I AM MALALA (MALALA YOUSAFZAI)

 

 

 

Story Description:

 

Little, Brown And Company|October 8, 2013|Hardcover|ISBN: 978-0-316-32240-9

 

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out.  Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.

 

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price.  She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school and few expected her to survive. 

 

Instead, Malala’s miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York.  At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. 

 

I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls’ education, of a father who himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons. 

 

I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person’s voice to inspire change in the world. 

 

My Review:

 

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 just after midday, fifteen-year-old, Malala was shot in the head at point-blank range.  She was riding the school bus with her friends when the Taliban stopped the bus and a gunman reached in through the back door and shot her where she sat on the back seat. 

 

Malala was flown out of Pakistan unconscious while everyone around her said she would never return nor survive, but survive she did.  She is living in Birmingham, England and can’t go home to her beautiful Swat Valley for fear she’ll be killed by the Taliban.  Malala misses her friends, her room, the snow-capped mountains, the green waving fields, and the fresh blue rivers.  She especially misses her best friend, Moniba who she sometimes Skypes with. 

 

Malala loved school and was a good student and referred to herself as a “bookish girl.”  Since the time of the Taliban her school had no sign and the ornamented brass door in the white wall of the building across from the woodcutter’s yard gave no hint of what lay behind that door.  For the girls of the school, it was like a magical entrance to their own special world.  The Taliban didn’t believe in education for girls and did whatever they could to uncover any place that was teaching girls. 

 

The school Malala attended was founded by her father before she was born.  It was called the “Khushal School” and was painted in red and white letters inside the school.  The girls attended six mornings a week and Malala was in Grade 9 when she was shot. 

 

Malala had been given awards for campaigning for peace in their valley and the right for girls to go to school.  Her bedroom was also full of trophies for coming first in her class and she was proud of her accomplishments, as she should be.  However, the Taliban took a dim view of her campaigning for education. 

 

She had begun riding the school bus as her mother was afraid of her walking home alone for fear of the Taliban.  The Taliban had never taken a girl before and Malala thought her own father would be a target for them as they had been receiving threats all year.  Some were in the newspaper, some were notes or messages passed on by people.  Malala’s father was always speaking out against the Taliban so it was a surprise when they targeted her.  One of her father’s friends had been shot in the face in August on his way to prayers and everyone began telling Malala’s father to be careful because he was going to be next. 

 

I AM MALALA is rich in history and tells how Pakistan came to be, how the Taliban took over and the story of what happened to Malala after she was shot.  Very well written and kept me glued to my seat.  Malala is one brave and courageous young woman!

 



PILGRIMAGE: My Journey to a Deeper Faith in the Land Where Jesus Walked (LYNN AUSTIN)

 

 

Story Description:

 

Baker Publishing Group|November 5, 2013|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-7642-1118-8

 

We all encounter times when our spirit feels dry, when doubt looms. 

 

The opportunity to tour Israel came at a good time.  For months, my life has been a mindless plodding through necessary routine, as monotonous as an all-night shift on an assembly line.  Life gets that way sometimes, when nothing specific is wrong but the world around us seems drained of color.  Even my weekly worship experiences and daily quiet times with God have felt as dry and stale as last year’s crackers.  I’m ashamed to confess the malaise I’ve felt.  I have been given so much.  Shouldn’t a Christian’s life be an abundant one, as exciting as Christmas morning, as joyful as Easter Sunday? 

 

With gripping honesty, Lynn Austin pens her struggles with spiritual dryness in a season of loss and unwanted change.  Tracing her travels throughout Israel, Austin seamlessly weaves events and insights from the Word…and in doing so finds a renewed passion for prayer and encouragement for her spirit, now full of life and hope. 

 

My Review:

 

Pilgrimage was a soul-searching and deeply moving account of Austin’s trek through Israel.  I found myself deeply invested in her writing and the words gave me a lot of food for thought.  I wish we all had the opportunity to take this same trek through Israel.  What better way to fully understand and aid in the comprehension of what we’ve read in the Bible.  To journey along the same routes that Jesus did for me, would hold special meaning for the rest of my life. 

