The Hate U Give

I don't think it's hyperbole to call The Hate U Give the YA book of 2017. It was at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list for more than six months, and I don't think it has fallen below #2 since. It has deservedly won lots of awards already and two categories of the Goodreads Reader Awards 2017. I read it in August/September last year because I was going to seeAngie Thomas speak at Melbourne Writers Festival.

The Hate U Give is the story of Starr Carter who lives in a poor black area, Garden Heights, but attends a predominantly white school across town. Her life straddles the divide between the two. 

As long as I play it cool and keep to myself, it should be fine. The ironic thing is though, at Williamson I don't have to "play it cool" - I'm cool by default because I'm one of the only black kids there. I have to earn coolness in Garden Heights, and that's more difficult than buying retro Jordans on release day. 

Early on in the book Starr witnesses her best friend Khalil be shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop.

Khalil stares at the sky as if he hopes to see God. His mouth is open like he wants to scream. I scream loud enough for the both of us. 

The rest of the book is about the fallout and repercussions of Khalil's murder. 

The Hate U Give is a really powerful story and addresses the issues of race, drugs, poverty and injustice for black people in America really well, but I was surprised that the American gun culture wasn't really addressed specifically. 

"Always some shit," he mumbles. "Can't have a party without somebody getting shot."

Starr is 16 and she's seen two of her friends shot. Outside of a war zone I can only imagine one country where this is even possible. 

When I was twelve, my parents had two talks with me. One was the usual birds and bees...... The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me. 

Momma fussed and told Daddy I was too young for that. He argued that I wasn't too young to get arrested or shot. 

Wow, that is a talk that I would never even had considered with my son. Or that it could ever be necessary. But for Starr, and all the black kids like her, it is. 

I'm used to gun shots, but these are louder, faster.

In this PBS interview Angie talks about how she set out to make the political personal, and that growing up in Mississippi she didn't she any authors who looked like her. Angie Thomas has written a moving Author's Note at the end of the book outlining her motivations to tell this story, and its origins as a  short story she wrote at university. Angie learned of Emmett Till when she was a young girl, but half a world away I've only heard of him in the past few years. Of course young black American men are still being killed in extraordinary numbers and in extraordinary circumstances. Black Lives do Matter. 

Because of my advanced age there were a number of pop culture references that puzzled me.  Right from the first page "Some rapper calls out for everybody to Nae-Nae.." So I texted Master Wicker. He knows it of course, and is mortified by my asking. "It's so horrible and so old". Ah yes, so old, so 2015. There was a bit of vocabulary that made me feel old and out of touch from time to time, but it in no way interfered with my enjoyment of the story, even if it did sound like another language at times! And I'm clearly not the only parent confused by such things.

I'm somewhat mortified that it has taken me so long to finish this post, but am glad of the push from #Femmeuary to get it done. 

41 Diverse Must Have YA Titles for Every Library

This list of 41 (actually, although the list was named for 42) books (which seems to have disappeared off the SLJ website just now) was chosen by the editors of School Library Journal as an adjunct to their Top 100 Must-Have YA Books which wasn't quite diverse enough on it's own. And there are always more great books out there to consider, and to read. 


Does My Head Look Big in This? - Randa Abdel-Fatah

Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights - Ann Bausum
Tyrell - Coe Booth
Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices -  Lisa Charleyboy & Mary Beth Leatherdalde (editors)
The Reader - Traci Chee
Ball Don’t Lie - Matt de la Peña
Forged by Fire - Sharon M. Draper
If You Could Be Mine - Sara Farizan
The Great American Whatever - Tim Federle
The Skin I’m In - Sharon G. Flake
Conviction - Kelly Loy Gilbert
Bronx Masquerade - Nikki Grimes
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice - Phillip Hoose
Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World - Kelly Jensen (editor)
Like No Other - Una LaMarche
Boy Meets Boy - David Levithan
March Trilogy - John Lewis & Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (illustrator)
Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx - Sonia Manzano
Burn, Baby, Burn - Meg Medina

