame Odette and Claude who represented the librarians who provided books for the Jews in hiding as well as the saving of rare books and those books the Nazis deemed worth burning. As well many details of life in Paris especially during the bombing of the city and the influx of refugees from northern France.

The novel places Safiyyah's family at the heart of the mosque's resistance with her father learning how to forge identity cards, hiding Jews within the mosque and taking them through the treacherous tunnels to the Seine. It doesn't take the main protagonist, Safiyyah long to uncover her father's clandestine activities and end up in the thick of things. She is a well crafted character, intelligent, compassionate, and full of courage. As Noor Khan writes in her Historical Note, "All those living in the mosque would have been involved in the Resistance activities in some way, no matter how small their efforts may have seemed. Safiyyah represents all the unlikely heroes whose names aren't memorialized and whose stories aren't sung and praised, but whose courage and actions change our world forever."

In a scene earlier in the novel, Safiyyah's grandmother, Setti advises her to choose the "path of light". Safiyyah loves to explore the world through maps. Knowing this, Setti tells her that often maps have led people to do terrible things, wars, oppression and colonization. She advises using the map of the heart to choose the path of light.

Safiyyah's War is a much needed novel about a forgotten piece of history.  The author states in her Historical Note that she wrote it "...to be a humanizing, unifying force in an all-too-often bitterly divided world." Besides being a well-written and engaging story, it is for this reason that Safiyyah's War is highly recommended, especially for classroom selections.

Book Details:

Safiyyah's War by Hiba Noor Khan
New York:  Allida     2023
329 pp.

Spying on Spies: How Elizebeth Smith Friedman Broke The Nazis' Secret Code by Marissa Moss

Spying on Spies tells the story of a remarkable woman cryptographer, Elizebeth Smith Friedman.

Elizebeth was the youngest of ten children in a Quaker family. She grew up on a dairy farm in Indiana. An inquisitive person, Elizebeth wanted to attend college, something only one other sister had done. As her father refused to pay for her studies, Elizebeth managed to convince him to lend her the money and charge her interest. She studied languages, literature, history, and philosophy.

In 1915, Elizebeth found that her degree in English did not open opportunities for her. After year as a substitute principal, she decided to try to find work in Chicago. There, a chance meeting at the Newberry Library changed Elizebeth's life forever. She had gone to the library to view Shakespeare's First Folio, which was on display when the librarian questioned Elizebeth about her interest in Shakespeare. Hearing that Elizebeth was looking for a research job, she arranged a meeting that very day with a wealthy Chicago businessman, George Fabyan. This man believed that Shakespeare's plays contained a secret code proving that they were authored by Sir Francis Bacon.

Fabyan boldly insisted that Elizebeth visit his estate and she took up his offer to work on his project. She moved to his estate, called Riverside, where he lived with his wife and the other researchers. There she met the only person near to her in age, a young man named William Friedman. They soon spent most of their work and free time together.

Elizebeth struggled to believe in the work she was doing for Fabyan. When she and William presented strong evidence against any code existing in the Shakespearean text, both Fabyan and Elizabeth Wells Gallup, the head researcher, refused to believe them.

With the start of World War I, Fabyan saw a need for people to crack the secret codes spies might be using so he invited code experts to meet his code team at Riverbank, The War Department, impressed with Elizebeth and William's abilities, began to use Fabyan's cipher team. Soon Riverbank was receiving envelopes full of coded messages and ciphers. One decoded cipher revealed that Germany was working with Mexico to foment a war with the United States as a distraction from the war in Europe.  This indicated that the United States needed it's own decryption unit and Elizebeth and William became that unit. 

Initially Elizebeth and William did all the code-breaking, solving messages by Hindu groups in the U.S. who were working to target England. India wanted independence from Britain at this time so it made sense that they would try to work against the country that had colonized them. A second Hindu group was also decoded. These groups used specific books for their codes.

Working together so closely resulted in a strong bond of mutual respect between Elizebeth and William despite their very different backgrounds. They married in May of 1917 in Chicago. Because they were so accomplished at their work, the Army wanted them but Fabyan interfered, determined to keep them at Riverbank.  In 1918, William, having learned that the War Department actually wanted him, "...enlisted as an officer in the Radio Intelligence Unit in the U.S. Army Signal Corps."  He passed the physical exam which he had strangely failed earlier, and was sent to France in 1918. Elizebeth was unable to enlist so she was stuck in America until William returned home in  April of 1919. 

Although Elizebeth and William reluctantly returned to Riverbank, eventually they  decided to leave. With the start of Prohibition in 1920, they accepted a job offer from the Army. By 1921, Elizabeth and William had moved out of Riverbank and began working for the U.S. Signal Corps in Washington, D.C. William began to study machines such as the German Enigma, used to encipher messages. Elizebeth took a job as a cryptographer with the U.S. Navy after quitting the Signal Corps but quit after six months and then gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter Barbara. In 1926, she had a second child, John.

In 1931, Elizebeth  headed up her own team, at the US Treasury, consisting of three men and two women, had her own office and was the "cryptanalyst-in-charge". Her work involved solving codes and ciphers of criminals and smugglers, especially involved in illicit alcohol sales during Prohibition. She also testified in court.

With the approach of war and the beginning of World War II, Elizebeth began working on Nazi spy messages, especially those in South America. It was during the war that Elizebeth's incredible abilities were to play a significant role in helping the Allies win the war. 

Discussion

Spying On Spies is an engaging and informative account of master cryptologist, Elizebeth Smith Friedman. Her remarkable life spans the first part of the twentieth century including World War I, Prohibition, and World War II. Author Marissa Moss writes in her Author's Note that she wanted to tell Elizebeth's story because her accomplishments were overshadowed by her husband. Most of her work was classified and it's only recently that contributions and accomplishments of Elizebeth Smith Friedman have come to be rightfully acknowledged. 

Moss's account of Elizebeth's life and career as a cryptographer describes the obstacles she faced as a young woman in the first half of the 20th century. Despite her superior abilities, which were repeatedly proven, Elizebeth faced significant obstacles and her abilities were often not recognized. The main obstacles were the  social conventions, expectations and attitudes towards women at this time. Elizebeth's parents believed she belonged in the home as a wife and mother, but her inquisitive mind wanted much more. She showed determination and fortitude in forging ahead with her education, managing to convince her father to lend her money to study at a six percent interest rate!

