Tag Archive | refugees

Ashfall, by Mike Mullin (book review) – volcano disaster, dangerous trek, epic determination

May12

book cover of Ashfall by Mike Mullin published by Tanglewood BooksAs volcanic ash fills the Iowa skies,
violent earthquakes rattle the cornfields,
booms louder than cannons go on for hours and hours,
it seems like the end of the world is now…
but the end is just beginning.

Yellowstone’s geysers and fumaroles have always hinted at its geothermal potential for destruction. The supervolcano eruption long feared by geologists has come at last, and Alex’s home 900 miles east is under attack from its furies.

The enormous ash plume will spread through the atmosphere, block out sunlight, cause sudden and long-lasting winter weather. No sunshine means no crops growing, no crops means no food, widespread famine and desperation. Imagine the damage that sharp corrosive ash will do to auto engine air intakes, aircraft jet engines, delicate lung tissue of people and animals.

And Alex heads out into this ashfall with meager supplies and no sunrise to guide him eastward, trying to reunite with his family, to survive.

Visiting Yellowstone National Park last September, I smelled the sulfur of its hot spring pools, saw entire forests killed by rising super-scalding water levels, watched Old Faithful geyser jet up hundreds of feet into the sky. Yep, this supervolcano potential is real, and scientists are closely monitoring it – but can’t stop it.

First-time author Mike Mullin describes a perilous apocalyptic world which is all the more frightening because it really could happen at any moment. Book two in the series, Ashen Winter, will be published in October 2012 – pre-order it as soon as possible at your favorite independent bookstore because you won’t want to wait a single extra day to read what happens after Ashfall!
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Book info: Ashfall / Mike Mullin. Tanglewood Books, 2011. [author’s website]    [publisher site]   [book trailer] My personal copy of book. Cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk:  Alex wants to skip visiting his uncle’s goat farm, and his parents finally agree to let the 16-year-old stay home alone this time, on that September weekend when the whole world changed, when a supervolcano eruption rocked civilization to its core.

It’s not like Alex was planning a wild party in his parents’ absence – just computer games and junk food on the menu. But those teen pleasures are gone now, like clear air and electricity and sunshine and phone service and clean water and trusting other people. Even 900 miles from the Yellowstone supervolcano, earthquakes throw houses around like kids’ blocks in their Iowa hometown. Then the ash begins to fall from the sky…and fall and fall and fall, clogging car engines, making it hard to breathe, getting into every crevice of his clothes.

Determined to get to his family, Alex gathers whatever food and gear he can, then heads east cross-country on Dad’s skis. Driving to Warren takes an hour and a half – how long will it take now? Slogging through ever-deepening ash, running short of water and food, he avoids farmhouses where he can see rifle barrels glinting in the windows, tries to find shelter in this flat farmland it gets colder and colder.

He keeps moving east, encountering very few refugees, some even less-prepared than he is, one much more dangerous than anyone he ever wanted to meet. Wounded, he stumbles into the first farmyard along the road and is taken in by Mrs. Edmunds and her teen daughter. Luckily, Darla has enough veterinary training to sew him up, and there’s corn to feed them for a while. Unluckily, trouble is coming down the road toward them, fast.

Can Alex really get to his uncle’s farm under his own power?
Can he protect Darla and her mom if they go with him?
What’s their biggest danger – the ash searing their lungs, the sudden heavy snowfall, or the viciousness of other people?

Vividly portraying a post-apocalyptic scenario that’s entirely too possible, Ashfall is first in a series, followed by Ashen Winter (book 2).  (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

W for Widdershins and witches – Body of Water, by Sarah Dooley (book review)

Apr26

book cover of Body of Water by Sarah Dooley published by Fiewel and FriendsWednesday – her home is gone in minutes.
Wondering why her best friend has gone into hiding.
Widdershins, her wonderful dog – gone forever?

Why can’t people just be nice when they don’t understand someone? As nature-centered Wiccans, Ember’s family stands out too much in this small Southern town, no matter how quiet they are. Her mom reads tarot cards for townspeople who call her a witch behind her back and won’t even say hello to her at the store. Ember uses her spells only for peace, for clarity, to ward off Ivy’s nightmares.

Her continuing search for loyal dog Widdershins – “who was a good dog and came when I called her – six times out of ten” – and for objects that the fire left behind brings her close enough to former best friend Anson’s place every week that he might speak to her, tell her why he set the fire… but his silence is very, very loud.

