The Firefly Letters

The Firefly Letters
by Margarita Engle

Fredrika Bremer was a Swedish suffragist from a wealthy family.  Instead of leading the aristocratic life she was born into, she took her money and traveled the world, never settling down.  In The Firefly Letters, she is in Cuba.  On the outside, it’s like Eden.  But then she sees first hand how this paradise is run on the backs of slaves, and wealthy women are kept trapped inside their homes.  Told in verse with alternating viewpoints, this is based on true events and correspondences from Bremer’s excursion.

This has been on my “to-read” list since January.  I’d forgotten why I wanted to read it in the first place.  But I’m so glad I finally picked it up.  The verse alternates between Fredrika (the Swedish lady), Elena (the young lady with whose family she stays), Cecilia (the slave who is a translator), and Beni (Cecilia’s husband).  Engle’s storytelling shows the different kinds of slavery that existed in the 1850′s.  There’s the poor kind – like Cecilia and Beni who were captured from Africa, and the rich kind – like Elena who is forced to stay indoors and learn sewing and wifey things.  While neither is a pleasant situation, thankfully Engle spends a lot more time and energy expounding on Cecilia’s plight.  Elena isn’t terribly developed, but she could be in another story.  Overall, I found this a fascinating glimpse into a piece of history of a country I know little about.

I’ve not read many Pura Belpré Medal winner or honor books (excellence in Latino literature), but if they’re anything like this one, I will be looking much more closely at those lists.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Wicked Girls

Wicked Girls
by Stephanie Hemphill

Wicked Girls is kind of like the movie Mean Girls, but ~300 years ago.  This group of girls has set themselves up as some of the most important people in Salem Village through manipulation.  For some undisclosed reason, they’ve decided to pretend they can see the Invisible World… which means they can “see” witches.  Focusing on three primary girls – Ann (12), Margaret (17), and Mercy (17), Wicked Girls is told in verse in their voices as 1692 passes in a blur of accusations and witch trials.

This was the kind of book that was hard for me to get into.  Hemphill uses some period language, which made it hard for me to understand at some points.  But what kept me going to the end of this book is that it is based on true events and real people.  The Salem Witch Trials are a severely dark period in American history.  Although this is a fictionalized account of some of the strongest accusers, the psychology is believable (in most cases), especially in Mercy’s character.  Definitely not my usual read, but not bad.

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Because I Am Furniture

Because I Am Furniture
by Thalia Chaltas

Anke has witnesses many terrible things every day, all because of her father.  She sees him disrespect and cheat on her mother, beat her brother, and the aftermath of repeated sexual assaults on her sister.  But he ignores her.  For whatever reason, she doesn’t attract any of his attention, positive or negative.  Anke doesn’t know how much longer her family can go on living like this.  Any family, even an effed up one like this, is better than no family, right?  Maybe not.  One place where she finds solace is in her high school volleyball team.  And she also finds out she has strength.  And a voice.  Perhaps it’s finally time for someone to speak up about the atrocities that happen at home instead of keeping them secret.

It may sound awful, but my thoughts toward Anke’s father is that this man hit the abuse home run: verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect.  And I don’t mean that to be funny.  It’s sick and sad, and there are people who live like this.  But then there are people like Anke who are willing to risk everything in the face of such evil to protect what she loves.  Between yesterday’s post and today’s, I am amazed at how the verse novel tends to evoke such horrid situations.  But the broken phrases I suppose reflect the broken thoughts in a battered heart.  I think I’m done with novels in verse for a little while.  I had some residual ones hanging out from a blog project this semester, but I think it’s time I get back into some prose.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Sold

Sold
by Patricia McCormick

Lakshmi is a poor, 13 year-old girl from the mountains of Nepal.  She lives there with her mother, her baby brother, and her drunk, gambling step-father.  When the monsoons wash away all of their crops and their hopes for the upcoming year, Lakshmi decides to go to the big city to work as a maid in a rich home.  Her step-father exchanges words and money with an elegant woman for whom Lakshmi thinks she is going to work.  But after a 4-day journey across the border and into a crowded, noisy, dusty city, she realizes something is amiss.  She has been sold into slavery in a brothel in Calcutta, run by a cruel fat woman.  She must now “work” to pay off her family’s debt in a hell that she never knew existed.

Wow.  This is a powerful, powerful story.  And the saddest part is that it’s based on true accounts.  Real children are sold by their impoverished families into these dreadful situations every day, both willingly and unknowingly.  I can’t even think of a good word for Lakshmi’s voice.  I was so drawn in by her.  The hope she tries to find in the smallest things; the love and the heartbreak; the utter disgust and desperation.  The range of emotions.  Wow.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com.

Brains for Lunch: A zombie novel in haiku?!

Brains for Lunch: A zombie novel in haiku?!
by K. A. Holt and Gahan Wilson

Middle school bites for everyone, whether you’re a zombie, a Lifer (not undead), or anything else.  Loeb, a Z, is nursing a crush on a Lifer.  But is there any possible way anything could work between them without her getting grossed out or him craving her brains?  Told completely in haiku and also illustrated, Brains for Lunch is certainly one of a kind.

I checked out this book because of the absurd combination of haikus and zombies.  I’ve always been a fan of haiku.  Zombie lit… not so much.  The best word I have to describe this book is “grotesque.”  The descriptions and illustrations of kids who are rotting and falling apart is just a bit too much for me.  However, it’s probably great if I were 11 and male.  Additionally, haiku does not seem to be the best way to convey a story.  Haikus play a big part in the story themselves, and Loeb points out that haikus are kind of how zombies talk anyway.  But the choppiness made it hard for me to follow the story and characters.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Walking on Glass

Walking on Glass
by Alma Fullerton

A boy has to keep a journal for his psychiatrist.  Why?  His mother tried to commit suicide, and he walked in on her and tried to stop it.  Now she’s in a coma.  His best friend is in a gang and he is scared.  He’s being pulled so many different directions and forced to make so many difficult decisions; one of them is whether or not to pull the plug on his mother.  Is it murder?  Is it forgivable?

