“‘I read,’ I say. ‘I study and read. I bet I’ve read everything you’ve read. Don’t think I haven’t. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM-drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, ‘The library, and step on it.'” ~David Foster Wallace
Adrift at Sea by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch with Tuan Ho
Adrift at Sea: A Vietnamese Boy’s Story of Survival by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch with Tuan Ho, illustrated by Brian Deines.
This nonfiction picture book opens with a bang: our narrator, Tuan Ho, comes from school to his home in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to find preparations being made for a journey. His first reaction is to ask his mother, “Are you leaving me now, too?” A year before Tuan Ho’s father had left Vietnam with his older sister, but then-five year old Tuan and his other three sisters were too young to make the journey as “boat people” refugees from Vietnam. Now, Tuan’s mother tells him that he and two of his sisters will be leaving with “Ma” in the dark of the early morning. It’s a secret; no one must know that they are going. And they must leave Tuan’s four year old sister, Van, behind with family members. “She’s too young to travel.”
The family ride in a truck to the beach. There they are chased and shot at by soldiers as they run to board the boat. On the boat, they face even more hardships: a shortage of food and water, engine trouble, too many passengers, a leaky boat. But the book finally ends with a rescue and a tall glass of milk for the relieved and smiling Tuan Ho.
The illustrations in this book, full color paintings, are absolutely stunning. Canadian illustrator, Brian Deines, has outdone himself in two-page spreads that bring this refugee story to life.
The story itself, a slice of life, begins abruptly without any explanation as to why the family must leave Vietnam. Nor does the main part of the text explain what happens to Tuan Ho and family after they are rescued at sea. However, there are some explanatory pages with both photographs and text at the end of the book that tell readers about the history of the Vietnam War and about the entire history of Tuan Ho’s family and their emigration from Vietnam and eventual reunification in Canada. It’s a good introduction to the subject of the Vietnamese boat people for both older students and middle grade readers. Even primary age children could appreciate Tuan Ho’s story with a little bit of explanation from a parent or teacher about the war and the Communist persecution that they were fleeing.
Another good 2016 entry for my impromptu Refugee and Immigrant Week here at Semicolon.
Skating With the Statue of Liberty by Susan Lynn Meyer
Yesterday I read this 2016 middle grade fiction novel about a twelve year old French Jewish boy named Gustave and his experience of immigrating to the United States during World War II. Because of this book, and yesterday’s review of It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel, and some other upcoming reviews, it seems to have turned into Refugee and Immigrant Week here at Semicolon. It was an unplanned emphasis, but one that is quite apropos considering the news and the times we live in.
In Skating With the Statue of Liberty, Gustave and his extended family come to the United States from war-torn France, after having hidden and then escaped from the Nazis. The family faces many challenges. They are not allowed to bring adequate funds with them to start a new life, and so they are forced to smuggle in what little money they have. No one in the family speaks English, except for Gustave who has learned a little bit of English in school. Gustave’s father can only get a low-paying job as a janitor. Gustave doesn’t understand many things about American culture and customs, and even in America, he faces instances of anti-Semitism and racism as he becomes friends with a “Negro” girl, September Rose.
I read in the book cover blurb that this novel is a companion to the author’s debut novel, Black Radishes. Now I want to go back and read that one because Skating With the Statue of Liberty was a great story. It feels historically accurate, and yet the themes and scenes are quite applicable to the issues of racism and anti-Semitism that we see in the news today. Gustave struggles with whether he should think of himself as French or American or something else, perhaps Jewish. He discusses with a rabbi his lack of faith in a God who would allow the horror and persecution of Jews in German-occupied France. September Rose’s family struggles with how to support their country and the war effort and also stand against the injustice and discrimination that they face as black Americans.
I found this book, by a Jewish author and based partly on her father’s stories of his childhood escape from Nazi-occupied France, to be well-written, historically informative, and absorbing. The plot doesn’t sugarcoat the issues of prejudice, anti-immigrant persecution, discrimination, and even racial and anti-Semitic violence, but the ending and the growing friendship between Gustave and September Rose are hopeful and encouraging.
I just think kids (and adults) need books like this one and like It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel to help them begin to make sense of what is happening politically and socially in our nation. It may have been a coincidence that I read these two books almost back to back, but it gave me an idea to showcase the many really good books about refugees and immigrants that I have read and loved. So that’s what I’ll be doing this week.
