Sonderbooks25: Looking Back at Caravan, by Dorothy Gilman

Fiction Review, Historical, Old Favorites, Sonderbooks25 0

Caravan

by Dorothy Gilman

Doubleday, 1992. 263 pages.
New Review written March 31, 2025, from my own copy.
Original review written January 19, 2002.

Oh dear. I am now embarrassed that Caravan, by Dorothy Gilman, has long been one of my all-time favorite books. It’s not that it didn’t hold up; it’s that my eyes have been opened to cultural stereotypes. And I’m a little bummed! Shout out, though, to Pam Margolis and the Cultural Competency Training that everyone involved with the Cybils Awards takes.
They opened my eyes.

Here’s the background. I’m running a series of posts I’m calling Sonderbooks25, celebrating my 25th year of posting Sonderbooks. As part of the celebration, I’m choosing one book from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs to reread. In the case of my 2001 choice, The Sand-Reckoner, by Gillian Bradshaw, I wrote a new review and posted it in the newer format. (The first five years of Sonderbooks were posted in a different format and you won’t find them listed in the current indexes.)

I’m afraid I’m not going to do that for Caravan, because although I still love the book, and, wow, it stirs up all kinds of memories from who I was when I read it (I’d read it more than once before reviewing it in 2002.), I’m afraid with opened eyes, I’m not going to recommend it so heartily. So I will add this explanation to the top of the old review and leave it there for those who dig deeply into my website. And on this blog post.

The book is the story of Caressa Horvath, who’s sixteen years old when the story opens in 1911. No, let me revise that – the Caressa telling the story is old, at the end of her life, and revealing secrets especially for her granddaughter, but the tale she tells begins when she was sixteen.

Caressa grew up in a carnival, but her mother wanted her to be a lady, so she saved money and sent her to a school for young ladies in New England. But while she was a student, she picked the pocket of a rich gentleman who was well-traveled – and he caught her. He kept quiet about it, but took her under his wing and eventually married her, despite being twenty years older – to “protect” her. And he took her with him on an expedition to Africa, beginning in Tripoli.

After some time in Tripoli, where her husband made arrangements for their caravan and Caressa befriended her Muslim guide, who showed her around the city, they set off across the desert. They’ve paid off the Tuareg to cross. But before long, they’re confronted by a different group of Tuareg, and Caressa’s husband gets very indignant when they want payment – and the entire caravan ends up getting slaughtered – except for Caressa, who had been playing with her finger puppets to calm herself (one of which is named “Mr. Jappy”) – and they think she is doing magic, so they spare her life and take her with them.

So that’s where the cultural sensitivity becomes questionable. Caressa is much, much more culturally sensitive than her husband, seeing everyone she encounters as actual people. She goes on to live in the desert, among different desert peoples, facing different dangers, for three years. For most of that time, she has a friend and companion in a boy named Bakuli who learned basic English from Christian missionaries and calls himself a Jesus-boy. He was a slave of the Tuareg, but he is the one who warned Caressa that when one of the villagers is on their deathbed, that will be enough to convince them that her magic – which saved her from slaughter – is actually bad and she should be killed.

So Caressa and Bakuli escape together and have more adventures, with time living among different desert people. Later, they’re in a caravan again, and Caressa witnesses a man getting assassinated. She’s afraid the assassin will kill her, but instead when she’s sick from lack of water and the long road – he sells her into slavery. She convinces Bakuli to escape while she is still too sick to leave, and now she’s ready for a major part of the story.

All of that is far, far more riveting than it sounds in my brief summary. And the author makes individuals with names and personalities out of the people Caressa encounters and lives with. However, there are strong shades of the “Magical Negro” trope in the many spiritual encounters Caressa has along the way, finding there’s something behind the villagers’ beliefs. They are also portrayed as superstitious and sensitive to spirits – but Caressa senses the spirits, too, so maybe it’s not superstition? And the slaughtering, enslaving, and assassinating give the feeling that the “savages” stereotype isn’t too far under the surface.

