A Girl Like That

Written by Tanaz Bhathena

Farrar Straus Giroux

978-0-374-30544-4

369 pp.

Ages 13-18

February 2018

Zarin Wadia, sixteen, is A Girl Like That. She's seen as provocative, rebellious, and clever but her story is one of tragedy from birth to her death.

Zarin's death, along with that of a young man, Porus Dumasia, in a car accident is not a surprise ending. It begins the book with Zarin's guardians, Masi (mother's sister) and Masa (maternal uncle), and Porus's mother wailing over the dead teens. How they got there which is essentially Zarin's back story is the story of A Girl Like That. Told in multiple voices of Zarin, Porus, a gossipy classmate Mishal, and a boy Farhan with whom Zarin becomes involved, Tanaz Bhathena's first young adult novel is a study in nature vs. nurture for a teen whose origins were considered shameful and whose upbringing was rife with physical and emotional abuse. 

Memories...can be like splinters, digging into you when you least expect them to, holding tight and sharp the way wood did when it slid under a fingernail. (pg. 27)

Zarin is never made to feel like she belongs. Not with her Masi and Masa who take her in after her unmarried mother's death or at Qala Academy, the school she attends after they move from India to Saudi Arabia. She is shamed at home by her abusive and mentally ill Masi–and infrequently defended by Masa–for her illegitimacy, her gangster father and issues related to her being a girl. At school, a place where rumours are currency, especially for Mishal the anonymous BlueNiqab blogger and gossip monger, Zarin's classmates look down their noses at her for her heritage and standoffish ways. Still, Zarin endures. She hides the abuses and thumbs her nose at those who shame her. She smokes and she goes riding in cars with boys, an offense according to Sharia law.

And then her childhood Parsi friend, Porus, moves to Jeddah with his mother after the death of his beloved father. Zarin and Porus resume their friendship though it is an unconventional one, with Porus completely smitten and Zarin dating other boys and not sure she is capable of loving anyone. When Zarin is the victim of an assault by Farhan, her world at home and school dissolves into a muddy mess of anger, gossip, shaming, and revenge, with Zarin's desperately searching for courage and safety, within and without.

A Girl Like That is garnering much attention because of Tanaz Bhathena's story about gender inequality and religion-based social restrictions in Saudi Arabia. By focusing on a world that is intimate to many but foreign to so many others, Tanaz Bhathena is both honouring those who live Zarin's life and educating those unfamiliar with the restrictions and distinctions of living with abuse, segregation, cultural discrimination, gender inequality and religious policing.  But beyond the cultural milieu, A Girl Like That is still a statement about the need for self-expression, to fight self and others, to become who you are. Zarin's story is still a tragedy for the abuses inflicted upon her by family, both young men and women, and her cultures but she finds a way to fly, even without wings.

Because a bird only learns to fly when its wings are broken. (pg. 318)

Optimists Die First

Written by Susin Nielsen

Tundra Books

978-1-77049-782-5

240 pp.

Ages 12+

February 2017

Reviewed from audiobook

Read by Julia Whelan

Listening Library

B01N6PZ3Q3

4 hr 58 min

Apparently optimists do die first.  By ten years.  Pessimists, it seems, are more realistic because they see eventualities the oblivious optimists ignore.  No wonder Petula De Wilde, 16, is obsessed with all the circumstances that can take and have taken peoples’ lives before expected.  Her obsession about all things dangerous has her keeping a scrapbook of news stories of deaths from falling debris at construction sites, a faulty roller coaster or elevator, and even deadly paper cuts, leaving her fearful of everything from double-dipping eaters, public washrooms, biological warfare, and airplanes.  This since the death of her baby sister Maxine two years earlier, a death for which Petula blames herself.  Now she can’t keep herself safe enough.

In lieu of counselling, Petula attends YART, Youth Art Therapy, along with recently out-of-the-closet Alonzo, alcoholic Koula, angry, grief-stricken Ivan and new guy Jacob Cohen, the guy with the bionic arm.  Under the instruction of therapist Betty, the group undertakes a series of juvenile projects.  But, after Petula and the aspiring film director Jacob prepare a cat adaptation of Wuthering Heights (to rave reviews, except from their English teacher), the group convinces Betty to let them organize their own projects, more relevant to their needs and issues.

Amidst their YART sessions, Petula’s phobic life style, overwhelming guilt, regrets over falling out with former BFF and crafting buddy Rachel, and a disintegrating family, Petula and Jacob fall in love.  But Jacob only reveals a few scenes from his life, and apparently a lot of it is fiction, jeopardizing his relationship with Petula and the other members of YART.  Whether they can find a way to heal their own guilts and allow another into their worlds is only up to Susin Nielsen, director of fine stories and creator of characters more real than those we encounter every day.