It AIn’t So Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas
Zomorod Yusefzadeh is living in California with her Iranian family before and during the Iran hostage crisis. No wonder she wants to change her name to Cindy! Not to mention that no one can pronounce her real name, and people always ask, when they find out where she’s from, if they ride camels. Zomorod/Cindy has only even seen a camel once—in a zoo!
These are the adventures and misadventures of an Iranian girl with an immigrant family that sticks out like a sore thumb, in the community, in Zomorod’s middle school, especially after the shah leaves Iran and the political radicals take Americans hostage in the embassy in Iran. Zomorod tries to fit in, by changing her name to Cindy, by celebrating American holidays, and by making friends, but it’s hard to reconcile the two cultures she is living in, Persian and American. The book reminded me of one of my favorite movies, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as Zomorod/Cindy sees the world from inside her Iranian family and from the American point of view that she is learning. However, no weddings here, as Zomorod/Cindy is only 10-12 years old as the story progresses.
The story is kind of sad at times. Cindy’s dad loses his job as a result of the hostage crisis, and Cindy’s mom is having a lot trouble adjusting to life in the United States. However, lots of humor, and good attitude (most of the time) from Cindy, and some persistently friendly and hospitable people give the book an upbeat and hopeful feel and ending. This book would be an excellent book to give to current middle schoolers who are hearing all of the anti-immigrant talk and being influenced or discouraged by it. It Ain’t so Awful, Falafel gives a different perspective on the immigrant experience and shows how important it is to try to understand how others think and feel.
Saturday Review of Books: November 12, 2016
“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.” ~Anne Lamott
Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.
Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.
After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read.
Making America Great
I began Tuesday morning, Election Day, by going to the polls to vote, along with Drama Daughter (21) who was voting in her first presidential election. We went early because Drama Daughter had to be at school by 8:30. We waited in line for maybe five minutes, voted, and came home. I did not vote for Donald Trump. I did not vote for Hillary Clinton. I knew that whatever happened the presidential election results were not going to fill me with hope for the future of this nation. But that’s O.K. My hope and my encouragement come from another source, not from the political system or the elected officials in our government.
After voting on Tuesday, I wrote a letter to my son. I told him that even though I believed she was corrupt and untrustworthy, and even though her views on abortion, religious liberty, human sexuality, marriage and many other vital subjects, were anathema to me, it looked as if Hillary Clinton would become the first female president of the United States. And, I told him in my less than prescient letter, that we would survive. (Well, the survival part was good, anyway.) Not that it didn’t matter who won the election. Certainly it mattered to many babies as yet unborn, to women who would be coerced and tricked into disposing of their own children, to children who would be told that their gender and their sexuality were both inborn and unchangeable and at the same time malleable according to their own feelings. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, girls would be told that they could become anything they wanted, including becoming POTUS (good!), but also including becoming boys (impossible!). If Hillary Clinton had been elected, we would be approving of one set of laws for the poor and the middle class and another set for the rich and powerful.
On the other hand, I had already looked very carefully at what it would mean for the United States and for me and my family if Donald Trump were elected president, especially if he were elected with a majority of the votes of evangelical Christians. I am an evangelical Christian. Although I am tired of the media and the pollsters dividing Americans into tribes and ethnic groups and religious groups and socioeconomic groups, if I have a tribe, that’s mine. I am a person who claims the name of Christian. I follow Jesus. And I was and am deeply troubled by the thought that the majority of “my tribe” is following, or at least acquiesced to, Donald Trump, a man who personifies many of the things that I most hate: misogyny, disregard for the power and meaning of words, and hubris. I am told that over 80% of evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump. That makes me sad, and I am concerned that Christians, whether we want to be or not, will be tied in the public mind to the policies and mistakes and tragedies of the Trump presidency. I am concerned that the name of Jesus will be misunderstood and vilified. I am also concerned for families of immigrants, legal and illegal, for minorities, for survivors of abuse, and for many others who are fearful and worried about living in a country where Mr. Trump is president.
Some Clinton supporters yesterday and today were posting a list of liberal organizations and causes in need of contributions from those who oppose Donald Trump and all he stands for. They wanted to give people who were grieving and angry at Mr. Trump’s election something positive to do for this country and its people. I can’t contribute to most of those causes because they are pro-abortion organizations that promote the very objectivization of women that they accuse Donald Trump of supporting. Male and female babies in the womb deserve our care and protection; girls and women outside the womb deserve our care and protection. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump could be trusted to care about women (or men) at every stage of life. That’s why this election was so hard. That’s the elephant in the room. If the media wants to divide us into warring groups, I believe the factor most predictive of a vote for either Trump or Clinton was whether the voter was pro-life or pro-choice.