When she obtained her advanced education, Elizebeth realized her degree did not afford her the same opportunities as it would have for a man. But undaunted, she managed to obtain a position working on codes for a wealthy businessman that was eventually to lead to her life's work. During World War I she faced the obstacles of not being able to enlist in the US Army like her husband could, nor to even vote. At the end of World War I, despite being considered a military cipher expert, Elizebeth was better known as the wife of William Friedman. She was often hired, not on her own merits, but because the US Navy wanted her husband. She had to contend with a press who viewed her in very traditional terms, not as an intelligent woman but as " a pretty young woman in a frilly pink dress." 

Moss demonstrates how Elizebeth's work was so crucial to the United States during World War I and World War II. For example, during World War I, Elizebeth, along with William was able to solve a cipher from the German diplomat, Arthur Zimmerman. Known as the  "Zimmerman Telegram", it revealed that Germany was attempting to incite Mexico to attack the United States and so distract them from the war in Europe. During World War II, Elizabeth decoded a message which revealed Germany's plan to sink the RMS Queen Mary carrying over 8000 soldiers. From the messages, Elizabeth knew the U-boat locations and the ship was able to safely transit the Atlantic Ocean.

Her work was vital to the U.S. understanding what was happening in South America during World War II.  Many Germans had  fled to South America after World War I. There were Nazi spies in Argentina as well as throughout South America. The U.S. wanted to avoid a Nazi takeover of South America. After the June 4, 1943 coup in Argentina, in August of that year Elizebeth was able to decipher a message which revealed what Germany and Argentina were planning or South America: " a block of South American countries" that Argentina and Germany would rule. They could then move on to attack North America. 

Because her and William's work was so top secret, their contributions have remained hidden for decades. It is only recently with the release of some of the material taken from from their home and from the George C. Marshall Research Library by the NSA (National Security Association) that  the amazing work and abilities of Elizebeth Smith Friedman has come to light. 

Readers interested in codes and ciphers and in recent works about Enigma and Alan Turing will enjoy Moss' biography on the incredibly gifted Elizebeth Smith Friedman. She solved the "Red" Enigma used by the SS at the same time as Turing and Bletchley Park but did it without the help of a computer, demonstrating her remarkable abilities as a cryptanalyst. 

Moss has included a short Author's Note, a Glossary, a chapter titled What Are Codes? What Are Ciphers? which has copies of the Zimmerman telegram and the unsolved Voynich Manuscript, a very detailed Timeline which includes many black and white photographs of Elizebeth, William and their children, and Notes for sources for each chapter, and an Index. 

Book Details:

Spying On Spies: How Elizebeth Smith Friedman Broke The Nazis' Secret Code by Marissa Moss

New York: Abrams Books For Young Readers    2024

224 pp.

Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee

It is a Saturday in October 1932, and Gemma Chow and her older sister May are on their way out of City Market in Los Angeles to try to sell their flowers elsewhere. Only a third of their inventory has sold this morning. May (Mei Wun), Gemma ( Gam Wun), and Peony (Pan Wun) are the three Chow sisters. This morning nineteen-year-old May and Gemma are leaving Ba's flower stand to try their luck at wealthy Westlake Park. They have left school and taken over Ba's flower business as he is in a sanatorium sixty miles away in the San Bernardino desert to recuperate from tuberculosis.  Ba, who was not yet forty years old, had been coughing up blood. 

The two sisters drive to Westlake in Ba's Ford Runabout pickup and set up a stand. Gemma decides they will quadruple their prices. It's the Depression and few are buying flowers. Although they get harassed by the police about not having their permit, Gemma and May make fourteen dollars.

When they return home, Ma tells May that the Moy's who live in Pasadena on their own ranch and own a canning company by the Los Angeles River, are interested in May marrying their son, Wallace. He's now graduated from U.C.L.A. in some science program. May agrees to meet him.

The next day Gemma and May drive to their flower supplier, Angel Barajas. As they help him load up their truck, Angel tells them he will be switching to grow vegetables in the spring. At least they can eat the ones they don't sell. Meanwhile Gemma has the idea to sell chrysanthemum tea, but May isn't supportive of this idea.

Back in Chinatown, the two sisters are preparing the flowers for sale in the abandoned horse lot, when Gemma notices there are flies buzzing near the door to the stables.  Gemma is determined to investigate, but May is hesitant. To their shock, they discover the body of Lulu Wong, a famous movie star from Chinatown. May was two years behind Lulu in school but they became best friends at age twelve while in a school play. Two year later, Lulu auditioned for a part and soon became famous. Her ma and younger sister live with her in a nice home in Beverly Hills.

The murder couldn't have come at a worse time. Los Angeles wants to demolish Chinatown because it is seen as an area of the city that is dirty and sinister. The city has an order requiring the three major railroads build a union train station on land in Chinatown. However, the railroad magnates are against it and are supporting the Chinese. 

May and Gemma make their way to One Dragon Grocery to use Mr. Yam's telephone to contact the police. Detective Mallady arrives with a young officer, Officer Kidd. He decides that Lulu died in the last six to twelve hours and notes the cut on the side of her head. When Gemma wonders if she was poisoned like Dixie Doors, a beauty pageant winner from Glendale, Mallady is doubtful. His suggestion that Lulu was meeting a lover annoys Gemma who knows that "Lulu had been a dutiful and virtuous daughter.." when she had known her. Gemma notices what appears to be blood on the right sleeve of the cream pantsuit Lulu is wearing. Mallady is not convinced this is a murder, suggesting that Lulu may have wandered in drunk and hit her head. To this Gemma informs Mallady that Lulu was a Buddhist who didn't drink. Gemma tells Mallady that she hopes he won't rest until he finds the killer.

Gemma takes "the Mule" into Westlake to sell their flowers as planned. When the jalopy breaks down, she encounters Dr. Frederick Winter who helps her get her vehicle repaired and recover from her dizzy spell. They discuss Lulu's death and he tells her that the medical examiner should "do a thorough examination, including toxicology reports."  Fearing that Lulu's murder will not be solved but used as the final blow to demolish Chinatown, Gemma and May set out to uncover the truth and in the process reveal many secrets.