When Dimple Met Rishi - Sandhya Menon
A Step from Heaven - An Na
Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection - Hope Nicholson (editor)
Prophecy series - Ellen Oh
Akata Witch - Nnedi Okorafor
Shadow shaper - Daniel José Older
Out of Darkness - Ashley Hope Pérez
Rhythm Ride: A Road Trip Through the Motown Sound - Andrea Davis Pinkney
If I Was Your Girl - Meredith Russo
X: A Novel - Ilyasah Shabazz & Kekla Magoon
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights - Steve Sheinkin
Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team - Steve Sheinkin
Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story - Caren Stelson
Nimona - Noelle Stevenson
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared To Dream - Tanya Lee Stone
Marcelo in the Real World - Francisco X. Stork

This One Summer - Mariko and Jillian Tamaki
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (see my review)
Samurai Rising: The Epic Life of Minamoto Yoshitsune  - Pamela S. Turner, Gareth Hinds (illustrator)
Piecing Me Together - Renée Watson
Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon
The Sun Is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon

1/41

Well that's embarrassing. And I'm actively interested in this area. Thank goodness I read The Hate U Give in the last few weeks...

I have meant to read quite a number of these books. The Hate U Give of course which is possibly the YA book of 2017. Certainly Does My Head Look Big in This? It's Australian. I've seen Randa Abdel-Fatah speak, she's impressive. I recently acquired a copy and have it in the house. I also have Boy Meets Boy in the house, as well as several other David Levithan titles, I've also seen him speak, he's impressive, and funny and I want to read him. I've seen This One Summer on so many lists now, I'm intrigued. 

But there are even more books, and authors that I've never even heard of in this list. I've got more than just one lifetimes reading ahead of me...

Squishy Taylor and the First Three Adventures

I'd never heard of Squishy Taylor or any of her Adventures until the first story, Squishy Taylor and the Bonus Sisters, was nominated for the Readings Prize this year. Then Squishy and her Bonus Sisters turned up as a Notable Book for the CBCA Book of the Year Younger Readers list. Squishy definitely needed to be checked out.

Squishy Taylor is a new(ish) series from Melbourne writer and acrobat Ailsa Wild. There are six books in the series now I think. I read a volume that combines the first three books. Each book is about 120 pages, and involves Squishy and her sisters solving a mystery. 

Squishy is an 11 year old girl who lives with her blended family in a rather crowded Melbourne apartment. Her mum lives works for the UN in Geneva, and she lives with her dad, her stepmother Alice, her two bonus (twin) stepsisters, and her half brother Baby. That's some complicated family logistics right there. Squishy is of course a nickname, her real name is Sita which is her In Trouble name. Squishy is mixed race, her mum is Indian and her father caucasian, while her step mother and step-sisters are Asian.

In Squishy Taylor and the Bonus Sisters Squishy finds a boy living in the basement car park of her building. In Squishy Taylor and a Question of Trust there are diamond thieves about in Melbourne, and in Squishy Taylor and the Vase that Wasn't a valuable Chinese vase disappears from the apartment building and it seems a Chinese-Warrior ghost took it. 

All three stories are very fun, and a breeze to read. The text is broken up by words or phrases in a bigger different font (I've tried to find what that is called- it must be called something?), and there are fabulous illustrations throughout by Ben Wood. Ben shares how he designed Squishy here. 

The Melbourne setting is great. The girls travel about on the tram quite freely. In the first book Squishy hasn't really settled in with her step family yet since she moved in seven and a half weeks ago. She doesn't get along with her twin stepsisters, because "they are about 95% annoying and 5% really, really annoying" which is awkward when all three share the same room, and indeed a triple bunk bed. The girls do come together over their first adventure, and then share the exploits in the following books. It's a great idea to have Squishy live in a large apartment building, there's always a lot going on, and kids always notice the comings and goings of other resident, and know who's who in their surroundings. 

