45. Tonya Cherie Hegamin, M+O4EVA

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45. Tonya Cherie Hegamin, M+O4EVA

A very short YA novel, but one that really packs a punch. O (Opal, a young black woman) and M (Marianne, a mixed race woman) have been best friends (and sometimes more than that) since they were babies, the only two who understood each other in their rural Pennsylvania town. But now it's their senior year of high school, and they've been growing apart. Their story is interwoven with a old tale they heard from their parents, about a ghost who haunts a nearby ravine, the spirit of an escaped slave woman.

This book is hard to describe because I don't want to give away a major event that happens near the beginning. But it's excellent, a story about growing up and growing apart, grief, love, family, and the choices that people make. The writing is beautiful and powerful. I highly, highly recommend seeking this one out.

#49: Home and Exile by Chinua Achebe

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Based on lectures given by Achebe in 1998, Home and Exile is a collection of three essays about Nigeria and colonialism. Gracious even when tearing into those he perceives* to misrepresent Nigeria, Achebe intricately examines both colonial and anti-colonial writings about Nigeria and the European perspective of it.

It’s noteworthy, though, that while Achebe far more than adequately addresses these issues regarding Nigerian men, I don’t believe Nigerian women are mentioned at all. In fact, while many men are mentioned on both sides of the issue, women are barely mentioned at all, and when they are, they represent colonialism, whether real women like Elspeth Huxley, or in allegories in which they’re cogs in the great machine that is colonialism.

But that’s a quibble, as Achebe’s goal is to address Nigeria and colonialism, and he does that well.

*I say “perceives” not because I have any doubts about his interpretation, but because I’m not familiar with many of the books and arguments mentioned, and so can’t actually have an opinion of them myself, though I agree regarding the ones I am familiar with.

#50: The Conch Bearer by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Anand’s family lived a happily middle-class life until his father disappeared and his sister became mute with shock after witnessing a violent death. Now he, his mother and his sister live in poverty in Kolkata, and Anand has had to drop out of school and take a job with a mean stall owner to make ends meet. But then he gives his last food to an old man, and along with a street girl, he’s drawn into a war between a secret brotherhood and an their supernatural enemy.

The book follows the Heroic Boy’s Quest Template as closely as it possibly can, but brings modern India* and mythology to life very well. It’s painfully predictable for an adult used to quest stories, but is probably just the thing for kids.

That said, despite the criticism of predictability, which is primarily based on my being over twice the target age, my only real criticism is the ending, which certainly isn’t predictable, but also makes no sense.

( spoilers )

This may be why adults should be careful of what children’s fiction they read?

*According to the author bio, Divakaruni lives in Houston, or did in 2003, at least. If the Texan kids she knows are anything at all like the Texan kids I knew 20 years ago (or know now), then just the setting could make it the most original thing they’ve ever read.