Okay, but that’s a little vague and general. I don’t know what life was actually like at that time in Africa, and at least the author did enough research to know about the different people groups and languages and where they lived, and Caressa sees and names individual people.

But then came the part that made me blanch after “Me Too”:

Caressa had been enslaved, and they were taking her to a harem in Constantinople, when a stranger buys her. And the first thing he does is order her to take off her clothes (in Hausa), and he rapes her.

But Caressa’s mind is blown by the sex. “I was played on like an instrument, reaching sensations never dreamed of.”

Really? She’s just been sold as a slave, raped by the guy who bought her, she’s scared and alone, and you want me to believe that he’s so good at it that she enjoyed it?

When she says “Good heavens” after sex, he discovers that she speaks English and is shocked – her skin was dark by all the time in the sun. He is a Scotsman – who has the Sight, which is what led him to Caressa, though we don’t find that out right away.

She does confront him when he exclaims over her speaking English and asks who she is:

What does it matter to you who I am? You bought me for four gold pieces and now you’ve raped me and you’d have done it whether I was Tuareg, Hausa, Fulani or Arab, so why should it make any difference who I am, and I hope you speak enough English to understand that I think you a vulture – an ungulu – a monster and a bastard.

His answer comes in a hard even voice:

I speak and understand English and I paid four gold pieces for you for reasons I don’t care to mention just now, and I took you fast to put my brand on you because if you were a Tuargia you’d think ill of me if I didn’t, and be out of here by morning.

So, hold on, he’s saying that if she were Black it would have been okay???!

The next day, although she “could not help but dislike the manner of his ‘taking’ me,” she realizes that as a slave, she could have had it happen with a Targui or by the Turkish sultan. (Again, it’s okay, because he’s white???) And then she starts remembering those new sensations she’d experienced – and they have sex again, and from then on, he’s basically her one true love.

And now I am embarrassed how much I’ve loved this book.

Mind you, the twist in the ending is fantastic, and that’s what I’m left thinking about. I am a romantic at heart, so I did love their undying love once it got started – pulled together by the Sight! By Destiny! (Not simply the Magical Negro stereotype, but also the Magical Scotsman.) Caressa’s not in a traditional marriage, and it felt subversive to me as a young married evangelical to love this book anyway. But reading it this time, the manner of their meeting takes my concerns about cultural insensitivity and multiplies them.

And I still enjoyed rereading this book! But when I finished it, I had a bout of insomnia because I kept thinking about young newlywed Sondy who first read it and how that worked out (or rather, didn’t).

So – I still love the book, but that love is dampened in my skeptical old age, and I no longer feel I can wholeheartedly recommend it. But reading it was still a trip down memory lane and I’m excited about the rest of the revisiting I’m going to do for Sonderbooks25.

Review of Most Ardently, by Gabe Cole Novoa, read by Harrison Knights

Audiobooks, Austenalia, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Most Ardently

A Pride and Prejudice Remix

by Gabe Cole Novoa
read by Harrison Knights

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2024. 7 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written March 1, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 Stonewall Honor Book, Young Adult Literature

I have long loved Pride and Prejudice variants and everything related to Jane Austen. I even have a webpage devoted to reviews of such books – my Austenalia page.

I found this version of Pride and Prejudice completely delightful. The big switch? The second child in the Bennet family is actually a transgender boy named Oliver.

The scenes in the novel play out as Oliver is beginning to live as himself and stop pretending to be a girl named Elizabeth. His father is understanding and affirming, but he shudders at the thought of letting his mother know. And Oliver encounters Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy both when dressed as himself and when pretending to be a woman. It turns out that Mr. Darcy fancies men, but when appearing as Elizabeth, Oliver can’t let on that he knows that.

