Eyes On Books

Closing The Book

2009-11-24T04:26:00.000-08:00

I think it is time that we say goodbye to the book club. There really isn't enough interest at this point, and who knows if I'll ever find the time to read another book now that my children are home. Thanks to all of you who participated. I will leave it up for folks to read.

Plus there were never any cookies at our meetings. What is a book club without cookies?

If you still want to submit a review, please do. Thanks again.

Louise -On- "Sweetness"

2009-10-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading Sweetness. Thank you Sara for choosing it.
It was the perfect book in which to fluidly be learning invaluable
knowledge about Ethiopia while so drawn into the story you hardly notice!
This book brought up so many of my own misconceived partially
understood notions regarding Islam and Ethiopia. I am an avid reader and
have read many books nonfiction and fiction alike about Africa and Islam
and somehow have not been able to hold all the facts together properly
in my mind.
The world is too big, as we know.
While reading Sweetness during this stage in my own waiting process I was
struck with the hunger to absorb everything I could Ethiopian. I mean to say
that the knowledge and information that I am gathering now in trying to understand
this country that I will visit soon and gain insights into the life my daughter has been
living and where her roots have grown will stay with me. This is not just someplace
else in the big jumbly world. This is a place I will spend a lifetime learning to understand.
Interesting to read with perspectives from the different groups in Ethiopia and how they
regard each other. Curious to hear how those of you that have already been to Ethiopia
felt since Harar seems to be a world into itself in the story and hard to get to from Addis.
"None of us are orphans even if everyone we've ever loved has died." p327

Sara-On- September/October Books

2009-09-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

Because I have really enjoyed the books we have read related to Ethiopia and adoption, I have offered to assist with the book club blog for a bit. For September/October, I've found us another novel with Ethiopian ties called Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb

I have also attached a link to a reading group guide to provide some questions to get us thinking.

Please let us know if you're still out there, if you're reading (even if you're on a book from months ago) and if you think the book club should continue into the winter.

Cheers
Sara

Sara-On-Cutting for Stone

2009-09-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

Cutting for Stone

I really liked this book. Not only was the story interesting, but the descriptions of Ethiopia were incredible. I loved being able to picture some of the places and things Verghese wrote about in the book. I know I only spent a week there, but he brought back the images so vividly that I didn’t want those sections to end. It made me want to hop on the next plane to Addis to absorb more the city.

The start of the book was a little confusing, but once the narratives came together the story really took off. Verghese built the relationship among the characters in a meaningful way and I was drawn in. The medical stuff was a little dense for me, and I have to admit to skimming detailed descriptions of surgeries. At first I was a bit daunted by the length of the book being a new mother and all. But I found the time after naptime chores or by heading to bed a little early because I was eager to find out how the story was going to unfold. While in pre-toddler life, I would’ve finished this book quickly, it took me three weeks to get through this one. But I was glad to see I can still find time for one of my favorite things.

After finishing the book, I hit trusty Google to learn more about the author. I was curious how he had such a rich understanding of Ethiopia . It turns he grew up in the country because his parents were teachers there. I also was amazed to learn that he is a doctor, and he took a break from medicine to get his MFA. Wow!

I Apologize...

2009-06-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

I have been a little distracted by recent events. I have been terribly lax in updating the book club blog. Forgive me.

I am making an executive decision. This is our next book, and I am keeping the other two April/May books since there haven't been any reviews yet.

Cutting For Stone.

Now go forth, and read.

Evelyn- On- My Father's Daughter

2009-05-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

Bill and I don't usually have much patience for reading a book aloud to one another, but this was an exception. It worked for us because it was an easy read and we were both eager to learn of Pool's life as an adult adoptee from Eritrea. Now, when I say "easy read," I am only referring to Pool's style of writing. It is very stream of consciousness and easy to read aloud. It was not, however, an easy read for the future mother of two children who will be adopted from Ethiopia. Her story made me question for the millionth time: "Is international adoption the best thing for the children?"

In Pool's case, this was such a complex question. Her biological mother had died in childbirth. Her father already had other young children to care for. The family struggled to feed and provide for the children. Her father made the decision that adoption was her best option - a heartbreaking decision, as is clear later in her story.

