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Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear by Norma Fox Mazer

fernfolio — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:06:18 +0000

Grace “Sprig” Ewing ought to be having the best year of her life. She is ten, her favourite number, she has terrific parents, a wonderful older sister, and Bliss, her faithful and supportive best friend. But somehow nothing seems to quite right anymore in Sprig’s life.
Her father, an architectural engineer, has left on an extended business trip to Washington D.C. to discuss the building of schools in Afghanistan, and Sprig misses him terribly. She is also afraid he might be sent to Afghanistan to oversee the building of these schools. Her mother is a bank manager and works long hours. Though she makes a point of doing things just with Sprig, such as going with her to the Mother Daughter Reading Club, she has also had a little talk with her about learning to control her emotions and not crying at the drop of a hat.
Worse, since she turned twelve, Sprig’s sister Dakota has become impossible. She is constantly telling Sprig what to do and what not to do, and exerting her right, as the older sibling, to choose first, speak first, and make decisions on behalf of her younger sister. She has stopped playing with Sprig, preferring to spend time with Krystee, whose taunts and sarcasm leave Sprig feeling angry and powerless, and has discovered boys, especially Thomas Buckhorn, probably the cutest boy in the whole United States.
Fortunately, Sprig’s best friend, Bliss, shares her feelings about Krystee, and sympathises with her frustrations with Dakota. But Bliss also seems to have developed an interest in boys, namely Russell Ezra-Evans, the super-sized version who sits behind Sprig in class and who is constantly knocking into, hitting and kicking her. Yes, she knows he probably cannot help it, he’s so large that he has trouble controlling his body parts, but discovering that Bliss thinks Russell is “sort of adorable” leaves Sprig feeling like she’s been left behind.
Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear explores the thoughts and feelings of a gentle yet resilient young girl on the cusp of adolescence as she learns just how complicated and difficult and wonderful relationships with friends and family can be. Written by Norma Fox Mazer, this is a novel that will speak to younger sisters and girls coming to grips with adolescence.
FernFolio Editor

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

fernfolio — Sun, 24 May 2009 01:11:28 +0000

In the spring of 1939, a nine-year old girl named Liesel Meminger comes to live with Rosa and Hans Hubermann in their tiny house in Himmel Street, in Molching, a small town near Munich. Having recently survived the death of her younger brother, and separation from her sickly mother, Liesel is angry, defensive, and driven by nightmares. But she recognizes a certain caring and acceptance in her combative and foul-mouthed foster mother, and falls in love with the gentle Hans, who sits up with her every night when the dreams of her brother’s death visit her.
With Hans, Liesel learns to read, starting with her first book, The Gravedigger’s Handbook, which she has taken from the gravedigger’s apprentice who dug her brother’s grave. Though Hans, a housepainter by trade, is not a very good reader himself, he recognizes Liesel’s determination to learn, and agrees to help. Together, they read each night, after Liesel awakens from the nightmares, slowly memorizing the letters of the alphabet, then making their stumbling way through the first chapters of the handbook.
At school, Liesel finds herself in the infant class, ridiculed by the other students for her apparent stupidity, since she has never attended school before. But she makes friends with Rudy Steiner, who also lives in Himmel Street, and they are soon inseparable, playing soccer in the road with the other children, delivering laundry to Rosa’s wealthy customers, stealing fruit and vegetables from outlying farms, avoiding the nasty Frau Diller, owner of the corner store, who idolizes the Fûhrer, and commiserating with each other about their experiences in Hitler’s youth movements.
At first, the war does not encroach too far into Molching and Himmel Street, but then the Hubermann’s son is set to the Russian Front, Rosa begins to lose her customers, and rationing becomes restrictive. Then one day a stranger approaches Hans, and reminds him of an old and dear friend, a Jewish friend, one who taught him how to play the accordion and saved his life during World War I. This old friend’s son, Max Vandenburg, twenty-two, needs a place to hide, and Hans agrees to have the young man come to them in Himmel Street.
So it is that Max moves into the cellar, where he lives in a small space under the stairs during the day, only creeping upstairs to sit by the fire after dark, when the curtains can be closed against curious eyes. Sworn by her papa, Hans, to secrecy, Liesel learns to live two lives, one in the street with Rudy and the other children of Himmel Street, and a second with Max, in the cellar and front room of the Hubermann house. The young girl grows to love Max, a slightly-built young man with a surprisingly pugnacious past, who participates in fist fights each night with the Fûhrer, and cuts out the pages of a copy of Mein Kampf, then paints them white so that he can use the pages to tell his own story, in a book he entitles The Word Shaker.
Narrated by Death, who provides a perspective on the Nazi years that is both poignant and searing, The Book Thief is the story of a handful of ordinary people caught up in madness who manage, despite the odds, to remains true to what is important. Written for young adults, it is a novel that will appeal to students and adults alike.
FernFolio Editor

