Review of The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood

Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

The Testaments

by Margaret Atwood

Nan A. Talese, Doubleday, 2019. 419 pages.
Review written February 26, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review
2019 Booker Prize Winner

The Testaments is a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, which I’ve actually never read. (Though I remember it was a Book of the Month Club selection long ago when I was a member. At the time, I didn’t like books where religious people were the villains.) I have watched the TV series, though, on library DVDs. Normally, I wouldn’t let that substitute for reading a book, but while the series was riveting, it’s an extremely unpleasant story, and I didn’t actually want to absorb myself in it again. I did have enough information to completely understand what was going on in this sequel. This book will be more enjoyable if you’ve read the original book or watched the series, though.

This book is told from three perspectives, all three writing about what happened in the past (which is why it’s called The Testaments). One perspective is that of Aunt Lydia, an important person in the administration of Gilead, in charge of women’s matters. Along the way, we learn about Aunt Lydia’s background and how she came to power.

The other two perspectives are the daughters of Jude, the Handmaid who tells the story in the first book. (They don’t tell you that right away, but it’s not difficult to figure out.) One of them was smuggled out of Gilead as a baby. She only finds out about her background when the couple she thought were her parents were killed by a bomb. The other was the little girl taken from Jude when she was first captured while fleeing Gilead. She, too, must learn that those she thinks are her parents are not really her parents. In fact, when her “mother” dies and her “father” takes a new wife, the stepmother wants her out of the house, so plans to marry her off at thirteen.

I do have some arguments with the idea that Gilead would have gotten enough people behind it to pull off a new country and a new repressive government. But that’s simply the assumption here. In this book, the girls grow to be young adults, and the reader learns both what it’s like to grow up in Gilead and what happened to the characters after The Handmaid’s Tale.

Margaret Atwood’s prose is riveting. I began reading this book on a sick day. I did two things that day – slept and read. And I didn’t go to sleep for the night until I’d finished the book. Even with three perspectives, the plot doesn’t lag at any point. Highly recommended.

margaretatwood.ca
nanatalese.com

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Review of Nowhere Boy, by Katherine Marsh

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Nowhere Boy

by Katherine Marsh

Roaring Brook Press, 2018. 362 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 18, 2018, from a book sent by the publisher.
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#2 Contemporary Children’s Fiction

Wow. This timely book shines a light on acting with compassion and asks when is it right to break rules for the sake of those in need.

The book opens in 2015 with Ahmed a refugee from Syria on an overcrowded dinghy in the Aegean Sea. His father is the only member of his family left alive, and when the boat is in danger of sinking, his father is the first one to jump into the water to pull the boat and keep it moving. This works for a long time until the wind picks up and the rope breaks and his father is lost.

The next chapter shows us Max Howard, whose family has moved to Brussels, Belgium, for his father to work at NATO Headquarters. Max has just learned that his parents are sending him to the local Belgian school to repeat sixth grade and focus on learning French. He is not happy about this decision, made without consulting him. His older sister is going to an American high school, but Max has to go to the school right around the corner.

The new school doesn’t go well. He doesn’t understand a lot of things, including writing with a fountain pen and spelling tests in French.

But the two stories collide after Ahmed, who has come to a refugee encampment in the middle of Brussels, tries to get a ride with a smuggler to Calais, but ends up needing to jump out of the van – without his phone or any money. He ends up hiding in the wine cellar in the back of the basement in Max’s family’s home. One thing leads to another… and he stays.

When Max eventually finds Ahmed, again one thing leads to another, and they develop a scheme to enroll Ahmed at the same school Max attends. I like the way that helping Ahmed means Max has to deal with the bully who’s been bothering him.

I love the way Max was inspired by Albert Jonnart, the man his street was named after – who lived there during World War II and ended up dying because he hid a Jewish boy. But the boy got away, fleeing across the rooftops. Now Max is hiding just one person himself.