Stop right there. I always get stuck RIGHT THERE. With the money that is spent on international adoption, why can't the money go to the biological family so that the child can stay with them? This is a haunting question, one that I don't have the full picture to answer definitively, but nonetheless, a question that Pool struggles with and that my family will struggle with for the rest of our lives. It is dizzying to weigh global poverty, HIV/AIDS, privilege, culture, race and economics while trying to decide what is best for one individual child, for one individual family. It is an individual answer with responsibility lying on a global scale. It IS about one individual child and family, but it is also about global systems of injustice and inequality that all of us are a part of - these systems of injustice that for hundreds of years have benefited the few on the backs of the many. I think critics of international adoption are quick to point fingers at individual families choosing adoption while excusing themselves from any responsibility in the system that we are ALL a part of.

But I digress ...

Reading Pool's story reinforced some of the things that we really want to provide for our children. An important thing that I think Pool lacked and that I want to make sure our children have is a physical reminder that they are not alone. Cultural camps, friendships with other Ethiopian adoptees and contact with the Ethiopian community in the U.S. will be a non-negotiable responsibility for us as parents. What the children eventually choose to do with regards to these relationships will be up to them. I am so grateful that our children will have each other. Though our extended family has 5 other adoptees, they will not look like my kids.

One of the many tragedies in Pool's story is how little grounding and stability she seemed to have, both as a child and as an adult. I think the early death of her adoptive mother, her father's re-marriage and new siblings added to her sense of isolation, of being the "odd one out."

Her trip to Eritrea seemed so amazing and transformative in her life, making her a part of something for the first time. I only wish that she had spent more time describing how this trip and the new relationships with her family changed her. The short epilogue left me wanting more.

Though in her book, Pool seems to come to the conclusion that international adoption was best for her, in some of her other writings, she seems to be against international adoption, and more specifically, transracial adoption. I would be curious to know what happened between her book and these writings for her to come to that conclusion.

I highly recommend this book. I think it gives adoptive parents a glimpse into feelings our children will have as they grow older and insight into what we can do to make their experience a better one.

Liz- On- My Father's Daughter...

2009-05-18T05:13:00.000-07:00

My Father's Daughter, by Hannah Pool, is the memoir of an adult adoptee who grew up in England believing she was an orphan with no living family before being adopted as an infant from Eritrea*. When she discovers that not only is her father still alive, but that she has a huge extended family in Eritrea, she decides to travel to Eritrea to meet them and learn about the family and the country she has no memory of. It's an amazing book about identity, family, and coming to terms with the paradox of adoption.

When I first began the book, I wasn't sure that I would get much out of it. Pool's writing in the beginning is reminiscent of Bridget Jones' Diary - every time she is about to face a difficult situation, she prepares herself by putting on another layer of lip gloss - but she writes courageously about wrestling with some of the most difficult aspects of international and trans-racial adoption. She may need to fortify herself with lip gloss along the way, but she does not flinch from putting one foot in front of the other on the journey to find the answers she is looking for.

Pool confronts head-on the complicated emotions that go along with her decision to re-connect with her birth family. The process is filled with contradictions and ambiguities, from desperately wanting to search for her birth family but worrying about whether her adopted family will somehow be offended by her desire; to dreaming of and planning for the meeting with her birth family for most of her life - before she even knew they existed - but feeling completely unprepared when the day actually comes; to loving and appreciating her adopted family for the life they gave her but feeling that she was somehow robbed of the life she might have had with her birth family, even though it would have been a life full of hardship and poverty and war; from being overjoyed at the thought of meeting her birth family but being afraid that agreeing to meet them will give them the opportunity to reject her all over again; to feeling guilty about the way she lives compared to the way her birth family lives but being angry at them for giving her up in the first place. Pool conveys all of this in a straightforward, no-nonsense way, but also with humor and in a way that makes these complex emotions completely clear to those of us who have not experienced them.

This paragraph, for me, made reading the whole book worthwhile:

