It's a Small World

I have been waiting for this book to come out in English since 2012 when it won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Finally, finally, I received the English translation, made possible because of the prize.

Al Sanousi, Saud. The Bamboo Stalk. Trans by Jonathan Wright. Doha: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2015.
ISBN 9789927101779

Having lived in Kuwait for 8 years, I was intensely curious to see how a Kuwaiti man would tell the story of a boy whose father was Kuwaiti and whose mother, although the two were legally married, was still the result of the father's union with the family's Filipina maid.

As it turns out, Al Sanousi's tale is realistic, believable, and as heart-breaking as I thought it would be. Afraid of the shame the half-blood child will bring to the family name, the father is forced by his domineering mother to send the mother and son packing back to the islands, shortly before he goes missing in the 1990 invasion.

Jose grows up, fatherless in his motherland, never quite feeling complete, always dreaming of the day his father will make good on his promise to raise him as his legitimate Kuwaiti heir.

When that time arrives, Jose becomes Isa Al Tarouf, and is literally caught in the net of the Tarouf family reputation. What ensues is a Juvenalian satire of the state of class and race relations in Kuwait. Al Sanousi creates a microcosm of the microcosm that is Kuwait--with the bad, as well as so much that is good.

It is a first novel, so perhaps some of its elements are a bit contrived. For example, the attempt to connect the colonization of the Philippines to the lack of father figures, is a bit of a stretch, but it does ultimately work for the "islands" part of the story as it resolves. The main motif, the titular "bamboo stalk" is made a bit too obvious in places.

However, the historical backdrop and discussion of Bidoon and Kuwaiti politics from 2006-2008 was dead-on accurate, as I was teaching during those years and remember those elections quite well.

Was I surprised at the outcome of the novel? No. No, I wasn't.

Was I disappointed? Yes, I was.

Oh, Kuwait. You are a small world, indeed, as the book so clearly reminds us. I wish the novel would become required reading for all students in Kuwait; however, I fear the opposite may be more likely to happen. Tongues wag. Reputation is more important than money.

It's Not Always So Bright

Violet has been shrinking since, well, a tragedy occurred in her life about a year prior to the introduction of this story. Now, she is a confused and lonely HS Senior, drifting from clique to family, contemplating suicide. Enter Finch.

Niven, Jennifer. All the Bright Places. London: Penguin, 2015. 

The description of the book as "The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park" is completely misleading. The protagonist of this story is Violet, who has been shrinking since, well, a tragedy occurred in her life about a year prior to the introduction of this story. Now, Violet is a confused and lonely HS Senior, drifting from clique to family, contemplating suicide. Enter Finch who finds her while he's contemplating the same thing on the ledge of the school bell tower. Finch is the handsome antagonist who quite literally steals the plot. He has bipolar disorder--all the joys and euphoria associated with it, but also the despair and hollowness it leaves in its wake, not to mention the anxiety and neuropathy in between. 

The book has nothing to do with star-crossed lovers, nothing to do with fate. It's about the roller-coaster ride that is bipolar. I'm on the fence about recommending it because I believe teens who experience suicidal thoughts should read more about the effects on the victims left behind. Focusing on the euphoria of highs or the eccentricities of the lows of bipolar tends to depersonalize, stereotype or even glorify the disorder in a way that trivializes the disease as a moral lesson from which shrinking Violets must learn.

Heroines in Hejabs: THE GREEN BICYCLE by Haifaa Al Mansour

When you have a goal, you go for it.  Wadjda wants a bicycle. This wouldn't be that big a deal, except for the fact that she's a girl. And she lives in present-day Saudi Arabia.  Will she be able to make her dream come true?

The Green Bicycle by Haifaa Al Mansour

Wow! The Green Bicycle was published in September 2015, after the very successful 2012 feature film Wadjda garnered world-wide respect for Haifaa Al Mansour, the first female director to come from Saudi Arabia.  Sometimes I make the mistake of setting my expectations for a long-awaited book too high, but this book did not disappoint me.  In fact, Al Mansour captures every facet of a middle-class, working woman’s world in Saudi (reading this brought me right back to my eight years in Kuwait).  The tendency for Westerners to think of all Saudis as oil rich snobs or overflowing with new money has got to be stopped.  Increasing exposure to Western culture often sends middle-class Muslim girls mixed messages that a coming of age story is perfectly suited to deal with.  Wadjda’s struggles to remain independent are innocent, but also become more weighty as they begin to affect those around her—her family, her friends, her classmates, and mostly, her own sense of being.  The theme of Wadjda’s struggle to find herself is very much echoed in the subplot of her mother’s struggle to be a woman of independent means in a patriarchal society where both men and women suffer because of cultural and moral restrictions placed upon them.  For example, Wadjda’s mother is forced to teach at a school two hours from home because teaching in an all-girls school is one of the only acceptable professions for Saudi women and local positions are flooded. So she and 8 other completely-covered female teachers must endure a two-hour drive to and fro on a crazy-dangerous desert highway, in a van with no A/C, driven by a surly Pakistani man who is her social inferior due to his illegal immigration status but who  feels he can berate her because she is a woman. There is also the tense relationship between Wadjda’s mother and father.  What happens when a Saudi woman cannot bear a son?

What superstitions would keep a girl from riding a bicycle in the first place?  Everything about this book was so real—the streets, the empty lots, the dust, the political elections. The longing of Wadjda’s mother to break social norms, but her reluctance to do so because of social tradition. The principal of the school, Ms Hussa, with her designer clothes, high heels and sense of self-importance, the attitudes of the girls in Wadjda’s school.  Seriously, I felt like I was right back in the Gulf. 