Discussion

In her newest novel, Kill Her Twice, Stacey Lee has crafted an engaging historical murder mystery set in Chinatown, Los Angeles in 1932. The story centers around the murder of a young Chinese American actress, Lulu Wong who has quickly risen to fame in Hollywood by playing a villain. Fearful that her murder will be ignored because she is Chinese, Lulu's old friends, May and Gemma Chow are determined to solve it.

The story is told by May and her younger sister Gemma who have taken over their ailing father's flower business. Lulu's murder is set in 1932, prior to the destruction of Old Chinatown which began in 1933. Old Chinatown and City Market were the two main areas where Chinese Americans lived. The roads were unpaved, with few street lamps and overcrowded housing in Old Chinatown. Many of the children in Old Chinatown played in the playground near the old horse stables featured in Lee's story. Chinese Americans faced serious racial discrimination and even violence. In Kill Her Twice, Lee refers several times to the Massacre of 1871 in which eighteen Chinese were lynched by a mob after a policeman and civilian were shot during a gang gunfight. It was one of the worst lynchings in American history.

In the 1930's, Chinese could not become American citizens, and they couldn't own land. They also were restricted in where they could live, if not by deeds, by discrimination. Despite this, the Chinese community flourished, running successful businesses, forming associations that helped families, and expanding. At its height, there were restaurants, temples, a Chinese opera, and even a telephone exchange. But as Chinatown expanded it was soon adjacent to where several rail lines met. The city of Los Angeles soon wanted the land Chinatown occupied for a train station that would service three train lines. Eventually most of Chinatown was razed, with the exception of the Garnier Building (also mentioned in the  novel). As the Old Chinatown was destroyed, a New Chinatown was eventually created on vacant land owned by the Santa Fe Railway. 

In Lee's novel, she imagines the conflict between the Chinese who want to save their homes and community, and the businessmen and civic leaders of Los Angeles who want their land for Union Station. It is this conflict that forms the backdrop for Lulu Wong's murder. In Kill Her Twice, Lee has Otis Fox of Fox Cosmetics and head of the Take Back L.A. Committee as the leading advocate for the building of Union Station.  He considers Chinatown a den of thieves and wants it demolished. 

Gemma and May Wong want to solve Lulu's murder, not only because Lulu was a friend but because they also believe her murder will confirm Otis Fox's view of the Chinese community and fuel the determination to demolish Chinatown. It will also further feed racial discrimination against the Chinese in Los Angeles. They worry that all of these factors may leave the police unwilling to solve her murder.

May worries that Lulu's death will simply be written off because she's Chinese. She is reluctant to return to the horse lot where Lulu's body lies because . "I didn't want to see Lulu like that again, dehumanized. A victim. It was bad enough that someone had killed her...A second death would come in the form of scandal, her twisted body held up for viewing like some circus sideshow, her fame recast as a cautionary tale. They would kill her twice."  Gemma believes that if Lulu's murder isn't quickly solved, people will believe that Chinatown murdered her. She is determined to solve Lulu's murder because "...looking out for Lulu Wong means looking out for Chinatown." 

The two sisters work diligently and relentlessly over the week following Lulu's murder to uncover the truth. They boldly attend the Pannychis as flower vendors with the intent on determining whether Otis Fox is attempting to bribe Officer Mallady. Gemma sneaks into the Hall of Justice and manages to take the carbon paper from the autopsy report which ends up providing a significant and surprising clue about Lulu. (Will young readers know what a carbon paper is?) May and Gemma also decide to take the risky chance to audition as Chinese extras only to have May offered a job as an actress to fill in Lulu's part.

Gemma and May are recruited by Clifford Joust, head of the grand jury investigating corruption in Los Angeles, to attend a soiree at Otis Fox's home to determine if he has a stolen painting. May's new status as an actress, make attending the soiree a possibility and offers the sisters a chance to investigate the Foxs more closely. If he has the painting, it is proof that he is involved in the corruption. The soiree not only confirms Fox's involvement in shady dealings but leads May directly to Lulu's killer.

Kill Her Twice has many twists and turns. Readers will find themselves suspecting different characters as the Chow sisters consider who might have wanted Lulu dead. Lee has crafted two determined, intelligent but distinct heroines in Gemma and May Chow. While May seems to be the more dutiful daughter, it turns out she has her own ideas about her life. Determined not to be forced into a marriage, she suggests to Wallace Moy that they pretend date. She also accepts the offer of Lulu's part, mainly to help support their family as they face the inevitable move from Old Chinatown. Gemma takes the lead in the investigation, showing resourcefulness and courage.. The incident involving Gemma hiding in the coroner's office to obtain the carbon paper of the coroner's report was well done and the novel could have been much improved with more situations like this. 

Although we never really meet Lulu in the novel, except in flashbacks, Lee writes in her Author's Note that the character was loosely inspired by Anna May Wong (1905-1961), considered the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star. Her career was comprised of mostly "stereotypical and frequently villainous roles". Lee also chose to feature "the razing of Los Angele's Old Chinatown in the 1930's because it was the perfect example of the power of publicity to erase a community. Voteless and unable to own land, the Chinese were at the whim of booster literature from newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and tourism brochures, which depicted them favorably or unfavorably, depending on the city's developmental agenda." The Chinese had no say in what would happen to their community when the railroad heads and the city officials battled it out for Union Station.

Fans who enjoy historical murder mysteries will find Kill Her Twice an interesting read that succeeds in portraying this small slice of Chinese American history. 

Book Details:

Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons     2024

390 pp.

The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez

The undocumented immigrant experience is told in this graphic novel memoir by Francisco Jimenez. 

Under The Wire

Francisco Jimenez lived in a small village, El Rancho Blanco, located several miles north of Guadalajara, Mexico. His father often spoke about crossing "La Frontera" - the border between Mexico and the state of California. Life is difficult in their village. Francisco and his older brother, Roberto had to do chores at four in the morning, sleep on dirt floors and use candles. Finally one day Francisco and his family take the bus to Guadalujara and then a train to Mexicali. They crossed "under the wire" into the United States during the night and were picked up by a woman in a truck. She took them to Guadalupe, a small town on the coast of California where they could work picking strawberries. However, there was no work for Francisco's family for two weeks.

Soledad

In Bakersfield, Francisco is left in the family's old jalopy to care for his six month old brother, Trampita while Papa, Mama and Roberto work to pick cotton. Francisco is lonely and tries to learn how to pick cotton, risking his family's job and leaving Trampita crying.