If you’re familiar with Susin Nielsen’s earlier works (Word Nerd; Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom; The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen; and We Are All Made of Molecules)–and if you’re not, go out right now, rush, get them and read them–you’ll know the power of her writing to blend stories of families in transition with heavy issues like death, divorce and homophobia, while still leaving room for humour and romantic love.  Optimists Die First is a package of inspiritment (even from the tragedies) that serves to entertain because of Susin Nielsen’s diverse characters, human and cat, subplots of secrets and shames, and reassurance of a close that’s more a beginning than an end.

“But that’s life, I guess. We know we can’t do a rewrite.  We can’t undo what’s been done, or control what’s coming next.   

All we can do is hope for the best.”

Just stick to the bright side (away from falling construction debris) and you’ll be just fine.  I’m positive.

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Author Susin Nielsen speaks about Optimists Die First in a brief video on YouTube and is accompanied by her cat who is not named Moominmamma, Anne of Green Gables, Ferdinand, Stuart Little, Stanley, Alice or Pippi.

Susin Nielsen talks all things 'Optimists Die First' avec cat

Uploaded by Maximum Pop! Books on March 13, 2017 to YouTube.

I Am Not a Number

by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer

Illustrated by Gillian Newland

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-94-4

32 pp.

Ages 7+

September 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Stories like I Am Not a Number should always be told.  They should always be told loudly and emphatically and with purpose, to tell of a wrongdoing that was perpetrated against First Nations families like the Couchie family of Nipissing First Nation.  Tales of children stolen from their homes, under the direction of government, to attend and live at residential schools.  Narratives of holding onto self when everything was done to annihilate that sense.  This is the account of author Jenny Kay Dupuis’ granny, Irene Couchie Dupuis.

In 1928, Irene was living with her father, Chief Ernest Couchie, and her mother and two brothers, George and Ephraim, on Nipissing Reserve Number 10 when the Indian agent of the day demanded the children be surrendered to him to deliver to St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School.  Though her parents protest–her mother especially vehement that eight-year-old Irene needed to be with her family–the children are essentially taken by force.

The children are going with me to the residential school.  They are wards of the government, now.  They belong to us. (pg. 2)

With final goodbyes, her mother telling them to “Never forget home or our ways.  Never forget your mother and father.  Never forget who you are.” (pg. 7), the three children are taken away and separated, boys from girls.  Still Irene tries to stay strong, even after she’s told that she will be known as 759, telling herself “I am not a number.  I am Irene Couchie, daughter of Ernest and Mary Ann Couchie.  I will never forget who I am.” (pg. 8).  And through the horrible showering to “scrub all the brown off” (pg. 9) and the cutting of her long hair–normally only cut when a loved one was lost– and burning of her hands as punishment for speaking her own language, Irene heeds her mother’s words to never forget who she is.

From I Am Not a Number 

by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer, 

illus. by Gillian Newland

After a full year of biting her tongue and dreaming of home, to and from which all letters were banned, Irene and her brothers are sent home for the summer.  As happy as she is to feel the love of her family again, to eat well and speak her own language, Irene is troubled by images of her time at school and her impending return in the fall.  But Irene’s father has other plans for his children and none of them include that horrible place.

Jenny Kay Dupuis does her granny Irene and her heritage honour by telling this story.  It’s a difficult one for all families involved in the residential school debacle, even for generations afterwards but one that Jenny Kay Dupuis tells, in collaboration with award-winning historical fiction and non-fiction writer Kathy Kacer, to inform and clarify for young readers.  It’s a shocking tragedy from our history but one from which we can only hope all learn valuable lessons.  I Am Not a Number is illustrated compassionately by Gillian Newland, who also illustrated Kathy Kacer’s The Magician of Auschwitz (Second Story Press, 2014) and A Boy Asked the Wind (Barbara Nickel, Red Deer Press, 2015). In the realistic style of Alex Colville and using the sombre tones of greys, blacks and browns for the residential school and a similar palette with splashes of gold and green away from that setting, Gillian Newland evokes the appropriate sentiment the book.  I Am Not a Number may be illustrated and classified as juvenile non-fiction but the extensive text and the account within is a mature one, yet one that can be told and taught and learned with empathy and as tribute.

From I Am Not a Number 

by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer, 

illus. by Gillian Newland

The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen

by Susin Nielsen
Tundra Books
978-1-77049-372-8
243 pp.
Ages 11-14
2012

If you're looking for another book of irreverent humour similar to Susin Nielsen's Word Nerd (Tundra, 2008) or Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom (Tundra, 2010), the reader may be somewhat disappointed with The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen.  While Susin Nielsen's characteristic humour is still there, especially in her characterizations of Henry's Reach for the Top team mates and details about the Global Wrestling Federation's fighters, it takes a backseat to overwhelming despair.