The Squishy Taylor series is a fabulous new series for young readers. I guess the covers will appeal to girls more as there is quite a bit of pink but there is plenty to appeal to boys too, with regular rock climbing, ninja tricks in and out of bed and plenty of action and often quite daring stunts required to solve the mysteries. 

http://australianwomenwriters.com

Melbourne Writers Festival Opening Night 2016

I was very excited to attend the Melbourne Writers Festival again this year. I've been to a few MWFs over the years and a few Opening Nights. Looking back though it seems the last time was 2012! Much too long ago. There was a somewhat bizarre ticketing system this year, which caused me some panic as initially I thought I would not get a ticket to Opening Night, but thankfully more tickets were released and I did.

Maxine Beneba Clarke delivered a sensational opening address. She is an author and slam poet (I'm not really sure what that means exactly). Her speech was moving and powerful. Unexpectedly for me Maxine spoke of the importance of children seeing themselves in their books. She opened with a performance of her poem fairytale from Carrying the World (currently reading, my review coming soonish). It begins

the teacher reads snow white
in our fairytale
my daughter will scar herself
with household bleach tonight
crying mirror on the wall
erase this face as black as night

"Story is where empathy begins and children unseeing themselves in Australian Literature is unfortunately not an unusual introduction to story."

"Some Australian children learn very quickly that literature is a landscape they don't belong in, that books render them invisible. That their stories are not important."

Maxine was 19 before she was able to write a character that looked like herself. Extraordinary video of the Doll Test that she discusses. She also spoke of the spoken word community, the political difficulties of being published as a writer of colour in Australia, the economic realities of surviving as a writer in Australia- when our authors still earn an average of $12,000.

You can watch Maxine Beneba Clarke's MWF Opening Night address online in full, here.

The second part of the evening was the announcement of the Miles Franklin Award 2016. 

We watched videos of the nominated authors read excerpts from their nominated books. 

After A.S Patric was named as winner two delightful fairies ran excitedly up to congratulate him. 

And in a beautiful circle of life moment, Maxine Beneba Clarke had launched Black Rock White City at Readings St Kilda last year. Great to see the award go to a small publisher too, Transit Lounge based, rather appropriately, in Melbourne. 

Sounder

As soon as I began reading Sounder I realised that I was in similar territory to another 1970s Newbery winner- Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry which I read a few months ago (see my review). Sounder is the slightly older of the two books, published in 1969, and is historical fiction telling the story of a black sharecropping family in the South of America at an unspecified time, although I can't remember a car ever being in the story even for the police so I suspect it is set quite some time before the Depression era tale of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

Sounder is quite an unusual book to read, as Sounder, a dog, is the only named character. Sounder lives with a family in their isolated, unpainted, uncurtained cabin. Actually Sounder lives under the cabin, sleeping on coffee sacks under the stairs. Sounder found the father when he "wasn't more'n a pup."

'Sounder and me must be about the same ag,' the boy said, tugging gently at one of the coon dog's ears, and then the other. He felt the importance of the years- a s child measures age- which separated I'm from the younger children. He was old enough to stand out in the cold and run his fingers over Sounder's head. 

The family are very poor, eeking out their rather marginal existence. The boy is keen to learn, and keen to go to school but the eight mile walk each way is too much in the winter cold. Sounder and his master, the boy's father, go out hunting each night, but they have been returning empty handed for some time. There were no racoon or possum hides to sell, and no meat for the family to eat. Winter also meant no crops, no work, and so no pay.

There are some interesting quotes about books, stemming from William H. Armstrong's work as a teacher I suspect.

The boy had heard once that some people had so many book they only read each one once.

It shouldn't have surprised me I suppose but it was a shock to have it pointed out that "no mailman passed and there was no mailbox" for the poor and illiterate. At one stage the boy retrieves a book from the rubbish. Rather intriguingly for someone who has taught himself to read by reading signs in stores he finds himself holding a book of Essays by Montaigne.

It was a book of stories about what people think. There were titles such as Cruelty, Excellent Men, Education, Cripples, Justice, and many others. The boy sat down, leaned back against the barrel, and began to read from the story called Cruelty.