It is no coincidence that I know a lot of adopted adults. We have a habit of gravitating toward one another, so, as the saying goes, some of my best friends are adopted. Yet, even though I know more than most, I have never heard the words "I am glad I was adopted." Many are happy with the result, glad they got the adoptive parents they did, but not one person doesn't wish it hadn't happened in the first place. No matter how much love we many have for our adoptive parents, no matter how much we don't want to hurt them or how guilty we feel for having these thoughts, we all wish we hadn't been put up for adoption. My mother died. My father was a farmer in a village, who was left, I now knew, with five other children plus a newborn. H couldn't look after me and work the land. So he put me in an orphanage. Because of this one decision he made, my life took a completely different course. Unlike the rest of my birth family, I have never gone truly hungry, I have never prayed for rain, and I have never been displaced by war. I have a wonderful adoptive family, a brother and sister I adore, a job I love, an apartment in one of the world's most expensive capitals - in fact all the trappings of Western success. Looking at the facts, if anyone should be relieved to have been adopted, it should be me. My adoption has meant I escaped terrible hardships and the likelihood of early death. Even I know that a motherless child does not last long in the villages. Had I not been placed in that orphanage, assuming I made it past infancy, I would have had a normal Eritrean peasant girl's life - complete with a stint on the front doing my national service, an arranged marriage, and children in my teens. But I still wish none of it had happened, I still wish I had never been adopted, and most importantly, I still want to know, Why? Why me?"

To be honest, I got a chill when I read that paragraph, and started to think I was doing a terrible thing by adopting a child internationally. How could I inflict that kind of emotional turmoil on another human being? And there were so many other points during the book where Pool described, in her blunt way, what it's like to be adopted - having no information about where you come from, and not knowing what you will look like as you become an adult or grow old because there is no one who looks like you in your life; losing your name; always wondering why you were given up for adoption, and always feeling like love is temporary because the first people who loved you decided they didn't want you - Pool is brutally honest about all of this and more. I gained tremendous insight from My Father's Daughter into what my adopted child is likely to feel about his or her own adoption, and for awhile it scared me enough to contemplate calling the whole thing off.

But while Pool doesn't sugar-coat anything, I also found a measure of hope and optimism in reading her story. First of all, I realized that everything my child will feel and experience is completely normal, and that trying to avoid or squelch those feelings will not do him or her any good. Secondly, by the end of the book Pool has come to terms with her own identity and writes: "I am fiercely loyal and proud to be Eritrean, but this does not seem to have diminished my British identity. If anything, embracing my Eritrean side has made me more comfortable in the United Kingdom...The two identities are not mutually exclusive; they coexist, and I'd even say that they complement each other." What I learned from Pool is that the most important thing I can do for my adopted child is to learn as much as I can about his or her birth family and circumstances, to share these details with him or her when the time is right, to help him or her stay connected to the culture and country and people of his or her birth, and to support him or her in returning there as an adult if that is what he or she wants to do.

I think My Father's Daughter could be a difficult book for adoptive parents to read, but I urge you to be as courageous as Pool in confronting the harder aspects of adoption. If she (and your child) can live through it, the least you can do is read about it so you can gain a better understanding of what she (and your child) have experienced.

April/May Books...All Three Book Selections.

2009-04-03T07:35:00.001-07:00

Dead Aid

The Lion's Whiskers and Other Ethiopian Tales...

And let's add this one...

The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism...

Check out the discussion about I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla after Liz's review on ARP.

Remember thoughts and reviews can be sent in at any time for any of the books that we have covered so far.

Happy Reading!!

April/May Books

2009-04-02T13:09:00.001-07:00

Thanks for the e-mails and comments. Let's go with this one.

Let's keep, "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla,"

And does anyone want to recommend a children's book?

Merci.

First Time On This Blog?

2009-04-01T04:09:00.000-07:00

Welcome! We need YOU!! Please join us...

In July of last year I started Eyes on Books. Every two months we choose three books: One of the books is Ethiopia or Africa related, one of the books is a 'How To' kind of book about parenting or adoption issues, and one of the books is a children's book. We also have guest bloggers, (most recently author Rebecca Haile).

Guess what? You found us just in time. We are about to choose our three books for April and May. Feel free to leave your suggestion in a comment, or in an e-mail.

Here is how it works- You read and then write up your thoughts. You then e-mail them to me at eyesofmyeyes@yahoo.com. I publish your wise words, and lively discussion ensues. Capice?

Please feel free to submit your thoughts on any of the earlier book choices as well. We are all in this together, and we all hope to learn from one another.

When I publish your reviews or thoughts, I can link back to your blog if you have one, or even to a Flickr album of your kidlets if you'd prefer. You can join us on the sidebar if you'd like, sign the guest book if you want, or remain completely and totally anonymous.

What are you waiting for? Start suggesting, reading, and writing. I know that you are smart people, with a lot to say.

