Book Review: Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai (Harper, 2011)

Recommended for ages 8-14.


In this story written in a series of free verse poems, debut novelist Thanhha Lai spins a moving and compelling tale of a young Vietnamese girl who moves with her family from war-torn Saigon to Alabama in 1975, at the end of the Vietnam war.  When the book opens, Hà and her family are celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese New Year.  She lives with her three older brothers and her mother; she can't remember her father, a navy officer, who was captured by the enemy years before, and no one knows if he is even still alive.

As the war approaches Saigon, Hà and her family must prepare to leave, packing just a few belongings with them.  A particularly poignant poem itemizes what they must leave behind, including "Brother Quang's/report cards,/each ranking him first in class,/beginning in kindergarten..."  Hà must leave her beloved papaya tree, where the fruit is still not ripe.  Author Lai does a wonderful job of evoking the sights, smells and sounds of Vietnam for the American reader.

Their voyage by ship is dangerous and miserable, with not enough food, water, lights, or bathroom facilities.  When they finally reach the open sea, they are rescued by an American ship, which tows them to a refugee camp in Guam.  Where will they go from there?  They choose America, where Hà 's mother believes there will be opportunities for her children to go to college.  But first they must be sponsored by an American family.  Finally a "cowboy" rescues them, and they go off to Alabama.

It's almost impossible to imagine how foreign Alabama must have been for these Vietnamese immigrants, until we read "American Chicken."  In this poem, Hà explains how their cowboy brings them "a paper bucket of chicken/skin crispy and golden,/smelling of perfection/..."  But when they taste the meat, her mother spits it out, and her brother gags; "Brother Quang forces/a swallow/before explaining/we are used to/fresh-killed chicken/that roamed the yard/snacking on/grains and worms/...I bite down on a thigh;/might as well bite down on/bread soaked in water./ Still,/I force yum-yum sounds."

For Hà , it's a world of "clean, quiet loneliness."  And living on the charity of others isn't easy for Hà and her family, who were used to a nice standard of living in Saigon.  Hà is befuddled by the idiosyncrasies of the English language, remarking that "whoever invented English should be bitten by a snake."  Her classmates make fun of her, and she hates feeling dumb, having to learn ABC's and numbers when in her own country she knew fractions and was the smartest in her class.  It's hard not to wish to be invisible in this strange new place.

However, some Americans are kind to Hà and her family; a neighbor tutors them all in English, their "cowboy" brings them gifts of chips and chocolate, and her teacher lets her eat lunch in her classroom to avoid the misery of the cafeteria and the tyranny of bullies.  Will Hà succeed in building a new life for herself in this new country?

Although she comes from a background foreign to most of us, readers will nonetheless identify with Hà's spunky character, her squabbles with her brothers, and her difficulties fitting into her new life.  This novel is already getting some early Newbery buzz, and it's definitely one to put on your to-read list.  

Some other blog reviews include:

Madigan Reads

Fuse #8

Dog Ear

GreenBeanTeenQueen

Book Review: A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story, by Linda Sue Park (Clarion Books, 2010)

Recommended for ages 10 to adult.  


Release date:  November 15, 2010


The end of the calendar year is a busy time for most people, but don't allow yourself to miss this incredibly moving novel by Newbery-award winning novelist Linda Sue Park.

A Long Walk to Water is based on the true story of Salva, one of a group of Sudanese "Lost Boys" who eventually emigrated to the United States in the mid-1990's.  Park's account of Salva's life begins in 1985, when Salva is eleven years old.  Things were good for Salva's family before the civil war; his family was affluent, with many heads of cattle, and could afford to send each of their sons to school.   But because Salva's at school when the war comes to his village, he is separated from the rest of his family, and begins a long and brutal journey by foot to safety.  Meeting up with members of his Dinka tribe, he joins their group, walking east toward Ethiopia.

During the journey, he must confront hungry lions, scarce water, crossing the Nile in hand-made canoes, swarms of mosquitos, and the most difficult part of their journey:  crossing the unforgiving Akobo desert.  He spends six years in the Ethiopian refugee camp, before their government decides to close the camp, driving the residents with guns out of the camp and across the Gilo River, well known for its crocodiles.  Miraculously surviving the crossing, Salva makes up his mind to walk to Kenya--and becomes the de facto leader of a group of about 1,500 boys, some as young as five.  More than 1,200 arrived safely in Kenya, including Salva.