The Way Lies North by Jean Rae Baxter

fernfolio — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:58:54 +0000

Escalating hostilities between Tories, loyal to the British Crown, and Whigs, who demand independence for Britain’s Thirteen American Colonies, have exacted a heavy price on fifteen-year old Charlotte Hooper. Her three older brothers have all ‘accepted the King’s shilling,’ and two have been killed in fighting. The third is missing and feared dead. She has had to shoulder a large part of the chores on her family’s farm in New York’s Mohawk Valley, helping her father in the fields and with their livestock. She has not seen her sweetheart, Nick Schyler, for five months, ever since they quarrelled about politics. Though Nick has sworn that he will always love her, their prolonged separation sets Charlotte to wondering if he has forgotten her.
When stories reach the Hooper family that Tory friends and neighbours are being attacked, robbed of their possessions, and turned out of their homes or, worse, burned to death in them, Charlotte’s father announces that it is time for them to leave. After burying the family papers and their silver tea service, Charlotte and her parents set out on the long walk to Lake Oneida where Charlotte’s father has arranged an old Mohawk friend to meet them and take them by canoe Fort Haldimand, the British encampment at Carleton Island, in the St. Lawrence river near the mouth of Lake Ontario. The journey is long and dangerous. Forced to travel by night, since roving gangs of thugs who call themselves the Sons of Liberty regularly assault and kill fleeing Loyalists, the Hooper family struggle through bad weather, accidents, and a casual attack to reach the shores of Lake Oneida by the agreed-upon date. Along the way, they are joined by other refugees, often travelling with babes in arms and nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
Charlotte’s experiences, both on the journey to Carleton Island with her fellow refugees and the Mohawk warriors, and then living in a cold and crowded tent encampment at Fort Haldimand, confirm her strength of character, but she watches with growing concern as her mother’s health weakens and her father grows old. And she thinks about and longs for news of her sweetheart, Nick.
The Way Lies North is an historical adventure set against the backdrop of the American Revolutionary War. The main character, Charlotte, is a young woman tested by war and adversity, but whose indominable spirit is never broken.
Fern Folio Editor