Inside Out

In this chapter, Francisco and his older brother Roberto attend school while the family is living in Santa Maria. It is late January and the family has just finished picking cotton in Corcoran.  Francisco is enrolled in Miss Scalapino's Grade 1 class. He cannot understand English but Francisco loves doing art every afternoon. One of his drawings wins first prize.

Miracle in Tent City

Francisco's family moved to a tent city in rural Santa Maria that was owned by Sheehey Strawberry Farms. This was a farm-worker labour camp comprised mostly of single men who like the Jimenez family had crossed illegally into America. In the camp, Francisco's mother had a baby, Juan Manuel whom they named Torito because he was ten pounds! When Torito was two months old he became very ill with a high fever. The family prayed to the Virgen de Guadalupe. No remedies seems to work, not even a healer they brought it. Eventually Torito had to be taken to the hospital. He eventually recovered as the family continued to pray.

El Angel de Oro

Corcoran in the cotton season is always rainy but one year it was very rainy. Francisco met Miguelito who was two years older and living in the same camp. The walked to school together and Francisco looked forward to seeing him again. However, he never saw Miguel after that day. Instead, Francisco spend the days saving the fish from the overflowing creek next to the camp, who were suffocating in the mud.

Christmas Gift

It is December and Francisco's parents are preparing to leave Corcoran. He overhears his parents telling a couple with a baby that they cannot purchase the beautiful handkerchief the wife has embroidered.  His family, now consisting of Papa, Mama, Roberto, Trampito, Torito and baby Ruben, move to Visalia where they are offered a tent and work in the cotton fields. At Christmas, the children get bags of candy while Mama is given the beautiful embroidered handkerchief they purchased from the poor couple.

Death Forgiven

In this short story, Francisco's beloved red, green, and yellow parrot named El Perico suffers an untimely demise. El Perico was attached to a cat, Catalina, who belonged to another migrant couple. When they came to visit without Cataline, El Perico began squawking and Francisco's father hit the bird and killed it. Although Francisco was devastated he prayed for his father.

Cotton Sack

Francisco's family left Mr. Jacobson's vineyards in Fresno to move to the cotton fields of Corcoran. The family now has a daughter, Rorra. As his parents prepared cotton sacks for work, Francisco also wants to help pick but doesn't have a sack. As the family continues to look for more work picking cotton, Francisco is determined to prove to Papa that he deserves his own sack. But when he does pick cotton with its prickly leaves, his hand are injured and he realizes he's not ready yet.

The Circuit

After strawberry season is over in Santa Maria, they move again finding work in the vineyard of Mr. Sullivan. After grape season is over, Francisco can attend school so he enters Mr. Lema's sixth grade class. Mr. Lema becomes Francisco's best friend, helping his with his English during lunch hour. One day he offers to teach Francisco how to play trumpet but Francisco's joy is shortlived. When he arrives home, he sees the packed boxes and knows the family is readying to move once again.

Learning the Game

In this story, school ends for the summer for Francisco, but he also knows he won't be returning until November, after strawberry season in Santa Maria, grapes in Fresno and cotton picking in Corcoran. When Francisco accompanies a new worker, Gabriel to help a sharecropper who is ill, the contratista, Mr. Diaz treats the new worker badly. Gabriel refuses to be treated like an animal and stands up to him. Later on , Francisco stands up to Carlos who won't allow Manuelito to play "kick the can" with them. While Francisco succeeds, Gabriel is fired and sent back to Mexico.

To Have and To Hold
Francisco had a penny collection that included an 1865 Indian head penny and a 1910 Lincoln head penny. He was very proud of this collection especially since the 1910 penny was given to him by Papa. It was made the year his Papa was born and also the year of the revolution in Mexico. The 1865 penny had come from a friend, Carl, whom Francisco befriended in fifth grade in Corcorcan. Francisco also had a treasured notebook that he had found in the city dump in Santa Maria. He used the notebook to write down new words and their definitions, as well as math and grammar rules to be memorized. One day after picking grapes for Mr. Patrini in Orosi, Francisco arrived home to discover his penny collection gone. His four year old sister Rorra had used them for the gum machine in the store. Although he was angry, his mother's story about the value of people before money helped calm him. In the end, Francisco and his family lost everything due to a fire in their house. Later Francisco was able to put the losses in perspective.

Moving Still

In this final story, Roberto is the only one working, as Francisco's papa is laid up because of a bad back. Torito, Trampito, Rorra, Ruben and Francisco are in school. But the la migra, or Immigration Law Enforcement Agents sweep through the camps and work fields. Francisco's father shows la migra his green card. They decide to return to the Bonetti Ranch in Santa Maria, moving into the rundown barracks. Roberto entered grade ten at Santa Maria High, while Francisco was in the eighth grade at El Camino Junior High. Francisco excels in school and he and Roberto work hard to help their family. But eventually la migra catch up with them too.

Discussion

The Circuit is the first graphic novel adaptation of Francisco Jimenez's autobiographical series of books. He published four books: The Circuit, Breaking Through, Reaching Out and Taking Hold. Each document a specific part of his life.

Francisco Jimenez was born in Tlaquepague, Mexico in 1943. He lived in the small town of El Rancho Blanco in the state of Jalisco, Mexico until he was four years old. At this time his family entered the United States illegally and worked as migrant farm workers. Because they moved frequently, Francisco attended school sporadically until he and his family were deported back to Mexico when he was in grade eight. They returned to the United States legally a few months later, settling as farm workers at Bonetti Ranch. 

With his family now settled in one place, Francisco was able to complete his high school education. He attended Santa Clara University earning a B.A. in Spanish Studies in 1966. He attended Columbia University on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship earning both an Masters and Ph.D in Latin American Literature. Francisco became and American citizen in his junior year at Santa Clara and he also met his future wife, Laura Facchini there. Francisco taught first at Columbia University and then moved to Santa Clara University where he taught in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature until 2015.

His four books document the experience of migrant workers in America. In the graphic novel adaptation of The Circuit, Francisco Jimenez portrays the difficult life his family experienced as they worked as migrant farm labourers in California. They had left behind a life of poverty in Mexico with the belief that life in America would be economically much better. But because they were in the country illegally, poor living conditions, low wages and temporary work, and the threat of deportation were ever present.