While in Kenya, Salva learns to read and speak English from an Irish aid worker, and eventually is chosen to be part of a special initiative to airlift over 3,000 boys and young men to America.  Resettled in Rochester, New York, Salva goes on to found Water for Sudan, a non-profit which brings clean water to the parched regions of the south of his country.

Alternating with Salva's story, Park weaves in the story of a contemporary girl in Sudan, Nya, who must walk for eight hours each day to fetch water for her family, water which sometimes is contaminated and bears diseases.  At the end, their two stories intersect, bringing hope, clean water, and education to Nya's village.

This slim but unforgettable book (120 pages) tells Salva and Nya's stories in a spare style, with no wasted words or descriptions.  Like many stories about Holocaust victims, this book celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit, capable of maintaining hope and finally triumphing over incredible adversity.  It's a story you won't quickly be able to forget, and I would highly recommend it for adults, teens, and children over ten.  Park includes an afterword by Salva Dut himself which provides some information on his project, Water for Sudan, and an author's note with additional historical background on the civil war in Sudan.

An aside--it's a bit odd to be reading this book about the saving grace of water in the midst of the worst Los Angeles rainstorm I can ever remember--apparently some isolated areas have received up to 20 inches of rain.  Luckily no leaks in our roof--as far as we know, anyway.

Here's a link to the book trailer, featuring an interview with Linda Sue Park.

To learn more about Salva's life and his current work in Sudan, see Water for Sudan's website.  

The "lost boys of Sudan" are also the subject of many books and films, including this critically acclaimed documentary.  

Book Review: The Other Half of Life, by Kim Ablon Whitney (Laurel Leaf Books, 2009)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.
Kim Ablon Whitney has written a riveting fictional account of the doomed voyage of the M.S. St. Louis, a luxury ocean liner which sailed from Germany to Cuba in 1939 with 937 passengers, nearly all German Jews desperate to escape Nazi Germany.  Refused safe haven by Cuba and the U.S., the St. Louis was forced to return to Europe; this journey has become symbolic of the indifference of the United States and the rest of the world to the plight of European Jewry on the eve of World War II.


Whitney tells the story of 15-year old Thomas, a fictional character who is representative of the young people who travelled alone on the ship.  His Christian mother is able to afford passage only for one, and with his Jewish father already arrested and in a concentration camp in Germany, she takes the opportunity to send him off to safety in Cuba.  


Once on board, Thomas is befriended by the beautiful teenage Priska and her family, who are sailing in first class.  Priska and Thomas are attracted to each other, and soon there is romantic tension to our story.  However, the irony of sailing on a luxury ocean liner, with caviar, swimming, and dancing, is not lost on Thomas or the largely Nazi crew, who are ordered by the Captain to treat the Jewish passengers with the same respect as they would treat the passengers on any other luxury ocean crossing.  From the outset, Thomas has a feeling that, despite their landing permits for Cuba, arriving safely is not guaranteed.  When he overhears the crew whispering about Cuban quotas possibly already being full, he resolves to keep his ears and eyes open.  


When the ship drops anchor outside the Havana harbor, Thomas and the other passengers realize there is a problem.  While negotiations with the Cubans proceed, Thomas and his friends organize a chess tournament to distract the passengers.  Thomas is a skilled chess player, and chess serves as a metaphor for the passengers of the St. Louis, who are being used by the Nazis as pawns in an elaborate propaganda game.  Was the whole trip a ruse on the part of the Nazi government--to show that  no one in other countries wants the Jews either?  


When Cuba refuses the passengers entry, the Captain sails to Miami, in the hope that the United States will take in the refugees, but the U.S. government, too, refuses to allow the ship to dock.  Forced to turn around, the St. Louis returned to Europe, where the passengers were taken in by England, France, Belgium, and Holland.  Sent to different countries, Thomas and Priska vow to meet in five years in Miami, never dreaming how the war would change their lives.  Will they reunite?  