Thanks for reading,

Julie

P.S. In case it isn't obvious, these book categories were chosen because I am in the process of adopting siblings from Ethiopia. There is a link to my adoption blog in my profile (but I should warn you, nothing much is happening there...YET). The endless waiting does however give me time to read books.

Liz- On- "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla"...

2009-03-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla: Raising Healthy Black and Biracial Children in a Race-Conscious World" by Marguerite Wright, and I found it tremendously informative and helpful.

What I found most useful about the book is that it takes a developmental approach; each section covers specific ages, from early toddlerhood through the teenage years, and describes what children at those ages are able to understand about skin color, race, identity, and racism. Each section also includes suggestions for parents to help their children develop healthy attitudes about race in general and a strong sense of themselves at each stage of development, as well as resources for teachers and parents to address issues of race in school settings. There's also a great chart at the end of the book that summarizes the main ideas from the book for each stage of development.

The stage of development that I found most interesting was the early toddler/pre-school years. In the first few chapters, Wright explains that young children do not understand that skin color is a permanent feature, and also do not make the same association between the words for certain skin colors and specific racial or ethnic groups that adults do. As Wright puts it, "Just because a pre-schooler can tell us the color of her skin, it doesn't necessarily follow that she is also aware of her racial identity." Every so often on the adoption Yahoo groups I read, a parent will ask what they should do when their young Ethiopian child says something like "I want to be white like Mommy" or "When I die and go to heaven, I'm going to be white." Reading "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla," I finally understand that statements like this don't mean children hate their own race/color or have low self-esteem, but that they still have some "magical thinking" about being able to change their skin color. I don't know why this explanation didn't occur to me sooner - I mean, I read Piaget in college and know all about the development of object permanence, etc. - but I'm glad to understand it now!

The chapters on the teen years were also interesting and helpful. Wright explains that teens are exploring their identity and this is why race seems to become so important during high school, with black students feeling like they have to "choose sides." Again, I found it very helpful to think about race as just one component of a normal developmental stage, instead of the single most important factor to consider when raising a child from Ethiopia. The chapters on the teen years also included a list of ways to react to racist comments or behaviors that parents can teach their teenagers, and I thought I could use many of the techniques myself when dealing with insensitive or outright bigoted comments that people might make about my transracial family when my child is still young.

Another really helpful part of the book for me was the section on choosing a school. Wright doesn't say that one particular type of school is best for black children, but gives lists of questions that parents should ask when considering a predominantly white school, a predominantly black school, or an integrated school. Wright makes the point, for example, that "integration does not automatically produce racial harmony unless such harmony is actively pursued," and suggests that parents look at factors such as whether the staff is integrated and if the curriculum includes black history and literature before deciding that a school with equal numbers of black and white students is the best option for their child.

The primary intended audience for the book seems to be black parents raising black children, with some time spent addressing the specific issues of biracial children being raised by one black and one white parent. Only once does Wright discuss transracial adoption, in a very short section dealing with the question of whether race should be considered when placing children with foster or adoptive families (Wright thinks it shouldn't). This isn't a criticism of the book; I learned a lot that I can use even as a white parent raising a black child, and I knew before I started reading that I wasn't exactly the target audience. But I couldn't help thinking that there is also a need for a similar book written for white parents raising transracially adopted children, because such parents are usually going to face somewhat different challenges. If anyone has any suggestions for books like this, please do let me know about them.

My one major criticism of the book is with regards to how Wright deals with the issue of single mothers. Throughout the book, Wright describes how many of the negative stereotypes about black children which influence how they are treated in school, for example, are due to people conflating race with socio-economic status; there are certain behavioral issues and challenges that children who live in poverty tend to exhibit, and when teachers or school administrators make the assumption that all black children live in poverty, they come to expect that all black children will behave in a certain way and therefore need to be placed in remedial classes or be disciplined strictly and in general have lower expectations placed on them than on white children. But Wright makes the same mistake when she writes "research shows that children who have two parents who are involved in their lives do better in school and are less likely to get in trouble than children who come from single-parent homes," and then goes on to say that the rise of female-headed single-parent homes in the black community is due in part to the way the welfare system in the US is financially more favorable to families in which the father is absent. I have a very strong hunch that the research showing kids from single-parent homes get into more trouble is based on single-parent families who live in poverty, not on the families of the many single mothers by choice that I know, both black and white, who would laugh at the assumption that they must be on welfare because they are single parents!