Secrets in the Fire by Henning Mankell

fernfolio — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:12:48 +0000

When her small village in Mozambique is attacked by bandits and her father is killed, Sofia Alface, her sister, Maria, brother, Alfredo, and mother, Lydia, flee, walking for days in search of somewhere safe. They finally find and are welcomed into a second village, where Mother Lydia builds a hut and joins the village women in the fields, aided by Maria and Sofia. Though still grief-stricken following the death of her father and the destruction of their village, Sofia and her family begin to make a new home among their new neighbours.
Encouraged to attend the school offered free of charge by a local Catholic mission, Sofia and Maria begin to spend a few hours each afternoon in the primary class where, surrounded by over ninety children, most of whom are far younger than they are, the girls learn to read and do sums. Sofia makes friends with the local tailor, an elderly man named Totio, who agrees to help her make a dress for her sister just as soon as she can find appropriate fabric. Knowing she will never be able to afford to purchase material, Sofia succumbs to temptation and steals one white sheet from the clothesline of Father José-Maria, the mission priest. Under Totio’s careful instruction, Sofia learns to sew and makes a beautiful dress for Maria, one that delights her sister, but Sofia is consumed by guilt at the thought of her theft.
Father José-Maria, a Brazilian who has come to Mozambique to do God’s work, never notices the missing sheet. He is, instead, preoccupied by the hidden and deadly danger that faces the villagers, and particularly their children, each time they step from their huts. Land mines lie buried just below the surface of the ground all around the outskirts of the village, and Father José-Maria is careful to warn each and every villager that they must never step from the paths. Mother Lydia lectures Maria about the danger, and Maria lectures Sofia, who, in turn, lectures young Alfredo, but children are children, and one day, as they return from the fields, Sofia decides to run. Since it is the rainy season, and the ground is wet, Sofia slips off the path and slides into the underbrush.
The explosion gravely injures both young girls. Maria, dies while Sofia holds her hand, and Sofia is left behind to cope with her sister’s absence and to endure the terrible and lasting effects of her injuries. Unable to safe her legs, the hospital staff amputates first the right leg and, four days later, the left leg. What follows are months of theory, as Sofia lives, initially, at the hospital and later, at a home for elderly people, while she is measured for prostheses.
and is taught to walk again. Though very lonely because Mother Lydia cannot afford to visit often, the young girl makes friends among the women who sell food and goods on the street outside the hospital, and with the doctor in charge of her care. The kind-hearted Dr. Raul buys Sofia oranges, and visits and encourages her whenever his schedule permits. It is Dr. Raul who offers to drive her home to her village when she is finally well enough to go.
Home again after several months, Sofia discovers that much has changed and realizes she cannot remain in her mother’s hut. Crippled by her injuries, she has become a liability to her family, and must find the means to make her own way in the world. Rescued by Dr. Raul, Sofia learns that, despite her disabilities, she possesses a strength of character that will help her overcome every obstacle.
Secrets in the Fire is the story of a young girl’s courage and indomitable spirit. It also tells a tale about the destructive power of land mines. Winner of the 2002 International Kankei Children’s Publishing Culture Award, Henning Mankell’s book is a worthy addition to a growing library of titles about the effects of war upon children.
FernFolio Editor

Chanda’s Wars by Allan Stratton

fernfolio — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:55:38 +0000

After her mother’s death from AIDS, sixteen year-old Chanda Kabelo struggles to bring up her six year-old sister, Iris, and her five year-old brother, Solly. Though her former high school teacher, Mr. Selalame, has helped her get a supply teaching job at the local elementary school, her neighbours, the gossipy and overly intrusive yet well-meaning, Mrs. Tafa, and the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Lesoles, keep a close eye on Chanda and her siblings, and her best friend, Esther, is steadfastly supportive, Chanda is exhausted and overwhelmed by the worry and responsibility of looking after her family.
Her recurring nightmares about her mother, Iris and Solly, Tiro, her mother’s village, and rivers of blood so trouble Chanda, that she talks to Mr. Selalame, Esther and Mrs. Tafa about them. Their reasons differ, but all of her friends tell Chanda that she must travel with her brother and sister to Tiro and mend the family rift that occurred when her mother fled from an arranged marriage to Tuelo Malunga, a man whom she knew was physically abusive, and married their father instead. So Chanda, Iris and Solly make the long bus trip north from their home in Bonang to the village of Tiro where they are warmly welcomed by their grandparents, Auntie Lizbet, and their two uncles and families.
At first, Chanda enjoys her holiday from worry and responsibility, getting to know and like her mother’s family and watching with pleasure as Iris and Solly make friends among the village children and bask in the attention of so many adults. She is intrigued by Nelson, the seventeen year-old son of her grandparents’ neighbours, but worries when she starts to see signs that both his father and older brothers are physically violent toward women and children. When it abruptly becomes clear that her family expects her to marry Nelson, and that he is the son of the man her mother fled from twenty years earlier, Chanda refuses to do as her mother’s family expects, and brings shame on them when she accuses Nelson’s brothers of beating up their wives.
Determined to return to their home in Bonang as soon as possible, Chanda packs up her siblings and heads to the bus station, only to find that the highways have been closed because Mandiki, a rebel leader from Ngala, to the north, has slipped across the border with a small band of men and is striking small posts and villages, stealing food, weapons and drugs, and torturing and killing any who happen to stand in his way. But more frightening still, Mandiki is looking for young children to kidnap and recruit into his rebel army.
When Iris and Solly are stolen by the rebels, along with Pako, Nelson’s little brother, Chanda and Nelson form an uneasy truce and join forces to track the children and their captors north in a desperate bid to free them.
A sequel to Chanda’s Secrets, Chanda’s Wars is a wonderful story about a young African girl’s struggle to care for her young siblings while clinging to her own dream of further education in the midst of the AIDS epidemic and against a backdrop of war and its destructive forces. Allan Stratton’s writing is sure, his deft descriptions and insights into human nature bring Chanda’s Wars leaping off the page and into the hearts of his readers. Not to be missed!
FernFolio Editor