But the words were "too new and strange". Sounder is a slim little volume, a mere 90 pages, but it sure packs an emotional punch. The boy's father is driven to do a desperate act by poverty and lack of food for his family. These are resilient, strong people living most difficult lives. There is indeed Cruelty and violence.

William H. Armstrong was a white teacher, and some people have criticized that he can't tell a black story. In an Author's Note at the beginning of the book he tells of a black man he knew in his childhood. This man told him the story of Sounder.

It is the black man's story, not mine.... It was history- his history. 

297/1001

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry wasn't a well known book for me. I came across it in my 1001 quest, and have seen it in a few lists about the place since then. I'm so glad I got to read it, it's such an amazing book. I'm just sorry that it took me too long to read- 3 weeks for really quite a short book, but I just haven't had the time for reading these past few weeks. It's a mark of a great book that it can still shine even when the reader is forced to neglect reading as much I have been recently.

A story of a black family living in rural Mississippi in the early 1930s, which was a tough time of course. Our narrator is 9 year old Cassie the only daughter of the Logan family. Cassie lives with her three brothers,  her mother and grandmother in a small house on land bought by her grandfather after the abolition of slavery. The family grow cotton on their farm, Cassie's father is forced to leave the family home to work on the railway, while her mother teaches at the local school.

The writing is splendid, and there is a lot of tension and suspense, with a constant threat of nocturnal violence.

The lead car swung into the muddy driveway and a shadowy figure outlined by headlights of the car behind him stepped out. The man walked slowly up the drive. 

I stopped breathing. 

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is an incredible account of the systemic racism of that era. Black children went to segregated schools. Their schools were only open from October to March as the children were needed to work in the fields by their poor sharecropping families during the growing season. While the white children started school in August. The white children are driven to school in a school bus, while the black children are left to walk 1 to 3 1/2 hours to school each way. All things designed to repress the black kids before they even got any sort of start at an education.

Author Mildred D. Taylor used the oral history told to her by her father to create a series of nine books about the Logan family. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a powerful exploration of ingrained, systemic racism, no mere casual racism here, but a deep hatred and sanctioned contempt at a time when violent criminal acts were condoned and ignored. Sadly these feelings have echoes today as we still need social campaigns such as BlackLivesMatter.

There are things you can't back down on, things you gotta take a stand on. But it's up to you to decide what them things are. 

288/1001

Drama

I want to like graphic novels, I really do. I try them from time to time, but never seem to have much luck. They're ok I guess, but the story always seems a bit disappointing somehow. Why not write prose and write a really good story? What is the advantage of the format? Does it go beyond enticing reluctant readers? El Deafo didn't really hit the mark for me last year (see my review), but I did quite like French Milk a few years ago (see my review) although that's a much more obvious topic for me.

I've seen the covers of Raina Telgemeier's hugely popular graphic novels about the place recently, enough to get me curious about her work. Clearly I'm quite behind the times, Raina has  dominated the New York Times Graphic Novel list for the past few years, and her books tend to stay up there for over a 100 weeks. My library had a copy of Drama sitting on the shelf so I borrowed it recently, and read it in the past day. Graphic novels certainly are quick reads! And that's a good thing, a nice quick read for those times when you need to read something between other meatier reads.

Drama tells the story of Callie and her friends and fellow students at Eucalyptus (!) Middle School. Callie is a 7th grade student, and a keen participant in the drama group at the school- she loves theatre, she loves her role as set designer, and wants to work in theatre as a set designer when she grows up. The school is doing a play called Moon Over Mississippi and as with everything the production has some drama of it's own along the way too. All set amongst a background of first crushes, some dating problems and confusing times in friendships.  Naturally I liked the Les Mis references.

Drama is certainly inclusive, the kids depicted are from all sorts of backgrounds. Sometimes we learn this from their names, other times from the colour of their skin. Although I guess if graphic novels use colourists, then the colourist decides skin colour, not the author? I really do wonder how the colourist/author interaction works. I only learned that colourists existed a few months ago when I read El Deafo (see my review). So who decided that Callie had purple hair? That seems kind of important.