But I don’t want us to be at war with ourselves. We already fought one civil war, and although the result of that war was the great good of ending slavery, it also left us with great wounds and bitterness as a people, some of which still remain to this day. I don’t know how to resolve this deep divide, but I think we’re going to have to start by communicating with one another. We’re going to have to talk to one another about hard stuff—racism, abortion, sexuality, moral standards, what it means to be male and female—without name-calling and without violence and without silencing each other. Free speech along with “free listening” beget understanding and maybe even real tolerance.
In that previously mentioned letter, I told my son that after Hillary Clinton became president, the real work of making America great would be left up to us, the American people. In particular, Christians are called to be salt and light in a tasteless and dark world. What I told my son about the work we would be called to after Ms. Clinton was elected is just as true now that Mr. Trump is preparing to become our 45th president. We must do the work of healing relationships, building community, listening to one another, and making not just America, but the world, great and safe and forgiving and kind and freely yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Specifically, I hope to be doing the following things to heal and make our country great:
1. I will be praying for President-elect Donald Trump as I have prayed for President Obama. I will also pray for the many other political leaders in our country and around the world, that they will restrain evil, eschew pride, and use their power wisely and carefully for the good of others.
2. I will ask people who voted for Donald Trump and people who voted for Hillary Clinton to explain to me WHY they voted as they did. I will ask them what they hope for and what they fear. I will try to listen and understand, and when I do not agree, I will still respect and show love to the person I disagree with.
3. I will celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family and with my church family, and I will try to find ways to make those holidays meaningful and encouraging for all of those people who are my immediate encouragers and responsibility.
4. I will continue to contribute, not to pro-abortion causes or to political causes, but to small groups that are doing large things to make this world better: an orphanage in Zambia, a ministry to women who are trapped in the sex trade in Waco, missionaries in Nepal, a counseling ministry that will be working mostly with refugees and immigrants in Ohio. Choose your own places to give; give lots of money or just a little , as you can, or give your time to volunteer. But generous giving is one way to change the world.
5. I will carefully post encouraging and insightful words on Twitter and on Facebook and on this blog. I will think before I write and pray before I post.
6. I will smile and greet people I see at the grocery store or the post office or other places, especially people who are of another ethnic group or religious group or who just look as if they need the boost of a smile and the reassurance of a friendly greeting. I plan to go the extra mile to show that there are many, many Americans, Democrats and Republicans, who are not hateful, not racist, not misogynistic, and not intolerant.
7. I will share the gospel–in letters, in phone calls, in person, with words and with deeds. I truly believe that the good news of peace with God through Jesus Christ is the only thing that can bring peace between people. If you don’t believe that or don’t understand it, let’s talk about it. Tell me why you don’t believe in Jesus, and I will tell why I do. Maybe it’s true that America will only be great again when individual Americans come to repentance and understanding in Him.
You may or may not agree with everything I have written in this blog post. That’s OK. We are different people, and we have different ways of seeing the world. Right now I want to know: what specific things are you doing in the next few weeks or months to make things better, to truly make America great, to bring healing to our nation?
The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz
The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz.
I hate books that seem to say, “Oh, kids like gross, nasty, slimy stuff. Let’s take the really loathsome parts of this tale and make them the centerpiece of the narrative because that will draw the kids in.” That’s what I wrote about Mr. Gidwitz’s book, In a Glass Grimmly, and it applies to this story, too. It’s a shame that this author has such a penchant for poops and farts and crude humor because otherwise he’s a good writer. The scatological attempts at humor aren’t usually very funny, and they just don’t add to the story at all.
The story: On a dark night in the year 1242, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children: Jeanne, a peasant girl who has visions, William, an oblate who is half-Saracen and half French, and Jacob, a Jewish boy with a gift for healing. These children may be saints, or they may be using evil magic to do wonders that will deceive the faithful. And the dog, Gwenforte, who once saved a child from a deadly serpent, may be resurrected, but can a dog really be a saint? The children’s adventures take them from a farting dragon to a meeting with the king to a plot to save the illicit, mostly Jewish, books that are scheduled for burning by Good King Louis and his mother, Blanche of Castile.