The book is based on the author’s own experience living in Brussels on the same street as Max. The setting portrays the fear and mistrust of Muslim refugees and the terror attacks that happened in Paris and Brussels at that time. In that context, it’s all the harder to protect Ahmed, but Max and his new friends from school learn to see him as the kind person he is.

I love the message of this book and the gripping story. As unlikely as it sounds on the surface, the author made me believe this could have actually happened. I’m sure that the many details from her own and her children’s time in Brussels help give it the ring of truth. The fact that I have lived in Europe myself made it all sound very familiar. I also enjoy the way the book challenges your thinking and makes you ask what you would be willing to do in order to show kindness, even to just one person.

katherinemarsh.com
mackids.com

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Review of Gittel’s Journey, by Lesléa Newman, pictures by Amy June Bates

Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Gittel’s Journey

An Ellis Island Story

story by Lesléa Newman
pictures by Amy June Bates

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2019. 44 pages.
Starred Review
2020 Sidney Taylor Picture Book Award Honor

Gittel’s Journey is the story of a young girl traveling by herself to America from Poland with her mother’s Sabbath candlesticks. The story is based on the true stories of the author’s grandmother and adopted aunt.

Gittel had set out with her mother, but her mother is turned away because of an eye infection. She tells Gittel to go on without her and gives her the address of her cousin. But when Gittel arrives in America after a long journey, the ink has worn off the paper because she has kept such tight hold of it.

Fortunately, Gittel finds kind helpers in America for a happy ending.

The story is simple, but catches the reader’s imagination with the idea of a young girl crossing an ocean alone. The beautiful water color illustrations and loving care taken in the book’s construction make this book a work of art with a classic feel.

amybates.com
abramsyoungreaders.com

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Review of Stargazing, by Jen Wang

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel 0

Stargazing

by Jen Wang
color by Lark Pien

First Second, 2019. 218 pages.
Review written January 11, 2020, from a library book
2020 Asian/Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature Winner

Stargazing is a graphic novel about middle school friendship. As the book opens, we see Christine in her Chinese American family, performing in a concert, taking part in a big church activity. Her parents are told about a mother-and-daughter family that needs some financial help, and Christine’s parents decide to clean out her grandfather’s apartment behind their house and let this needy family live there.

The daughter of the family is Christine’s age. She’s also Chinese American, but very different from Christine. Her name is Moon, and she’s Buddhist, and doesn’t seem to follow as many rules as Christine does. Moon likes to make art and says she gets visions of celestial beings, that she doesn’t really belong on earth.

Christine and Moon become friends, but as Moon becomes more popular than Christine, some jealous feelings start creeping in.

This is a story of friendship and being yourself, as well as looking at what can happen when you let down your friend. And it’s all in a bright and colorful graphic novel format. The drawings of the kids dancing to K-Pop are especially fun.

jenwang.net
Firstsecondbooks.com

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Review of Beneath the Tamarind Tree, by Isha Sesay

Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Beneath the Tamarind Tree

A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram

by Isha Sesay

Dey St. (William Morrow), 2019. 382 pages.
Starred Review
Review written February 24, 2020, from a signed advance reader copy and a library book
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #10 General Nonfiction

CNN journalist Isha Sesay tells the story of 276 Nigerian girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the night of April 14, 2014. 57 managed to escape that night. The girls were made to sleep on the ground, work for their captors, and given little to eat. They were urged to convert to Islam and then to marry their captors. The ones who refused to convert were made to work as slaves for the new wives.

I was a little ambivalent about how much Isha Sesay puts herself into the story. But it seems appropriate because part of the story is how little the Nigerian government did to recover the girls, who were from poor, rural families. There was even a strong movement asserting that it was all a hoax to make the government look bad. So the author’s work to bring international attention to the plight of the girls did help their recovery.

More than 100 of the girls have still not been recovered. But twenty-one were released on October 13, 2016, and eighty-two more in May 2017. The author worked with the released girls to find out their story, but she also gives the perspective of heartbroken parents who still have not recovered their daughters.