Shattered by Eric Walters

fernfolio — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:38:50 +0000

Fifteen year-old Ian needs 40 hours of community service if he wants to pass Grade 10 Civics. Since he’s left it so long, he ends up in one of the most demanding volunteer placements available, serving food to homeless men at The Club, a soup kitchen on the wrong side of town. Though Ian makes it clear to him that he’s only there for the hours, Mac, the tough, straight-talking guy who runs The Club, takes a shine to the teen. Mac, a former alcoholic, knows firsthand how hard life is on the streets, and, by watching how he interacts with The Club’s clients, Ian learns a lot about homelessness and the homeless. For this privileged kid from the suburbs, the grim realities of mental illness and alcoholism, and the dangers and isolation and invisibility of life on the street are both a shock and a revelation.
When Ian is rescued from a violent mugging by Sarge, a former soldier, who is now living with other homeless men in a small camp of tents hidden away in the park, he wonders how a man who is so clearly educated, self-disciplined and rational, could end up on the streets. Assigned by his Civics teacher to interview someone from the Armed Forces, Ian seeks out the former soldier and learns about his twenty-four year career in the military, and the many UN peacekeeping missions in which he participated. But, when Sarge mentions Rwanda and Ian admits to knowing nothing about this place, Sarge clams up, obviously distressed.
So begins Ian’s education about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which over 800,000 Tutsis were killed while UN Peacekeepers stood by, unable to stop the violence. Over the course of several weeks, Ian speaks to Sarge about the terrible things he observed in Rwanda, the killings and the mutilations, about the UN’s failure to react to Peacekeepers’ warnings of approaching slaughter, of the man’s anguish and rage, and of the nightmares that won’t leave him. The teen learns that people from other parts of the world have also been witness to atrocities, including his own housekeeper, who lives with the memories of Guatemala’s Disappeared.
His experiences, both at The Club and with Sarge, change Ian. He finds himself going to the soup kitchen, long after his 40 hours are done, hooked on the need to help, and, after a lot of soul searching, decides to tackle Sarge about his drinking, and to do everything he can to aid the former soldier in facing his nightmares and finding the courage to live again.
Shattered is a fine story about two very difficult topics, homelessness and the Rwanda genocide. It moved me to tears. Well worth the read!
FernFolio Editor

