All Blog Entries

“The Great Godden” by Meg Rosoff

January 23, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

The latest novel by Meg Rosoff is “The Great Godden” (Candlewick 2021) about a family and friends summering together on England’s seaside. The teenaged narrator observes acutely—the loving parents; an older beautiful sister, Mattie, who is “in love with her own life”; a younger sister, Tam, who lives at the local horse stables; younger brother, Alex, who studies bats and other wildlife; and a theatrical cousin and her fiancé next door. To this summer mix comes the Godden boys, transplanted from Los Angeles and dropped off by their failing movie star mother.

Hugo is surly and the older Kit Godden seems to Mattie to be a golden god. Our narrator says, “What annoys me most is that it takes no effort to be born beautiful, no hard work, no mental agility, no strength of character. Just dumb luck. And it’s a universal currency, often mistaken for moral superiority.” He is describing both sister Mattie and Kit.

Kit Godden first bestows his attentions on Mattie who is head over heels in love with him. Eventually Kit turns his attention and sexual prowess on the narrator who is of undisclosed gender. This confuses our teenaged narrator.

Kit says, “‘You think I’m a player.’” Our narrator says, “‘I don’t know what you are,’ I said, which was true, ‘and I don’t care.’ Which was not.” The author’s subtlety and spot-on depiction of characters is admirable, to put it lightly.

The brothers, Hugo and Kit, detest each other. In fact, Hugo rarely speaks to anyone. But eventually the narrator and Hugo develop an understanding and through him we learn a bit more about brothers’ relationship. As we discover more about Kit, we begin to appreciate Hugo more. So does our narrator, who says, “Kit’s version of natural was a carefully constructed illusion. I was learning a lot this summer, most of it stuff I didn’t want to know.”

Our narrator confronts Kit about his intentions, almost begins crying in humiliation, then says, “Part of me knew he would take advantage of a genuine emotion to advance his game, and part of me just wanted him so badly that by the time we kissed I had no thought of asking him to stop.” Anyone who feels they have been manipulated in love or in any other realm of living will admire the character/author’s insights.

Kit is getting his talons into just about everyone on the island. And still the ending is a surprise. I highly recommend you read Meg Rosoff’s books. She is perhaps the most insightful, sophisticated young adult author around. And this book is short—small and just less than 200 pages.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning books: Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore. Books forthcoming about women’s suffrage, Martha Graham, and Ella Fitzgerald. talesforallages.com

“Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter” by Veronica Chambers with Jennifer Harlan

January 2, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

On July 13, 2013, Alica Garza—a young activist—was stunned when George Zimmerman was acquitted of the crime of murdering Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager. In her grief, Garza posted on FaceBook, “Black People. I love you. I love us. Our Lives Matter.” In the meantime, Opal Tometti and Patrisse Cullors—two more young Black activists—had joined voices with Garza. Cullors shared Garza’s post and added the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. The slogan caught on and the global protest movement, Black Lives Matter, was born.

Veronica Chambers with Jennifer Harlan has created a remarkable coffee table book, “Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter” (Versify/HMH 2021), which outlines not only the history of a movement, but the history of our nation. The book is packed with photos, passionate text, and is a guide on how to protest injustice.

About Garza, Tometti, and Cullors, author Chambers writes “They started out as three young girls who cared deeply about their communities and about doing their part to make those communities safer, more just, and more equitable for all.” Each woman began her activism as a pre-teen and each continues to focus her work on Black Lives Matter today.

A year after Zimmerman’s acquittal in Florida, Michael Brown was murdered by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Many of us grieved deeply. All the while, awareness of the tragedy heightened. Protests bloomed nationwide under the banner, Black Lives Matter. Chambers writes, “Black Lives Matter picked up a baton that had been passed from generation to generation of Americans working, often through protest, for racial justice.” And “[a] generation of young activists emerged—finding friendship, strength, a common goal, and the first glimpse of how powerful they could be when they stood up, marched, and shared on social media what they saw and heard.”