 

I learned a lot while reading and will endeavour to make immediate changes in my spiritual life and my daily living life.  It’s so true that when times get hectic in our lives, we often have our prayer time on our “to-do” list to be checked off like completing the laundry.  We need to set aside regular, uninterrupted time to talk with God.  How can we really pray and mean what we say when our mouth is saying the words but our minds are thinking about what to cook for dinner.  We have to invest time with God and God alone. 

 

Lynn Austin’s Pilgrimage is a book to be kept and read again and again to remind us the importance of our daily conversations with God.  Thank you, Lynn for sharing your pilgrimage and your most intimate thoughts with us. 

 



ON DISTANT SHORES: A NOVEL (SARAH SUNDIN)

 

 

Story Description:

 

Baker Publishing Group|August 1, 2013|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-8007-2082-7

 

Lt. Georgiana Taylor has everything she could want.  A comfortable boyfriend back home, a loving family, and a challenging job as a flight nurse.  But in July 1943, Georgie’s cozy life gets decidedly more complicated when she meets pharmacist Sgt. John Hutchinson.  Hutch resents the lack of respect he gets as a non-commissioned serviceman and hates how the war keeps him from his fiancée. While Georgie and Hutch share a love of the starry night skies over Sicily, their lives back home are falling apart.  Can they weather the hurt and betrayal?  Or will the pressures of war destroy the fragile connection they’ve made? 

 

My Review:

 

Lt. Georgiana Taylor is a flight nurse with the 802^nd Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron.  Georgiana and five other nurses make up her team who provide medical aid to the boys and men fighting in the war.  Providing treatment of injuries in air saves many more lives than waiting until they can cross ground to get to a field hospital.  This early intervention is worth its weight in gold.  They treat everything from mild shock to dysentery to malaria to horrible amputations.  One must be of strong mind and body to work in this field. 

 

It is July of 1943 and Georgiana is flying back to base with casualties from Gela, Sicily.  She hops between patients taking notes and assessing each patient carefully for injuries sustained, giving medications when necessary or changing dressings or administering pain medications.  Her job is to keep these men as comfortable as possible until their final destination and she doesn’t like to make mistakes.  She will often have another crew member check her calculations when administering medications to prevent an overdose. 

 

She has a boyfriend, Ward back home who she’s been dating for nine years.  Their plan is to marry and run Ward’s farm together when she’s out of the army.  But her cozy life gets turned upside down when she meets pharmacist John Hutchinson (Hutch) and things begin to heat up.

 

Georgiana outranks Hutch which poses a problem for them in seeing each other and they must be careful and creative with clandestine meetings.  Hutch is a non-commissioned serviceman and detests how the war keeps him from his fiancée, Lillian, back home. 

 

With so many things going on, the seas begin to change and Georgiana and Hutch fall in love but this is an impossible relationship, it just simply cannot work.  Or can it? 

 

With the death of one of Georgiana’s flight nurses, she takes it very, very badly and the grieving is hard.  She becomes a bit bitter.

 

In the meantime, Hutch is busy with a seven-year-old little Italian girl named Lucia who he falls madly in love with and helps her back to health.  Both her legs have been crushed and whether she will ever walk again remains to be seen.  Lucia has no family all of them have been killed in the war so the only place available for her is an orphanage which just kills Hutch to have to leave her there. 

 

Georgiana and Hutch share a love of the starry night skies over Sicily, but their lives back home are falling apart.  Can they withstand the hurt and betrayal?  Or will the pressures of war destroy the fragile connection they’ve made? 

 

On Distant Shores was a captivating read and I’m looking forward to the third and final book in this series due out in 2014. 