There were a couple of odd changes – Longbourne and Netherfield were much closer to London, for starters, as was, apparently, Pemberley and Hunsford. That did help the story speed up – this version got in most of the major scenes, but it was much shorter than the original novel. We also had Oliver not being much taken with Wickham right from the start – there was much less misunderstanding and later reversal than in the original, but it was kind of fun to watch Wickham try to flirt with Oliver, and Oliver having none of it.

Now, I was a little skeptical of how well most who learned about Oliver handled the news and accepted him as himself in that day and age. The historical note at the end did help me believe it could have happened – and regardless, it did my heart good to read about a young transgender man getting love and support from his family and friends.

All in all, it’s a delightful addition to Austenalia – with a new twist I haven’t seen before. Let me ardently recommend this book.

gabecolenovoa.com

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Review of The Sand-Reckoner, by Gillian Bradshaw

Fiction Review, Historical, Old Favorites, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Sand-Reckoner

by Gillian Bradshaw

Forge (Tom Doherty Associates), 2000. 351 pages.
This review written March 13, 2025, from my own copy.
Original review written August 2001.
Starred Review
2001 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Fiction

I’m revisiting this wonderful book – one of my all-time favorites – as part of #Sonderbooks25, my celebration of my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks. I’m rereading at least one book from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs. And while I will probably not write a new review for all of them, the first five years of reviews were posted in a different format that isn’t phone-friendly, so I want to bring this book to the main site. Does this qualify as an “Old Favorite“? The first time I read it, the book was new! But I’m thinking that enough time has gone by, and it will always be one of my lifetime favorite books, so I’m going to add it to the Old Favorites page, too.

The Sand-Reckoner was reviewed in my very first issue of Sonderbooks (back when it was an email newsletter posted in issues), and the first time I read it was while I was on vacation in Ireland. Despite not being in an idyllic location this time around, I still found the book utterly delightful.

It’s all about the character of Archimedes. He’s portrayed as a genius who gets so wrapped up in his work, he forgets about anything else – which totally fits the historical anecdotes about him. This book shows Archimedes as a young man, returning from the intellectual company of the Museum of Alexandria back to his home in Syracuse, because his father is very ill, and Syracuse is now at war with Rome.

Because of Archimedes’ geometrical genius, he’s better than anyone at building machines – including machines of war, and as he arrives, his first task is to convince the leaders of Syracuse that he can build bigger and better catapults for them. After that, the tyrant of Syracuse (He’s a good guy, but that’s what the leader was called.) must figure out how to entice Archimedes to stay, instead of going back to Alexandria, where more understood his philosophical discussions.

There’s a major subplot about Archimedes’ Roman slave and a romantic subplot as well, and the whole book immerses you in the world of ancient Syracuse with a lovable naive genius.

And, yes, this is one of my all-time favorite books. I’m a math person myself, though never as genius as Archimedes, nor so single-minded. But I do have a big soft spot for sweet nerdy engineers like him.

tor.com

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Review of Big Jim and the White Boy, by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson

Award Winners, Fiction Review, Graphic Novel, Historical, Starred Review 0

Big Jim and the White Boy

An American Classic Reimagined

by David F. Walker
and Marcus Kwame Anderson
Color by Isabell Struble

Ten Speed Graphic, 2024. 282 pages.
Review written February 18, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Alex Award Winner

The Alex Awards are given each year to ten books published for adults that will be of interest to teens. I couldn’t resist the title of this graphic novel – a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

It’s been a very long time since I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, so I’m not sure how many incidents from this book came from that one (I don’t think a whole lot), but it begins by illustrating a passage from that book – which is then interrupted by a 101-year-old Jim himself in 1932 Nicodemus, Kansas, telling stories to Black children alongside an old Huckleberry Finn. Jim says about the words Samuel Clemens put in his mouth, “Who talks that kind of gibberish?” And then he tells stories of what really happened.

Another part of the frame is a professor at Howard University in 2022 talking about the historical people and events behind Mark Twain’s stories – and how he whitewashed it to make slavery in Missouri not seem so bad. She’s believes that Jim was based on her own great-great-great-grandfather.