Some individuals have joined BLM protests and become media sensation overnight. Young and old are drawn to the boots-on-the-ground experiences that protestors describe on Twitter—such as what it feels like to be tear-gassed. With the senseless murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, protests flourished across the country in June of 2020, while we were in pandemic lock down mode. We could focus on this recurring tragedy—the murder of Black people.

Art—specifically murals—as well as music—first spirituals, then blues, then protest songs—have been instrumental in drawing people together for the hard work of resistance rooted in hope. From pages 55-65 there is a valuable photographic timeline starting in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education and working to the present.

The grassroots BLM movement has been almost exclusively a peaceful movement—on the part of the protestors—where young participants are educated by experience. So many activists have braided their threads into the narrative of BLM—threads that began before our country was born. This book outlines the systemic racism on which our country is built.

Chambers offers examples of how to affect change, whether it’s frontline protesting, becoming street medics, suppliers, or observers. This is a must-have book if you care about justice and equality in our world.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning books: Lift As You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue. Books forthcoming are about women’s suffrage, Martha Graham, and Ella Fitzgerald. talesforallages.com

“From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement” by Paula Yoo

December 12, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American man was preparing to marry in Detroit when he and his three buddies spontaneously visited the Fancy Pants strip club for his bachelor party on June 19, 1982. Detroit, at the time, was suffering steep unemployment in the auto industry and many workers blamed it on the burgeoning success of Japanese-made automobiles.

A fight ensued inside the club—Vincent and his Asian American friends on one side—two white auto workers, on the other side. No one could verify who threw the first punch although the club was crowded with both dancers and customers. The men took the fight outside. When the white man, Ronald Ebens took a baseball bat out of the trunk of his car, Vincent and friends fled down the street.

Vincent and one friend separated from their other two friends. They were sitting on the curb in front of McDonalds when Ebens and stepson Michael Nitz arrived in their car, got out and beat Vincent to death in the street with the baseball bat. They later testified that they were not pursuing Vincent, they just happened upon him, although another man testified that Ebens gave him $20 to help find Chin.

So begins “From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement” (Norton Young Readers 2021) by Paula Yoo. The book describes the police investigation, court cases, and the families of both the victim and perpetrators.

The police questioned the perpetrators and the victim’s friends, the McDonalds security guards, but never interviewed the various dancers at the club. The two white men pled guilty and were charged with manslaughter rather than first or second degree murder.

On March 16, 1983, at the sentencing hearing only the perpetrators and their lawyers were present. Vincent Chin’s attorneys was not notified of the hearing. Judge Kaufman sentenced each man to three years of probation and $3000 fine. Neither man spent a single night in jail for killing a man on the streets of Detroit in front of multiple witnesses.

Once tried there can be no retrial for the same crime. But a year after Vincent Chin was killed the Asian American community came together to charge Ebens and Nitz with violating Vincent Chin’s civil rights. Was this a hate crime?

In the new case a dancer testified she’d heard Ebens say, “It’s because of you little m*f*ers that we’re out of work.” The prosecutors were looking for the word “chinks” or “nips” or other racial slurs. Vincent was of Chinese descent, not Japanese, but all Asian Americans in the eighties were grouped together and called Orientals—which at the time was not considered a slur.

The Asian American community lost their case again, but this did mark the onset of the Asian American Movement and heightened awareness of their rights. If you do nothing else, read the timeline in the back of the book and marvel at the injustice perpetrated on Vincent Chin.

“Home is Not a Country” by Safia Elhillo

November 7, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Sudanese-American author Safia Elhillo’s magnificent novel-in-verse “Home is Not a Country” (Make Me a World 2021) is based on her own experience as an immigrant.

Before Nima is born, her father is shot and killed by Sudanese police. Nima’s pregnant mother manages to immigrate to America where Nima is born and grows up longing for the old country. Through Sudanese music and old photos, Nima learns about the colorful culture of her beautiful fun-loving parents. She longs for her heroic father and creates an alter ego for herself—Yasmeen—who she believes she would be if her parents lived happily in Sudan amongst their extended family.