Year of No Rain by Alice Mead

fernfolio — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:02:40 +0000

Twelve year-old Stephen Majok lives with his sixteen year-old sister, Naomi, and their mother in a small village in southern Sudan. Though civil war rages around them, the villagers are more preoccupied with looking for the first clouds that will herald the rainy season, desperately needed after three years of drought. The village’s herd of cattle, upon which the Dinka people rely. has shrunk to a few thin animals, and their crops of sorgham and corn struggle in rain-parched soil. Yet Stephen’s family, and the rest of the village, remain alert ot the sound of planes overhead which might signal another of the periodic raids upon the village by government troops and rebels alike. They have learned to hide away food and animals, or lose all they have to the soldiers. They have also learned to hide away their sons and daughters, for both sides in the war forceably recruit boys as soldiers and kidnap girls to sell as servants, or worse.
Stephen and his friends Wol and Deng are the only boys who remain in the village, since the others have been taken as soldiers or fled to refugee camps beyond Sudan’s borders. They are responsible for guarding the village’s cattle as it grazes each day. When three cows push through a break in the herd’s enclosure and one is found dead, attacked by a lion, the boys fear the reaction of the cow’s owner, Peter Garang, the richest man in the village, who wants to make Stephen’s sister, Naomi, his third wife. Stephen, in particular is afraid that the man will use the dead cow to force his mother to agree to the marriage. Naomi and Stephen are determined that she will not marry Peter, a man who is old enough to be her grandfather, but Stephen is worried that the man will find ways to get back at his family.
As the boys tend the cattle, one morning, Wol’s mother comes running with news that soldiers are approaching the village. The three boys take food and a goat skin full of water, and run for the trees. When they return, hours later, they find the village deserted except for the bodies of the dead. Uncertain of the fates of the missing, Stephen, Wol and Deng start walking in search of help. Should they go west to the Central African Republic, southeast to Kenya, or east to Ethiopia, for, according to other refugees they meet, nowhere is safe.
Year of No Rain tells the perilous story of three Sudanese boys caught between drought and war. Alice Mead’s book makes the terrible realities of their young lives real in the mind of her readers. Well worth reading!
FernFolio Editor

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

fernfolio — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:00:54 +0000

Marjane Satrapi is a young girl when revolution comes to Iran in the late 1970s. Living with her parents in Tehran where she attends a private school and enjoys all the normal activities of children, she listens as her parents, both socialist intellectuals with communist leanings, discuss 2500 of tyranny and submission beginning with the Persian emperors and ending with the Shah, puppet to British and the Americans. She tries to reconcile her parents’ secularism with her own religious beliefs, having long talks with God, and struggles with the contradictions between her parents’ socialist values and their privileged life style.
When the demonstrations against the Shah begin, Marjane’s parents are actively involved, until the soldiers fire on the protesters and many are killed. The Shah’s departure into exile is greeted by celebration, and, Marjane observes that, for a time, there seems to be real hope of a freer and more just society. Friends of her parents who have long languished in prison as guests of the Shah, are freed and others return home from exile. But the new republic adopts fundamentalist Islamic values and begins to impose those values on the general public. Soon new waves of Marjane’s friends and family are going into exile, and soon the arrests of socialists and communists and others begin. Some of her parents’ friends imprisoned under the Shah are executed by the Islamic Republic.
At the birth of Islamic Revolution, in 1979, Marjane is ten year old. Her co-educational French school, labelled capitalist and decadent, is closed, and she and all Iranians girls and women are obliged to wear the veil and conform to a strict dress code in public or be accused of immorality. Simple entertainments such as playing cards, listening to music and having dances are forbidden, and yet continue behind locked doors and at the risk of imprisonment and worse.
Then Saddam Hussein’s Iraq declares war on Iran, and the Satrapis are plunged into a world of F-14s, bombing raids, food shortages, and scud missiles. Marjane learns of the use of religious fervour and of promises of paradise to those who die a martyr’s death to lure young boys into uniform, and watches as more of her young friends leave the country to escape conscription and others are slaughtered in the mine fields.
Educated by her parents to read broadly and think rationally, and taught by their example to speak her mind and stand up for her beliefs, Marjane fights oppression at every turn. She attends illegal parties, listens to banned music and reads banned books. She bucks the clothing code, and argues with her teachers. After she is expelled from one school for questioning her teacher’s actions, and narrowly avoids arrest by the Women’s Branch of the Guardians of the Revolution, Marjane’s parents become afraid for their daughter and reluctantly conclude that she will not be safe if she remains in Iran.
Persepolis is the first graphic novel I have read in which the text and the images are perfectly complementary and mutually enhancing. Satrapi deftly distils the complex and turbulent years of Iran from the late seventies to mid eighties into black and white illustrations and written words that are both stark and beautiful. Her Marjane is a warm, funny and insightful child who grows from the innocence of young childhood to the passion of adolescence. This book lives up to all of its media hype. Wonderful!
FernFolio Editor