So with these two frames giving commentary – Old Jim and Old Huck bantering with each other and the professor giving historical notes – we hear about the adventures Jim and Huck had. Jim was looking for his wife and children, sold down the river by Huck’s father – and he told his story everywhere he went, so that word would get to them that he was looking. Meanwhile, he rescued enslaved people and fought their enslavers.

Big Jim made a name for himself (and got his face on big, scary posters) helping with the Underground Railroad, in the border wars when there was a question if Kansas would be a slave state or a free state, and during the Civil War, fighting for the Union.

And through all the adventures, Jim and Huck save each other’s lives, though, honestly, Huck is more of a sidekick in this tale. This book reveals more about their relationship, and I love that they end up together, with friendly bickering and storytelling.

As a graphic novel, this is a much quicker read than the original, and as a bonus you don’t have to wade through all that dialect. An epic historical tale.

davidfwalker.com
tenspeed.com

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Review of This Rebel Heart, by Katherine Locke, read by Kathleen Gati and Steven Jay Cohen

Historical, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

This Rebel Heart

by Katherine Locke
read by Kathleen Gati and Steven Jay Cohen

Books on Tape, 2022. 11 hours, 34 minutes.
Review written November 20, 2022, from a library eaudiobook

This Rebel Heart is an absorbing, atmospheric look at the Budapest student uprising of 1956, when the Soviets left Hungary for a week. The book is full of supernatural elements, which at first I thought were figurative, but ended up being a fundamental part of the story. For example, since the Soviets came, the city has lost its color. The blue sky was the last to go. People can barely remember the names of colors, and marvel when they begin to come back.

Another example is in the back story of our main character, Csilla. During the war, when the Jews were being rounded up and shot next to the river Duna that runs through Budapest, Csilla’s father led their family into the river, and they lived in its waters for the rest of the war, protected from the Nazis. And now the river constantly talks to Csilla.

As the book begins, Csilla’s parents were recently exonerated and reburied. Csilla’s father had been important in the Communist party, but he was falsely accused of treason and Zionism and executed years before. Now he has been publicly exonerated — but the authorities seem to have used his funeral as a cover to crack down on students at the university.

Csilla has tickets to get out of Hungary with her aunt Ilona — her only surviving relative after the Holocaust. But despite that immanent escape, Csilla gets pulled into the cause of the rebels. She becomes friends with a young man whose lover was recently executed by the secret police for homosexuality. And starts thinking about his cause and all that is wrong with Hungary under the Soviets. And then someone leaves her father’s journals at her doorstep, and she reads about his vision for Hungary. Is it even possible to right the wrongs he committed in support of that vision?

And then Csilla meets a handsome young man who tells her he is an angel of death. He is an angel of death who comes to be with children who are facing death. So why has he been pulled to Budapest?

This is an evocative novel, rich with the atmosphere of Budapest. I visited Budapest years ago, and the words of this book pulled me right back to that beautiful city, dominated by the presence of the Duna River. It was easy for me to believe the river would speak to one of her children.

katherinelockebooks.com
GetUnderlined.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of One Big Open Sky, by Lesa Cline-Ransome

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

One Big Open Sky

by Lesa Cline-Ransome

Holiday House, 2024. 300 pages.
Review written February 13, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Newbery Honor Book
2025 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book

This Newbery Honor Book is a pioneer story – about a Black family. And yes, that surprised me – but it turns out it shouldn’t, because from 1879 to 1880, over 20,000 Black people left the South to head West. The author gives details in the back of the book, but it turns out that many people lived out this story – even though there’s not as much written about the Black pioneers.

One Big Open Sky is told in verse (so it doesn’t take long to read), mostly from the perspective of Lettie, a girl who’s leaving Natchez, Louisiana, with her parents and two little brothers, in a covered wagon pulled by their two mules Charly and Titus. We also get the viewpoint of her mother and a single black woman who joins their party, who’s got a position as a teacher in North Platte, Nebraska.