 



CITY OF HOPE (KATE KERRIGAN)

 

 

Story Description:

 

William Morrow|June 25, 2013|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-06-2223728-6

 

The heartrending and inspiring sequel to “Ellis Island”, Kate Kerrigan’s City of Hope is an uplifting story of a woman truly ahead of her time. 

 

When her beloved husband suddenly dies, young Ellie Hogan decides to leave Ireland and return to New York, where she worked in the 1920’s.  She hopes that the city will distract her from her anguish.  But the Great Depression has rendered the city unrecognizable.  Gone are the magic and ambiance that once captured Ellie’s imagination. 

 

Plunging headfirst into a new life, Ellie pours her passion and energy into running a refuge for the homeless.  Her calling provides the love, support, and friendship she needs in order to overcome her grief – until, one day, someone Ellie never thought she’d see again steps through her door.  It seems that even the vast Atlantic Ocean isn’t enough to keep the tragedies of the past from catching up with her. 

 

My Review:

 

City of Hope is the second installment of Ellie’s story.  The first book was titled: “Ellis Island.”

 

In City of Hope, Ellie’s husband, John, suddenly dies.  She decides she doesn’t want to stay in Ireland and returns to New York where she started out a few years ago when she came to live out the American dream in the 1920’s. 

 

Ellie is having a difficult time grieving and is unable to cry over John’s sudden passing.  Looking for something to distract herself she again decides to return to New York city, hoping beyond hope that living among the hustle and bustle of a large city will quell her anguish. 

 

Upon her arrival, Ellie is disappointed to see that the Great Depression has taken its toll on her beloved New York.  She just doesn’t feel the magic anymore. 

 

Not knowing what to do with herself she starts up a tenement house, a refuge for homeless people.  She has enough money and purchases her first run-down house and hires some workers to help her fi it up.  Once repaired, Ellie begins finding people to place in her home and one day meets up with someone she thought she’d never, ever see again. 

 

City of Hope has a little of everything in it:  love, hate, compassion, grief, and even a murder!  It was an enthralling read and I would have read it in one sitting but had to break for an appointment.  City of Hope is simply a must read.

 



THE FUNERAL DRESS (SUSAN GREGG GILMORE)

 

 

Crown Publishing Group|September 3, 2013|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-307-88621-7

 

Emmalee Bullard and her new baby are on their own.  Or so she thinks, until Leona Lane, the older seamstress who sat by her side at the local shirt factory where both women worked as collar makers, insists Emmalee come and live with her.  Just as Emmalee prepares to escape her hardscrabble life in Red Chert Holler, Leona dies tragically.  Grief-stricken, Emmalee decides she’ll make Leona’s burying dress, but there are plenty of people who don’t think the unmarried Emmalee should design a dress for a Christian woman – or care for a child on her own.  But with every stitch,  Emmalee struggles to do what is right for her daughter and to honor Leona the best way she can, finding unlikely support among an indomitable group of seamstresses and the town’s funeral director.  In a moving tale exploring Southern spirit and camaraderie among working women, a young mother will compel a town to become a community. 

 

It’s amazing what a community can do together.   The Funeral Dress was a most enjoyable read!

 





THREE SOULS (JANIE CHANG)

 

Story Description:

 

Harper Collins|August 12, 2013|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-1-44342-390-8

 

Leiyin has to make a choice:  Should she save her only child or forever relinquish her own afterlife? 

 

Civil war China is fractured by social and political change.  Behind the magnificent gates of the Song family estate, however, none of this upheaval has touched Leiyin, a spoiled and idealistic teenager.  But when Leiyin meets the captivating left-wing poet Hanchin, she defies her father and learns a harsh reality: that her father has the power to dictate her fate.  Leyin’s punishment for disobedience leads to exile from her family, an unwanted marriage and ultimately a lover’s betrayal – followed by her untimely death.  Now a ghost, Leiyin must make amends to earn entry to the afterlife.  But when her young daughter faces a dangerous future, Leiyin has to make a heart-wrenching choice.   