This one criticism aside, I highly recommend "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla" for anyone who wants to learn more about how to deal appropriately with race while raising (or teaching) children of any race or ethnicity. This quote from the Epilogue sums up where I believe we need to go from here: "We need to work for comprehensive cultural changes so that a person's worth is not determined by skin color or race. We need to redefine what it means to be black or African American in a way that allows our children to grow up free to be their true selves, rather than be pressured to conform to some stereotype. We must reject the racist notion that being black means having certain inherent abilities, preferences, lifestyles - and limitations. Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison observes: 'When you know somebody's race, what do you know? Virtually nothing.'"

April/May Book Suggestions?

2009-03-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,
Any suggestions?

I thought this looked interesting...

Should we just pick one from former suggestions? Anyone read, "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla" yet? Maybe we should keep that one for the next 'How To'?

Thoughts please!

Cindy-Ok-On- My Father's Daughter

2009-03-24T13:22:00.001-07:00

I am so glad I read "My Fathers' Daughter". It is real. By Chapter 6, various points in the book had emotions encountering me, causing pause, making me feel like bursting into a solid tearflow. Hannah Pool's writing is not super poetic, but she's blunt and witty and I could really feel her angst. So by "real" I mean she was frank, she was brutally honest, she was conflicted...

What's more is that I was often plummeted into thoughts that had me imagining it was Olly feeling and saying those things someday about finding his biological family and "returning home," which added an extra layer of evocation for me. I was relieved to learn that Pool seemingly had a very supportive adoptive family. It's not lost on me that even so, the fact didn't ameliorate all the pent up emotional issues about growing up away and apart from biological relatives, though it made the story more heartening and digestable in the eyes of a PAP.

The short, interwoven theme about racism in England, noting that Pool mentioned blacks walk prouder in Africa, exacerbated an edge I was already feeling. I find that I am almost excruciatingly sensitive about race nowadays. This can be good, but I wonder if my sensitivity is over the top. Is this a phase I'm going through? And what of race? It's as if I never cease to find it weighing upon me and clinging to the insides of daily thoughts, I reach back to my own experiences, I consider the future of my son. I just desperately want the world to treat him with justice, fairness and equal opportunity. But, I understand that he may someday have experiences that I haven't also personally known. I've tossed around the idea of exploring the subject of race on my blog, I feel like I've got something to say on it, but it remains to be seen whether I find the strength to push aside the boulder that is fear of judgment being cast upon every phrase I might write on this subject, honesty and examination notwithstanding.

Corinne-On- My Father's Daughter

2009-03-19T06:05:00.000-07:00

I loved this book....its easy to read and the story is compelling and so relevant to those of us who adopt from the region. Although she is Eritrean, many of her references are relevant to Ethiopia. She tells her story with such honesty that we may really see how it felt to be her during her visit to her homeland...something which I want to do with my daughter some day. Buy it, read it, and we'll probably all read it again when our kids get older too.

Corinne

Sara-TX-On- My Father's Daughter

2009-03-18T15:46:00.000-07:00

This was a great book selection! I really enjoyed Pool’s candor. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about the book being written in the present tense, but as I got into the book I liked how it gave the story a conversational tone that made me feel like I was right there with her. Although this is the story of Pool’s journey to her first family, I felt like she wove other important aspects about adoption and race throughout the book.

Throughout the adoption process, I often wonder if I am doing the “right” thing. And I think Pool’s story illustrates that there is no fairy tale ending to an adoption story. It can be messy and heartbreaking while also be filled with love and joy. There are many disparate emotions that coexist in adoption and Pool presents this range of feelings in an insightful and honest way.

Cheers
Sara

Hannah Pool Podcast

2009-03-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

Podcast Here

Ms. Pool's book threw me for a loop. I had folded back every page that I thought contained something relevant for an adoptive family. By the time I was finished, it looked like I had made some origami, so many pages were folded back. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

More From Rebecca Haile...

2009-03-06T10:45:00.000-08:00

This is a cross post. On my other blog we asked Ms. Haile some big questions. Here are her thoughts...

First, thanks to everyone for all of your positive comments. Really, I could be a guest on this site any day.

Here are my responses to your questions, in no particular order.

I'm curious how often, if ever, she goes back to Ethiopia? Does she take her children?

