Pemba’s Song: A Ghost Story

Reading The Rainbow: Book 5
Title: Pemba’s Song: A Ghost Story
Author: Marilyn Nelson and Tonya Cherie Hegamin
Medium: Book

Pemba’s Song: A Ghost Story is the story of Pemba a young African American teenager who has recently moved with her mother from Brooklyn, New York to the small town of Colchester, Connecticut where her mother plans on teaching at the Colored School. While in the new house Pemba starts seeing glimpses of another girl looking at her in the mirror. This other girl is Phyllis, an eighteenth century slave who lived in the same house hundreds of years before. She’s trying to tell Pemba something, but Pemba might be too scared to find out.

This story really wasn’t scary, or tense, or even creepy. Granted it’s a young adult book, and it is well written but nothing about it caused me any real concern. Even the scenes where her head is pounding and she’s about to pass out were just there. Nothing heart pounding. Maybe it’s because I read this so close to reading something as creepy and tense as Joyce Carol Oates’ Zombie but the ghost part of this story just wasn’t doing it for me.

Overall rating: 2/5 – it was okay
Classification: African American Authors
Female Authors
Young Adult
Horror?

Flight

Reading The Rainbow: Book 4
Title: Flight
Author: Sherman Alexie
Medium: Audiobook

It was only a matter of time before I picked up another Sherman Alexie. Between last years and reading Reservation Blues for an English class in college I consider myself to be fond of Alexie’s work.

Flight follows fifteen-year-old Zits as he wakes up in yet another foster home. Zits is half-Native American Indian and half Irish and 100% miserable. His mother died when he was six of cancer and his father took off the day he was born. Zits, looking for acceptance teams up with Justice, a white troublemaker who he meets in jail.

Under Justice’s pressure, Zits takes two guns, one paintball and one real to rob a bank. Somehow Zits finds himself transported through space and time, again and again, learning the value of life and death. Zits finds himself in the bodies of several people, including an FBI Agent, a mute Native American boy during General Custer’s Last Stand, and a pilot who is cheating on his wife named Jimmy. All of these events change Zits and makes you hope that he gets a second chance.

Overall Rating: 3/5
Classifications: Native American
Young Adult

Elsewhere

50 Books by Authors of Color: Book 49
Title: Elsewhere
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Medium: Audiobook

What happens to us when we die? Gabrielle Zevin delves into this question in her young adult novel Elsewhere. Fifteen-year-old Liz wakes up on the S.S. Nile, a ship that is taking her to a place known only as Elsewhere. Along with her roommate aboard the S.S. Nile, Thandi (who is sixteen) discover slowly that they are dead, Liz, the victim of a hit and run, and Thandi, the victim of a drive by shooting. Actually, it takes Liz a while to figure that she’s dead, Thandi figures it our pretty quickly, but this slow realization thing is just kind of what Liz does throughout the book.

Basically, the way things work in Elsewhere is that you age backwards from your death, and then once you’re a seven day old baby you’re sent down the river back to Earth and you start living again, as a new person. This happens to everyone, people, dogs, and cats, whatever. Liz is met at the docks by her deceased grandmother, Betty, who died before Liz was born of breast cancer who has de-aged? Un-aged? I don’t know, Betty now appears to be physically younger than Liz’s own mother.

Okay, this book was annoying in so many ways, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t like it, but dear god. Liz died before she got her drivers license, and she doesn’t shut up about it. Granted it’s a major plot point for her and Owen, but still, you don’t have to mention it every five minutes. Life isn’t fair, granted, Liz is fifteen but this character just seemed like she’d never been told “no” before.

Anyways, She meets Owen Wells, who is basically a Coast Guard type police officer who catches people who are trying to make contact with the living. Owen appears to be about seventeen, but I’d consider him to be thirty-two. I’m not really one who thinks that looking like a teenager is an excuse for acting like one, but this doesn’t stop Owen from doing some serious crushing on Liz and vice versa. I can’t blame Liz as much, but Owen, who I think is very much aware of his actual age (because he’s still pretty obsessed with his still living wife). The whole thing pretty much devolves into an awkward living, dead, dead love triangle that’s just weird.

However, Liz being able to speak canine and having some really cute sounding dogs did help.

Overall Rating: 2.5/5 It’s like Sarah Dessen took some acid.

Mare’s War

50 Books by Authors of Color: Book 48
Title: Mare’s War
Author: Tanita S. Davis
Medium: eBook

It’s New Years Eve and I have great news, I only have one book left that I haven’t finished reading! So as long as there isn’t a robot uprising, I should be able to have my 50th book read and posted about before tonight’s New Years Celebrations start!