 

My Review:

 

Three Souls is a rare book which would not only be a perfect book club pick, but is a page-turning, fantastic read.  This is a debut novel but you’d never know it.  Janie Chang writes like a well-seasoned author. 

 

Leiyin has passed on at a young age and leaves behind a young daughter.  She suddenly realizes that she is sitting in the midst of her own funeral watching from above.  Leiyin understands then that she has passed on and is now a ghost. 

 

Unfortunately, she has been denied admittance to the afterlife because she has committed some wrongs during her lifetime and must somehow correct these wrongs before she can move on.  Leiyin is accompanied by her three souls: her romantic yin soul, her very wise hun soul, and her scholarly yang soul.  The three souls, along with Leiyin must figure out how she can right the wrongs or they’ll all be trapped in nothingness for eternity. 

 

It was the very moment that the priest had said the last prayer and sealed her coffin closed that she woke up and floated upward in a slow moving drift of incense smoke.  She stopped and was sitting in the rafter looking down at the attendees of her funeral. 

 

The odd thing was that she had knowledge but no memories of her life. 

 

As she peered down, she saw on the altar a wooden tablet gleaming with gold-painted characters that were actually carved right into the surface.  What was printed into the tablet said: “Song Leiyin.  Beloved Wife.  Dutiful Daughter.  She recognized that is was indeed her name. 

 

The first time she noticed her three souls was when the priest had concluded his service.  It was at that moment she saw the three bright sparks moving in the air net to her. The souls were small, red as paint, but knew inherently that they couldn’t be seen by the attendees of her funeral. 

 

Leiyin notice a little girl dressed in white mourning robes with red rimmed eyes.  Obviously this young one had been weeping.  She suddenly recognized that this child was her daughter, Weilan.  So startled at seeing her, Leiyin floated down beside the child and wrapped her in her arms, but she could not feel Weilan.  The only thing she could do to comfort herself was to repeat the pet names she had called her daughter during her life. 

 

The three souls then began chatting that Leiyin needed to understand why she was being held back from her afterlife and left floating, invisible, to everyone in the real world.  Her yang soul spoke up and said Leiyan was still here because: “…she was responsible for a great wrong” that she needed to right. 

 

Leiyin, immediately told her three souls that she didn’t remember anything about committing a great wrong and was certain she had not been any type of criminal during her lifetime. 

 

The three souls then explained that she would relive her memories and only then would she understand her detention in this earthly realm, and what she must do to correct it.  It was extremely important that Leiyan understand the damage she had done in her life.  Only if she attained that goal would she ascend to her afterlife, along with her three souls.  If she failed, she’d be stuck as a hungry ghost in between worlds forever.  The three souls could not move on either without Leiyan. 

 

The souls decided they should begin showing Leiyan her earthly life beginning when she was a teenager and attending a party.  Suddenly she finds herself standing “on a street lined with sycamore trees and high, whitewashed walls.”  In that moment she realizes that she is that girl.  Leiyan then knew “everything about my life before that moment”, but knew nothing about what was to come. 

 

The story of Leiyan’s life, as she observes, begins in Changchow, China in 1938.

 

I absolutely cannot say enough about this book.  If I could rate it at 100 stars, I would!!  Don’t miss out on this superbly crafted story.  Thank you Ms. Chang for some of the best reading I’ve done in a while.

 



THE BOY ON THE WOODEN BOX: A MEMOIR (LEON LEYSON)

 

 

Story Description:

 

Antheneum Books for Young Readers|August 27, 2013|Hardcover|ISBN: 978-1-4424-9781-8

 

Even in the darkest of times – especially in the darkest of times – there is room for strength and bravery.  A remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list. 

 

Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten-years-old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto.  With incredible luck, perseverance, and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow.  Ultimately, it was the generosity and cunning of one man, a man named Oskar Schindler who saved Leon Leyson’s life and the lives of his mother,his father, and two of his four siblings, by adding their names to his list of workers in his factory – a list that became world renowned: Schindler’s List. 