Even though the author is herself Muslim, the Christian faith of the schoolgirls shines through in these pages. It was their faith – especially of those who refused to convert – that helped them through the terrible times.

Boko Haram is against educating women, so it’s something of a triumph that most of the released girls are now attending university. But I do hope this book will help the world remember the plight of those who have still not been recovered.

This story is both inspiring and very sad. It’s terrible what the girls and their parents went through, and what many are still enduring. But those who came home tell an inspiring story of faith and perseverance during a frightening trial.

harpercollins.com

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Review of The Other Half of Happy, by Rebecca Balcárcel

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

The Other Half of Happy

by Rebecca Balcárcel

Chronicle Books, 2019. 317 pages.
Review written January 9, 2020, from a library book
2020 Pura Belpré Author Honor

Quijana has a Guatemalan father and an American mother. Her parents never taught her Spanish because they said English was more important. But now Quijana is starting seventh grade and going to a new school without her sixth grade best friends. People think because of her name that she should speak Spanish. Then her Guatemalan cousins move to town, and Quijana feels even less like she belongs.

Meanwhile, her little brother isn’t talking like other kids his age, and her American grandmother is sick. Her father has started wanting her to embrace her Guatemalan heritage, but she feels like he’s taking over. And now the family is planning to take a trip to Guatemala, so Quijana will have to face two weeks where she doesn’t understand what anyone’s saying.

Meanwhile, at school Quijana does make some new friends, and she hopes one of those friends will end up being something special. Her friends might even help her figure out a way to escape the family trip to Guatemala.

The author navigates all these different issues, carrying us with Quijana as she figures out who she is and where she belongs and how she can make music that is all her own.

I especially like the list of Quijana’s grandmother’s sayings at the back of the book. Quijana has some good people in her life to help her get through the many confusing aspects of seventh grade.

chroniclekids.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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 Frankly in Love, by David Yoon

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Romance, Teen Fiction Review 0

Frankly in Love

by David Yoon
read by Raymond J. Lee

Listening Library, 2019. 10 hours on 8 compact discs
Review written December 30, 2019, from a library audiobook
2020 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature Honor
2020 William C. Morris Award Finalist
2020 Capitol Choices Selection

Frank Li is a senior in high school whose parents came to America from Korea before he was born. His parents want him to marry a nice Korean girl, and they have someone in mind. They’ve stopped talking to Frank’s older sister because she married an African American man. Frank’s best friend Q is African American, and they don’t mind that, but they want their children to marry someone Korean.

This audiobook explores the expectations and assumptions Frank and his friends have to endure. I like the way Frank, who’s telling the story, describes white folks as “European Americans” – because that seems only fair.

Frank has grown up going to “Gatherings” – where his parents and other friends who came to America from Korea get together with their families. The kids call themselves the “Limbos” – because they’re not quite seen as American and not quite seen as Korean.

When Frank falls in love with a European American girl, he works out a fake dating arrangement with Joy Song, one of the Limbos who his parents are pushing him to spend time with. Joy has had a Chinese American boyfriend for years, but hasn’t told her parents. If she and Frank pretend to go on dates with each other, they have a cover for spending time with their own beloved.

The scheme seems simple, but neither one can quite bring themselves to tell their real date. And things rapidly get more complex.

This is a fun story with lots of poignant moments. This book makes you think about relationships, and not only romantic ones, but also relationships with friends and family.

DavidYoon.com
ListeningLibrary.com

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Review of Genesis Begins Again, by Alicia D. Williams

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Genesis Begins Again

by Alicia D. Williams

A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book (Atheneum), 2019. 364 pages.
2020 Newbery Honor
2020 John Steptoe New Talent Author Award
2020 William C. Morris Award Finalist
Review written February 1, 2020, from a library book

This book begins as thirteen-year-old Genesis Anderson walks home with the popular girls – to see all her family’s possessions on the front lawn. They’ve been evicted from their apartment again.