I was entranced by Fullerton’s first novel, Walking on Glass. The poems of this verse novel are short, but full of every emotion the nameless character is feeling.  It’s haunting.  The cracked watermark on some of the pages continually remind you that you cannot be comfortable in this situation, even if something good is happening in a moment.  At any time, it all could crack and shatter again.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

Make Lemonade

Make Lemonade
by Virginia Euwer Wolff

LaVaughn has had one goal since the 5th grade – go to college, get out of here.  She knows she needs at least two things to get there: good grades and money.  So her freshman year, in order earn some money to save up for college, she answers a post on the school bulletin board for a babysitting job.  And she meets Jolly.  Jolly is a 17 year-0ld mother with two kids, Jeremy and Jilly.  LaVaughn does not want to end up like Jolly.  LaVaughn’s mother does not want her to end up like Jolly.  But there’s more to Jolly’s story than either of them give her credit for.  Like it or not, LaVaughn becomes part of Jolly’s little family, and something lights a fire under Jolly to think about a better life than she had for her own kids.

Make Lemonade intrigued me, as it is the first part of a trilogy written in verse.  Wolff’s got a strange kind of prose-verse.  The voices portrayed are very dynamic, and carry this book.  You see the changes in both girls by how they speak, how they are composed, as the story progresses.  I admit, this story takes me to a world I have no experience with.  I’ve never been in situations like these.  I wouldn’t want to be.  But this is a story about definitely not making judgments based on first impressions.  LaVaughn stays with Jolly (even after she can’t pay her) because she sees a potential in her that most people don’t.  She bothers to stick around and learn her story where most people write off her situation as some bad choices.  Some bad things that happen to some people are not their fault.  And in the children, there is such hope for the future and so much unconditional love.  We could all do with more of that in our lives.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

T4

T4
by Ann Clare LeZotte

Paula Becker looks the part.  Blond-haired, blue-eyed, and German.  But the Nazis don’t want her for their “master race.”  She is deaf.  She is Disabled.  And in order to save her life, her family sends her away to hide.  Her first home was with a former school teacher.  She taught Paula some official Sign Language.  But when it got too dangerous, she moves to a homeless shelter.  For four years, she stays hidden, and even unexpectedly makes friends.  When she finally makes her way home when the war is over, it’s almost like spring again; a spring they wonder why they get to enjoy when so many others like her won’t.

The voice of suffering is far-reaching.  It’s easy to forget or not think about how many people were affected – were killed – for a cause.  Ann Clare LeZotte, the poet who composed this novel, is deaf.  The voice she gives to her character is that of an old woman, remembering the darkest parts of her childhood where even her memories want to forget themselves.  The verses are short and poignant.  The message is hopeful.  Let there never, ever be another war like that one.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

The Taking of Room 114

The Taking of Room 114: A Hostage Drama in Poems
by Mel Glenn

With just a few days left til graduation, the senior class of Tower High School is not really thinking about classes.  They’re thinking about the summer, they’re thinking about jobs, they’re thinking about girls/boys, they’re thinking about the future.  They’re not really thinking about history.  But on the morning of June 16th, they are more attentive and quiet in Mr. Wiedermeyer’s history class than ever.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been reading a lot of novels in verse.  It’s for a school thing, and I’m enjoying them.  I hope you’ve noted how diverse they can be.  In this novel, a history teacher snaps and takes his senior class hostage.  Glenn composes 5 poems for each student in the class: one for each year of high school and one for that fateful morning.  We see snippets of what’s going on inside the teacher’s mind, as well as the other teachers, spectators, parents, and police.  Some of these poems are absolutely brilliant.  The juxtaposition he uses presents some stark contrasts about the way students, teachers, and parents all perceive education.  He doesn’t take a side–he just shows a picture of it.  One unfortunate thing about this book, however, is that it only gives you snapshots of too many characters without letting you connect deeply with any of them.  If you only had a short poem written about each year of your high school experience, would that be enough to tell who you are?  Not me, certainly.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com

God Went to Beauty School

God Went to Beauty School
by Cynthia Rylant

Chocolate comforts with a friend: tall no whip black and white mocha.

If God came to visit the earth, what would He do while He was here?  Would He learn how to do a perm?  Would He get a dog?  Would He be a good storyteller?  Would He watch TV?  What’s His favorite animal?  Would He make friends?  In this collection, Rylant explores the personality of God in ways that only the honest verses of poetry can express.

I would love to do an exegesis on every one of the poems in this short collection.  You can read the entire thing in 20 minutes, and I suggest you do it.  While not overtly adhering to any particular faith or scripture in her descriptions and depictions of God, I think that she shows truths about Him that only artists know how to do.  She takes a look at the belief that we are created in God’s image in a whole new light–it shows how God is like us. We like to hang out with friends, make dinner, take care of pets, stand up for something we believe in because God likes to do it. In this character study of God, being made in His image is not a standard to live up to; it shows where we get our humanity from.

I cannot be impartial in this review.  I believe in God, the God of the Old and New Testaments and in His Son, Jesus.  I believe in the God that is pure love above all else.  Because of that, it has colored the way I read Rylant’s book.  And whether or not you agree with me on these things or not, I challenge you to read this book and not be moved by His divine heart as it is written by Rylant… or as you read it through whatever lens you have.

Image taken from http://www.amazon.com