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Tonight marks the first night of Passover, so I thought I’d share a bit about what the holiday celebrates and what it means to me. Passover is one of the most important Jewish holidays of the year, and is probably the most observed Jewish holiday after Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (despite what people think about Hanukah!).

Passover commemorates the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, as told in the old testament (or, if you’re the kind of person who waits for the movie to come out, as told in The Ten Commandments). According to the story, the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, until God, with the help of Moses, led them out of Egypt and into freedom.
Whether or not you believe in God or the Old Testament, the Passover story resonates. For me, one of the most meaningful parts of it is the acknowledgement of how truly terrible and traumatic slavery is: terrible enough that, although Jews were slaves many thousands of years ago, we still recall the experience in great detail every year. We even eat bitter herbs during the seder, the traditional Passover meal, so that the bitter taste of slavery is fresh on our tongues.

Unfortunately, slavery is not ancient history; in fact, it’s alive and well in many parts of the world. Whether enslaved by law, by force, or by poverty, many human beings living on earth today are not free. Passover is a time to really meditate on what that means – and, perhaps, on our part in it. What have I done to support or abolish slavery? Am I buying from companies with good labor practices? Am I aware of what’s happening in my own community? Are there sustainable ways of dismantling slavery that I can support?

Although slavery is a heavy subject, I actually think it’s one that young people can really understand deeply, and Passover is a great time to explore it together. Over at Pinterest, we’ve rounded up some books for children about Passover and/or freedom. These books are great ways to start a discussion with young readers about slavery, both ancient and modern.

Another resource I’ll be thinking about a lot this year is a documentary I saw last week called Girl Rising, by the organization 10 x 10. The documentary focuses on the stories of ten girls from around the world and shows that for many young women, the passage from slavery to freedom is an education. Definitely worth watching, and suitable for children 12 and up. Taking kids to a screening near you would be a great way to celebrate the holiday.

If you have other slavery/freedom related resources for young people, feel free to leave them in the comments. And to all those who are celebrating tonight, I wish you all a very happy (and meaningful) Passover!

Further Reading:

What does Ramadan celebrate?

What does Chinese New Year celebrate?

Filed under: Holidays Tagged: Cambodia, freedom, Girl Rising, holidays, Jewish, passover, slavery

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I have been driving poor Ed Nawotka, editor-in-chief of Publishing Perspectives, just a tad crazy these days.  (Sorry, Ed!)

Please can we run the Vaddey Ratner interview, I've emailed.  Pretty pretty please.

My urgent requests being made despite the fact that Ratner's book, In the Shadow of the Banyan, will not be released for a few more days.

It's just this:  Ever since I saw Ratner at the BEA during the adult buzz panel, I knew.  I knew her book would be huge, and I knew Ratner (who in real life is a gorgeous petite) would be huge, as well.  Banyan, a novel based on Ratner's childhood experience during the Cambodian conflict, isn't just lush and harrowing, infused as it is with both poetry and heartache.  It is moral, compassionate, and electrified by a consonant humanity.  Ratner stands for something good and right in fiction making, and here's what's so cool about that:  the world is noticing.  Her book has wings.

(For a small excerpt from the beginning, go here.)

Ed has given me the opportunity to interview a number of wonderful people in publishing (see the sidebar on this blog for links to former stories).  I am grateful, Ed, that you gave me room for this long piece on Ratner.  I asked questions by email.  Ratner answered with great care.  This, for example, is how the interview begins.  Please read the whole of it here.  It's about life.  It's about writing.  It's about hope.

You returned to Cambodia after many years away and lived for a time within your country.  Can you recreate your first moments of return?  What did you look for?  What did you find?  Beyond the return to the palace and the gift of rice, how did you spend your time there?

The first time I returned to Cambodia was in 1992, thirteen years after our traumatic escape from the country, the whole experience still very much fresh and alive in my mind.  Indeed, parts of the country were still controlled by the Khmer Rouge rebels.  While their regime had collapsed in 1979, they hadn’t completely relinquished their grip, terrorizing the population with random abductions and killings and launching attacks against the government’s forces.  Thus, you can imagine how my mother felt about my decision to return at this particular time.  “I risked everything to get you out of there,” she said, her voice taut with love, and fear for my safety.  “Now, you are going back.”