So, Louis IX and his mother were real people, and so were several of the other characters in the novel. The three children are composite character, partly taken from the hagiographic stories of medieval saints and partly from Mr. Gidwitz’s fertile imagination. Other real medieval characters in the book include: Chretien de Troyes, a late 12th century poet and trouvare, Francis Bacon, the late medieval (1561-1626) scientist and philosopher, Rabbi Rashi of Troyes, an 11th century Jewish scholar, and various other minor characters imported from the pages of medieval French stories and poems. In addition, the girl, Jeanne, bears an affinity to Joan of Arc, the storytelling reminds one of Chaucer, and the burning in Paris of some 12,000 manuscript copies of the Talmud and other Jewish books actually took place in 1243.
So, as he did in his other series of books based on Grimm’s fairy tales, Mr. Gidwitz took the elements from several French, and even British, lives and tales of the middle ages and stirred them into a stew which turned out to be something completely different. And it could have been a delight. Instead, it’s sort of a mish-mosh of good scenes and bad, crude and insightful, funny and flat. If I could extract the bad parts and leave in the good, I would recommend it.
The illustrations, or illuminations, that adorn the pages of this medieval tale are a delight.
What’s New in the Library? November 1, 2016
These are just a few of the books that I’ve recently added to my private subscription library for homeschoolers and others in southeast Houston, Meriadoc Homeschool Library:
Finding Providence: The Story of Roger Williams by Avi. With lovely illustrations by James Watling, this I Can Read Chapter Book tells the story of the hero of religious liberty, Roger Williams, from the point of view of his daughter, Mary. The book has five very short chapters, and the text by Avi is thorough, but simple and straightforward. I have another book about Roger Williams for more advanced readers, Lone Journey: The Life of Roger Williams by Jeanette Eaton.
Ten Brave Men: Makers Of The American Way by Sonia Daugherty. With illustrations by Sonia’s husband, Newbery award winning author, James Daugherty. The stories include the following men: William Bradford, Roger Williams, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln.
Tales From Far and Near and Tales of Long Ago (History Stories of Other Lands) by Arthur Guy Terry. World history in story form, perfect for reading aloud.
Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille by Jen Bryant. The one is a brand-new picture book biography written by the very talented author of The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus. Six Dots concentrates on the few years in his life when Louis Braille was busily inventing braille writing, in his early teens! At age fifteen, Braille had essentially perfected braille writing, a magnificent invention that “has had a lasting and profound impact on so many people.” Helen Keller compared Louis Braille to Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.
We Were There at the Battle of the Alamo by Margaret Cousins, historical consultant, Walter Prescott Webb. There were about 35 or 40 books of historical fiction published by Grosset and Dunlap in the We Were There series. Each volume has both an author and a historical consultant. Mr. Webb, who was a renowned Texas historian during the first half of the twentieth century, was president of the Texas State Historical Association for many years. He also launched the project that produced the Handbook of Texas. So, if his name is on the book, it’s historically accurate. And Mrs. Cousins, who wrote a couple of the Landmark series books, Ben Franklin of Old Philadelphia and The Story of Thomas Alva Edison, was also an accomplished writer for children and a respected biographer. She also wrote The Boy in the Alamo, another Alamo story. Other We Were There historical fiction in Meriadoc Homeschool Library:
We Were There with Cortes and Montezuma by Benjamin Appelt.
We Were There on the Oregon Trail by William O. Steele.
We Were There on the Santa Fe Trail by Ross McLaury Taylor.
We Were There With the California Rancheros by Stephen Holt.
We Were There at the First Airplane Flight by Felix Sutton.
We Were There With Caesar’s Legions by Robert N. Webb.
A few of the books in this exciting and educational series are available from the public library as e-books. Most of them are not available in any form at Houston or Harris County Public Library.
I also acquired several volumes in the Makers of History series by brothers, Jacob and John Abbott. Jan Bloom says of the thirty-two volumes in the series that they are “interesting, well-written, and full of insights into the people the brothers thought were important.” These books are for older students, junior high and high school, even college age. Of the thirty-two, I have the books profiling the following “makers of history”: Alexander the Great, Queen Elizabeth I, Empress Josephine, William the Conqueror, Henri IV of France, Marie Antionette, Darius the Great Xerxes the Great, Alfred the Great, Cyrus the Great, Pyrrhus, Mary Queen of Scots, Peter the Great, Genghis Khan, Joseph Bonaparte, and Romulus.
So many treasures to read, so little time.