I found a rather fascinating description of Raina's work process on her blog- check it out, it's fascinating. Oh, and here she explains the interactions with her colourists, also fascinating, and an explanation as to why colourists even exist- as Raina says that it would take her an extra 6-9 months to do the colouring herself! Wow, it's clearly a process I have no idea about- I find it incredible that it could take so long. You can hear a great interview with Raina Telgemeier here.

I have Smile in the house, I'll try and read it soon.

One

I'm not really sure why I became so desperate to read One, a book I hadn't really heard of all that much. I did see it on a number of end of year lists out of Britain. Actually I do think this one from the Guardian may have tipped me over the edge. Various authors recommended it- including Katherine Rundell (who is high on my To Read radar herself, and who had many recommendations of her latest The Wolf Wilder on the list). Who can go past this:

Mine is One, by Sarah Crossan. It's a book that shouldn't be possible- a blank verse novel about conjoined twins that never once dips into sentimentality- but Sarah Crossan makes it look so easy. It's a book about love, and courage, and I adored it.

I've come so far in my Verse Novel Journey that this was an added incentive, and soon it was landing on my doorstep. Perhaps because it featured so much on an English list I thought it was an English book. But it most definitely isn't. One is set in Hoboken, New Jersey. I see now that Sarah Crossan was born in Dublin, and currently lives in England, but she did live in New York while working as an English teacher before she became a full time writer. I believe that her other books are set in the UK, I wonder why One is set in America then?

Grace and Tippi are 16 year old conjoined twins who have been homeschooled to hide them from society's prying, and often cruel, eyes. But now the family circumstances have changed and the girls need to go to school for the first time. Hoping that it won't be terrible, hoping to make friends, even perhaps hoping to find love. 

'Are you kidding?

You are normal.

And normal is good.

Normal is my goal,'

I tell him.

The story was always relatable even though unusual, and the characters, especially Grace and Tippi were well written, our narrator Grace was clearly her own persona, and different from her sister. There were just too many issues for my liking. Everyone in the twins immediate family had major stuff going on. So did their friends. While perhaps we all do have our own stuff, it just seemed a bit much at times. One is not Sarah Crossan's first novel in verse, it seems that The Weight of Water was also a verse novel, she also writes in prose. She started One in prose, but it wasn't working, even after 30,000 words, until she swapped to verse. 

Conjoined twins are a rare phenomenon, and not something I've thought about all that often. Every now and then a set of twins will come to prominence as efforts are made to separate them, although sometimes this is not possible of course. I've never thought about what it would be like to be conjoined. I don't think it's something that is actually all that easy to imagine but One gives us some small insight into the internal world of conjoined twins. And even the ethics of it all. 

Gorgeous people strut down catwalks

in dresses made of string

loll half naked on sandy beaches

and no one seems to mind

that they do this for money

no one finds it

distasteful

at all. 

But when Tippi and I consider cashing in on our

 bodies,

everyone frowns.

In an Author's Note at the back of the book Sarah Crossan says that she modelled the physiology of Grace and Tippi on the bodies of Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, particularly tragic Russian conjoined twins, taken from their mother in 1950 Russia, who were to live a tragic life and die of alcoholism. Although, Sarah tells us

It might be astounding to a singleton, but conjoined twins do not see themselves or their lives as tragedies. 

Grace tells us too. 

It really isn't so bad.

It's how it's always been. 

Two of Sarah's previous books The Weight of Water and Apple and Rain were nominated for The Carnegie Medal. Clearly she is an author to explore.

Update June 2016 One has won the 2016 Carnegie Medal.

El Deafo

I came across El Deafo when it was an 2015 honour book for the Newberry Medal. I read the extraordinary Brown Girl Dreaming (see my review) at the start of the year, and bought El Deafo at the same time. This week I got to read it. I thought it would be the perfect book to read while sitting around on a train for a day, and it was. 

I don't read all that many graphic novels, it's a category that doesn't always appeal to me, but I've learnt to read and love verse novels, so anything is possible. 