I have only been back once since my family left in 1975/1976. We left as refugees, and for years returning was out of the question for safety reasons. In later years we didn’t go because we didn’t have the money for the trip and because I’m not sure my parents wanted to go as visitors – they were waiting for the day we could go home for good. When I went in 2001 I was an adult, I had the resources and time to make the trip on my own (my parents still have not returned), I didn’t yet have children, and I was reconciled to the idea of going as a visitor and not a citizen.

I look forward to going again, and hope to take my kids soon. (At six and four, they are still a bit young.) I look forward to exposing them to the history and culture of a country that is a part of their heritage, and I look forward to introducing them to family and having them understand that they are connected to real people who live half way across the planet. I’m excited for them to experience ways of living that will be so different from what they are used to here in New York City. And I so hope the trip will feel natural rather than forced, and that they will appreciate all that is different but also feel some genuine connection – sort of like their relationship with their grandparents. We will see how all these grand plans turn out.

I wonder if she could comment more on the dynamics between the Ethiopian-American community and the African-American community? One of the things I think about is that my future child will have a whole cultural background from Ethiopia that I want to preserve as much as possible, but that he or she will most likely be perceived as African-American in this country - what are the implications of that for raising a child?

I’ve thought about a lot about the dynamics between these two communities, and happened to address the question in my joint remarks (with my dad) at the Harvard conference last April. Here is what I said then:

“A third prediction is that the new generation will redefine the relationship between Ethiopians and the existing African American community. The relationship between Ethiopians and African Americans has not always been good, and I’ve found this to be a very sensitive subject for the first generation. At worst, Ethiopians can be overly prejudiced – this is the uncomfortable flip side of what my father has described as our sense of ourselves as a separate peoples. At best, we come to the United States with little appreciation of the history associated with African American culture and are therefore susceptible to all manner of misunderstandings. For example, when I was a freshman, Williams College invited me, as it invited all African American freshmen, to come to campus a few days early for orientation. Neither my father nor I knew what to make of the invitation – in retrospect I know that I did not have the cultural compass with which to decipher the meaning of the gesture. Did Williams think black kids needed special help? Did it expect its black students to be part of a unified group? Was there something going on I did not understand? Clearly, there was.

For its part, the African-American community has not always been understanding of the culture and history that is specific to Africans or Caribbean blacks.

The next generation is changing all of this. We reject the prejudices of our parents and have developed a much better understanding of the complexities of race in the United States. Moreover, as we come of age in the United States, particularly in urban areas, we often find that an “African-American” identity is as reflective of our experience as any. Again, in the interviews I conducted in Los Angeles, “African American” was a top choice.”

If I am right, as I hope, the historic disconnect or unease between Ethiopians and African-Americans will be less of an issue going forward.

How will Ethiopian children be perceived or self-identify? As I wrote in my initial post, the Ethiopian-American population is growing, and that growth brings greater opportunity for cultural preservation. At the moment the Ethiopian or habesha identity remains strong among those born in Ethiopia or born to first generation parents. But even a community of 500,000 is a tiny minority in the United States, and adopted children will have a much weaker tie to Ethiopian culture. So I think it is quite likely that adopted children will find a home within the African American community, and that they will almost certainly be seen as African American by others.

I’m not sure what the “implications” of this will be. Obviously, every parent in a biracial family should be prepared for the issues associated with raising a child that does not look like his/her parents. But since the adoption of Ethiopian children is a relatively new phenomenon, the question of how this particular group of internationally adopted black kids experience the added element of coming from Ethiopia -- or even whether there will be a general, rather than family- or child-specific, experience that can be described -- remains to be seen. In my own multi-cultural family, the plan at the moment is to incorporate all of our cultures into our lives as much as we can (again why I am so grateful for my parents and look forward to visiting Ethiopia). Going forward, I hope I can take my cues from my kids to figure out what they need and what they enjoy and try to respond to both.

I have been thinking about what you wrote about being a child in Ethiopia. I am remembering, too, that you wrote in your book, "Ethiopia is not a country where adults fret over children's feelings." Would you expound on that a little bit? Is this a cultural or generational difference in your opinion?

I think it is both. Clearly, attitudes toward parenting and children have evolved in this generation. There is no question that children are treated with much more respect, and that parenting is a far more thoughtful and intentional enterprise than it was twenty or thirty years ago.