The Circuit portrays many of the difficulties Francisco and his family faced as illegal migrant workers from the perspective of a child. In his Author's Note, Francisco writes, "It is based on my childhood experiences of growing up in a family of migrant farm workers. My intent in relating these experiences from the child's point of view is to have readers hear the child's voice, see through his eyes, and feel through his heart." This graphic novel accomplishes all of that and more in the form of thirteen short vignettes. 

 As a child of migrant farmers, Francisco struggled with the language barrier and inconsistent attendance at school. When Francisco attended school in grade one he couldn't understand his teacher because she was speaking in English. He received no help and resorted to daydreaming in order to quell his anxiety. Francisco writes "It was easier when Miss Scalapino read to the class from a book with illustrations. I would make up my own stories in Spanish, based on the pictures. Still, I wished I could understand what she was reading." It is not surprising therefore that he ended up repeating the grade. When he found a Spanish speaking friend at school, they were admonished for not speaking in English. Moves were frequent and could be sudden. For example, when Francisco's family were living in Corcoran, he began grade four but then left after three weeks when they moved to Visalia to find work. When he was older, Francisco was settling into grade six, eager to learn how to play the trumpet, only to find he must move yet again.

The graphic novel illustrates the poor living conditions endured by the migrant workers and their families: tents sometimes located near creeks that overflowed during the rainy season or near smelly dumps, abandoned or derelict wooden houses, and dilapidated garages. Francisco and his family often had to do repairs on the buildings they were given, to make them livable. While living in a tent city near Santa Maria, Francisco and his older brother, Roberto scavenged lumber from the dump to make a floor and fashion a cradle for the new baby. They would look for food in the trash behind the grocery stores so that Mama could make soup.

Despite all the hardships, Francisco and his family are a portrait of faith, perseverance, and ingenuity. When times were especially bad, Francisco and his family turned to prayer to sustain them. Francisco's mother is lovingly portrayed as the one person who was the foundation of their family, preparing delicious meals, and teaching forgiveness, love and generosity of spirit to Francisco and his siblings. They were hard-working, honest, and willing to help others, despite their extreme poverty. Like millions of Americans and Mexicans, they had dreams of a better life and willingly endured tremendous hardships in the attempt to achieve it. In his Author's Note, Francisco Jimenez writes, "I wrote The Circuit to record part of my family's history but also, and more important, to give readers an insight into the lives of migrant farmworker families from the past and the present whose hard and noble work of picking fruits and vegetables puts food on our tables. What sustains these families, toiling day after day, are their courage, faith, and hopes and dreams for a better life for their children and their children's children. Their story is an integral part of the American story." As Francisco states, he hopes The Circuit will help people understand immigrants and create empathy and respect for them.

The illustrations in the graphic memoir capture these facets of Francisco's story and make his story engaging and easy to follow. Illustrator Celia Jacobs used pen and ink on watercolor paper with digital colour. Additional artwork was painted with acrylic on paper.

Book Details:

The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez
New York: Clarion Books     2024
233 pp.

The Girl Who Fought Back: Vladka Meed and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Joshua M. Greene

Feige Peltel, known by her code name of Vladka, was headed towards Warsaw's wealthier district, hoping to sell ribbons, spools of thread and other sewing goods. Vladka's light brown hair and grey-green eyes, and the fact that she spoke fluent Polish suggested that she was not a Jew. 

It was November 1939, two months since the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and Jews now faced unending restrictions. Jews comprised almost thirty percent of Warsaw's one million residents. But now Vladka's family, like other Jews have surrendered their bicycles and radios, and can only shop during specific hours. Vladka, like other Jewish children, no longer attended school and she found her Christian friends suddenly anti-Semitic and willing to report any Jews attempting to hide their identity.

After selling some sewing supplies in Saski Park, Vladka returned to her family's apartment in the suburb of Praga where she lived with her parents, Shlomo and Hanna,  her sister Henia and her thirteen-year-old brother, Chaim. Her father, who had served in the First World War believed the Germans were good people who would not treat the Jews the way Hitler was telling them to. That was not to be.

In the summer of 1940, Jewish workers were forced by German officials to build a ten foot high brick wall around an area that is roughly one square mile. This became the Jewish ghetto. When the wall was completed in November, the Jews of Warsaw were all forced to move from their homes into the ghetto. The ghetto was soon filled with hundreds of thousands of Jews crammed into crumbling buildings. Germans guarded the entrance to the ghetto. As Vladka walked through the ghetto, "...she saw people young and old, emaciated and dying of starvation." 

Vladka found work as a cashier in a barber shop, while Henia worked in a public soup kitchen.Chaim was too young to work so he helped their mother at home. Vladka's father had tried to sell cloth from his business but he was beaten and robbed by the German police. He became depressed and then ill, contracting pneumonia. His illness and hunger eventually took its toll and he slowly died. Vladka and her family struggled to survive in the ghetto. There were reports of Jews being sent to concentration camps by train, where they were murdered.

In July 1942, the Germans announced that all Jews in the ghetto would be deported. The exception was those employed in the German workshops and in various Jewish organizations. While Henia and Vladka had work permits, her brother and mother did not. So Vladka hid them in the cellar of the soup kitchen where Henia worked. After the deportations, her mother and brother returned to their apartment. At this time Vladka lived in a separate apartment from her family in the same building. But the next morning, a second deportation began. Vladka along with the remaining Jews in her building were forced out into the street. Those with acceptable work permits were sent to the right, while those in the line on the left were to be deported. Afterwards, Vladka found her mother's apartment empty. She wept because she knew she would never see her mother or brother again.

In her grief, Vladka wondered what she should do next. She decided to join the underground with other young people who had survived the selections. There were smaller groups under the direction of a larger group called the Jewish Fighting Organization, in Polish, the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, or ZOB. These groups helped other Jews. At first Vladka helped other Jews learn to find food and clothing or find information about missing family members. But her duties became more dangerous with time.

Vladka had a work permit for the Toebbens factory to keep her safe from deportation. Henia's job however, did not offer that protection so Vladka pleaded with her to come to her apartment overnight. However, Henia refused to abandon the children at the soup kitchen. The next day the kitchen was raided by the Germans and Vladka never saw Henia again.