El Deafo, is not just a graphc novel, it's a graphic memoir, and for some reason I have a bit more success with them than graphic novels alone. I'm particularly thinking of French Milk (see my review) I suppose. El Deafo tells us the story of Cece Bell's childhood, which changes for ever when she contracts meningitis aged 4 and is left profoundly deaf, a change which isn't immediately recognised by Cece, her parents or her doctors. A few weeks later the diagnosis is made. Not too many kids books have lumbar punctures.

Picture source

Young Cece is anxious about her difference, self-conscious and worried that people are always staring at her because of her hearing aids- although no-one ever seems to. Cece, like every kid, wants a best friend. Kids (and adults) are always curious about any difference, but usually kids will just get on with things once their curiosity is answered.

Cece Bell is younger than me, and American, but I was surprised how many songs and TV shows we shared as kids. There are 70s references littered throughout El Deafo, very familiar to me of course, but not necessarily to modern kids. Monty Python. Elton John and Kiki Dee's Don't Go Breaking My Heart. The Monkees. The Partridge Family. I was most surprised to see reference a teacher singing "I've got a girl called Boney Maloney." I thought Bony Moronie was a Hush original. Sad to learn that it wasn't.

I was intrigued by the mention of Color by David Lasky. Because of my gross unfamiliarity with the graphic novel world I was not aware of the occupation of colorist (which rightly should be colourist of course). But it's a thing. Here's an interview with professional colorist Ian Hannin. I guess I find it odd that people can draw well enough to create a graphic novel and then need someone else to bring it to life in colour. 

Fascinating, but sad, to see that in this fabulous Guardian article that adult Cece still had those some childhood insecurities, but that they really led to the creation of El Deafo- first as a blog, then as a book. And she ran out of time to colour the book and so used a colourist! I am seeing references to Raina Telgemeier wherever I go today, so I think I know what my next graphic novel will be. 

Diversity on the Shelf 2015

Ugly

I bought Ugly a few months ago when I first saw it on a bookstore shelf. This was quite some time before I knew I would have the opportunity to see Robert Hoge speak in person. I knew of Robert from his Australian Story a few years ago, and he had already published an adult version of his memoir Ugly in 2013 which I had wanted to read but never bought. Here was a kids version of that book. I was intrigued.

I did get to see Robert speak a few weeks ago at an amazing Sydney Writers Festival Primary School Day last month (along with Emily Rodda, Sally Rippin, Gus Gordon and Tristan Bancks). Of course it was a great day, and Robert was a great speaker. Sadly I didn't get to read Ugly before I heard him speak but I was prompted to pluck it from the TBR pile after I did.

Ugly is an extraordinary story as you might expect. Robert Hoge was born in 1972 with a large facial tumour and deformed legs. In those days pre-ultrasound his birth of course came as a surprise. It is heart-breaking to read how his parents initially rejected him.

'I didn't feel anything for this baby,' she (his mother) wrote in her diary. 'I had shut off completely. I had made up my mind I was not taking him home.'

Devastating. A sign of the times perhaps too? But the family did take him home, mainly at the urging of Robert's four older siblings. He was lucky to grow up in a close, loving family.

A man's home might be his castle, but the four fences of that yard became my mother's prison. After fighting so long to keep from bringing me home, Mum was reluctant to take me out again once she did. She was not ready to face the verdict of strangers when they saw her strange child. For a long time, the only place I went as a baby was to the hospital for various appointments. No shopping trips. No playground visits. Just appointments and Fortress Hoge. 

It was fascinating to get a slight glimpse into the surgical care of the time. Robert's major operations were planned with the aid of skull X-rays and life size photos! No CTs, no MRIs, no 3D reconstructions that modern surgeons use and rely on. The 70s were a simpler time, Robert broke his prosthetic leg in the first week of school and it was able to be welded together at the local petrol station!

Robert was always keen to compete, and keen to excel. Naturally this was difficult, he wasn't allowed to play rugby or cricket like he wanted. He wasn't even able to swim for many years because of his ongoing surgeries. He was able to have a great childhood though with more than enough boyhood adventures.