But in the case of Ethiopia there is also a strong societal element. Ethiopia remains a traditional, conservative country that has not experienced anything like the relatively steady (if turbulent) expansion of human and civil rights that Western countries have witnessed over the last 50-100 years. Ethiopian children simply don’t have the rights and respect that children in the United States have. Violence toward children (corporal punishment is widespread and socially acceptable), low school enrollment rates, child labor, female genital mutilation, discrimination toward children born out of wedlock, born with disabilities or orphaned because of HIV/AIDS – the attitudes and statistics regularly reported in United Nations or private studies on these topics are simply appalling. All of this feeds into a societal view of children as second-class citizens who are expected to defer to adults at all times. Even in urban, professional families, children just are not seen as individuals with opinions that matter or preferences that should be respected.

Sometimes when I’m with my sister or cousins and one of our kids throws a tantrum or refuses to eat what’s been served or demands red rather than blue socks when everyone is already late, and the parent of said kid is working hard to reason with or settle down the kid, another one of us will joke: “Just one summer in Ethiopia! Just one short summer, that’s all it would take and this kid would shape right up.”

Ethiopia has a long, long way to go on this front.

I am curious if Ms. Haile has made any observations about what the Ethiopian community living in the US feels about so many Ethiopian children being adopted and raised abroad.

I know that readers of this blog are well aware of all the pro and con discussions surrounding international adoption, which in the case of Ethiopia generally means the adoption of black kids by mostly white families. I can’t say where the Ethiopian community comes down on these issues, as I don’t know of any surveys or studies of attitudes. Anecdotally speaking, I can report that within my own group of family and friends people generally express the same mix of support and concern I see expressed elsewhere, with the older first generation being somewhat more in favor and less concerned about how adopted children will fare in their new families than people my age or younger who’ve grown up here (which may tie to the overall generational/cultural attitudes toward children discussed above). In addition, I hear more concern about the government’s role in the process, and also some sadness around the idea that “we can’t take care of our own.”

Here is something I think about which falls a bit outside the usual discussion: whether adoptive families will in time become engaged advocates for Ethiopia. It isn’t sexy, the long term business of pushing for a democratic government or good US foreign policy in the Horn or advocating for infrastructure or the development of good farming practices (discussed below). It isn’t nearly as clear-cut or gratifying as responding to a heart-breaking famine or loving a beautiful child. But Ethiopia desperately needs such advocates. I don’t mean to say that adoptive families have a special obligation – I know that decisions about what causes to support and how are personal ones informed by many factors. But if such families do help raise awareness about Ethiopia, or if they do become involved with these issues, then that, I think, would be a significant and very welcome consequence of adoption.

If Ms. Haile would also kindly be willing to entertain the complex issue of foreign aid in Africa, I'd be very interested to know how she feels. I've heard some say that a whole generation of people in Africa know nothing but subsisting on aid as a way of life. Is aid helping more or harming more the people in Africa?

This is indeed a complex issue and I don’t have any special expertise in the area. So please take my comments accordingly.

I think that if you are looking at aid from the perspective of a hungry family, it is hard to be “against” it. I know that if my child were suffering from malnutrition and I had no options I would take any assistance I could, no matter what I felt about the source of the help or long term impact of my decision to take the help.

However, if you look at whether aid as it is currently designed is helping or hurting the goal of food-independence, there is a lot to worry about. It is sobering to think that Ethiopia was ever known as “the breadbasket of Africa.” Ethiopia has plentiful rivers, abundant rainfall and fertile farming regions. A frequent reaction from people arriving in Addis Ababa for the first time is surprise at how green the city is. Ethiopia does not, however, have modern irrigation systems; it does not have decent roads via which food can be transported from productive regions to arid ones; it does not have farmers with access to fertilizer or pest-resistant hybrids or anything remotely resembling 21st century farming practices; it does not have a market economy (all farms are state-owned) that rewards farmers for good decisions or a democratically elected government concerned with general welfare rather than self-preservation.

Direct food aid doesn’t do anything about these underlying problems. Worse, it may be counterproductive because it distorts local markets and undercuts local farmers – this in a society where an astonishing 85% of the population makes its living from agriculture. So what is the rationale for having such a small percentage of US aid to Ethiopia allocated to farming development -- less than 5% of all aid, and by several estimates less than 1% of all food aid? Or for the United States to require that all direct food aid come in the form of food produced in the US rather than allocating some money to buy food from Ethiopian farmers in regions not affected by drought?

