Tag Archive | determination

Last Summer of the Death Warriors, by Francisco X. Stork (book review) – is growing up harder than dying young?

May5

book cover of Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X Stork published by Arthur A Levine BooksWhat does life mean when you know – without any doubt – that you are going to die way too young?

Is there even any sense in trying to live a good life when the specter of Death haunts your breakfast, lingers in the corners of your backpack, rustles the leaves of the tree you can no longer climb?

Two teenage guys try to find the balance – D.Q. knows he’s dying fast, Pancho might not care enough to make it through the summer himself…

Francisco X. Stork says on his blog that he concentrates first on being a good writer, then on being a good Latino writer. I’d say that he succeeds at both. Check out his Marcelo in the Real World, too.

Book info: The Last Summer of the Death Warriors / by Francisco X. Stork. Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2010. 352 pgs. [author’s website] [publisher website]

My Recommendation: His sister dead just 3 months after their widowed father’s death – Pancho had promised to take care of Rosa, sweet Rosa, with her child’s mind in a young woman’s body. Why aren’t the police looking for the man who was with her when she died of “unidentified causes, no foul play”? At 17, Pancho is ready to find that man and make him pay for Rosa’s death.

But he’s not allowed to live alone at 17, gets kicked out of a foster home for fighting, and finds himself at St. Anthony’s orphanage, across town from his family’s trailer in the New Mexico desert where he watched the sunsets and worked with his father. Everyone works at St. Anthony’s; Pancho will help D.Q. whose cancer treatments have finally put him in a wheelchair.

D.Q.’s mother couldn’t handle his dad’s death several years ago and brought him to St. Anthony’s for the summer while she recovered. But summers and years went by with her hardly contacting him, until the cancer hit 6 months ago. Now she’s taking charge, ordering experimental treatments, but her son wants none of it.

Now D.Q. is writing the Death Warriors’ Manifesto, about how a true death warrior recognizes his someday-death and therefore lives every day till then in order to make a positive difference. Explaining that to everyday, non-philosophical Pancho is another way that D.Q. keeps going through the chemo treatments. Piecing together the clues leading to the man who was with Rosa is what keeps Pancho going. Seeing lovely, caring Marisol at Casa Esperanza during the chemo makes their lives more worthwhile.

Will Pancho find the man and avenge Rosa’s death?
Will D.Q.’s mother let him go back to St. Anthony’s after chemo?
Can both young men live like true death warriors?

A great story of friendships and choices, of really living versus just being alive. (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Warriors in the Crossfire, by Nancy Bo Flood (book review) – Pacific island incident World War II

May3
book cover of Warriors in the Crossfire by Nancy Bo Flood published by Front Street Books

So many small “incidents of war” go unchronicled, unrecognized.

But just imagine their effects on the families whose lands and lives the battles cross and re-cross.

Go to Saipan during WWII, during the Japanese Occupation, during the erasure of a traditional way of life in this gripping book.
**kmm

Book info: Warriors in the Crossfire / by Nancy Bo Flood. Front Street Books, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher website]

Recommendation: Eager to learn to steer ocean outrigger canoes, Joseph instead must watch as the invading Japanese army makes islander men clear the jungle for runways rather than fishing to feed their families. Instead of sitting in the men’s council of his clan on his 14th birthday, Joseph is searching for shore crabs and coconuts. Instead of school time with his half-Japanese cousin Kento, he has only worry for his family and a mental map of the hidden cave where his father stockpiled water and food as whispered words warned of the approaching American forces.

When the message to vanish comes, Joseph must lead his mother, sister, and toddler nephew silently through the jungle, armed only with his father’s ceremonial knife. As fighter planes scream overhead, the family huddles in the tiny cave and hopes the water jugs will last. Which soldiers will find them first – the Japanese, who will behead them for treachery to the Emperor, or the white-faced Americans, who might eat them?

Can honor and family both stay alive in such horror? Will the Japanese use all the Rafalawash people of Saipan as a human wall against the American invaders? Will Joseph see his father or cousin again in this lifetime?

The battles of World War II overran the native populations of many Pacific Islands, and their death tolls rarely count the thousands of islanders who also perished in the crossfire. (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.