1 Comments on The Vaddey Ratner Interview: this is one you cannot miss, last added: 8/1/2012

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Melissa Sarno said, on 8/1/2012 6:15:00 AM

I have been looking forward to this interview since you mentioned it. I loved your questions and her answers.
I'm so glad the book will come out soon.

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Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, 8 May 2012)

Book description:

When soldiers arrive at his hometown in Cambodia, Arn is just a kid, dancing to rock 'n' roll, hustling for spare change, and selling ice cream with his brother. But after the soldiers march the entire population into the countryside, his life is changed forever. Arn is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp: working in the rice paddies under a blazing sun, he sees the other children, weak from hunger, malaria, or sheer exhaustion, dying before his eyes. He sees prisoners marched to a nearby mango grove, never to return. And he learns to be invisible to the sadistic Khmer Rouge, who can give or take away life on a whim.

One day, the soldiers ask if any of the kids can play an instrument. Arn's never played a note in his life, but he volunteers. In order to survive, he must quickly master the strange revolutionary songs the soldiers demand—and steal food to keep the other kids alive. This decision will save his life, but it will pull him into the very center of what we know today as the Killing Fields. And just as the country is about to be liberated from the Khmer Rouge, Arn is handed a gun and forced to become a soldier. He lives by the simple credo: Over and over I tell myself one thing: never fall down.

Based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, this is an achingly raw and powerful novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace, from National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick.

You know what I love about the book cover? It shows the boy's eyes. Usually when an Asian model is used for a book cover (or when it's *supposed* to be an Asian on the cover) his/her eyes are not shown. Sigh.

Click here to read Publishers Weekly's interview with Patricia McCormick about Never Fall Down, and watch the video below for Patricia McCormick's interview with Arn Chorn-Pond, the man who inspired the novel!




[Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases book bloggers are eagerly anticipating.]

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The Mysteries of Angkor Wat Richard Sobol

When Sobol lived out a life-long dream to photograph the ancient ruins at Angkor Wat, he found something completely unexpected. When he gets to the temple complex, he is surrounded by children selling souvenirs. Anyone who's been to a developing nation tourist destination is used to this swarm of kids. Instead of pushing through, he takes their photograph and asks them to show him their favorite spot in the ruins. They will if show them their special dee no soo he comes back to see them. Sobol asks everyone and no one knows what the dee no soo is.

The book then delves further into the life of the children who grow up around the complex-- their school day (they start learning English early so they can more easily talk with international tourists) games they play, and extra-curriculars (like traditional dance classes.)

Eventually, he finds the kids again and they take him to see the super-special dee no soo. I won't say what it is, but it's so amazingly awesome. It's a something tourists won't see and it's something that only a kid would notice. It's perfect.

By focusing on the children, Sobol makes this book very kid-friendly. It's not a report book on Angkor Wat, but a great story about modern kids growing up next to something ancient. At the same time, there's great information and photographs introducing the Cambodian temple complex to readers. I love that he stopped to talk to the kids and thought to ask them what their favorite part of the complex was-- he discovered something he never would have seen.

The whole thing is really very cool.

Today's Nonfiction Roundup is over at A Curious Thing.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Sometimes the simplest remark can be the most transforming. “Perhaps, sir, you will come back with books,” a Nepalese headmaster said to John Wood, a vacationing Microsoft employee, as they stood in a school library that had twenty books that “were all backpacker cast-offs.” Haunted by the thought of children who might never know the joy of reading, Wood returned home and spent a year gathering children’s books. He went back to the headmaster with 3,000 volumes and a new direction for his life. John Wood decided that bringing books to children who have none was his vocation and Room to Read was born, as he tells readers in Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.

Wood put together an organization with staff who share his dream and his passion, aided by a fundraising network of more than 3,000 people. The core programs of Room to Read are the Reading Room which has built 5,600 libraries,  Local Language Publishing which publishes and distributes books written both in English and the local language, the School Room which works with local communities to build schools with 444 in use, the Room to Grow Girls’ Scholarship that enables 4,000 girls to complete their secondary education, and the Computer and Language Room which builds computer and language labs.