Spooky Middle Grade Fiction
Curse of the Boggin: The Library, Book 1 by D.J.MacHale. In a Library where books involving ghosts and superstitions and curses and monstrous beings are “finished” as they are lived out in the real world, Marcus and his two best friends, Annabella Lu and Theo McLean, work together to solve the supernatural mysteries and lay the ghosts to rest. This is the introductory volume in a projected series of supernatural (spooky) adventures. In the introduction to this introduction, the author tells his readers, “Once you’ve read the first book, you can read the rest in any order. Each will hold a unique tale that doesn’t necessarily rely on any of the others.” That’s a good plan, except that I found this first book to be a little bit un-scary and unbelievable. I couldn’t ever figure out what the rules were for what the Boggin (a kind of ghostly witch-hag, very evil) could and couldn’t do. Maybe if you like horror and ghost stories (I don’t really, unless there’s some other attractive element to add to the ghosts), you’ll like it better than I did.
The Peculiar Night of the Blue Heart by Lauren DeStefano is definitely peculiar. However, it’s not clear until the final chapters of the book whether the “blue heart” is about demon possession, mental illness, werewolves, ghosts, feral children, or something else entirely. The book has two main characters, Lionel and Marybeth, who live in a sort of orphanage/foster home with the loving but overworked Mrs. Mannerd. Marybeth is a good girl, healthy, obedient and kind, and Lionel is . . . peculiar. He pretends to be a wolf or a bear or a monkey from time to time, and he eats most of his meals under the table, vegetarian only. Lionel and Marybeth are friends, in spite of their very different personalties, so when the “blue heart” (whatever it really is) takes over Marybeth’s mind and body, Lionel is determined to at least act like a normal human being in order to save her. I think this one is way too disturbing for middle grade readers.
The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge is creepy, too. Faith SUnderly is a proper Victorian young lady who has always been told, and who believes, that she is inferior in every way to men. Her father, the Reverend Sunderly is not only a cleric but also a world famous paleontologist. Faith, too is interested in science and in anything that will impress her father and get him to pay attention to her, but when she begins to learn more about her father’s research, she also finds herself enmeshed in a web of lies and deceit that won’t let go. This one is about Darwinian evolution, and feminism, and of course, lies. The plot was compelling and kept me reading, but I thought the ending was unsatisfying. Also, Faith is fifteen years old, and the themes will be more interesting to high schoolers and adults than to middle grade readers. However, it is a Halloween-ish read.
I also read these Halloween-ish ghost stories from this year: The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price by Jennifer Maschari and School of the Dead by Avi.
Best ghost story of 2016 (so far) goes to one I haven’t read yet: Lockwood & Co., Book Four: The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud. If you want a little wit and banter in your ghostly Halloween read, you should really try the Lockwood and Company series, starting with The Screaming Staircase, progressing to The Whispering Skull, and then The Hollow Boy. If you’ve read and enjoyed those three, you’ll want to read The Creeping Shadow, which is what I am picking for my Halloween read.
Unidentified Suburban Object by Mike Jung
Chloe Cho is tired of the Asian jokes, tired of people not knowing whether she’s Chinese or Japanese (she’s Korean), and tired of being compared to famous violinist Abigail Yang. She’s fed up with being the only Asian kid in school and her family being the only Asian family in town. Chloe is also tired of the way her parents avoid the subject of their Korean heritage. Whenever she asks about their childhood or about Korean culture or about how they came to America, all she gets are vague answers and a quick change of subject.
However, Chloe is about to find that things can get worse and that discovering more about her real heritage is more than she can handle: “‘Upset’ was so not the right word. There really wasn’t any one word that captured it all; only a phrase would do, like ‘head in a blender.'”
The writing style in this book is epitomized in that quote. It’s breezy, contemporary, and colloquial. Chloe is a sarcastic over-achiever, a drama queen, and prone to fly off the handle and YELL a lot. Nevertheless, as they say, “she has a good heart.” I wouldn’t understand or even like Chloe very much if I didn’t have a relative of my own who is very much like Chloe. Volcano-like, frequently erupting, then simmering down, the Chloes of this world can be difficult, but they can also be fiercely loyal and tenacious friends.
Unidentified Suburban Object has a lot to say about ethnic diversity and expectations and stereotypes, but it’s not a “heavy” novel. It’s funny, in a sarcastic way, and clever in so far as the plot twist at the center of the novel goes. I think kids will enjoy the story, the interesting shift in perspective, and the very realistic characters. And they might learn something about racism and self-acceptance in a non-threatening and subtle way—which is, of course, the best and most effective way to learn those lessons.