As Vladka struggled with her grief, she became more involved in the underground. More and more Jews - over sixty thousand during the week of September 6 to 12, 1942, were deported from the Warsaw ghetto. In the fall of 1942, over "...265,00 Jews had been sent by train to the Treblinka death camp."  An old friend, Elie Lindner, had escaped Treblinka and returned to the ghetto. He told Vladka and her roommates about the horrors happening at Treblinka. But when her friend Kubu was deported, Vladka was inspired by Kuba's word "It's not over yet." and decided to fight back. That fight involved working to bring about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the only significant resistance of the Jewish people during World War II.

Discussion

The Girl Who Fought Back tells the story of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising from the perspective of Vladka Meed, a real member of the Jewish resistance who survived the uprising and Holocaust.

Vladka Meed, whose given name was Feigele Peltel, was born in 1921 in Warsaw to Shlomo and Hanna Peltel. She would be the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust. Because  she had what was considered an "Aryan" appearance, and she was fluent in Polish, Vladka was given assignments that were outside the Warsaw ghetto. She was able to pass as a Christian woman for the main purpose of securing weapons for the ZOB. But she also was involved in rescuing Jewish children and placing them with Christian families and in aiding Jews in hiding within the city of Warsaw. 

Greene's account is factual, focusing on the events happening to Vladka, her family and her fellow Jews. However, The Girl Who Fought Back also manages to convey some of the intense emotions Vladka was experiencing as her family suffered through the Holocaust. The fear of being deported to camps was constant as Vladka and her family knew the trains were taking Jews to their deaths. Even the best of plans couldn't save loved ones. The relief of saving her mother and brother from one deportation, only to have them placed on a second surprise deportation was quickly replaced by intense grief. When Vladka races back to her mother's apartment only to find it empty, she weeps because she knows she will never see them again. The inability to convince her sister Henia to hide at her apartment, only to learn later that she too is taken, makes Vladka feel angry at herself for being unable to convince Henia to save herself. Other times, such as witnessing the cold blooded murder of an elderly woman walking, by an German soldier, Vladka simply doesn't react because there is nothing she can do. When she saw the cruelty of the Germans, she struggled to make sense of what she was witnessing. It was as incomprehensible then as it is now.

Vladka's continued survival, despite ongoing deportations, created a deep sense of loss, but also conflict. She wonders, "Why had she not also been deported? Why was she still alive and not them?" She like many of the survivors experienced "...a loss of hope over their fate at the hands of the Nazis."  Her increasing involvement in the resistance gave Vladka a purpose despite her knowing that the odds of dying were very high. 

When Vladka finds herself in relative safety outside the ghetto as the battle begins, she is "furious at herself" but also feels pride and frustration. She could only watch and wait.  "Vladka was one of a small group of Jews who had done everything in their power to fight the Nazis. It was a battle they knew could not be won, and now, watching atrocity after atrocity, she felt isolated, useless, and lonely. Her friends and family had been murdered, the world she once knew was gone forever, and nothing she could do would every bring it back."  Despite this, the words of ZOB Commander Mordecai Anielewicz inspired Vladka to go on, and to someday "tell the story of those who hadn't survived."

Vladka published her memoir in 1948, describing not just the horrors of the Holocaust and her experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto but also the rich life of the Jewish people prior to the war. She felt it was difficult for historians and scholars to understand what the Holocaust survivors had endured. Likewise she felt her own efforts to resist were also misunderstood. "We didn't think of ourselves as heroes. We didn't have a choice. We were doing what needed to be done, responding to what the Germans were doing to us." She felt that being seen as a hero was "...seeing with today's eyes."

The Girl Who Fought Back is a succinct retelling of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising that succeeds in portraying the desperation, determination, courage, and resourcefulness of  Vladka Meed. The last three chapters focus on the post-war period and how Vladka continued her work to tell the world about the uprising but also to teach future generations about the Jewish people and to prevent the hatred and indifference that led to the Holocaust.

Book Details:

The Girl Who Fought Back: Vladka Meed and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Joshua M. Greene

New York: Scholastic Focus    2024

142 pp.

The Bard and The Book by Ann Bausum

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. He came to be known as the Bard of Avon, or the poet from Avon. But his fame was made in London. While he worked in London, first as an actor and later as a playwright, his wife Anne and their children remained in Avon. He was also a business partner in a new theater called the Globe which competed with others like the Rose, the Curtain, and the Swan.

Shakespeare was one of many London playwrights that included Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and John Fletcher. From 1585 to 1613, Shakespeare wrote three dozen plays including comedies, tragedies, and histories. The latter were about the English nobility and kept Shakespeare and his company of actors in favour with the English Crown. They became known as the King's Men.

To write his plays, Shakespeare used paper ink and quill pens. Although none of his original manuscripts called foul papers have survived, he plays did. It was due to theatrical scribes like Ralph Crane who transcribed the foul copies into legible copies of the playwright's original text. Each players lines were written down glued together and rolled up into a bundle for each part. These rolls came to be known as the acting role referred to today.

Many of the famous roles in Shakespeare's plays were first acted by Richard Burbage. Shakespeare wrote his characters with this actor in mind. He first portrayed Hamlet, King Lear, and the hunchbacked King Richard III. Burbage was one of the King's Men and Shakespeare trusted him to bring his characters to life. All the actors in Shakespeare's time were men; female roles were played by teenage boys or young men. 

Shakespeare returned to Avon in 1610 likely to spend time with his family. His exact date of death and the cause, is not known for certain but it is known that he was buried on April 25, 1616. 

In Shakespeare's time, "The lines of a play lived in the memories of the people who performed and watched them." The plays were written to be performed not published. And publishers did not need the playwright's permission to publish as theaters owned the scripts. However, eighteen of Shakespeare's plays were published during his lifetime as thin books called quartos. The quarto was a sheet of folded twice to make eight pages. Some of these were accurately transcribed editions, others were not and came to be known as the bad quartos.

With Shakespeare's death in 1616 and Richard Burbage's death in 1619, it would be expected that Shakespeare's plays would vanish, forgotten over time. That they did not was due to the big idea that one person Ben Johnson had: he published a book of his own poems and plays. While critics took him to task for this, other publishers had the idea to publish the entire plays of Shakespeare. And they would do it by publishing a much bigger book, the folio.

Discussion

The Bard And The Book explains how William Shakespeare's plays were saved from oblivion and passed down through the centuries to be read, studied and performed and enjoyed.