Found in India, Sri Lanka, Zambia, South Africa, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, Room to Read is vitalized by donations and volunteers, who have discovered how they can help by going to www.roomtoread.org. All share a common goal—to have built 10,000 libraries by 2010.

Scheduled half-day visits to a Room to Read site are welcome with advance arrangement.

One man, one dream, 3,000 books– one optimistic remark changed a life and consequently thousands of lives are being changed through the power of reading and the joy of literacy, all over the world.

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Eleven years ago I made my first visit to Cambodia and fell in love. I was in Phnom Penh, which in 1997 was a city of hope, and the mood of joyous optimism that pervaded its streets was irresistible. The man who was my motorcycle taxi driver during my visit was a man whose smile touched his eyes but did not erase the omnipresent sadness that lived in them. His parents had been killed during the years of Pol Pot when he was just entering his teens, and he refused to accompany me when I entered the grounds of Tuol Sleng, the school that had been turned into a torture chamber , because that is the place that had made him an orphan. He took care of his younger brother as best as he could and they both survived.

He took me to his house in the rural outskirts of the city so I could meet his wife, his two small sons, and his baby daughter. His children all gleamed with the love that he gave them, healthy and happy. At one point during my time with them, my host tapped the side of a large and bulging burlap bag. “Rice,” he said proudly, “We eat it every day.”

When I read and reread The Clay Marble, it brings this memory so strongly to mind that I often find that I am in tears. Minfong Ho evokes the hunger of that dreadful time–for food, for family, for community, for the ability to know that a harvest of rice will soon be reaped, for the safety to sleep in one’s own house with safe and happy children close by.

Obviously I have emotional baggage that I bring with me to this book–would it have the same impact if I had not fallen in love with Cambodia? What about you? Does this book move you or is does it feel contrived? Is it an issue in search of a story or does it bring the refugee experience to life? Please let us all know what you think…

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Fleeing the horror that has turned her home in Cambodia into a battleground filled with death and starvation, twelve-year-old Dara and what is left of her family cross the border into neighboring Thailand and the safety of Nong Chan, a camp for Cambodian refugees. Quickly they become absorbed into the life of “a vast barren field teeming with refugees” which “had the feel of our village during the years of peace before the fighting started.”
This is a place with enough food for all, where Dara’s family joins forces with the family of Jantu, a girl who becomes Dara’s friend. Jantu has the gift of magic hands; she is able to turn clay and leftover scraps into toys and she makes Dara a clay marble that contains the magic and power that are badly needed in these troubled times. Even more magical and powerful are the bags of rice seeds that are given to the refugees and carry the promise of future crops in their abandoned fields in Cambodia. Dara and Jantu’s families dream of feeding themselves once again in Cambodia, but even in the safety of the refugee camp, war interferes brutally with their plans.
Written by Minfong Ho, who worked as a volunteer in refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border in 1980, this book has become a classic since it appeared in 1991. Dara and Jantu, with their determination and courage, are characters who reach beyond borders and age barriers to show readers what it means to become refugees and how hope can bring people back to their homes. Please join us in reading and discussing The Clay Marble in July.

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I'm planning on writing my own happy Stardust review for here -- or at least, my delighted reaction to seeing the almost finished version -- but right now I thought I'd put up a link to the extremely puzzling Stardust TV spots. You can watch them at http://www.stardustmovie.com -- click on video. I mean, I appreciate that Charlie Cox isn't famous, but he is the hero and the person who the film is about and the person who's on screen all the time. You'd think he'd be in there somewhere... one of the TV spots somehow managed to give the vague impression that this film is a romance between Claire Danes and Robert DeNiro, which is just wrong on so many levels.

Heigh ho. (Shakes head and is glad he doesn't do film marketing for a living.)

I just spent a few hours doing website interviews for Stardust. Am now taking daughters and going shopping for food, since the tornado sirens have stopped going off and the next line of thunderstorms isn't due in for a few more hours.

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