Float out on the lake with Ember, find balance and clarity on her favorite Body of Water, feel how being homeless doesn’t mean being hopeless.
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Book info: Body of Water / Sarah Dooley. Fiewel and Friends, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Three hours after the fire, Ember wonders if Anson did it, if her best friend torched her family’s trailer house everything they owned, if that would keep his father from doing worse things to them for their beliefs.

Just because folks in the little Southern town call them witches doesn’t make them bad people. Dad calls their beliefs Wicca, Mom says not-quite-Wicca and teaches young teen Ember spells for clarity and balance with nature and peace. She also says that revenge is a bad seed to plant in your mind as it just might take root in your heart.

So now they’re homeless, Mom and Dad and Ember and little sister Ivy. She can’t find her dog Widdershins, and big brother Isaac is away at college. No room in Grandma’s tiny apartment, as if that devout lady would welcome her pagan son and family anyway, so eventually they find themselves at Goose Landing Campground, beside the lake where Grandpa drowned, the event that stopped Mom and Dad’s wanderings.

Ember ventures back to her burned-out home every week, searching for things that the fire might have spared – half a pair of Mom’s sewing scissors, a soup ladle – and for Widdershins. She mourns the loss of her spell journal, of Ivy’s random collections, of her former best friend. The only place she finds peace is floating far out in the center of the lake, where the water and the sky hold her.

And now it’s time for school to start. How can Ember and Ivy attend when their address is a pup tent, when they have no notebooks or decent clothes? Can they ever find a place to live when Dad can’t find a job? Did Widdershins perish in the fire or run away to find a safe home? Will Ember even be able to speak to Anson when she sees him again?

A story that circles back again and again to home and family and hope, Body of Water brings readers along on Ember’s search for clarity and balance and peace. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

P for Prized, by Caragh O’Brien (fiction) – not enough daughters, not enough time

Apr18

In the desert-dry future,
when the oil is depleted and hope is imprisoned,
there are rumors of a safe place beyond the wastelands.

Gaia and her tiny infant sister actually make it to Sylum, to a lake with more water than the teen midwife has ever dreamed of, to morning mists instead of parching winds, to the Matrarch‘s iron-fisted rule over everyone – the women citizens and the second-class males who vastly outnumber them.

Her own grandmother fled here years ago, and Gaia had hoped against hope that she’d still be in Sylum. Alas, she died a decade before their arrival, but left coded messages addressed to Gaia’s parents. Perhaps they’re family history, perhaps they’re clues to why fewer and fewer daughters are born to Sylum each year.

To fully appreciate Gaia’s story, read Birthmarked first, but if you just can’t wait to jump into this dystopian world, the author subtly brings in enough snippets of information from the first book to let you read Prized by itself. If you have read Birthmarked (book 1) and want a “bridge” to Prized, or if you just want a bit more backstory on The Enclave, look for O’Brien’s short story “Tortured” (free eBook at this time).

A mystery, a love story, a cautionary ecological parable.
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Book info: Prized (The Birthmarked Trilogy, book 2) / Caragh O’Brien. Roaring Brook Press, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [video book review]

My Recommendation: Gaia is afraid that her infant sister might not survive their escape across the wasteland, but the rumors hadn’t prepared her for the women-ruled settlement that rescues them. Staying in the Enclave would have enslaved them both; living in Sylum will give Maya to someone else to raise as the Matarch rules everyone. And once Gaia stays in Sylum for two days, she can never cross its borders or she’ll die.

So few females have been born in Sylum during recent decades that Gaia, with the birthmark streaking down her face, is accepted at once, and Maya is doubly prized. Now men drastically outnumber women, and they are forbidden to touch women or to vote in assemblies – a kiss means time in prison for assault. Men who have been tested as fertile have a chance to marry, if they impress a woman during the thirty-two games and the Matrarch approves.

When Gaia uses her midwifery skills to help a young woman in distress and won’t tell who, the Matrarch puts her under house arrest. Eventually, Gaia relents, stepping into the sunlight and a wealth of confusion as two brothers very delicately express their interest in her as a wife – and an intruder turns out to be Vlatir, who helped her escape from the Enclave!

As time approaches for the thirty-two games, Gaia gets strong hints that she’ll be the winner’s choice for chaperoned time together. Even prisoners can be chosen to play, so seeing Vlatir on the field is only a slight surprise. But the winner’s choice of companion shocks the whole community, and Gaia finds herself in a whirlwind of old secrets, new information, and terrible danger.

