Award-winning poet Lara Saguisag introduces her Personal View, written for PaperTigers last year, with the rather unpromising line:
I must confess: as a child I didn’t like poetry very much.
That perception might have continued had she not been blown away by listening to poet Valerie Bloom - read Lara’s article, where she muses on this transformation and “The Many Possibilities of Children’s Poetry“.
I have yet to lay my hands on a copy of Lara’s Children of Two Seasons: Poems for Young People (Anvil, 2007) so instead, as we in the north of England move towards sharp, chilly mornings, I direct you to the poem “Frost” by Valerie Bloom - and make sure you listen to Valerie’s own exquisite reading of it too. It’s taken from Valerie’s The World is Sweet (Bloomsbury, 2001).
I’m not sure where this week’s Poetry Friday round-up is taking place - when I found out, I’ll update the link…
I gobbled Naming Maya when I first read it, swept up by its story, its characters and its sense of place. I’ve reread it several times since that first rapid perusal, and with each new reading I find another facet of the story.
There are so many things about this book that I long to discuss with other people who have read it too. It makes me wish I had a daughter so I could talk it over with her – and that leads me to believe that it’s a perfect selection for a mother-daughter book group. What do people who have daughters think? Is this a book that you would choose to read with girls in your family?
“Language can make you a stranger in many places, but only if you let it,” Maya observes in a place where Hindi, English, and Tamil all compete for her attention. How does Kamala Mami bring Maya’s family together in spite of their differing languages and customs?
Shared history and memory both are unifying and divisive in this novel. How does Kamala Mami’s chaotic flood of memories help Maya to live with her own?
In an earlier PaperTigers post, Filipino author Lara Saguisag discusses how different values and different dreams lead to varying forms of childhood. How do cultural values and the protection that they can offer contribute to the differences between Maya and her cousin?
And perhaps most of all – did other readers immediately go out in search of Indian food when they finished reading this book? I certainly did!
Yesterday was Peace Day – thousands of people around the world stopped to stand together for a world without conflict, for a world united:
PEACE is more than the absence of war.
It is about transforming our societies and
uniting our global community
to work together for a more peaceful, just
and sustainable world for ALL. (Peace Day)
There is an ever-increasing number of children’s books being written by people who have experienced conflict first hand and whose stories give rise to discussion that may not be able to answer the question, “Why?” but at least allows history to become known and hopefully learnt from.
For younger children, such books as A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai and illustrated by Felicia Hoshino; Peacebound Trains by Haemi Balgassi; and The Orphans of Normandy by Nancy Amis all 
focus on children who are the innocent victims of conflict. We came across The Orphans of Normandy last summer. I was looking for something to read with my boys on holiday, when we were visiting some of the Normandy World War II sites. It is an extraordinary book: a diary written by the head of an orphanage in Caen and illustrated by the girls themselves as they made a journey of 150 miles to flee the coast. Some of the images are very sobering, being an accurate depiction of war by such young witnesses. It worked well as an introduction to the effects of conflict, without being unnecessarily traumatic.
The story of Sadako Sasaki, (more…)
I read the book when it came out, in 2004, and don’t have it with me now to make sure my recollections are accurate, but what mostly stayed with me, besides the feeling that I had actually been to Chennai through Uma’s vivid descriptions was Maya’s willingness to learn and change and to realize that, much like the tradition of the “two-gift” (one to give, one to keep) that she and friend followed when bringing souvenirs from their trips, her identity was also formed by the two cultures –Indian and American– that were part of her life. I think by the end she came to understand that when it comes to cultural and family traditions, you keep some, you let go of some, your reinvent some…
Funny you should mention craving Indian food after reading the book. I was completely entranced by Uma’s scrumptious descriptions of traditional dishes. So much so that the one and only quote I wrote down from the book on my notebook was:
“There is aviyal, with tender vegetables swimming in a light and delicate coconut and green chili gravy. Tamarind rice, sour and hot at the same time, with fried nuts hiding flavor surprises in random bites. Yogurt with grated cucumber, garnished with popped mustard seeds, to counter the heat.” Who could resist such a feast?…
Uma has said in her PaperTigers interview (http://www.papertigers.org/interviews/archived_interviews/UKrishnaswami.html):
“The greatest gift I was given while writing Naming Maya was the ability to sit and write in the place where the story was set, right on St. Mary’s Road in Chennai, breathing in the diesel fumes and the red dust, hearing the kuyils singing in the frangipani tree.”