I don’t think, as some critics have said, that Al Mansour seeks to cast Saudi in a bad light.  She is showing it with ethos and pathos. She completely honors Koran.  The plots are beautifully woven, and shine brightest in the moment that Wadjda and her mother recite Koran which brings them together, “And of His Signs is that He creates for you mates out of yourselves, so that you may find tranquility in them; and He has put love and mercy between you.” This is beautiful, and Al Mansour turns a traditional male-female dynamic on its head by reinterpreting it as an unbreakable and triumphant bond between a mother and a daughter. 

Vital Stats:

Al Mansour, Haifaa. The Green Bicycle. London: Puffin, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-141-35668-6 

Read the book or watch the movie.  Either one would be a positive experience.

Movie trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3koigluYOH0

Gier, Kersten. Ruby Red. Trans. Anthea Bell. New York: Henry Holt, 2011.

I am being really honest here. One of my students recommended this series. It's a Young Adult series about a contemporary 16-year-old who time travels in London. I find the protagonist uninteresting, the plot slow, the romance boring and slow, and the period detail when time travel does occur is stereotypical and shallow. It's probably because I've read many, many books. I've read YA that is better written. I've also read actual literature from the time period to which the heroine travels back. I'd much rather students just read actual Austen or Dickens or Shakespeare. However, if a student finds this series interesting--I would not hesitate to recommend it to him or her. Perhaps if I were in Grade 6 or 7, I would have loved this series, and my interest in reading Austen, Dickens and Shakespeare would have increased because of it.

The author's page is here and contains links to the book trailer and various interviews that are useful.  I should mention this is the first of "The Ruby Red" trilogy, which also includes the titles "Emerald Green" and "Sapphire Blue."  I must admit, the covers are very beautiful.  

Livin' in a Powder Keg and Givin' Off Sparks

Ashley Hope Pérez

OUT OF DARKNESS

Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Lab, 2015.

ARC provided by Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner Publishing

Henry, Naomi's step-father, and twins Cari and Beto's real dad, in a fit of newly found religious zeal to "make things right with God" takes them from their grandparents in San Antonio to live in the oil boom town of New London, East Texas, in 1937. This means more opportunity for the twins who are in Grade 3, smart, and white-skinned. But at 18 years old, Naomi is very self-aware of her dark skin, her poverty, and her ethnicity. At home, she struggles to overcome her hidden fears that the ugly monster Henry she remembers from her childhood will soon return, especially since she is older and looks like her mother once had. As  she endures ostracism at school and the burden of taking care of her family, Naomi finds herself attracted to Wash, an African-American from the New Egypt community who has befriended the twins and becomes smitten with her. The tension of their forbidden relationship is set against the historical backdrop of the horrific New London School explosion of March 18, 1937.

The story arc of Pérez's characters is well-suited for the setting. The story is tense, violent, and explodes, leaving few survivors to relate the tragic events that actually occurred. Racial tension and the race for money, oil, and souls in Depression Era East Texas was a powder keg waiting for a match, and Pérez found the fuse in this realistic narrative.

I would advise for mature students only, ages 16+, as there is intense and graphic violence of both sexual and physical nature.

Out of This World: a Review of ORBITING JUPITER by Gary D. Schmidt

Schmidt, Gary D. ORBITING JUPITER. New York: Clarion Books. Advanced Review Copy provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers.

A farm family in rural Maine fosters Joseph, a 14-year-old whose life is a series of unfortunate events. It's a rough start for Joseph and his new family, too, but he soon opens up to them after a bonding moment with foster brother, Jack. Joseph explains the truth behind the stories and shares his determination to reunite with his daughter, Jupiter. Just when life begins to look up, bad things go down.

Schmidt smartly establishes setting and character through a first-person narrator. Use of classical allusion, in this case, the Nativity, gives the novel its literary chops. Then there are the humorous potshots at English teachers, the nods to great literature, the ins and outs of middle school life one expects from Schmidt. But, somehow, in ORBITING JUPITER, Schmidt has managed to accomplish with fewer words what he fails to do in many of his other books--here, he makes every scene plausible. There are no zany subplots or misdirected steps. The most appealing of his novels, ORBITING JUPITER will stand out as classic Schmidt--crisp, clear, compelling.

Schmidt, Gary D. ORBITING JUPITER. New York: Clarion Books. Advanced Review Copy provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers.

Publication Date: November 3, 2015. 

ISBN: 9780544462229

Ages: 12 and up

Grades: 7 and up

LIKE WATER ON STONE

Walrath, Dana. Like Water on Stone. New York: Delacorte, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-385-74397-6 

Shahen Donabedian wants more than anything to escape his sleepy little Anatolian village to go to New York City, just like his uncle before him. His twin sister, Sosi, does not feel the same, having just discovered the earliest stirrings of affection for Vahan Arkalian, the clock-maker's son. Together, Shahen and Sosi, are expected to help their parents with the family mill-work, grape harvests and care of their five-year-old sister, Miriam. When the unthinkable happens, and the children are forced to flee while their parents are brutally murdered, nothing matters but survival.

A very sensitive book detailing the horrors of the Armenian genocide for a brother and two sisters in 1914, as they escape to Aleppo with the help of an eagle. Walrath doesn't spare us the details-senseless murder, rape, rivers running with blood, death by starvation-but her choice of free verse somehow gives the reader a chance to come up for air once in a while. In addition, she pays attention to the little details of her Armenian heritage-the music, the food, the daily duties of mothers and daughters. She also explores daily interactions among Turkish Muslims, Kurds and Armenians in rural villages before nationalism crept across the Ottoman empire. Great understanding and depth of insight into the human condition is portrayed in this deceptively simple book.

Author's Website: danawalrath.com

Teaching Guide