Young Adult – Reading for you

The Racist Wizard of Oz

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Wizard of Oz is so well known among Americans that most can either quote from the book for the movie or both. The movie was shown every year, back before VCRs, and I knew it so well, and sang all the songs. It is such an American story.

But, as this book points out. L. Frank Baum, the author, was a racist. Not only a racist, but someone who believed in genocide of all native people. Although I thought I knew everything there was to know about him, having read him from childhood, the editorials, pointed out in this book, show how much hatred he had for the Indiginous people.

And why is this important? Because, along with Louise’s off-again-on-again love story, there is the story of her brother, Hughie, who is the Tin Woodsmen in the school play, where like the casting of Hamilton, there is no “right” ethnicity for any of the actors. Dorothy is a Black actress. Lousie and Hughie are citizens of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation, just as the author is.

And underlying this, is the racism that boils up in the Kansas town, that a play would have people of color who were usually white.

Louise and her brother have to put up with this hatred, while navigating take usual high school issues.

Louise is working on the school paper, and reporting on these things, but keeping her native heritage a secret from her new boyfriend, because she isn’t sure how he feels about Indiginous people, despite being of Lebanese heriatage.

It is a well written story, with Louise, the narrator, giving a good, natural voice to what is going on around her. And while some parts are serious, there are some funny bits, as Louise tries to explain to her brother how long ago Baum wrote the hateful words about native people.

“About fifty years after the Trail of Tears?”
That didn’t seem to help either.
“Twenty to thirty years before the setting of the first Gal Gabor Wonder Woman movie. Great Granpa Lucas wasn’t born yet, but his parents were alive.”

Good thinking book, where you come away wondering about assumptions.

There is a great line, at the end of the book, which doens’t spoil anything, and I’ll quote here.

”Do Native people believe in Thanksgiving?”
[…] “We believe in gratitude.”

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Journaling to sanity

Ophelia by Gingras
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Back when I was a teenager, I read a book called The Fog Comes on Little Pig Feet. It was about a miserable girl, keeping a journal, and the usual angst that comes from being a misunderstood teenager. Not sure if it is still relevant in this day and age, but this book, Ophelia, reminds me of it, with her keeping a secret journal of her life, and how she is misunderstood.

This is a hurt child, and this journal helps her get over her hurt, along with making a friend with another outcast. One reviewer said she figured out what was going to happen from the beginning, but I have to say I wasn’t sure where the author was going to go with it. I was surprised at somethings, to be sure. A good addition to the “journal keeping teenager who can only speak to the paper about her pain” series of books.

The only issue I have with this book is the illustrations that Ophelia has done, have not been translated, and usually I would say that is ok, but the little French I still have, from learning it 40 years ago, or so, I think that we should be able to read what she has written on her drawings. Perhaps the final book will have them in English.

The other issues I have with the book are minor. I’m not stupid, I understand when she says she is in French class that it is the equivalent of being in English class in that you are writing essays and reading literature, rather than learning the lanaguage. But, I wonder if most readers would get that.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Freedom, or not

Freedom’s Just Another Word by Caroline Stellings
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was a little too young in 1970 when this book takes place, so I don’t remember too well the things that were going on then and I certainly was not a young black woman living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. And yet this novel felt so real so true to the time that once I got past the introduction I was hocked on her voice and her dream of becoming a blues singer

This is the story of how Louisiana meets Janis Joplin and is offered a chance to audition if she can get down to Austin Texas in time.

And you would think that would be enough to the story but this is not a simple road trip, but a journey of thoughts as well as places. The world is changing in 1970, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

I throughly enjoyed this story and felt the author got everything right including Janis Joplin. I highly recommend this book. Well done historical fiction.

Thanks to Netfalley for providing this book for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Ghosts in the library

Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wouldn’t say this book is semi-autobiographical, but the author does know about mental illness and archiving medical history.

Cel, the main character, has such a job, and the mental illness, but she loves the structure of doing this sort of work.

If you pick up and only read the first few pages, you might say, “what the heck is going on,” which is what I did, but then I got past that, and realized that this was a pretty cool little story of the bad things that happened to people of mental illness in the bad-old-days.

Well written, and it shows that the author know from where these expereinces and feelings come from.

You have to be in the mood, a bit, because this is quick, but not easy. There is pain and sadness, but homor too.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

View all my reviews

Eating pain

The Pain Eater by Beth Goobie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Maddy is raped. That is not a spoiler. It happens in the first page of the book. She is raped by people she knows.

And rather than reach out to anyone, or tell anyone, she buries it inside her.

This is a heart wrenching story.

I would like to say that this book is contemporary and meaningful now, because of the Stanford rape case that is being talked about in the news, but unfortunately, if that rape case had not happened, there would have been another. It is the sad fact that this book will probably be contemporary and m in the new news for a long time to come.

Boys and men should be taught that rape is not sex. Rape is power. And in this case, it was power over Maddy.

The name of the book is the name of the group story that the class writes, about a pain eater, one who eats the pain of others so they don’t have to carry it around with them any more. This second part of the story appears to be unrelated to Maddy’s story, (view spoiler)

Very moving story. The author got us deep, so deep that we could feel Maddy’s pain. I burst into tears I don’t know how many times. The voices are all so real, all so well written. Maddy’s, her friends, her parents, her older sister, everyone. Well done. Really well done.

This should be standard reading for kids in school, as a book to discuss in class, or read on their own. Not sure if it would change their thinking, but it would get them to think a little at least.

Thanks to Netgalley and Second Story Press for making this book available for an honest review. And, let me say, Second Story Press is bringing out some great books lately.

View all my reviews