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“The Passion of Dolssa” (Viking 2016) by Julie Berry is certainly an oddity in the world of young adult literature—and what a terrific oddity.

The subject matter will not be found in many U.S. high school curriculums. Set in 13^th century Provence or Provensa, as it was called at the time, the story centers around 18 year old Dolssa, a Catholic mystic, born in the waning years of the crusades to a prosperous wine merchant. This was also the dawn of the Inquisitions that are best know for the later Spanish Inquisition of the 15^th century.

Just as important as Dolssa (or more so) is 17 year old Botille the aspiring matchmaker, along with her two sisters, beautiful older Plazensa who dabbles in prostitution, and Sazia, younger, who tells fortunes. When their parents died some years back, they’d become petty thieves, but since, had moved to the seaside village of Baja and opened a successful tavern.

The early chapters are Dolssa’s testimony as recorded by Father Lucien of the Cloistered Fathers in Tolosa (Toulouse). She speaks of her beloved Jhesus who she claims visits her and directs her actions—which many in Tolosa see as miracles of healing. However, Father Lucien condemns Dolssa as a heretic. When she will not renounce her “beloved” she is sentenced to burn at the stake.

Where as Dolssa’s sympathetic mother is not as fortunate as her daughter, Dolssa escapes her execution. She is wandering the countryside close to death, when Botille, while traveling with her sister Sazia and neighbor men on a village errand, saves her. Sazia predicts that Dolssa will bring Botille only pain. But spunky clever Botille cannot turn the suffering young woman away. They bring her to Baja and begin nursing her back to health.

Father Lucien and the Knight of Tolosa are searching for Dolssa under the orders of the archbishop who must rid the Catholic world of the devil—that is—“heretics” such as Dolssa. We learn that the Crusade, that recently swept through the area of what is now southern France, was a bloody purge and the Inquisition is the next step of the church’s attempted control of its faithful. The reader sees how an oppressive force works one neighbor against another. Betray a friend to save one’s own family.

The cast of nuanced characters is listed in the back, as is a copious author note that further describes this little known moment of history, which is reminiscent of the Salem witch hunts, as well as a precursor to how the Nazi regime gained control of the German population.

This is every bit an adult book as well as a young adult read. It’s exquisite.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell’s young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases 1/31/17. You’re invited to the Book Lunch Party 2/16/17 at 5:00 pm at the Esquire. talesforallages.com

U.S. Congressman John Lewis from Georgia was having a meeting with his 2008 re-election committee, when staff member, Andrew Aydin, mentioned he was on his way to a comic book convention. When other committee members teased Aydin, Lewis remembered that in 1958, at 18, he’d read the comic “The Montgomery Story,” about Martin Luther King Jr. and his nonviolent movement. This had inspired John Lewis to nonviolent action. He used the comic as the model to organize his first sit-ins.

 

Not terribly long after that 2008 meeting, Aydin convinced Congressman Lewis to write the “March” trilogy. Book One tells of Lewis’s origins as a sharecropper’s son from Georgia and the lunch counter sit-ins of 1959 and 1960. (I reviewed it in January of 2014). Book Two covers the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders.

 

“March: Book Three” (Top Shelf Production 2016) by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, and illustrated by Nate Powell is the final volume of the graphic novel trilogy. And the National Book Award Winner for Young Readers of 2016. It spotlights the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL; Freedom Summer, the 1964 Democratic National Convention, as well as the Selma to Montgomery marches. Everyone should read this nonfiction trilogy of graphic novels.

 

As the president of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a board member of Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), young John Lewis was a pivotal figure in the Civil Rights Movement of the early sixties. He illuminates the tensions and factions within the movement. We’re introduced to Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, and of course Martin Luther King Jr. and many others. We see these historic figures as three dimensional, emotional beings in both the text and the wonderfully-wrought black and white wash drawings.

 

We see Fannie Lou Hamer, the woman from Mississippi, who co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, in her unsuccessful attempt to be seated as a black Mississippi delegate for the presidential election of 1964. To that purpose she is depicted in a televised appearance addressing the Democratic National Convention’s Credentials Committee, which presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson interrupts with his own press conference in order to distract viewers and voters from the rift in the party. The book is not altogether clear on that, but like any nonfiction book, the reader can look up information to clarify and find out more.