However, let’s not that detract from the excellent book that is Mare’s War. I read another book by Davis earlier this year, A La Carte, and I was expecting something similarly light. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Actually, I’m going to detract from the book for one moment to share a link with all of you that I stumbled upon after starting reading this book.

http://theretronatural.blogspot.com/2011/12/black-american-women-during-ww2.html

You should all stop reading this post right now and go look at those pictures of real life African American female soldiers during World War II.

Mare’s Ware is the story of a cross country road-trip of two teenager girls, Octavia and Tali, with their grandmother, called Mare over the summer. At least, that’s what the back of the book would leave you to believe. The truth is that the real star of the story is Mare, whom, the girls actually know very little about. As the family begins their cross country drive, destination unknown to them, Mare begins to talk about her childhood.

Mare and her younger sister Josephine (called Feen and later Josie) live with there mother in the poverty stricken south. At seventeen, Mare has already dropped out of high school and works two jobs to help pay the mortgage on the family home as well as to save up money. When their mother’s boyfriend becomes physically and sexually aggressive towards Mare, Feen is sent to Philadelphia to live with an Aunt and Mare decides to lie about her age and join the colored regiment of the United States Army.

The Army is still segregated during World War II and it shows, but that doesn’t stop Mare and her fellow female soldiers from doing their duty to their country and doing it well.

Overall Rating: 5/5, go read this book and look at pictures of awesome soldiers of color.

When My Name Was Keoko

50 Books by Authors of Color: Book 45
Title: When My Name Was Keoko
Author: Linda Sue Park
Medium: Book

Set in Korea before World War II, When My Name was Keoko switches back and forth between the perspectives of brother and sister Tae-yul and Sun-hee. During this time period Korea is under Japanese occupations and the Japanese have taken away everything from the Koreans, including their names. Stripped of their family name Kim, and their first names, Tae-yul becomes Kaneyama Nobou and Sun-hee becomes Kaneyama Keoko.

Koreans during this time period are even forced to destroy the beloved national tree of Korea and instead plant Cherry trees, the national tree of Japan. As resources begin to run low and the family begins eating millet instead of barley or rice the unbelievable happens, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and Japan is at war with America. With her uncle in hiding for running a resistance newspaper , Sun-hee and Tae-yul find themselves lost confused and without guidance.

I didn’t intend to read two Linda Sue Park books back to back but my holds from the library just came in that way. When My Name was Keoko provides an amazing perspective from people that no one remembers were involved. We get Keoko’s perspective as a young girl who witnesses young women being taken away, being told that they are going to work in factories in Japan (whereas the harsh reality is that the majority of those women were used as comfort women for the soldiers) as well as the perspective of young Korean Kamikaze pilots. Tragic, beautifully written When My Name Was Keoko is one of those books that makes you want to read more about that period of time.

Overall Rating: 5/5

A Single Shard

50 Books by Authors of Color: Book 44
Title: A Single Shard
Author: Linda Sue Park
Medium: Audiobook
Set it feudal Korea, Tree-Ear is an orphan who lives under a bridge in the village of Ch’ilp’o. His only care taker is a man with a twisted leg known as Crane-man.  Tree-Ear loves pottery, and one day after accidentally breaking a beautiful work by a potter known as Min, Tree-Ear begins his work for Min to repay the damage done. Tree-Ear works diligently for Min doing awful, back breaking labor such as chopping wood for the community kiln and getting clay. Originally only intended to be nine days of work, Tree-Ear decides to stay on, in part because he wishes one day to be able to create his own pottery and partially because of the kindness of the potter’s wife.

When the chance of a royal commission comes up, Min and the other Potters in the village work very hard to create the best wares in order to impress the royal emissary. While Min’s work is superior in craftsmanship it is dwarfed by a multi-colored technique that another potter has started using and Min doesn’t get the initial commission. When given a second change, Tree-Ear volunteers to make the journey to the capital city alone and by foot. The journey is treacherous and will change Tree-Ear and Min’s lives forever.

This book is actually great, heart breaking and beautifully written, Tree-Ear has a dream, to one day create his own pottery, a dream that is denied him when he learns that by royal decree the potter’s trade is passed from father to son, and being an orphan Tree-Ear has no chance at becoming a potter. He continues to work for Min with dedication even though he is heartbroken.

Overall Rating: 4/5