After a brief introduction to Shakespeare and his company, Bausum dives right into how early books were published in 17th century England, explaining quartos, octavos, and folios. A folio-sized sheet of paper was eighteen inches wide and fourteen inches tall. Folded in half it produced four pages in a book. When multiple sheets were folded in this way, they could be nested inside one another and sewn along the fold to create a book. In this way, the publishers created a folio of Shakespeare's works. 

As Bausum explains, using the fourteen good quartos, prompt books, the rolls, the foul papers, and possibly Ralph Crane who had copied so many of Shakespeare's plays, it was possible to assemble the plays and print them. Bausum goes on to explain whether pages were numbered using a process called signatures, how publishers assembled the books without using pagination, and how books were typeset in the 1600's using compositors. The first printing of Shakespeare's plays in 1623 has come to be known as the First Folios.

Once the First Folios were printed, who purchased them? The author explores the history of the original edition of Shakespeare's plays, including who purchased the very first copy and the unique names and characteristics of each copy. The First Folio is considered the most authentic edition because it was printed by people who knew Shakespeare. The Second Folio was published in 1632, the Third Folio in 1663 and the coveted Fourth Folio in 1685.

One interesting feature of The Bard And The Book is the hunt undertaken by literary scholars for the individual copies of the First Folio. The quest to locate any surviving copies of the First Folio really began in 1902 by British scholar, Sidney Lee. This treasure hunt, over the last century, by various researchers, has revealed two hundred thirty-five copies of the book! Many have very distinctive characteristics.

The Bard And The Book is a fascinating read that provides many interesting facts as to how books began to be published and how we now have copies of all of Shakespeare's works. Bausum's writing is informative and easy to understand with clear explanations and touch of wit. The author was inspired to research and learn more about the First Folios after being introduced to the story by the playwright Lauren Gunderson. There is also an interesting section titled, The Making of This Book which will show just how differently books are made today compared to the 1600s! There is a list of Citations From The Plays of William Shakespeare, Source Notes, Bibliography and Additional Resources for further research.

Bausum has incorporated several photographs of the Folios within her text. It's interesting to note that when she was able to actually inspect a real Folio, she wasn't required to wear protective gloves as they were considered to be more damaging than bare hands. There are red, blue and white digital illustrations by Marta Sevilla. The illustrator employed gouache and coloured pencils for the cover. The author has divided her book into five Acts, with quotes from Shakespeare's plays featured prominently. Also included is a list of Contents of The First Folio with the author noting which plays had not been previously published and therefore would have been lost to history if not included. 

The Bard And The Book adds wonderful background information to the life and works of William Shakespeare, explaining how we owe a debt to just a few forward thinking men who preserved his works for future generations of readers and actors alike.

Book Details:

The Bard And The Book by Ann Bausum
Atlanta, Georgia: Peachtree Publishing Company Inc.    2024
103 pp.

The Monarch Effect: Surviving Poison, Predators, and People by Dana L. Church

The Monarch Effect presents the remarkable story of the monarch butterfly and how we came to learn so much about this fascinating insect.

The story begins in Chapter One Baby Monarchs and Barfing Blue Jays with the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, starting with the tiny caterpillar which hatches out of a very small egg on the underside of a milkweed plant. The complex relationship between the monarch caterpillar which requires the milkweed plant to survive and the milkweed plant which needs to protect its leaves is described. Key to this relationship are the many survival strategies the monarch caterpillar has developed. These include how to circumvent the tiny spiky hairs on the milkweed leaf and the toxic white oozing liquid of the plant which also acts as a glue. There are several types of milkweed plants and the monarch caterpillars have developed strategies to survive on each. 

Each stage of the monarch caterpillar's life from its five molts to the preparations it makes to pupate, where it forms a chrysalis and undergoes metamorphosis to a butterfly are described with many interesting details.

The research of Dr. Fred Urquhart and his wife Norah are the focus of Chapter Two. Where Do They Go? Urquhart's interest in monarchs began as a boy and carried on through the rest of his life. Dr. Fred Urquhart had plenty of questions about monarch butterflies: Where do monarchs go for the winter? Do they have somewhere safe and warm to rest or do they die off? One article Fred read suggested that monarchs overwinter in Canada and the Northern United States. But he could find no evidence of this. Dr. C.B. Williams, a scientist in England, suggested "...that monarchs fly down to the Gulf Coast in Florida to overwinter and return in the spring."  In 1935, Dr. Urquhart began to investigate this theory by tagging monarch butterflies.

Eventually the Urquharts were able to develop a successful way to tag monarchs and enlist the help of volunteers across North America. They formed the Insect Migration Association and created an annual newsletter. The tagging program showed that the monarchs' flight paths began in northeast Canada and ended along the US Gulf Coast and in Texas. 

In Chapter Three More To The Story, the hard work and determination of Kenneth Brugger and a Mexican woman, Catalina Trail would provide the answer as to where the monarchs overwinter. Their work to determine the overwintering location was crucial to Fred and Norah's research. The Urquharts did not know where the monarchs travelled after they left Texas and the Gulf area. Trail and Brugger would discover two overwintering sites: Cerro Pelon and Sierra Chincua.

What followed was controversy and rivalry after Fred Urquhart published a fourteen-page article in the August 1976 issue of National Geographic magazine. The article paid only a passing mention of the work of Brugger and Trail and failed to honor the promise to keep the overwintering sites completely secret. The reality was that the Urquharts didn't "discover" the overwintering sites as it's likely the Indigenous and local people of Cerro Pelon already knew of them. After all, they cared for the forests and lived on the land.

Urquhart's article did create intense public interest from both scientists and citizens. One person deeply interested was Dr. Lincoln Brower.  In Chapter Four Squabbling Scientists, the relationship between Brower and the Urquharts is explored. What started on friendly terms quickly became a bitter rivalry as the Urquharts refused to share the location of the overwintering sites. Brower had developed a unique method of fingerprinting monarch butterflies using the cardenolide they ingested from the milkweed plants. Milkweed contains a poison in its roots, leaves, milk, seeds and nectar called cardenolides. This fingerprint  allowed scientists to determine where the monarchs had originated based on the  type of milkweed they had ingested. 

Even after the publication of the National Geographic article, the Urquharts would not reveal the location, so Brower took matters into his own hands. He used clues from the article to help: "The overwintering colony...was located on the slope of a volcanic mountain situated in the northern part of the State of Michoacan, Mexico, at a height of slightly over 3000 m." With the help of a fellow scientist, Dr. William Culvert, and topographic maps, Brower located the Sierra Chincua site. Incredibly, Brower and Culvert encountered the Urquharts at the site and an unfortunate accident that resulted in the deaths of millions of monarchs did not improve the situation. Perhaps one of Brower's most significant contributions to monarch butterfly science was the system of cardenolide "fingerprinting" he developed, which allowing researchers to determine a monarch butterfly's location of origin.