The family joins a group of ten Black families headed for Nebraska. Their original plan was to take a steamboat up the Mississippi River most of the way, but when none of those will stop for a group of Black folks, they decide to walk. I didn’t realize that the wagon was mainly for supplies, and there wasn’t really room enough for everyone to ride, so unless you were sick, you walked alongside.

There are several dangers and setbacks along the way. Lettie’s keeping the accounts for her parents, so she knows they can’t buy all the good things they see at their stop in Independence, Missouri. She adopts the dog of a man who dies along the way, so she has him to turn to when a loss hits even closer to home.

Now at last Black girls can see someone like them in a pioneer story, with all the danger but excitement of leaving home behind and making the long journey to a new place.

lesaclineransome.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Pride and Premeditation, by Tirzah Price, read by Morag Sims

Austenalia, Historical, Mystery, Teen Fiction Review 0

Pride and Premeditation

by Tirzah Price
read by Morag Sims

HarperAudio, 2021. 8 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written October 2, 2022, from a library eaudiobook

I always enjoy Jane Austen spin-offs. This book takes all the characters from my favorite Jane Austen book, Pride and Prejudice, and places them in a murder mystery.

They’re in a different social setting than before. Lizzie’s father Mr. Bennet is a barrister, owning the firm Longbourn and Sons, where Lizzie helps out and wants an official position. Instead she must endure it when Mr. Collins, a distant relative who will inherit the firm, takes credit for her work. Her father challenges her to solve a case using logic to prove herself.

And then she hears about the case of the murder of Mr. Hurst. His brother-in-law Mr. Bingley is accused of the murder. Lizzie hopes to insert herself into the case, but they have engaged the services of his friend Mr. Darcy, who works for the much larger legal firm, Pemberley.

What follows is a convoluted and melodramatic case. At first, I didn’t much like this version of Elizabeth Bennet. She didn’t seem nearly as clever, and was mostly jumping to conclusions in her attempts to sleuth. (Of course, I expected her to jump to the wrong conclusion about Mr. Wickham.)

The author does admit in a note at the end that a woman could not have done the things Lizzie does in this book. But beyond that, the solution to the case seemed a bit coincidental and convoluted.

But when I stopped worrying about the logic behind things, I had to admit it was a fun ride. And it’s always fun to watch Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy gradually change their opinions of one another, whatever the setting.

tirzahprice.com

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Review of Trajectory, by Cambria Gordon

Award Winners, Historical, Mathematical, Teen Fiction Review 0

Trajectory

by Cambria Gordon

Scholastic Press, 2024. 285 pages.
Review written January 24, 2025, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.
Winner, Mathical Book Prize, High School

My committee just selected this as a Mathical Book Prize Winner, so I’m going to post a review. It’s historical nonfiction about a teenage girl named Eleanor who gets selected to work as a human computer calculating firing tables during World War II.

I’d had no idea such work happened, and that part was super interesting. Later, Eleanor gets selected to go to a desert base and help figure out how to improve the Norden bombsight. And she meets a handsome pilot while she’s there.

The setting is fascinating, based in historical fact that I’d known nothing about, and it’s always lovely to find a book that features a mathematician.

I did have some reservations. Her mathematical “gift” is portrayed as a rather mystical thing that comes and goes, and I didn’t like that portrayal. And I’m skeptical of the details about the Norden bombsight (the kind of development done seems to have mostly happened in the 1930s) and completely failed to suspend disbelief for a climactic scene where they needed a mathematician to save the day.

But – that’s why we choose winners via committee! The vast majority reminded me that this is historical fiction. And mathematics certainly go into bomber technology. And female mathematicians certainly did important work during World War II. And is it so terrible to read about a female mathematician saving the day with her mathematical skills, even if it feels a tiny bit implausible to me?