Can Gaia discover why so few girls are born here? Will the Matrarch let her act on any knowledge that she gains? Can she or Maya or even Vlatir survive in this strange place of marshes and lakes and women-archers who guard the assembly hall?

Readers who begin the Birthmarked Trilogy with this second volume will easily follow Gaia’s story as the author skillfully weaves in characters and incidents from the first book throughout the tale. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

E for Elephant in the Garden, by Michael Morpurgo (fiction) – survival, love & an elephant inWorld War II

Apr5

War means casualties and refugees.
Family ties are forged in trying times.
Marlene is a refugee, a member of the family, an elephant.

The new nursing home patient is ranting about her missing photo book, but the staff has never seen it. Is old Lizzie just imagining things? Luckily, nine-year-old Karl doesn’t care what the grownups say and visits her room to learn that her little brother was named Karl, too! And the stories that she tells about Karl’s magic tricks and her mother being a zookeeper are so real. Was the grieving young elephant who came to live with her family real, too?

This book tells parallel stories, with the present Lizzie’s tale in one typeface and young Elizabeth’s in another. Morpurgo says this book was inspired by the news story of the Belfast zookeeper who kept a young elephant at her home during threats of WWII bombings of the Irish city, as well as the heroic efforts of refugees helping and protecting children in many situations.

Find this unique book soon at your local library or independent bookstore so you can meet Elizabeth, Marlene, and their family on the cold and difficult journey toward safety.
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(p.s. Giveaway for ARC of Cat Girl’s Day Off continues here through 11:59 p.m. Monday, April 9, 2012.)

Book info: An Elephant in the Garden / Michael Morpurgo. Fiewel and Friends, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation: Bombs falling through the winter night, thousands of people – and one elephant – flee Dresden as it burns. As the old lady talks in the nursing home, Karl and his mother at first wonder how much of the story is true, then marvel that anyone survived it.

Elizabeth grew up in Dresden, with her younger brother Karli who loved doing magic tricks, their mother who loved peace, and their father who loved his family more than anything. But the war changed everything, taking away their father, making their mother work to feed the family. Mutti became a zookeeper, caring for the animals, telling Elizabeth and Karli about their antics and the sadness of Marlene, the young elephant whose mother had suddenly died.

When it becomes clear that Germany is losing the war, the zoo director reluctantly decides that the animals must be destroyed so they can’t run wild through Dresden when bomb attacks open their cages. How could Mutti let Marlene be killed? She brought the elephant home to their garden where Karli fed her and comforted her, inside its tall brick walls.

But soon the Allied bombers came, and the city became an inferno. Mutti led them away from the flames, through the snow, toward her brother’s farm in the country. A noise in the barn where Marlene sleeps alerts the family to an intruder – an enemy soldier!

Can they trust this young Canadian man? How can they feed Marlene in the winter forest? How will they get to safety with Allied troops approaching and German forces retreating? (and is Ms. Lizzie’s story really true?)

As gently as the young elephant finds her way across the snowy hills with her adoptive family, this story of survival and love quietly flows from Lizzie’s memories into the lives of Karl and his mother in the present. Based on true history of the Belfast Zoo’s elephant during World War II. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Eleventh Plague, by Jeff Hirsch (book review) – tough road in the future

Feb3

book cover of The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch published by ScholasticMaybe some canned food is still hidden in that store,
Maybe they can pull some scrap iron from that bombed-out building,
Maybe the soldiers won’t capture them,
Maybe the slavers will.

Germ warfare on a global scale – China started it, but everyone was threatened by the virulent strain of flu. Only a third of the population survived that Eleventh Plague, and now living day to day is the hardest thing the survivors will ever face.

Granddad was tough on Stephen and Dad, but how else were they to survive after Mom died and the Quinns took to the salvagers’ ways? Anything not practical was useless in Granddad’s eyes, especially when they had to carry everything, so Stephen never let him see The Lord of the Rings book deep in his pack, nor the only photograph of his mother.

Is Settler’s Rest too good to be real? The school must have over a hundred books! Stephen can even play baseball, like Dad did in the pros before the war.

Yet many townspeople mock and despise Jenny, who was adopted from China years before the war began. And some still suspect Stephen and Dad of being spies, even after the teen works hard alongside the other kids.

Jeff Hirsch’s debut novel sends us along America’s deserted backroads and shattered shopping centers on this Future Friday, always watching for soldiers and slavers, always wondering if the P11 plague is truly gone.
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Book info: The Eleventh Plague / Jeff Hirsch. Scholastic Press, 2011. [author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: Always moving, Stephen learns survival skills from his dad and granddad as they travel through ruined America. Searching for salvage on the way to the traders’ gathering, they stay clear of the old paved roads where soldiers and slavers travel. What was it like before the Chinese bombed the USA and two-thirds of the world’s people died of the Eleventh Plague, that deadly flu? What would it be like if Mom were still alive?

A chase, an accident, a long drop – now grumpy Granddad is buried, Dad is in a coma, and Stephen must keep them safe. When a group of teens finds the pair near the river, he reluctantly accepts their offer of help for Dad. After blindfolding, the group travels a winding trail to a town – a real town, with a school and houses with unbroken glass windows! So many people in one place, mostly refugees who have built a true community in this remote gated subdivision.

Stephen can hardly believe their luck, finding an actual doctor who can treat Dad. Violet even lets them stay in Jenny’s room since her rebellious adopted Chinese daughter moved into an old barn, away from the taunts about her birthplace.

But not everyone in Settler’s Landing thinks it’s a good idea to let strangers in their gates. Some think that Stephen and Dad are spies from Fort Leonard where soldiers are in charge, others worry that they’re an advance party for the region’s ruthless slaver gangs.

For the first time in his fifteen years, Stephen can attend school and play baseball, like Dad told him about. Sure, the town’s kids have chores afterward, but they can go swimming and there’s almost always enough to eat – the adults have worked so hard to keep the town and people safe.

Jenny is always the wild card, questioning their teacher during the few times she attends school, challenging her peers to think for themselves. When one of Jenny’s pranks gets out of hand, the small community jumps to the wrong conclusion. Perhaps Stephen really is a spy, they worry.

Now Settler’s Landing finds itself divided – do they launch an attack against outsiders or stay inside their town walls to defend it? What can the town council do to keep this hard-earned fragment of civilization intact? Will they even be able to survive if the slavers or soldiers march into their hidden valley?

A future that might be true, a future that we pray never happens, the only reality that Stephen knows – this is America after The Eleventh Plague. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Away (fiction)

Jan20

Leave your family behind…
Abandon all your technology…
Venture into an uncertain future…

Could you be as brave as Rachel? Could you live in the Unified States whose heartless government refused to rescue any of its citizens who were stuck on the other side of the Line when the crazybombs fell?

This compelling sequel to Hall’s first novel (review) takes us to the other side of The Line where “the Others” have lived a generation among ruined buildings with no electricity, scavenging what they can and trying to keep their children alive long enough for them to grow up. Perhaps these psychically gifted kids can help this fragile society survive attacks from ferocious mutant animals and equally ferocious humans who’ve embraced their savage side with a vengeance.

This couldn’t really happen in our future, could it?
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Book info: Away / Teri Hall. Dial Books, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Rachel knows she can never return home if she crosses the Line, but it’s the only way to save a man’s life. So she carries medicine into a primitive land – the land where the government stranded some of its own citizens when it sealed the country against enemy invasions when a terrible weapon was unleashed.

Seeing something – someone – on the other side of the Line’s energy field was amazing and dangerous for them both. Pathik asks her to find medicine to cure his father, and Rachel is amazed at her own willingness to risk sneaking anything past the government’s ruthless Enforcement Office.

After her dad Daniel was reported dead in the early fighting, Rachel and her mom were safe at Miss Vivian’s property away from the city. But even in little towns, the EO keeps tabs on everyone and wants to know why Rachel has run away from home and where she went.

Far away from the Line, Rachel finds a world of mutated animals and scant resources. Without the psychic gifts of the other teens here, she’s a liability to her new community until she learns survival skills. Each small village keeps to itself, and only a few Travelers dare to cross the barren land between settlements.

When they hear that Daniel the Traveler has been captured by a nearby village noted for its brutality, the leaders of Pathik’s village decide to rescue him. They reluctantly allow Rachel to go on the mission since only she knows how to use the modern tools she brought across the Line.

Could this Daniel possibly be her Daniel, her father sent unwillingly into battle across the Line? Rachel has to face the dangers to find out.

Can Rachel survive without the psychic gifts that everyone else has here? Can she really make it in a world without technology? What will the EO do to her mom and Miss Vivian since Rachel crossed the Line and went Away?

