“Sometimes what you want is given to you in a way that is so very different from how you had pictured getting it.”
— Susan Meissner, The Last Year of the War
Goodreads Synopsis
Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa fourteen-year-old in 1943–aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity.
The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers. Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences.
My Thoughts:
There’s no shortage of dual any different angles. I liked that this one focused on a German American family. You hear about the Japanese internment camps in America, but I’ve never heard much about what happened to Germans living in America.
What I liked about the book:
Focus on female friendship and how the bond remains despite decades of separation
the German American focus
the Sontag’s are an average family who considered themselves Americans
My favorite read for November was a The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. A beautifully written tale of female friendship and strength, the book introduced me to facets of Korean history and culture that were new to me. Mi-ja and Young-sook live on the island of Jeju, a matrifocal society where women divers are the providers for their families. Occupied by the Japanese during WWII, then later by American soldiers, the story of the island is tragic. This is not a light, feel-good story, but it is the story of resilience and the power of forgiveness.
This book is perfect for readers who like
… strong female characters.
… complex relationships between characters. (not romantic)
I discovered Jane Harper when I was planning my trip to Australia in 2018. Harper does a great job of capturing the Australian terrain and lifestyle. Aside from the setting, I love that her books are character driven mysteries. Even minor characters feel real.
Kieran Elliott’s changed forever as a teenager when his brother and a family friend die in an attempt to rescue him from a storm. They weren’t the only casualties that day, all that was recovered of Gabby was a backpack.
Years later, Kieran returns to Tasmania to help move his father who is suffering from dementia when a woman is murdered. Everyone is shaken, and the citizens begin to turn on each other. This leads to questions about what really happened all those years ago.
I loved the setting and character development in this book. I think the mystery is not as strong as her other books. But, it’s a good balance if you want serious mystery without a lot of graphic detail.
My favorite read for August of 2021 is Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, a biography of the author written by Caroline Fraser in 2018. Since I have read so much about Wilder, I picked this up out of obligatory devotion to my idol, rather than to get information. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I learned. While this is a biography of Wilder, it’s more than that. It’s the story of an entire generation of pioneers that shaped our country. Not only did I learn information about the Ingalls and Wilder families; I learned a great deal about the lives of all western pioneers. Historical biographies can be tough reads. Sometimes authors are so caught up in the factual information that the biographies read more like a professional journal than a narrative. However, Fraser interweaves the history of American Frontier and Wilder’s life in an engaging manner which kept turning the page. The book shows deep respect for Wilder, while also presenting her as a real person who has flaws.
My Tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder
Aside from people I’ve actually met, Wilder is arguably the greatest influence in my life. She’s the writer I credit with making me a lifelong reader. That being said, I completely understand why she has come under criticism in recent years. Even as a little girl growing up in the 1980’s, I could see the racial insensitivity of her books. In addition, it’s now been proven that, despite her insistence that the books were true, certain parts simply could not have happened the way she wrote them. Then there’s the debate over how much of the novels were actually written by Rose Wilder Lane. There are many cracks in my idols image, but I accept them while still appreciating her contributions to the world. Reading Prairie Fires made me look closer at what those accomplishments were.
Little House in the Big Woods was first published in 1932. As a child, that date wouldn’t have met much to me, other than it was a long time ago. But, what I now realize is that, in the middle of The Great Depression, she became a successful children’s author. People were struggling to put food on the table, and still chose to buy her books. Those books took an otherwise nonconsequential family and made them as familiar as the world leaders, inventors and celebrities of the same time period.
I still remember exactly where I was sitting the day my American History professor pointed out that Charles Ingalls was a failure. It wasn’t so much that he was a failure that hit me, as the fact that I hadn’t seen it. His crops failed year after year, he kept moving his family from place to place and never seemed to quite make ends meet. I knew this, but somehow it never occurred to me that he never really did get ahead. He was Laura’s hero, and therefore mine. Charles Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder worked hard their entire lives, with minimal return. (This is no fault of their own, Prairie Fires clearly explains that the farmers were doomed to fail).They were both good people, who treated their wives and daughters with respect rarely given to women in their time. They deserve to be heroes. But, chances are not one person living today would know either name if Laura hadn’t become a writer. The Ingalls and Wilder families are the faces for every forgotten pioneer who devoted their lives to God, the land and their families. Laura Ingalls Wilder gave her beloved family immortality. That is the power of books.
If you liked this book I also recommend:
The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder Edited by William Anderson
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure
