The Forest of Stolen Girls

Written by June Hur

Feiwel and Friends

978-1-250-22958-8

384 pp.

Ages 13-18

April 2021

 

Driven to find the connection between the Forest Incident, in which his two daughters were found near where a young woman was killed, and the disappearance of 13 girls since then, Detective Min Jewoo pursued an investigation onto the island of Jeju in early 1400s Joseon (Korea). But the detective goes missing, and now his daughter Min Hwani, 18, returns to the island of her birth to find her father and perhaps reconnect with her younger sister, Min Maewol, now 15, who was left on the island to apprentice with Shaman Nokyung five years ago. Still, how can Hwani investigate on an island rife with superstition, with villagers petrified of losing their daughters to an unknown menace in the Gotjawal Forest or being selected as tribute women for Ming China, and stay safe herself while trying to work with her angry sister, resentful of her abandonment and mistreatment by her family? Having learned much from her detective father, Hwani becomes the investigator, probing the disappearance of the missing young women, and the Forest Incident, as well as his disappearance. Who she can trust or doesn't differs greatly from that of Maewol but the two sisters find a way to come together and delve into the mystery of the missing and the suspicious man in the white mask.

I do not want to reveal too much about The Forest of Stolen Girls as it is a mystery at its foundation, albeit a historical one in a unique time period. Just as she did in her debut novel The Silence of Bones (2020), June Hur enthrals with her setting as well as her story. With both her books set in the time of the Joseon Dynasty and by also scattering in words unfamiliar to most (e.g., jukjangdo, shin-byung, jeomjip, hanji), June Hur has created a new character of place of which readers will want to learn more. I was constantly looking up more about this historical period, and devoured June Hur's historical note appended to her story, trying to understand the people, their ways of life, their relationship with geographical neighbours (including becoming a vassal state) and the practice of offering tribute women. But within that amazing context, June Hur has woven a story of mystery, of family lost and found. There are countless characters who may or may not know something valuable and some who present facades of compassion and justice while evil lurks in the forest and the villages of Jeju. Who is responsible for taking the girls is but one mystery that needs to be solved, as is the location of Detective Min, and who can be trusted is unknown. Because people are often weakened by their fears and their ineptitude, evil can show its horrific face any time. But evil can be subtle or it can be the stuff of nightmares. Making things right, though, that's what Hwani and others learn is the key.

Doing what is right, it is so utterly terrifying. And yet so freeing. (pg. 307)

A Cage Without Bars

Written by Anne Dublin

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-069-8

160 pp.

Ages 10-14

September 2018

The Lord is with me. I have no fear of what man can do to me.      (pg. 1)

In 1492, the king and queen of Spain signed the Edict of Expulsion, giving the Jews of Spain the choice of converting to Catholicism or leaving the country. Many fled to Portugal where their refuge was short-lived. A Cage Without Bars is the story of Joseph, a twelve-year-old Jewish boy, who escapes from Spain with his parents and ten-year-old sister Gracia only to be enslaved by the Portuguese and shipped with other children to the island of São Tomé off the coast of West Africa.

They did not need ropes or chains to restrain us. We were bound by our grief and terror. (pg. 23)

Though Captain Caminha had been expecting a hundred African slaves promised by the king, he is surprised to be delivered of a large group of Jewish children, including Joseph and Gracia, as well as the group of convicts (degredados), who are to be put to work on establishing a settlement and farming cane to make sugar. As horrific as the ship's journey is for the children, with seasickness, poor food, minimal drinking water, dirty quarters, lashings, and Friar Escobar's regular lectures about Christianity, new horrors await them upon the island. When the Portuguese settlers who had received land grants choose their child slaves to work their land in exchange for food, clothing and shelter, Joseph is selected with six others by Dom Pereira, the expert on growing sugar cane. The Jewish child slaves live in huts behind their master's house and begin the hard work of clearing plants and trees. Gracia, on the other hand, who had been chosen to work for the captain's wife Dona Maria while still on the ship, remains by her mistress's side, tending to her clothing and hair and begins to adopt the Christian ways.

Many children lose their lives on the ship, mostly from bloody flux (dysentery), but now the remaining children begin to fall victim to tertian fever (malaria) and accidents including attacks by snakes and crocodiles. The slaves' numbers are augmented with a shipload of African slaves who are a tremendous help in clearing the land and preparing the soil, as well as planting and weeding. Because Joseph sees that they are all slaves, he doesn't always recognize the Jewish children and Africans as different. Even after he is enlisted to learn all he can about making sugar from books after Dom Pereira dies, Joseph begins to befriend the Africans, teaching a boy Tomás his letters–a punishable action–and partaking in their food and storytelling.

Most of us decided to do the best we could; to cling to life; to survive. There was no other choice. (pg. 96)

A tale of slavery cannot have a happy ending, though Anne Dublin does give Joseph a settling of the story that is bittersweet. But she makes sure that it is not contrived or impossible to believe. Perhaps that's to give the reader some hope that from such terrible historical circumstances some resolution could still occur. Still A Cage Without Bars is a very different story about slavery by recounting the historical events that resulted from the Spanish Edict of Expulsion in the fifteenth century. It's evident from author Anne Dublin's writing and historical notes, which include extensive footnotes, a glossary and references for further reading, that this was a difficult story to learn about and to tell. Still, she tells it well by embedding Joseph's story in the big picture of history, making it personal and real, not just bleak in tone and facts, and exposing a new story from the past that needs to be acknowledged in order to further our understanding and extend our compassion, all in the effort to replace ignorance and discrimination.