He was to grow up to become a journalist and speech writer, and his many years of experience shine through, Ugly is gripping and well written. Ultimately, Robert's story is about acceptance, ugliness, truth and beauty, he realised that little kids may accept difference quicker than anyone.

Young kids are naturally very accepting of new and different things. The kid with a squishy nose and strange legs isn't that surprising when you're three years old and you hear stories about talking bears sitting at a table eating porridge. It's only as kids get older that they start to know what's normal and what's not. 

Robert had learnt early on that our faces are our admission tickets into the world- they let us "look out and know others and let others know us".

I knew I was ugly. But everyone is uglier than they think. We are all more beautiful too.

http://weneeddiversebooks.org

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

I am so glad that I was intrigued enough by the title of this book to search it out. I don't think it's all that well known in Australia despite winning many prestigious awards. There are 4 pages of blurbs and gushing at the start of my copy. I had seen it on a number of lists of course, and was growing increasingly curious, but didn't really know all that much of the actual book, or the author.

The Part-Time Indian of the title is Arthur Spirit, known as Junior. Junior lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation (the rez).

If the government wants to hide somebody, there's probably no place more isolated that my reservation, which is located approximately one million miles north of Important and two billion miles west of Happy. 

It's all told in Junior's engaging first person voice, more a journal than a diary, but an amazing and powerful form. It's truly laugh out loud funny at times and wry observation at others. Junior was born with hydrocephalus, he needed surgery as an infant and it wasn't known if he would even survive or if he would have brain damage. He has lopsided eyes, too many teeth, and is skinny. Now Junior is 14 and he wants to leave the impoverished school on the reservation to pursue a better education at the white high school in the nearby small town.

His father is an alcoholic, his mother was an alcoholic. His older sister Mary lives in the basement. They are poor.

Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor. 

Junior is encouraged to change schools by a teacher who doesn't want him to give up all hope as it seems everyone else has given up.

"All these kids have given up," he said. "All your friends. All the bullies. And their mothers and fathers have given up, too. And their grandparents gave up and their grandparents before them. And me and every other teacher here. We're all defeated."

Junior faces casual and organised racism at his new school. Racism, poverty, parenting among multigenerational desolation and alcoholism are all treated in this poignant, moving, funny and rather extraordinary story. Rather predictably because of these issues this book has been banned in several places in America, indeed it was the most challenged book of 2014, up from #3 the year before. Which is a great shame- to lose such a powerful, important story because of squeamishness over a few references to masturbation is particularly foolish.

I'm fourteen years old and I've been to forty-two funerals.
That's really the biggest difference between Indians and white people. 

It's made all the more fascinating by the fact that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian started out as a memoir. There is a real place called the Spokane Indian Reservation where Sherman Alexie grew up. Sherman Alexie was born with hydrocephalus too, he had an alcoholic father and he transferred to the white high school in town. He estimates that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is 78% true...

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was published in 2007. I have no idea how it missed inclusion in 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up, which was published in 2009 and included books up to 2007. I think one of the number of books never available except in Estonian or Catalan and never translated to English could have been jettisoned to make way for this masterful work.

Sister Heart

I hadn't heard of Sister Heart when I picked it up recently at my local book shop. I'd heard of Sally Morgan of course. Indeed I've been meaning to read her seminal book My Place for probably decades now. I know that I've boorrowed it from the library on occasion, and still not managed to read it. So of course I was sorely tempted by a new pretty hardback- even better, a verse novel for children. I still can't quite believe that I like verse novels now, and even actively seek them out. Thanks to Steven Herrick for that. You never know one day I might get mature enough to read poetry...

Sister Heart may have sat unread in my humungous TBR were it not for Lisa at ANZLitlovers running her Indigenous Literature Week  last week. The timing was too good to pass up. 

Sister Heart is the tale of a young girl forcibly removed from her family, from her country.