 

Getting books like this one into the hands of young adults might help keep us from backsliding into a darker more contentious history in the upcoming years. Let’s not allow history to repeat itself.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell’s young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases 1/31/17. You’re invited to the Book Lunch Party 2/16/17 at 5:00 pm at the Esquire. talesforallages.com

His name is Castle Crenshaw, but he calls himself Ghost. He’s been running ever since his drunk father came after him and his mother with a gun, aiming to kill, in the book, “Ghost” (Atheneum 2016), by Jason Reynolds. So now Ghost lives with his mom, his dad’s in jail, and Ghost is running from himself, getting into trouble at school until his crazy fast running takes him through the track field where Coach spots him.

 

Coach has a passion for helping troubled kids who have track talent. He was an Olympic Medalist, himself, until he screwed up by taking drugs. He doesn’t want this to happen to Lu, Patina, Sunny. Or Ghost. All these kids are troubled. All are terrific characters—both male and female—on this city team.

 

But can Ghost stay the game? He sure messes up a lot and Coach doesn’t tolerate that. Ghost has natural talent, but he needs training and Coach is the guy to train him. The team is aiming for a shot at the Junior Olympics. In order to get his “newbies” to bond, Coach takes them out for Chinese food. Before they can dig in, they must each tell a secret about themselves. I wish I could tell their secrets, but that would be a super-spoiler. But you know Ghost’s because it starts the story. And having told the others, he’s part of something. They’ve bonded. Ghost says, “Like I was there—really, really there—as me, but without as much scream inside.”

 

The characters are authentic. The story is authentic. This book really needs to be put in the hands of thousands of young readers. Whereas Ghost is a middle school student, older kids will enjoy this gritty, emotionally honest book. And it’s a fast read at only 180 pages. It’s already a best seller, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and just won the 2017 Charlotte Huck Award from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Reynolds is the man of the moment, an African American man writing from in his culture.

 

I had the honor of being a panelist alongside Jason at the NCTE Conference last month in Atlanta. He said something like, “It means the world to me to share stories about people and families and neighborhoods that not everyone knows, or even considers. My job is to try to peel away some of the layers and walls to expose the humanness and the connectivity in us all.”

 

And he’s doing that so well.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. Her young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases in January 2017. talesforallages.com

“Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey” (Farrar Straus Giroux 2015) by Özge Samanci is an inspiring memoir and a more-than-charming graphic novel. It follows and eventually answers the universal questions: What do I want? Who am I? What’s more, it reveals another culture—a middle eastern culture, a Muslim land—at a time when seeing and understanding others is more important than ever.

 

Özge, was born in the mid-70s in the Aegean coastal town of Izmir. When television arrives in the mid 80s there is one channel. Özge sees an underwater Jacques Cousteau special. She’s smitten. She decides she will become a scuba diver. Her father expects “better” from her. She tries. But there are obstacles. In Turkey the school system makes the attainment of education challenging, especially if you’re not wealthy. There are deep conflicts between secularism and fundamentalism—Darwin or Allah? You watch Özge grow up alongside her smarter, more talented big sister who eventually succeeds in becoming a computer scientist—a prestigious field (although she’s not passionate about it). Özge keeps searching, trying, growing, in spite of these hardships.

 

I love to read stories from outside my culture. You can’t help but compare it to your own. And if you have friends from that other culture, you get to understand and know them better. In this case, you understand why they might be so knowledgeable. In order to get anywhere in the Turkish education system you have to learn how to learn. You must pass tests to get to the next level. Test results also decide to which school you will advance and the quality of teaching you will experience. And you learn about Turkish government and politics. For instance, elementary students in Turkey in the 80s were taught that they should want to die for their former “President” Ataturk, who was actually a dictator (and who died back in 1938).

 

Özge’s father wants her to be an engineer. She tries, but all she is only advanced into the easier field of mathematics. Easier? you ask. (. . . well, I asked). Can Özge please her father? He’s not easily pleased. She hears his voice in her head. It’s so loud, she can’t hear her own voice. And there’s the noise of all those other voices telling her to be: an engineer, lawyer, doctor. Her friends ask her: What are you good at? What do you love? Nothing nothing nothing. Özge falls into a deep depression. What will she do? She tries acting. And fails.

 

Then her friends see her school notes where she’s doodled around the coffee drips, fingerprints, and wrinkles. Thank heavens. You should see them too. Samanci’s artwork is sweet, funny, and smart. So is her text.

 

Because this book is so inspiring, you know you have to give it as a gift!

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. Her young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases in January 2017. talesforallages.com