No wonder we get such a strong sense of place from her novel!
I hadn’t thought of the two-gift concept falling into the other dualities of Maya’s life–thanks, Aline.
Is this a book you would choose to read with your daughter when she’s older? I was struck by the way that Maya and her mother had to find a new common language that would serve them well as Maya leaves childhood–a difficult undertaking as I know from the relationship that I had with my mother.
Although you and I both find a remarkable evocation of Chennai in this novel, School Library Journal did not. The true test of a book’s sense of place is if a reader who has never left their own part of the world can feel as though they’ve been somewhere completely unknown, transported by what they’ve read. When I was a girl, Rumer Godden’s Kingfishers Catch Fire made me yearn for the color, heat, and light that was in her pages, and that I never experienced in Alaska. What do other readers think? Did Naming Maya do that for you?
Yes, Janet, I think Naming Maya will be a very good book to explore with my daughter when she’s older. Like Maya, Anabella is also being raised bilingual and is growing up, in a way, “between cultures;” and like Maya’s mom, I’m trying my best (and not always succeeding) to make the Portuguese language and her Brazilian heritage meaningful things in her life. When the time is right, I think there will be lots in Maya’s story to help us both in our lifelong journey of building respect for and understanding of each other’s experiences, and reading it together might just just be the way to get the most out of it.
I hope other mothers read your comment and explore Naming Maya with their daughters–”building respect for and understanding of each other’s experiences” is crucial for all parents and children–so many thanks, Aline!
I also read Naming Maya about the time that it came out, and as I had recently moved to India, I was enthralled by the description of city life in South India - it was Chennai, but to my entrained newcomer’s eyes, it could have been Hyderabad. Reading you all makes me want to read it again, and I got it out of the bookshelf. But from what I remember, yes, it would be a great mother and daughter book. And I’m glad for this conversation, as most issues in the book are issues that indeed, displaced children, bi-cultural children - and their parents - can relate to and learn from. I had “forgotten” the two-gift concept, and yet, I remember that when I read the book, I loved it. I love the symbolism and generosity of it.
Thank you, Katia, for joining the discussion and bringing up the point that this is a wonderful selection for bi-cultural children. I’m happy that you’re rereading Naming Maya–a test of a good book for me is if it still enchants and enthralls and provokes thought with a second–and maybe third–reading. Naming Maya certainly does!
Yes, Janet, it does. I have now finished reading it a second time, and enjoyed it even more than the first. Maybe because I’ve now made my home in India for almost 4 years and some details now speak to me in a way they did not before. “What will four people say?” I laughed out at that one. I didn’t know that it was told in that particular way - I wonder if it’s only in Tamil, or also in Hindi - but I’ve come to learn that indeed, as Auntie Lakshmi mentions in the book, Indians are very much brought up to mind what any four people around might say. I adore the character of Kamala Mami. And there are so many layers to this book : communication between mother and daughter, definitely, with the weight of things never said that permeate everything between them; Maya learning to feel her way in this place that’s so much part of what she is and feels familiar with, in a deep, instinctive way, and yet, is not home in the sense that New Jersey is for her ; and the symbol of the two-gifts, that comes back as a leitmotiv, because she’s been doing it with her American best friend, but also because it helps her make the connection with her own self, her own identity, and everything comes full circle when Kamala Mami gives her her own two-gift. Thank YOU so much for launching this conversation. I’m so glad it gave me the opportunity to read this book again. And thanks to Uma for writing it, obviously
If you don’t mind, I’ll be posting this in my own blog and I’ll link it to his, here.
I’m so glad you found your way to this discussion, Katia, because you’re bringing so much to it! I too loved “What will four people say?” That’s a piece of Indian culture that migrated to Thailand and has put down deep roots there. (I lived in Thailand for four years and much of Naming Maya took me straight back there.)
Language, spoken and unspoken, is what has occupied my thoughts–especially with the second and third reading. “The weight of things never said” is such a beautiful phrase–thank you for that.
Do you still live in India? Would you mind sending us your blog address? I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to read more of your writing.
[…] me to “get the most out of it.” More food for thought can be found by reading the comment section below each post for Naming Maya, and by reading the Papertigers interview with Uma […]