The dystopian future of Rachel’s life may be closer than we think, closer than we’d like to believe… sequel to The Line. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Nowhere Girl, by A.J. Paquette (fiction) – born in Thai prison, American girl seeks home

Dec28

Far, far from anyone who knows her.
Far from the crowded streets of Bangkok.
A single twisted tree visible through the prison bars.

Luchi’s mother refused to contact anyone in the USA when she was transferred to Khon Meung prison in northern Thailand, so the sweet blond baby born to her there was raised by the women who shared their cell.

Imagine being 14 years old and riding in a car for the first time! Windows with glass and computers are equally new technologies for Luchi, as she travels away from the only place she’s ever lived, following the wishes of her mother who died just before she could give her daughter any concrete information about their family in the States.

Beautifully written and satisfyingly original, you’ll remember Luchi’s difficult journey long after you finish reading Nowhere Girl. Find it today at your local library or independent bookseller.
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Book info: Nowhere Girl / A. J. Paquette. Walker & Company, 2011. [author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site]

Recommendation: Luchi Ann must leave the prison where she was born. As her American mother died, she told the blond teenager to “go home”, leaving scraps of information. Questions about her father always sent Mama into bleak depression – Mama, who was so glad to be relocated to this remote women’s prison in rural Thailand before Luchi’s birth, who warned her to stay safe from danger outside the prison. Oh, the inmates educated Luchi with every book they could find so she knows math and literature in three languages, but very little about the current world outside the prison walls.

So now she’s headed for Bangkok with an old list of phone numbers, a discarded letter, and her mother’s US passport. First time to ride in a car, first time to eat with strangers, first time to see buildings reaching to the sky… Trying to find answers to her mother’s past, to her own identity – this is no easy task for someone who has never before traveled wherever she wanted, never touched a computer.

Can Luchi discover the location of her mother’s home in America? How can she travel half-way around the world with no money and no passport? What is the danger outside the prison walls that her mother always warned her about?

A stirring tale of self-discovery and unexpected adventures, readers will be enthralled with Luchi’s reflections on life in Thailand as they root for her to succeed in her quest to fulfill her mother’s final wish. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

The Line (fiction)

Dec12

Does a fence keep enemies out or keep its citizens in?
Who controls the truth?
Can people truly do what’s right in defiance of their own society?

Welcome to a possible future on this Metaphysical Monday, to the “Unified States” where Rachel and her mother need to be unremarkable, to not draw the attention of government agents who are looking for any reason to remove possible security risks.

Imagine – agents having the power to imprison people who can’t pay a random tax on the day it’s enacted, to strip a family of all its possessions and force them into the perpetual poverty of the Labor Pool, to make people just disappear …
Her mom still has a copy of the original rights bill, even though it’s treason to mention it.

The peacefulness of propagating orchids with Ms. Moore in the Property’s greenhouse won’t last long when the message arrives from The Others across The Line – how can the mutated former citizens talk like regular people?

A chilling look at an all-too-plausible dystopia where government boundaries and policies determine everything – except compassion. Rachel’s story continues in the newly published sequel, Away.
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Book info: The Line / Teri Hall. Dial Books, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: Rachel wonders about The Others, the mutated creatures that exist across The Line. That invisible barrier still protects the Unified States from the results of a terrible war. No one crosses it now; no one worries about the Unified citizens who were trapped outside The Line when the experimental bombs landed.

She and her mother are safe here on The Property, working for Ms. Moore, growing orchids. After Rachel’s dad was lost in the war, they were lucky to find Gainful Employment away from the city – where joining the ranks of the Labor Pool means inescapable poverty, where government agents remove those who are “security threats”.

But when a voice recorder gets past The Line with a plea from The Others for medical assistance, Rachel must decide if she can help – and how she can get the medicines through The Line. Her mother reminds Rachel that the government-controlled news isn’t always the truth and reveals secrets about her father’s past. Ms. Moore explains her connection to The Line as they try to work out what they can do to help The Others without alerting the government agents.

Why did the government close The Line so fast that many of their own citizens were trapped outside? How did anyone survive those attacks? Why doesn’t anyone come back when the agents take them away?

Join Rachel in this dystopian future as she weighs the options – stay safe on her side of The Line or do what’s right despite the danger. First in a series, followed by Away. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Legend (fiction)

Nov28

Elite soldiers and expendable worker drones.
Iffy electrical power and repeated plagues.
Endless slums and a handful of luxury apartments.