So anyway, I’m proud of our winner. You might need to suspend disbelief a bit, but there’s a good tale here about using math to win the day. And this year had more high school titles to consider than any other year I’ve served on the Mathical committee, which was a wonderful milestone.

cambrialgordon.com

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Review of Across So Many Seas, by Ruth Behar

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Across So Many Seas

by Ruth Behar
read by Allison Strong, Victoria Villarreal, Sol Madariaga, and Frankie Corso

Listening Library, 2024. 5 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written February 15, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Newbery Honor Book
2025 Sidney Taylor Silver Medal
2025 Capitol Choices Selection

Across So Many Seas is an intergenerational family saga for kids – featuring four 12-year-old girls, each of whom crossed a sea.

The book starts in 1492 with the expulsion of Jews from Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella. Their families had been there for centuries, but all Jews were told to leave, convert, or be executed. Benvenida and her family travel by foot to the port, her father carrying the Torah, and then travel across the sea to Constantinople.

Even in Turkey, they remember the language and customs of Spain, but the next girl featured is Reina, 450 years later, 12 years old in 1923, a descendant of Benvenida. After Reina disobeys her father and goes out at night with a boy to a party celebrating revolution in Turkey, she is sent in disgrace to Cuba as a companion to her aunt. In three years when she is 15, she will marry another Sephardic Jew her father has chosen for her and make a home in Cuba.

Next we meet her daughter Alegra, who is 12 years old in 1961, after Castro has come to power in the Cuban revolution. She joins the volunteer team of children who go out to the countryside to teach folks to read, and is proud and happy with her role – but is suddenly pulled back to Havana by her parents. They inform her that her father is not allowed to continue his business of selling shirts and they are being watched by the government. So they are sending Alegra to America, because it’s easier to get children out of the country first. They hope to follow soon.

And then we meet Alegra’s daughter, born in America, now 12 years old in 2003. And things come full circle when she travels on vacation to Spain with her mother and grandmother and they visit a museum in Toledo about the Sephardic Jews who were expelled in 1492.

Throughout the book, certain songs, foods, and customs link the girls together. I loved that the narrators sang the song that all the girls knew, about a girl in a tower in the sea. An interesting and lengthy historical note from the author came after the end of the book – it’s all based on her own family’s history. Even without such a family connection, it made me want to visit the museum in Toledo and think about the hundreds of years of history.

ruthbehar.com

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Review of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 8, by Beth Brower

Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion

Volume 8

by Beth Brower

Rhysdon Press, 2024. 339 pages.
Review written January 22, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

Hooray! The next volume of Emma Lion’s journals is out! This is the first volume I had to wait for – having received the first three volumes as a birthday present from my sister after seven volumes had already been published. I did manage to resist reading it until I finished reading for the CYBILS and Mathical Awards, but it was the first book I picked up after that.

And it’s all one story – so go back and read Volume One. And if you have already read Volume One, you will already know if you want to read on, so I won’t say a whole lot about this volume.

This book telling the story of Emma M. Lion, a twenty-one-year-old woman, from May to June 1884. She lives in London, owning her own home after the death of her parents. But she needs to find a way to make more money, and her wealthy aunt is requiring that she be a foil for her beautiful cousin Arabella, as Arabella navigates The Season and finds a man to marry.

This volume is taken up with Emma’s adventures trying to appease her aunt – but more so with the happy month of June, when she gets to spend time in the countryside with the three men she has developed a deep friendship with.

And it’s a truly lovely group friendship! That’s one of the things I love about this book – a lovely and deep friendship with three single men, with each one being unique. In this volume, we learn some deeper secrets about two of them. And I honestly think some seeds are being planted that she may not end up marrying the one that we and now she expect her to end up with. But the friendships between the four of them are rich and each interaction unique, and it’s just a lovely thing to read.

And I’m being vague purposely because, as aforesaid, you need to start at the beginning. And then just watch if you’re not eagerly waiting for the next volume, too.

bethbrower.com

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