The author concludes the novel with a moving account of Thomas and his family, 70 years later, visiting an exhibit on the St. Louis at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, where he sees life-size photographs of himself and others he befriended on the voyage.  In this final chapter, he tries to explain to his children why the United States didn't let them in, especially since over 700 of the passengers already had quota numbers for the U.S.  This is a question with no good answer.  


On the author's blog, she reports on a talk given by Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel on the 60th anniversary of the St. Louis' fateful voyage.  In his talk, he calls the St. Louis "the Moral Titanic," and spoke of the shame of the leaders of the free world who "failed the test of humanity" in turning the St. Louis away.  Wiesel singled out for praise, however, Captain Schroeder, whom he called the hero in the story (Schroeder was later honored as a "Righteous Gentile").  Wiesel, according to Whitney, ended his talk by concluding that all questions regarding the St. Louis remain unanswered. He stressed that what we can take away as students of history is that, as proven by Captain Schroeder, choice always exists.


As Whitney explains in an author's note, nearly all the characters in the book, with the notable exception of Captain Schroeder, are fictional, but are based on extensive research on the voyage, including her own interviews with survivors.  This outstanding novel has been honored with numerous awards, including the 2009 National Jewish Book Award, the Silver Parents Choice Award, and it was selected as a Sydney Taylor Notable Book for teen readers.  


A Teacher's Guide, author interview, and excerpt from the book can be found at the author's website.


A concise article summarizing the facts about the St. Louis as well as an on-line exhibit  can be found at the U.S. Holocaust Museum's website.


Also, the U.S. Holocaust Museum published in 2006 Refuge Denied:  The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust, a comprehensive study of what happened to the 937 passengers on board the ship.

Book Review: Good Night, Maman by Norma Fox Mazer (Sandpiper, 1999)

Recommended for ages 10 and up.

This moving novel by award-winning children's novelist Norma Fox Mazer (who sadly passed away in 2009) tells the story of Karin Levi, a 12-year old girl whose comfortable life is overturned when the Nazis occupy Paris in 1940. Karin, together with her mother and older brother, flee Nazi-occupied Paris and start a new life of constant fear, as they are first hidden in the countryside, and later escape into American-occupied Southern Italy (without their mother, who by this point in the narrative is too ill to travel).

The two children manage to secure passage on the Henry Gibbons, an actual ship filled with European refugees which came to the U.S. in 1944. Although the United States, like other countries around the world, largely turned its back on the desperate Jews of Europe, in 1944 FDR decided to permit transport of 1,000 refugees from Italy to the United States. Many but not all of those who sailed were Jews, as Roosevelt did not want the venture to be perceived as a "Jewish project."

The ship's occupants were sent to Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York, where they were put in a refugee camp surrounded by barbed wire. Mazer explains in an afterword that the 982 people on this ship, who came from 15 countries and ranged in age from an infant to an 80-year-old man, were the only group of refugees brought to America by the U.S. government during World War II. When the war ended, those "guests" were allowed by President Truman to stay in the United States.

As one might expect, Karin's adjustment to life in the refugee camp is not easy. Karin, who believes her mother may still be in hiding in France, pours out her heart in letters to her dear maman that she is unable to mail, not knowing where her mother might be. Her older brother Marc "became Maman," trying to provide routine and structure for his younger sister. But he doesn't want to talk about the past. He asks her "Why are you always thinking about things that are done with, Karin? It only makes you feel weak and unhappy." Gradually Karin begins to make friends with other girls at the camp, as well as an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Stein, who remind her of her grandparents. Soon a girl named Peggy from the other side of the fence befriends her as well, helping her to learn to sound American, and when Karin finally is allowed to start school, Peggy is in her class. Karin is even able to spend her first American Thanksgiving at Peggy's home. But will Karin ever be reunited with her beloved mother?

This novel, published in 1999, would be an excellent book to read in conjunction with Is It Night or Day?, since both deal with young girls about the same age who leave Europe without their parents to begin life as refugees in America--one at the refugee camp in Oswego, the other with relatives in Chicago.

A reading and activity guide for this novel is available on-line.

Although Karin and Marc Levi are fictional characters, for those interested in learning more about this unique refugee camp in Oswego, check out some of the following resources:

1) Study guide and comprehensive bibliography on the refugee camp;

2) the Safe Haven Museum and Education Center, dedicated to keeping alive the stories of the 982 refugees. Among the resources on their website are recorded testimonies of some of the camp's residents.