Future Los Angeles is a far cry from today’s sunny tourist destination. Most of its 20 million people are doomed to slums because of their mediocre Trial scores at age 10. Those who score too low are removed by the Government as a useless burden on society.

Scoring well on the Trial means high school and college and a good position in the Elector’s own police force. June is the only person who ever made a perfect score and has raced through all her classes in just four years, getting ready to stand as an officer on the front lines with her brother Metias.

When he is murdered by the notorious teen-criminal Day, who’s survived on his own since escaping from prison after his failed Trial, June’s hunger for revenge and Day’s drive to protect his impoverished family set the pair on a collision course with consequences that no one could envision.

Scheduled for Nov. 29 publication, so grab the first book in the Legend trilogy at your nearest indie bookstore tomorrow!
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Book info: Legend / Marie Lu. Putnam, 2011. [author’s website] [series website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: No one expected a 10-year-old to break out of prison like Day did. No one expected a 10-year-old to get a perfect Trial score like June did either. Future Los Angeles only educates the very brightest – the middling ones become drudge labor, the Trial failures are turned over to government prisons or research labs.

Now 14, June is bored with her military college classes and longs to be on active duty full-time like her older brother Metias. Her parents would be so proud of them both, if they were still living… When Metias is killed on a routine patrol, June is not sure she can keep on living, but duty to the Elector keeps her going.

Day moves along the fringes of underground society, stealing supplies to keep his family alive in the slums, even though they think he’s gone forever. Fleetingly captured on security cameras, Day’s exploits against government stations are becoming legendary, even though no one knows exactly who he is.

Another plague is stalking the poor areas of the city, and Day spies as his family’s house is marked with the infected-quarantine mark. Now, getting the plague suppressant for his brother is Day’s main concern – and that means infiltrating high-security hospital labs undetected.

As Day searches for the medicine, the police continue searching for Day. June is assigned to the case and takes to the streets in disguise, trying to capture this renegade before he becomes more of a folk-hero in the slums.

The more Day learns about this plague, the more worried he is for his family. The more June learns about Day, the more she questions the Republic’s actions.

Was Day involved in Metias’s death? Why are the plagues so common in the City? Will June find answers in her brother’s journals or just more questions?

Leap into a gritty future adventure with Legend, recounted by Day and June in alternating chapters, first in a series. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Paper Daughter, by Jeannette Ingold (book review) – family tree with hidden branches?

Nov23

When what you “know” about your family isn’t true,
When the person with the real answers is gone,
How far can you search back into the past without losing yourself?

Maggie knows that she wants to be a reporter like her father, recently killed by a hit-and-run driver. But when investigations get too close to home, when the truth upends everything she thought she knew about her family background…

Her hometown of Seattle has always been shaped by immigration and change – from its wild days as a frontier logging town through the countless immigrants from China who made one corner of the city their own, despite the strangling restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

So what does Maggie discover about her family’s past and her own future?
Find out at your local library or independent bookstore on our World Wednesday – and remember to share family stories around the table this Thanksgiving.
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Book info: Paper Daughter / Jeannette Ingold. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher site] [student video book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: As a young journalist, Maggie Chen has her late father’s writing skills and reporting instincts. His recent death has left a gaping hole in her life, but she is determined to complete the summer internship he helped her arrange at the local newspaper.

That Jillian rushed in and grabbed photo desk before Maggie could even open her mouth – good thing Maggie won’t be working directly with the other intern, who is all talk and nosiness. But internship means trying every aspect of the job, so she’ll start at the sports desk and move to other assignments as the summer goes on.

Maggie and her professor mom start to notify Dad’s out-of-town contacts about his death, about that hit-and-run driver. When one call connects Maggie to Dad’s best friend in college, pieces of his life story begin to crumble as the truth about his past erases the family stories that he’d always told them. Now she’s wondering about the unfinished articles in her dad’s files.

If Dad wasn’t from a well-to-do family, then where did he come from?
Why did he contact so many people in California just before his death?
Was he in Seattle’s old Chinatown on the day he died for a newspaper story or on a personal investigation?

During her first “hard news” assignment, Maggie learns that someone else was killed in the same area on the same day, someone who might have been ready to blow the whistle on corrupt land development deals. Was her father’s death connected to that, too?

Murmurs of Chinese immigrants’ stories thread through Maggie’s search for answers, stories of “paper sons” claimed as blood relatives on immigration applications, of changed names and unchanged resentments. Can she ever know who she really is? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)