 

This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s List child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable.  Most notable is the lack of rancor, the lack of venom, and the abundance of dignity in Mr. Leyson’s telling.  The Boy on the Wooden Box is a legacy of hope, a memoir unlike anything you’ve ever read. 

 

My Review:

 

Young Leon Leyson ran barefoot across the meadow toward the river.  Grabbing a rope swing, he hoisted himself up, swung across the water and let go splashing down into the cool river below.  He and his friends often came here for it was their favourite past time. 

 

During the winter, with the help of his older brother, Tsalig he fashioned together a pair of ice skates and glided up and down the river.  He was very inventive in crafting the skates.  They used all kinds of unlikely material, metal remnants taken from their grandfather the blacksmith and bits of wood from the firewood pile.  The skates were primitive and clumsy, but they worked and that was all that mattered.  Life at this time seemed an endless and carefree journey. 

 

Leon was born in Narewka, a rural village in northwestern Poland, near Bialystok, not far from the border with Belarus.  His ancestors had lived there for more than two-hundred years. 

 

His parents were hard-working people who never expected anything they did not earn themselves.  His mother, Chanah, was the youngest of five children.  She spent her days doing housework and caring for her children.  Leon himself was also the youngest of five children. 

 

His father, Moshe was a talented and well-known tool and die maker. He had always worked hard to provide a good life for his family.  Shortly after marrying Chanah, he began working as an apprentice machinist in a small factory that produced hand blown glass bottles of all sizes.  It was there that his boss chose him to attend an advanced course in tool design in the nearby town of Bialystok.  The glass factory did so well that it expanded and moved to Krakow, a thriving city three-hundred and fifty miles southwest of Narewka.  His father moved with the factory and saved money over several years before he was able to bring his family there with him.  

 

Leon loved going to synagogue services with his maternal grandparents for he was especially close to them.  The rabbi would begin the service in a strong, vibrant voice that soon blended with the congregation.

 

October 1938 began with disturbing news with stories about Germany and Adolf Hitler, Germany’s leader, or Fuhrer.  Since coming to power in 1933, Hitler and the Nazis wasted no time on consolidating control, silencing their opponents and beginning the campaign to re-establish Germany as a dominant world power.  A central part of Hitler’s plan was to marginalize Jews, to make them “the other.”  He blamed Jews for Germany’s problems, past and present, from its defeat in the Great War to its economic depression.

 

Soon Leon’s family learned that as many as 17,000 Jews, had been expelled from Germany.  The Nazi government told them they were no longer welcome, and were unworthy to live on their soil.  The possibility of a war grew stronger. 

 

During the summer of 1939, all of Krakow began to prepare for war.  They boarded up windows, stocked up on food, and remodelled their cellars into bomb shelters. 

 

On September 1, 1939, an air-raid siren jolted Leon out of his sleep.  German tanks had crossed the border into Poland, the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, had attacked a Polish border town and the invasion of Poland by the Germans had begun.  The Polish army was no match for the Germans and were unable to stop the flow of German soldiers who had crossed into Poland and quickly moved east. 

 

Five days after that first air raid, they heard a rumor that there were guards on the bridges of the Vistula River.  Leon snuck out to take a look and sure enough they were German soldiers.  It was September 6, 1939.  Less than a week after crossing the border in Poland, the Germans were in Krakow.  Although Leon and his family didn’t know it then, their years in hell had begun. 

 

The Boy on the Wooden Box is absolutely riveting reading!  The atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust were unbelievable and it’s terrible that other humans could do the things they did to their fellow man.  I pray we never experience another period like this in any of our lifetimes again and that it will become unnecessary for people like Leon Leyson to write memoirs such as this. 

 

The writing in this novel is literally flawless and the information presented in such a way that it made for easier reading and held my attention from beginning to end.  I read it in one sitting,  I just can’t say enough about this novel!!