Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline opens one of the many doors to the world of the orphan in America. In this case, the voice is that of a young girl whose world is turned inside out by the deaths of her family members.
The story touches the heart as the reader witnesses the bare bones of emotional abandonment and confusion. The young narrator's struggle to make sense of a lost life and, at the same time her strive for a measure of control in the new world of foster families, grips the reader with a pain that is deep and profound. The story, along with the sudden and unfathomable loneliness of death and abandonment, gives the reader access to a world beyond the front door of foster care. The lesson that seeps into the heart is that there are precarious places for a child and that the safety of children cannot be taken for granted.
On the other hand, Kline uses the word to place a hand on the wound as she weaves the most unexpected friendship between a child on the verge of being jaded by unfortunate circumstances with her elderly friend and "savior." Actually, the two women form a bond that allows them to heal old wounds.
As the friendship progresses, Kline, along with the reader, weaves layer after layer of emotional warmth and at the end of this beautiful story, the bare bones emotional skeleton has grown layers of rich flesh infused with the forces of love, friendship, and acceptance.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
The Story Teller by Jodi Picoult
The Story Teller takes place around the baking of fine, hotly buttered, mouth watering, scrumptious, multi-flavored, recognizable bread! Brioche, challah, "babka, poppy seed cake and mazurek."
Jodi Picoult pulls the reader into a struggle with life and death, and with the human effort to understand how we end. She takes this human and personal path to lead us into the painful puzzle of good and evil, of man and woman's inhumanity to others. And, yet in the midst of the readers own horror at our inhumane possibilities one finds oneself one of those "humans" as the senses react - as the reader's visual memories are activated and the smell of good hot bread ignites that hunger in the midst of the same memory that smells of spilt human blood.
The reader is jarred into seeing his or her own possibilities. The reader is made to contemplate the temptation to feel superior, the temptation to belong, and the temptation to use pain to inflict pain. Juxtaposed against these human conditions one sees, feels, and smells the horrific consequences of following the status quo, and the animal that emerges when one falls into that trap.
Picoult uses the main character to take the reader on an emotional human ride. It is a ride full of pain, friendship, and understanding. Just as the reader comes to believe that Sage, the main character, will always feel the pain of her scars, she finds love.
The Story Teller is about crime and punishment; it is about soul searching; it asks ancient, present, and future questions. It asks us to ask ourselves what lies ahead!
It is about the Holocaust.
Picoult is a sensitive and artful writer. She uses metaphors and similes to help the reader digest horror. As you read, you understand, that the bread metaphor works like a mother's hot soup on a day heavy with storms.
Jodi Picoult pulls the reader into a struggle with life and death, and with the human effort to understand how we end. She takes this human and personal path to lead us into the painful puzzle of good and evil, of man and woman's inhumanity to others. And, yet in the midst of the readers own horror at our inhumane possibilities one finds oneself one of those "humans" as the senses react - as the reader's visual memories are activated and the smell of good hot bread ignites that hunger in the midst of the same memory that smells of spilt human blood.
The reader is jarred into seeing his or her own possibilities. The reader is made to contemplate the temptation to feel superior, the temptation to belong, and the temptation to use pain to inflict pain. Juxtaposed against these human conditions one sees, feels, and smells the horrific consequences of following the status quo, and the animal that emerges when one falls into that trap.
Picoult uses the main character to take the reader on an emotional human ride. It is a ride full of pain, friendship, and understanding. Just as the reader comes to believe that Sage, the main character, will always feel the pain of her scars, she finds love.
The Story Teller is about crime and punishment; it is about soul searching; it asks ancient, present, and future questions. It asks us to ask ourselves what lies ahead!
It is about the Holocaust.
Picoult is a sensitive and artful writer. She uses metaphors and similes to help the reader digest horror. As you read, you understand, that the bread metaphor works like a mother's hot soup on a day heavy with storms.
BUCK by Asanti
The hot beat of rap poetry stills the reader. It weaves its way through your senses as the beat is caught in the fleshy sadness of a perpetual family and social story that should not be.
It simply should not be a story in the midst of a "progressive" and "civilized" society.
Ashante brings the voice of the urban black youth to the forefront. His lyrics curl themselves around your heart and squeeze. He is asking the reader, how could you not care! He is demanding the reader to look and look again, recognize [my] humanity; take note of [my] anger. Respect [my] possibilities.
BUCK is defiant; it is unapologetic.
BUCK is a son's love for his mother.
BUCK is a testimony for his brother.
BUCK is a demand for respect.
BUCK is a time to pause, to stop, to reflect.
BUCK is a time for change.
Ashante is a young man who takes us on an important journey into American life in what is called the "ghetto." He calls attention to every mother's dream and every mother's sorrow. He makes us bleed for lost fath.er's and fatherhood.
The music in his poetry keeps the reader high enough to withstand the pain that he exposes.
"Later on, at dinner, Uncle Howard tells me about the war inside. "There's a war between two wolves inside everybody. One is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other's good. It's love, peace, beauty, happiness, truth, hope, joy, humility, kindness, and empathy."....... I give long, deep hugs to Uncle Howard and Aunt Georgia, then hop in the car with Ryan. I start the engine, then jump out, forgetting something. I walk up to my uncle. "In the story," I ask, "who wins.... between the wolves? The one you feed." (pg 187-8)
It simply should not be a story in the midst of a "progressive" and "civilized" society.
Ashante brings the voice of the urban black youth to the forefront. His lyrics curl themselves around your heart and squeeze. He is asking the reader, how could you not care! He is demanding the reader to look and look again, recognize [my] humanity; take note of [my] anger. Respect [my] possibilities.
BUCK is defiant; it is unapologetic.
BUCK is a son's love for his mother.
BUCK is a testimony for his brother.
BUCK is a demand for respect.
BUCK is a time to pause, to stop, to reflect.
BUCK is a time for change.
Ashante is a young man who takes us on an important journey into American life in what is called the "ghetto." He calls attention to every mother's dream and every mother's sorrow. He makes us bleed for lost fath.er's and fatherhood.
The music in his poetry keeps the reader high enough to withstand the pain that he exposes.
"Later on, at dinner, Uncle Howard tells me about the war inside. "There's a war between two wolves inside everybody. One is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other's good. It's love, peace, beauty, happiness, truth, hope, joy, humility, kindness, and empathy."....... I give long, deep hugs to Uncle Howard and Aunt Georgia, then hop in the car with Ryan. I start the engine, then jump out, forgetting something. I walk up to my uncle. "In the story," I ask, "who wins.... between the wolves? The one you feed." (pg 187-8)
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