Dr. Brower and his team's research is explored in detail in Chapter Five Secrets of the Forest. Brower's research considerably expanded our knowledge "...about monarch butterflies, their predators, and the special climate of the Mexican overwintering sites." They demonstrated that importance of the oyamel forests in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt to monarch butterfly survival. His research uncovered how the monarch migration northward to Canada works. They revealed that  ",,,successive generations of monarchs lay eggs farther and farther north until they reach southern Canada." 

Chapter Six Tracking Migration, explores scientists efforts to better understand monarch migration focusing on the pace of migration and the factors that might be affecting migration. This chapter also explores research into two models, the milkweed limitation hypothesis and the migration mortality hypothesis as reasons for the decline in monarch population.

As research into monarchs expanded, scientists realized they needed to be studying more than just monarch migration, In Chapter Seven, Tracking More Than Migration, the work of several scientists including Dr. Kelsey Fisher and Dr. Karen Oberhauser is featured. Oberhauser initiated studies on monarch egg counts while Fisher, who studied movement ecology, wanted to understand how monarchs find milkweed plants, how they locate the Mexican overwintering sites for the first time and how monarchs know it's spring and time to head north again.

Chapter Eight, Monarch "Smarts" explores in greater detail the science behind monarch migration. Scientists wanted to discover how an insect with a such a tiny brain knows to fly three thousand miles south to an area approximately seventy-three miles wide. In order to understand this, researchers needed to understand monarch biology: researchers studied how their antennae functioned, the chemoreceptors and mechanoreceptors that monarchs relied on, how their eyes work and much more.

Chapter Nine Monarchs Around The World, asks the question "Where did monarch butterflies come from?" To answer this question, the fossil record is considered and genomics, the study of genes has been used to try to answer this question. This chapter also explores where other populations of monarchs are found in the world. 

The significant decline of the western monarch population which is located west of the Rocky Mountains is explored in Chapter Ten Monarch Emergencies. This population spends spring and summer in Nevada, Idaho and Oregon and overwinters along the coast of California. The chapter also considers the decline in the eastern monarch migration. 

In Chapter Eleven Living Near The Monarchy, the efforts to protect the habitat of overwintering monarchs is discussed. The work of Dr. Columba Gonzalez-Duarte has focused on evaluating the Monarch Biosphere conservation model and found it wanting. This model has led to the unintended loss of the traditional way of life for local Mexicans living on the lands and have also led to the proliferation of organized crime. This chapter outlines the many problems of the model both for the butterfly and forest conservation and for the people living in the ecosystem. Instead, Gonzalez-Duarte proposes focusing on the entire habitat instead of just one species might be more successful to saving both monarchs and Indigenous culture and way of life. 

Discussion

The Monarch Effect offers readers a deep dive into the world of the monarch butterfly and the research being done to understand this remarkable and beautiful insect. 

Dana Church provides her readers with fascinating information on almost every aspect of the monarch butterfly. The Monarch Effect opens with a detailed introduction of the life cycle of the butterfly that includes many interesting facts readers will likely not know. For example, many readers will know that the milkweed plant contains a poison, called cardenolide which is found in every part of the plant. But did you know it is also toxic to monarch larvae? Church writes, "Less than half of all monarch caterpillars survive the milkweed's latex...If the amount of latex a caterpillar ends up accidentally eating doesn't kill the, they can recover in five to ten minutes. Otherwise, they end up in a nonresponsive, coma-like state and die." The author describes the various survival strategies monarch caterpillars employ to survive on different species of milkweed and then goes on to describe the rest of the life cycle.

From this point on, the focus of The Monarch Effect is to present the incredible amount of research that has been done in the last eighty years on monarchs beginning with the initial monarch research in the early 20th century by Canadians, Fred and Nora Urquhart into where exactly monarchs overwintered. Like many other scientific endeavours, such research was not without controversy and to that end Church presents a balanced account of the rivalry between the Urquharts and Dr. Lincoln Brower, an American researcher who contributed significantly to our understanding of monarch butterflies. She also highlights the bias of this early research in believing it "discovered" the monarchs overwintering sites, which were already known to the Indigenous peoples of Mexico.

Throughout the book, Church highlights the many questions that arose as scientists learned more about monarchs. "...How do monarchs know when to start migrating? As they migrate, do they fly at a steady speed along the entire journey, or do they speed up or slow down at certain points?" How does weather impact monarch migration? Does the angle of the sun affect the migration? Other researchers wanted to know which US states monarchs arrived at first in the spring. When does the spring migration begin? Why does the timing and duration vary each spring? When the monarchs arrive in Mexico how do they choose where to roost? Do the same butterflies always roost together? How do monarchs locate milkweed plants? How do they decide on which plant to lay their eggs? As Church demonstrates, each piece of information led to more and more questions and required researchers to devise unique ways to find the answers. 

Several chapters are devoted to answering questions about the decline of monarchs and how we can best help the species recover. As with many environmental issues, the problems are complex and multi-faceted. Scientists are now advocating for a combined approach that utilizes both Indigenous and Western traditional science knowledge. It is an approach that considers not just monarchs, but the entire ecosystem and habitat, one that better integrates humans with the natural world they are a part of. This will require removing bias and require international cooperation to succeed.

The Monarch Effect is engaging and informative, written in an easy style, with understandable explanations about the complex problems facing monarch butterflies and the communities they are a part of.  The eastern monarch spans three countries, vastly different ecosystems, and different cultures. The author encourages her readers to become involved in the monarch butterfly recovery efforts by sending monarch sightings to Journey North, helping with tagging monarchs at monarchwatch.org and even counting monarch eggs and larvae through Monarch Joint Venture. The book offers websites that citizen scientists can access to become a part of this important work.

The Monarch Effect is perfect for the budding entomologist and those interested in the natural world. Church includes a detailed Glossary and an extensive References list at the back to help with further research and reading. 

Book Details:

The Monarch Effect: Surviving Poison, Predators, and People by Dana L. Church
New York: Focus Scholastics     2024
309 pp.