But after dealing with that, her father takes them to a fancy new home in the suburbs. Genesis starts at a new school, and she wants things to go well there. She starts singing in the choir and even thinks about auditioning for the talent show. And has she finally made some real friends?

But her father isn’t exactly being honest about things. Her mother’s thinking about leaving, and Genesis isn’t ready to leave again. Time with Grandma confirms that everyone’s disappointed that Genesis ended up with dark skin like her father and not light skin like her mother. Genesis is willing to do anything to make her skin lighter. Then she’ll be beautiful and maybe her father can love her.

I’m going to be watching this author, because even in this debut novel she pulls us into Genesis’ world and all the different pressures surrounding her. It doesn’t all wrap up in a tidy bow, but Genesis is starting to learn to love herself, and the book ends with the reader reasonably hopeful that Genesis is going to deal with whatever the future holds.

simonandschuster.com/kids

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Sonderling Sunday – Book of a Thousand Days – Memories

Sonderling Sunday 1

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday – that time of the week when I play with language by looking at the German translation of children’s books, sort of a Very Silly Phrasebook.

Tonight I’m looking at one of my favorite books in English, Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale, Das Buch der Tausend Tage. Last time we were in this book, we left off on page 87 in the English edition, Day 684, and Seite 99 in the Deutsch edition, Tag 684.

Let’s begin with the first sentence of the section:

“Here’s something true about darkness — after enough time, you begin to see things that aren’t there.”
= Es ist wahr, dass man nach einiger Zeit in der Dunkelheit anfängt, Dinge zu sehen, die es gar nicht gibt.
(“It is true, that one after some time in the darkness begins, things to see, that are absolutely not there.”)

“fade away” = verblassen

I hope you won’t ever need to say this, but now you know how:
“Shiny gray dream rats” = Glänzende graue Traumratten

I like it on the rare occasions German is shorter:
“but don’t make a sound” = geräuschlos (“noiseless”)

“behind bricks” = eingemauert (“in-bricked”)

“thoughts and questions and memories” = Gedanken, Fragen und Erinnerungen

“surrounded” = umzingelt

“we were on our own” = waren wir auf uns gestellt

“Weedflower” = Grasblume

“hunched up” = verkrochen

“rags” = Lumpen

“We survived.” = Wir überlebten.

“healthy enough” = einigermaßer gesund

“mudfish” = Schlammfische

This one’s a lot longer in German:
“watered the milk gray”
= verlängerten die Milch mit Wasser, bis sie grau war
(“lengthened the milk with water, until it was gray”)

This is a lovely sentence:
“we laughed enough to shake the forest and ripple the rivers.”
= lachten wir auch so laut, dass der Wald erbebte und die Flüsse Wellen schlugen.

“parting songs” = Abschiedslieder

“Ancestors’ Realm” = Reich der Ahnen

I like this adjustment to the translation:
“with no shaman around for miles”
= weil meistens weit und breit kein Schamane in Sicht ist
(“because mostly far and wide no shaman in sight is”)

“haunting” = gespukt

“winter coverings” = Winterhülle

“aching work, longtime work”
= eine anstrengende langwierige Schufterei

“stagger” = taumelte

“summer pastures” = Sommerweiden

“ill-fated life” = Pech verfolgtes Dasein (“bad luck following existence”)

“purring” = schnurrend

“lap” = Schoß

“rodents” = Nagetiere

“a bowl of food” = Eine Schale Essen

Here’s a use of the prefix sonder-:
“Is that strange?” = Ist das sonderbar?
(It means “special,” but that’s not always good!)

“chiefs” = Häuptlinge

“I miss myself, how I used to be.”
= Ich vermisse auch mich selbst, mein früheres Ich.

I’ll finish with this sad sentence from the end of Day 780:
“Time is a wind that keeps blowing in my face and mumbling words that don’t make sense.”
= Die Zeit ist ein Wind, der mir ins Gesicht bläst und sinnlose Worte murmelt.