I hate the bully policeman
for snatching me
from the station
when Mum was working
at the out-camp

This young girl is taken by boat to her new home far away, although it is not a home based on family, it is the cruel, rather inhospitable home of institutional care with corporal punishment and stinky soup, where she is left alone and bewildered, until she is befriended by another girl Janey.

I breathe deeperpretend I am biggertaller olderI walk like I'm not afraidlike I am brave

There are many things we don't know about this young girl. We don't know where she is from really, although she is referred to as a norwester, implying that she is from remote North Western West Australia. We don't know her real name. She is give the name Annie by the Reverend who travels with her, but she already has two other names. 

I already have an english name
Lots of people on the station
have english names
Boss won't say language names
but I have one

My language name
is the name Mum whispers
when I'm sick
The name she croons
when she strokes my hair

Annie struggles with many things at her new home. She misses her home, her family, her country. She also struggles with English. 

There is too much english in this placeenglish hurts my headenglish is hard on my tongueenglish is missing good wordsenglish is lonely

Annie is lonely too and for a while she loses her voice too.

SometimesI feel my voicerattling inside melike a trapped thingtrying to get out

I'm certainly glad to have heard Annie's voice. Stories of the Stolen Generations are powerful and important to remember, these forced removals of children still affect families now. After all they were official Australian government policy into the 1960s and 70s. 

You can listen to Sally Morgan talk about Sister Heart on Radio National. It's a fascinating background to the book. In Western Australia the Aborigines Act of 1905 made the Chief Protector of Aborigines the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children under 16 years of age, and so he had the power to move any of them at any time. Sally Morgan dreamt the first page of Sister Heart, and feels her great grandmother gave the story. 

See the Teaching Notes from Fremantle Press. 

P.S. I can't fix the formatting of some of the poetry. I have tried multiple times, it can't be corrected. Sorry. 

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Looking for Alibrandi

I'm a bit sad that I left Looking for Alibrandi for so long. It's not like it wasn't famous enough. It was. I think I've even seen the movie at some stage. So I knew a bit about it already. Looking for Alibrandi was Melina Marchetta's debut novel, all the way back in 1992, so long ago that Ansett was still flying our skies and is referenced in the book. Since then Melina Marchetta has established herself as one of the big names in Australian YA, and I know this won't be the last time I'll be reading her work. 

Looking for Alibrandi is a classic coming of age novel. Josie Alibrandi is 17 and living in Sydney's inner west (in a suburb that I lived in for many years, so I felt an immediate connection).  It’s always a thrill to recognise locations, street names etc- Glebe Point Road, St Johns Road are all well known to me. I’ve walked down them many, many times. I think I’ve even been to the McDonalds that Josie works at, although it would have been a long time ago. So long ago that Josie could have served me. 

Glebe has two facades. One is of beautiful tree-lined streets with gorgeous old homes, and the other, which is supposed to be trendy, has old terraces with views of outhouses and clothes-lines. I belong to the latter. 

I did too. Our story here is about three generations of women, one widowed, one never married, one still single, a schoolgirl still, but starting to spread her wings. This will create conflict in any family, but particularly in a strong- minded Italian matriarchy. Josie lives with her mother and is in her final year of schooling. She is about to start a tumultuous year.

The seventeen that Janis Ian sang about where one learns the truth.

I liked the reference to Janis Ian’s At Seventeen, but wondered if teenage readers in the 90s or now would get the reference? I guess they can Google it now if they're that interested. But it's important to remember that this book was written in the 80s and published in the 90s- nearly ancient history now in terms of YA. 

I think though that Looking for Alibrandi was one of the first big selling Australian YA books, and certainly one of the first to deal with characters from diverse cultural backgrounds. Josie's Italian heritage is important to her character, and vital to the story. Looking for Alibrandi deals with lots of big issues- our multicultural society, cultural identity, family secrets, youth suicide, school, first love and friendship, and so it's easy to see why it is still being taught to high school students in Australia. But it's not just issue driven book, it's a story told with humour and warmth. 

263/1001

http://australianwomenwriters.com