3) the story of two of Oswego's residents, Frieda Löwy and her husband, Max Sipser, written by their American niece, Carole Garbuny Vogel.

Book Review: Is It Night or Day? by Fern Schumer Chapman (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2010)

Recommended for ages 10 and up.

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that 12-year old German Jew Edith Westerfeld, whose parents put her on a ship to America in 1938, was one of the lucky ones. But as she watched her beloved family get smaller and smaller on shore as the ship pulled away, she didn't feel lucky at all.

Like so many families in Germany, the Westerfelds of Stockstadt thought of themselves much more as German than Jewish. After all, they had lived in their community for over 200 years and Edith's father, a war veteran, was a respected civic leader. Not until Edith's 12th birthday party in 1937, when none of the invited guests dared to show up at a Jew's house, did Edith realize how everything had changed. Her older sister, Betty, had already been sent to America the year before; however, her grandmother refused to leave her home in Germany and Edith's father wouldn't leave Oma Sarah behind. But as the situation in Germany deteriorates for the Jews, her family sends her off to live with an aunt and uncle in Chicago, telling her that she must do what she can to raise money for their passage, arrange for work for them, and find someone to sponsor them--a daunting task for a young girl who couldn't even speak English.

When Edith arrives in Chicago, her uncle tries to be kind to her, but it is clear that her aunt and teenaged cousin see her as a burden, and (almost in Cinderella-mode), as someone to wax the floor and carry the groceries from the store. School's not easy either; Edith is put in first grade, where she can't even fit into the tiny desks. The kids at school mockingly call her "Goldilocks."

As she improves her English by reading the newspaper, Edith becomes a fan of the comics and the sports section, and soon shares her uncle's love of baseball, particularly admiring Jewish baseball superstar Hank Greenberg. She and her uncle begin a German Immigration Fund jar, adding her small earnings from delivering water. But when she and her uncle see the newsreels of Kristallnacht, her uncle sponsors a raffle to raise money to get her family out of Germany. Finally, a letter arrives from her mother, addressed to her uncle--her father has been sent to a labor camp. Her mother has desperately written to relatives all over the world--"but so far, nothing." When the U.S. enters the war, Edith has to register as an enemy alien, but what will happen to her beloved Mutti and Vati (mother and father) and to the servicemen stationed overseas, whose families mark their absence with flags with blue and gold stars?

This novel is based on the true story of Chapman's own mother, Edith Westerfeld. Although the book will resonate particularly with Jewish readers, the story of immigration and what it is like to be a refugee in a strange land is a universal one for Americans, and one that will appeal to readers in middle school on up.

Click here to read a short excerpt from the book.

Is It Night Or Day? has been recognized by the American Library Association on its Best Fiction for Young Adults (BFYA) list and was also named on Booklist's Top 10 Historical Fiction list.

Edith was one of 1,200 children sponsored by an American rescue organization composed of Lutherans, Quakers, and Jews that took place from 1934 to 1945. Approximately a dozen children from one to sixteen years were brought in monthly through this program, a pitiful figure compared with what the United States could have done during that period.

Although young Edith was admitted through this program, the United States' record on admitting Jewish refugees during this period is shameful. While 1,200 children may sound like a lot to some of the novel's readers, this represents a tiny number compared to the number of refugees desperately seeking asylum in the United States and elsewhere. Although not mentioned in the author's Afterword, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt lobbied diligently for the Child Refugee Bill, which would have allowed 10,000 Jewish children a year for two years to enter the United States above the usual German quota, but Congress refused to pass the bill, despite the fact that families had already been found to take in the children. I would have liked to see the author mention in her afterword how little was actually done by the U.S. regarding the refugees, including perhaps a brief discussion of the Evian Conference in 1938 (the year Edith leaves Germany). During that nine-day meeting, convened by the United States to discuss the Jewish refugee question, delegates offered sympathy for the Jews, but only one country, the Dominican Republic, offered to grant large numbers of Jews sanctuary. In fact, the conference was ultimately a victory for Nazi propaganda; "Nobody wants them," claimed the German newspaper Völkischer Beobachter after the Evian Conference.