Somewhere Among

Finished January 28

Somewhere Among by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu

This children's novel is narrated by eleven-year-old Ema. As the story opens Ema and her parents are taking taxi from their small apartment to the other side of Tokyo where her father's parents live. Ema's mother is from the United States and teaches English at a college. She's having a difficult pregnancy, so the plan is to live with her Obaachan (grandmother) and Jiichan (grandfather) so that her mother can rest. This means that Ema can't go to her usual school as it is too far away. 

At first her Papa tries to stay there as well, but the commute to his work is too long and he gets too tired. It is June, shortly before the normal school year ends, so Ema will get tutored by her Obaachan until she starts at the new school in September. Ema is a pretty good kid, and she's excited to have a sibling, so she tries to not worry her mother over things. Usually in the summer she goes with her mother to visit her California grandparents, Nana and Grandpa Bob, but this year she will miss that, so she talks to them on the phone and writes to them. 

The novel is told in a series of poems, with each one dated. We see how Ema has some trouble adjusting to living with her grandparents. Her Obaachan runs the house and has rules and expectations, so Ema finds her a little cold, but she is close to her Jiichan and they spend time together. 

By the time school starts, he finds her a used bicycle to go back and forth with and he fills in her mother's duties on the Mama Patrol that watches out for the kids safety going to and from school. But this novel also takes place in 2001, and when the planes hit the towers in New York City, Ema is unable to prevent her mother from learning the news. 

I really liked Ema and understood her feelings of not fitting in due to her mixed heritage. Changing schools is hard and she also has to deal with a bully, something she hasn't encountered before and tries to hide from her mother. 

This is a book that draws you in with the character and the poetry format means that a reader can take their time as they go through the book. 

Graphic Nonfiction

Finished December 29
American Widow by Alissa Torres, art by Sungyoon Choi
This book is about Alissa's experience around 9/11 and the time that followed. Her husband was killed that day, his second day on the job at Cantor Fitzgerald. Alissa was seven months pregnant at the time. This book is very personal, telling us of Alissa's feelings, even when they aren't ones normally revealed publicly. It tells of Alissa and Luis and how they met and how Luis came to the United States. It tells of Alissa's issues with bureaucracy following the disaster and how she dealt with things as they blocked her way forward. It also tells about the human side of things, showing how some resented the help offered to victims like Alissa and others purported to offer help, but weren't forthcoming with the kind of help actually needed. Hopefully this is something that we can learn from.
Choi brings the words alive with her drawings and puts faces to the people Alissa writes of. I liked the inclusion of a few photos as well and found that they added to the story.
This is a story of tragedy and fortitude and a very human one.

Atlantic Fiction

Finished May 19
Ragged Islands by Don Hannah
The main character here is Susan Ann Roberts, lying in a hospital in Toronto, while her two children and some of her grandchildren make their way to her side. As she lies there her mind takes her back to the places in the Maritimes that were important to her life. She visits her Aunt Aggie's farm, her foster parents' house in Shediac, finally making her way to Ragged Islands where she lived all her married life and alone until her recent move to Toronto. Along the way she meets people that meant something in her life. Some of them are ones she always had questions about such as her birth mother. Some of them she had never met before. She also meets up with a beloved childhood pet.
This is an interesting way to revisit a life, but I found it a bit choppy. Ultimately it didn't bring Susan Ann the closure she was wanting, but it did bring a different type of closure, and that may be all we can really expect.

History and a Children's book

Finished November 4
Two Souls Indivisible by James S. Hirsch
I've had this one beside my bed and have been reading it slowly over the last couple of months. This is the story of two men in the U.S. armed forces that were POWs in Vietnam. Fred Cherry was an air force pilot and was injured when his plane came down. He was the first black officer to be captured. Porter Halyburton was a navigator for the navy's planes, and was younger, white and from the south. The Vietnamese put them together hoping that racial tensions would break the men. Instead, Halyburton nursed Cherry intimately and argued with the guards for items that Cherry needed. The intense connection between the two men, coming out of this forced relationship sustained them both throughout the many years they spent in captivity as well as continuing through the rest of their lives. A big part of this was the personality of the two men, Cherry never allowing himself to be baited, and Halyburton's sensitivity and sense of fairness.

We All Fall Down by Eric Walters
Will, a grade-nine student will be spending the day at his father's office. Will isn't looking forward to it, partly because he hasn't felt close to his father lately. His father, John is vice-president in an investment company located in the World Trade Center and has been working long hours and travelling a lot. As Will makes his way through the day, from the train ride in to meeting his father's co-workers, he finds that his father has not stopped feeling close to him. When the planes hit the towers and Will and his father deal with the aftermath, they discover each other in new ways and through new eyes. This story has drama, good character development and moves quickly.

Three finished over the weekend

Finished June 24
This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M.Homes
I loved this book. The main character, Richard Novak is a fifty-five year old divored man who makes a living trading stocks from home. He manages his life with a full-time housekeeper, a nutritionist, a trainer, and a masseuse. The book begins when he has an attack of intense pain that takes him to the hospital emergency room. As he begins to notice what is going on around him and come back to life in a sense, many more things begin to happen. A sinkhole starts on the hill outside his house. He meets people he may never have met in his life before the pain and tries to reconnect with his family. On his way home from the hospital, he stops at a donut shop and meets the owner Amhil, whose enthusiasm gathers him into an unlikely friendship. In helping a little girl rescue her horse from a sinkhole he meets the famous actor who lives across the street from him. He finds himself becoming involved in others' lives and assisting them in making new starts as well. This is a great book and I could hardly put it down. I can't help wondering what happens next to everyone.

Finished June 23
Falling Man by Don DeLillo
This is a novel of the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Keith is a man who worked in the towers. He finds refuge in the home of his estranged wife and son, but also in sharing the events of the escape from the towers with another escapee, Florence whose briefcase he ended up bringing with him out of the building. He remains emotionally detached from all of them and ends up in a nomadic existence, living a solitary life of his own making.
Lianne, his estranged wife has accepted him back into the apartment and her bed, but still isn't sure of where their relationship is going.
Justin we see from their point of view only, a child disturbed by the attack, looking at the sky for signs of more planes, retreating into a world where he uses only monosyllabic words.
There are also choppy insertions from one of the terrorists, first from Germany where they are training mentally for the attack, then from Florida where they are taking flight training, and finally from the plane itself. These don't seem to relate to the rest of the story and don't fit well. I don't think they add anything.
For those characters dealing with the aftermath, the struggle to make sense of their lives and their futures is an ongoing one, with moments of enlightenment.

Finished June 22
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
I listened to the unabridged audio with Atossa Leoni reading. I found it utterly engrossing. You hear the story first from the point of view of Mariam, a girl from Herat born out of wedlock (a haromi) and married at 15 to a much older man from Kabul. The next narrator is a young Kabul girl, Laila, who is left an orphan after a bombing in Kabul. She becomes the second wife of the same man Mariam married. The two women have very different backgrounds, and very different attitudes but become very close. The events taking place in Afghanistan, and particularly in Kabul over the years that the story takes place are made vivid as part of the story. As the women struggle with their situation and eventually escape their husband I found myself caring a lot about them. Kabul became more real as a city home to many as the daily struggles are interactions are recounted along with the larger events. The horrific decrees of the Taliban (any woman caught wearing nail polish will have a finger removed stays with me) and the struggles of the inhabitants to survive in a war zone is made very real. The emotions of both women and their thought processes are given very realistically. I absolutely loved this book.