A Stone in My Hand by Cathryn Clinton

fernfolio — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:03:21 +0000

Living with her family in Gaza City, eleven year-old Malaak knows the family stories about their lives in Jerusalem and in Palestine before 1948. Loss of their lands following the creation of the state of Israel and the presence of ever more numerous Jewish settlers in Gaza leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of every Palestinian. However Malaak’s parents are gentle people whose faith in God helps them to transcend the water shortages and power cuts and curfews and Israeli soldiers in the streets that have become a regular part of life since the intifada started.
But, with her father’s death in a bomb explosion at a border check point, Malaak’s world begins to fall apart. She retreats to the roof of her family’s house and into herself, unable to speak to anyone but the bird she half tames with gifts of seeds. From her vantage point on the roof, Malaak listens to her mother and older sister, Hend, working in the house, below, and watches the comings and goings of her twelve year-old brother Hamid.
Though he has always been quick to spout the rhetoric of the rash and brave young shabab, his father’s death sets Hamid on the path to militant, and violent, opposition to Israeli rule. Malaak, who has always shared a close relationship with her brother, becomes his confident as he becomes an active participant in the barricades and demonstration, and is increasingly absent from home. Terrified that he will come to harm, Malaak takes to following Hamid when he goes out, hoping that she will be able to prevent the disaster that creeps inevitably nearer.
A Stone in My Hand explores the real and difficult issues of Palestinian refugees, and the growing sense of rage that accompanies hopelessness. Told through the eyes of Malaak, this book is evocative and simply told, yet complex and deeply moving. A must read for students from Grade 7, this book is sheer poetry.
FernFolio Editor

Rise of the Golden Cobra by Henry T. Aubin

fernfolio — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:20:12 +0000

When traitors to the Two Lands kill his master, the Kushite spy Setka, and track him into the desert, fourteen year-old Nebi knows he must overcome the pain of his injuries, and get to Thebes. Charged by Setka to reveal to the Princess Amonirdis what they have learned about a plot by many Egyptian nobles to form an alliance with Assyria, seize North and South Egypt, and then march on Kush, Nebi survives a gruelling trek through the desert, and is granted what turns out to be an almost disastrous audience with the Princess. As soon as he has recovered enough from his injuries to travel, Nebi is sent south by ship to Napati, capital of the Kushite Kingdom, and home to King Piankhy, ruler of Kush and the Two Lands.
News of the plot to overthrow Kushite control of North and South Egypt puts King Piankhy’s armies on a war footing. Soon tens of thousands of archers, javelineers, and chariots are marching north to meet the rebel forces. Fluent in Mesh, the language of North Egypt, and trained as a scribe, Nebi accompanies the Kushite army as an assistant to young Prince Shebitku, nephew to the King, and watches and listens as the great military leaders of Kush plan a campaign that is as brilliant as it is, at times, foolhardy.
Sheb, a young prince eager for fame and glory, and intent upon proving himself to King Piankhy as a strong contender for heir to the throne, and Nebi, a farmer turned scribe turned spy, rapidly form a kind of friendship, but one that is tried by Sheb’s less than scrupulous approach to maat, honour. Yet the two young men are drawn together by their love of horses and their bravery in the face of danger. When the Kushite forces reach the besieged city of Hensu, a huge rebel army awaits them, and Nebi and Sheb are relegated to the sidelines as stretcher-bearers and watch as one of the greatest military campaigns in Egyptian history begins to unfold.
Rise of the Golden Cobra is a terrific adventure story, one that is made all the more gripping by the insights into ancient military warfare and strategy. This book is sure to appeal to lovers of historical fiction!
FernFolio Editor