The story begins seven and a half months after "it" happened.  "It" revolves around our protagonist's older brother, Jesse, 15, and the bullying he tragically endured.  The family has moved from Vancouver Island after Dad lost his business, Mom lost her job, and they could not remain.  Mom has been staying with her parents in Ontario, seeing a psychiatrist, while Henry and his father have moved into an apartment in Vancouver. Henry, thirteen, is gaining weight, uses a robot voice when stressed, and reluctantly visits Cecil, his psychologist.  Dad just tries to make ends meet by working.  Luckily, the family's shared interest in the Global Wrestling Federation's Saturday Night Smash-Up provides some connection for the distressed family.

At his new school, the only kid who befriends Henry is geeky Farley Wong, who drags trivia-knowledgeable Henry to join the school Reach for the Top team.  Except for Alberta, the funky but rude girl with whom Henry is smitten, the team consists of geeky kids who probably are all victims of some bullying.  In fact, Henry is sadly reminded of his brother's experiences and continues to suffer guilt and shame when he sees Farley being victimized regularly at school by Troy Vasic. 

While feeling like his family is falling apart,

"I'm the only one who's trying to fight for this family.  And I'm beginning to think we may not be worth the fight" (pg. 181)

Henry is also trying to resolve the nature of his friendship with Alberta, his dad's relationship with their neighbour Karen, the blame he feels from his mother, and his reluctance to reflect on his possible role in his brother's tragedy.  Ultimately it is through his interactions with the new people in his life that Henry finds the means and strength to deal with the issues of his past.

Susin Nielsen always addresses important issues in her books, though they are often flavoured with much comedy.  In Word Nerd, Ambrose deals with his mother's overprotectiveness, isolation and bullying.  In Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom, Violet endures the repercussions of her parents' divorce: her mother's repeated disasters with loser boyfriends and her dad's excessive attention for his new family. But there is little humour in The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen.  And maybe it's best that, while the story is infused with the quirkiness of Henry and the other teens, the emphasis should be on the overwhelming anguish experienced by those left behind after unnatural death.  Nothing could or should remedy that agony except time, acceptance, and maybe forgiveness of oneself and others. Susin Nielsen shares the complicated nature of grief and grieving while helping the reader see the far-reaching and unpredictable consequences of bullying.

Cuts Like a Knife

by Darlene Ryan

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-0119-6

109 pp.

Ages 14+

2012

Anyone who believes that writing for children is far easier than writing fiction for adults has never written for children.  And those that believe that writing short, high-interest, low-vocabulary books for teens is a lark have never attempted to create the high-quality fiction of Orca Soundings, novels for teens reading between a Grade 2  and Grade 4.5 level.  (By the way, a Reading Level (RL) of 4.5 suggests the reading level of a child in the fifth month of their Grade 4 school year.) Of course, just because these books are geared to reluctant readers does not mean they are read exclusively by them.  Readers picking up a book like Cuts Like a Knife will read it for its contemporary and relevant story and characters with whom they will easily connect, regardless of the number of pages or syllables per word.

In Cuts Like a Knife, author Darlene Ryan focuses on the reluctance of teens to share their difficulties with each other as well as with those who might be able to help.  Mac may present herself as bold and fearless but, without parents and living with her grandmother until she passes away and then moving to live with an uncle with whom she doesn't seem to connect, Mac has a lot more going on than she is willing to share.  Daniel, the story's narrator, is just happy to be her friend, though he hopes for more.  When Mac shares herself with Daniel, then disappears, he suspects that she has run away again.  But, in his attempts to find her, Daniel discovers that she has been gifting her friends and important people in her life with items with which she would never part.

So begins Daniel's struggle to find Mac without informing on her, a sure way to lose her friendship.  Even as he becomes more frantic to find her and he clashes with those who purport to be her friends, Daniel cannot appreciate his need for some assistance, just as he suspects she needs help to deal with her troubles.

Though Cuts Like a Knife doesn't conclude with the happy ending of Daniel and Mac falling into each other's arms, the story resolves itself in a more believable manner, probably reflecting the more likely outcome of situations akin to Mac and Daniel's.  Moreover, Mac and Daniel are not the beautiful teens of most YA fiction, and for that most readers will be grateful  Though Daniel sees Mac as amazingly creative and intelligent, she can be caustic.  Although she always seems candid, Mac uses humour and brashness to avoid sentimentality and emotional interactions.  Daniel, on the other hand, sees himself as a wuss, feeling that he often backs down and is coddled by his mother.  But, in his desperate attempts to find Mac, Daniel is more fearless than he suspects, though he plays the role of a typical teenager well in rejecting his mother's offers of help.

Having the linear storyline characteristic of most Orca Soundings, Cuts Like a Knife works well in that Daniel's quest to find Mac is essentially unidirectional: find her, help her, save her.  He doesn't try to change people's views or create dramas of his own, though he could considering the individuals with whom he interacts on her behalf. Yet Darlene Ryan admirably ends the book not as reaching a resolution, but as accomplishing a major step forward in Daniel's relationship with Mac and with his mother, as well as Mac's relationship with herself and with her uncle.  But where those steps lead is up to Darlene Ryan and we hope that she accepts the challenge to let Mac and Daniel pursue those new stories wherever they may lead.