Nima says: “I miss the country that I’ve never seen the cousins/ & aunts & grandparents i miss the help/ they could have offered the secrets they knew/ that i never learned”. Thank heavens for her best friend Haitham who arrived the same way, inside his pregnant mother, at the same time. Nima’s mother “makes us tea/ boiled in milk poured into mismatched mugs/ & hands us packs of captain majid cookies she gets/ from the bigala that Haitham & I call ethnic wal-mart/where we buy everything from bleeding legs of lamb/ to patterned pillow covers & casettes/ covered in a layer of dust”.

Mama Fatheya, Haitham’s grandmother says, “ours is a culture that worships yesterday over tomorrow/ but I think we are all lucky to have left yesterday/ behind.” Nima’s love of the old country prompts Haitham to call her “nostalgia monster.” She loves the old tunes and their Arabic lyrics. She dances with her mother at home, but closes herself off at school until she feels invisible. Haitham is friendly, joking, and popular with everyone. He is Nima’s anchor. Until one day, white boys scatter her books and Haitham doesn’t come to her defense. Nima and Haitham’s fight seems insurmountable.

Soon after, in an ethnic hate assault, Haitham is attacked, wounded, and admitted to the hospital in a deep coma. His life hangs on a thread. Nima is devastated and in her misery of not belonging, having accused her best friend of ugly behavior, and furious at her mother for bringing them to this horrible country, she has a mystical experience. By enters her parents’ sepia photo she finds herself with her alter-ego Yasmeen in Sudan viewing her parents’ young life. Is Yasmeen a jinn, which Mama Fatheya warns the teens of repeatedly? Or did Nima invent her? Or both?

In a prolonged episode of magical realism, Nima takes us through old Sudan, her parents’ happy courtship, as well as the horrific and life-threatening experience of Khaltu Hala—Haitham’s mother—who was pregnant and unmarried in Islamic Sudan. Can Nima banish Yasmeen? Should she? Unseen, Nima overhears conversations and discovers a devastating secret about her father.

She returns to her actual life in America with new appreciation and love for her mother and their present life together. Not only does the beautiful language, insights of living between two cultures, and innovative formatting open our eyes, but the plot makes the reader turn pages. This is an important book.

“Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit” by Colby Cedar Smith

October 10, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

“Call Me Athena: Girl From Detroit” (Andrews McMeel 2021) by Colby Cedar Smith is a novel-in-verse based on the immigration experience of the author’s grandmother.

Mary, in Depression era Detroit, is the first narrator. At sixteen she is horrified by her parents’ plan—an arranged marriage with an older man. Mary’s twin Marguerite has no such restriction on her life. But in her parents’ eyes, Mary must be protected from her independent nature. Her wild behavior entails wanting to work in the family store. A working girl? Scandalous in her Greek American father’s estimation.

When Mary laments her upcoming marriage and expects suppoort, her sister says, “It can’t stay the same forever./ Even if/ we wish it could.” Mary says, “I feel like someone/ has thrown a stone/ into the heavens/ and smashed the stars./ We are falling/ from the sky.” Smith’s lyricism is intoxicating.

When returning a shovel to the cellar, Mary finds a packet of dusty love letters written by a woman who calls herself Petit Oiseau (Little Bird) and a man who calls himself Loup (Wolf). The lovers live in France during World War I. Readers eventually realize that Petit Oiseau is the second narrator, Jeanne, who comes from a wealthy French family. Jeanne is serving as a nurse in her village in 1918 when a wounded American, Giorgos, is admitted.

Giorgos (who we guess is Loup), the third narrator, had stolen a lamb back home in Greece to feed his sick, dying sister. He fled the repercussions, immigrated to America and was immediately drafted into WWI. The patchwork of voices is beginning to come together.

At school Mary hears a survivor of the Ford Massacre of 1932—the prior year, say: “We held signs that read/ Give us Work/ We want Bread Not Crumbs/ Tax the Rich and Feed the Poor/ As we got closer/ to the plant/ Ford’s hired goons/ attacked us./ Tear gas, fire hoses,/ clubs./ Men running everywhere/ trying to escape/ the bullets/ pelting the crowd./A boy was shot/ Blood spread across his chest/ like a car dripping oil/ onto the pavement.” The presenter, a war veteran, protested at Henry Ford’s factory. The workers want health care and an end to racial discrimination.