That’s it for tonight! Bis bald!

I still truly enjoy writing Sonderling Sunday when I have the chance. Ist das sonderbar?

Review of Infinite Hope, by Ashley Bryan

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Infinite Hope

A Black Artist’s Journey from World War II to Peace

by Ashley Bryan

A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book (Atheneum Books for Young Readers), 2019. 108 pages.
Review written January 20, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review
A 2020 Capitol Choices selection
2020 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor

Infinite Hope is visually stunning. The extra large pages are filled with sketches, copies of letters, and photographs, all from the author’s service during World War II.

I was relieved when I realized that all the handwritten letters are transcribed into print. There’s not a whole lot to read on each page, but there is so much to see.

Ashley Bryan is a distinguished Black writer and illustrator of children’s books. World War II came as he was getting started in art, having won a scholarship to art college. His art career was interrupted when he was drafted to serve in World War II, but he spent the whole war sketching what he saw. This book tells his story, illustrated by the actual sketches.

It’s a story of discrimination. Ashley Bryan wasn’t used to discrimination, having grown up in the Bronx, but that was how things worked in the U. S. Army. When they got to Europe, though, they found something different.

The Scottish people were warm and welcoming to all of us Black GIs. For some of the Southern men in our company, this was their very first experience of open, friendly encounters with white people. The Scots offered us unquestioned acceptance as equals, a level of immediate friendship that we rarely received at home.

This did not please our white company officers, who were determined to enforce the US Army policy of segregation. Their general attitude that Blacks were beneath them – that “we do not treat them like that!” prevailed. So they began to circulate terribly demeaning stories about Black people, saying that we would hurt them, that we had tails that would come out at night. Their goal was to make the Scottish people fearful so that they would avoid us.

To the officers’ great annoyance, their efforts did not change the way the people of Glasgow viewed us. The Scots did not have the institution of racism – they weren’t socialized against Blacks. Despite the officers’ attempts to sway them, the Scots trusted our actions and friendliness rather than the officers’ words.

Ashley Bryan even got permission to take classes at the Glasgow School of Art.

The fellows in my company never held it against me that I was free to leave camp to go to the art school, even when they were restricted. I had always shared my artwork with them and had helped some of them write letters to loved ones at home, so they were glad for me, glad that I had a chance to get better at something I loved. For while they were playing cards or dice, I was drawing, drawing, drawing. They also took it as my way of going over the head of our company officer, and cheered me on.

He tells about taking part in D-Day and its aftermath – and throughout it all, he kept on sketching. He stored all those sketches after the war (having regularly mailed batches back to his parents), and now was finally ready to pull them out. I like when he talks about preparing the sketches for an exhibit and turning some into paintings.

Fifty years ago, those paintings would have been dark – grays and blacks. But in really looking at those sketches now, I saw a beauty there – the beauty of the shared human experience. And I was able to face these sketches, face these memories and emotions, and turn them into the special world created by the men. I think of the men who were in the unit with me – I had such respect for what they could do, things I was so inept at. I remember their generosity toward me. I can never give them more than they gave me, so I would paint them in full color, filled with the vibrancy and life I had put into my garden paintings. I was ready.

I chose to paint from sketches of the soldiers playing cards or dice. This was a world they created, sheltered from the segregation and racism they endured. Sheltered from all sorts of war. I look now at the color, open form, and rhythm of those paintings. To me, they seem to have come out of my Islesford garden paintings rather than the drab colors of Omaha Beach! They have that surprise of discovery and invention that comes from seeing a well-known theme anew. They open the door to many other unexpected possibilities – because what is life, if not a voyage of endless discovery.

And so Ashley Bryan takes his sketches and inside story of World War II and makes it a thing of beauty and hope.

ashleybryancenter.org
simonandschuster.com/kids

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

What did you think of this book?