This is not only pertinent to our lives today but to the violence of Giorgos’ and Jeanne’s lives in war-torn Europe. Giorgos describes the horrors of the battlefield. Jeanne nurses wounded soldiers and when a boy dies, she writes home to their parents. On the positive side, war tends to equalize people’s class and status. Jeanne is rich. Giorgos is poor—and a foreigner. The unlikely pair marry and move to Detroit.

Eventually, in Detroit in 33, Mary’s parents allow her to work in the store—baby steps for her rights as a woman are made by necessity. Mary goes on a secret date with a young man. Life is indeed changing, as it must. Somewhere along the way the reader unravels the puzzle to realize who Jeanne and Giorgos are to Mary.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore. Books forthcoming about women suffrage, Martha Graham, Joe Ernst. talesforallages.com

“All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team” by Christina Soontornvat

September 19, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Remember the news about the twelve young soccer players trapped in the Tham Luang cave in Thailand in 2018? Rescue teams from all over the world arrived to find and remove the Thai kids and their young coach from deep within the Earth? This remarkable story is retold by Thai-American author Christina Soontornvat in “All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team” (Candlewick 2020)—and what a book it is!

Soontornvat gives the reader a deep understanding of Thai culture—the people’s will to help, stay calm, and be cheerful. We learn about each of the boys, Coach Ek who grew up in a Buddhist monastery preparing to be a monk, pithy details about the Thai volunteer engineer who pumped water out of the flooded cave, Thai Navy Seals who are open water divers, the American military and its leader Hodgson, the British cave divers who swam the kids out 17 and 18 days into the ordeal—and so much more.

The boys ride to the cave on their bicycles after a practice with the Wild Boar Soccer Team on June 23. Barefoot, they hike into the cave. The enormous mouth of the cave soon becomes a tunnel, narrow but walkable, opens to the next chamber, then narrows further, opens into the next chamber then narrows until the boys must crawl. Then, unfortunately, the heavy rains start a month earlier than normal. The boys begin their return and realize their path is blocked by deep rushing waters. Under the guidance of Coach Ek, they venture deeper and deeper to find the safety of dry ground. Coach Ek expertly leads them to “Chamber 9.” Off go their flashlights to save battery power. They lick the walls of water which is plentiful. And they wait. And meditate, which is familiar since they’re all Buddhists. Coach Ek is masterful at keeping them calm.

That night, rescuers begin to arrive. In the meantime, we learn about the porous rock which is already saturated with water. Vern, a cave diver from Britain—the epicenter of water-filled caves—lives locally. Open water divers (Thai Navy Seals) arrive, but they’re unable to dive through the narrow tunnels. American military arrives. The Governor of Thailand becomes the system coordinator. So many factions must agree on how to rescue the boys—everyone must compromise, but how can it be done best? How can it be done at all? Three more British cave divers fly in. The rain keeps coming and the cave fills with rushing, muddy water.

A Thai man living in Marion, Illinois flies in—one of many unpaid volunteers—and without orders starts diverting water from atop the mountain. When he can’t obtain PVC pipe he makes gutters of huge split bamboo. When he can’t obtain rope or cable, he binds the bamboo gutters with jungle vines. The photos of the makeshift technology and the illustrations of the water filled tunnels are clarifying—and terrifying.

The Americans bring in high tech equipment. Police dogs are unable to detect the boys. Nest collectors (for bird’s nest soup) and high-tech teams search the mountain side for another entrance to the deep cave. But no one knows on Day Ten if the boys are alive. We, the reader, know they’re alive, but starving. And on this day two British divers have breached the dangerous intersection of tunnels and have swum an hour further to find the boys. There’s a video of that first meeting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_C90OPyldI

But how will they get the boys out of the rushing frigid water? They think they have a 60% chance of success. It takes another eight days. Get hold of the book and read the breathtaking and controversial details.