Readers of the book will recall that my Uncle Tadesse, whom I admire, has made it one of his life’s projects to advocate for an irrigation system that harnesses the water of the highland rivers and delivers it to farming regions in a reliable manner. He is absolutely convinced that Ethiopia can feed itself.

The good news is that the shortcomings of aid are well known. And while the political realities in donor countries may frustrate reform, private foundations such as the Gates Foundation have begun experimenting with forms of aid that are designed to address the underlying issues. Hopefully these measures, together with homegrown efforts like Tadesse’s, will produce some long-term results.

[There was a question about "There is No Me Without You” but since I haven’t read the book (yet) I can’t answer it.]

Liz-On- The Storyteller's Beads

2009-02-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

The Storyteller's Beads, by Jane Kurtz, is a young adult novel set in Ethiopia during the 1980s. I finished most of it in one sitting on Sunday morning. I vaguely remember hearing about the events in the novel, the airlifts of Ethiopian Jews (or Beta-Israel) to Israel during a time of famines and wars, but this is a much more personal and detailed account of what was happening on the ground in Ethiopia at the time; Jane Kurtz says in her afterword that she based the book on first-hand accounts from people who lived through it.

Sahay has already lost all of her family except her uncle when they begin their journey to leave Ethiopia; Rahel leaves behind her parents and beloved grandmother to set out with her older brother. Eventually the girls both join a larger group that has hired a guide to lead them to the Sudan, a journey that takes them over mountains and across dry rivers and closer to each other. Along the way, Sahay slowly discovers something I have been learning for myself recently - that you can come to love someone who is very different from yourself.

Sahay and Rahel end up alone together in the refugee camp in the Sudan, and when word spreads to Rahel that there will be a way for some of the Beta-Israel to get out of the camp, she decides to tell people that Sahay - who is from a different ethnic group - is her sister, so that they can leave the camp together. Sahay thinks about this, and then tells Rahel that her people, "knowing all the things that can happen to a person's family, have ways for people to make new kin, not of one's own blood," and that this is called mahala. I couldn't help thinking of my adoption as a form of mahala, of making new kin not of each other's blood.

Of course, lately I see anything I read about Ethiopia through the filter of my adoption, and there were a couple of themes in The Storyteller's Beads that hit home for me about this. One was what Sahay's uncle repeats to her over and over, first when they are leaving their home and then several times as they are on their journey, "I must find a safe place for you. You are our family's only hope for the future." I kept picturing someone saying this to a child that is being given up for adoption, and imagining the circumstances that would lead a parent or other family member to decide that it was best for their child to leave their country of birth.

The second theme was loss, not just the obvious loss of family and country, but the small things that were lost along the way. First, Sahay must leave behind a basket that they had packed with food before she and her uncle set out on their journey; once the food is gone, there is no reason to keep carrying the basket, and every reason to leave it behind to lighten the load. When they reach a treacherous mountain trail that will be difficult to cross, Rahel must discard a clay pot that her grandmother made for her, to remind her of the land she is leaving behind; her brother fills a pouch with dirt to replace it, and Rahel is able to bring the pouch of dirt out of Ethiopia with her. These examples, and others, remind me that even the smallest thing can take on huge significance when it's all you have left to remind you of the people you love, and I hope that my future child will have even something small to remind him or her of birth family left behind.

Eyes On Books: Guest Blogger Edition- Rebecca Haile

2009-02-06T05:17:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I wrote Held at a Distance was to pinpoint what it means to me to feel emotionally and culturally connected to both Ethiopia and America. On that topic my book is quite personal, as are the balances I have struck around identity.

For this post, and with adoptive families in mind, I thought I would share the broader contexts in which I have thought about these connections since the book’s publication.

First, I’ve thought a lot about Ethiopian-American culture and identity in light of the dramatic increase in the immigrant community. Before the 1974 revolution there were so few Ethiopians living outside Ethiopia. Today there are between 350 and 500 thousand of us in the US alone, truly a staggering number. And although we are still a relatively young immigrant group, thirty years is long enough for us to realize that we aren’t going back “home”. The real business of living, we know, is happening here.

The bigger numbers don’t necessarily mean that little replicas of Addis Ababa will spring up here and there (though very traditional pockets may well flourish). Rather, like groups that have come before, I imagine that we will create something different, something that combines elements of the old country and the new. Take a look at the “movie” (a combination of still images, audio clips from interviews and music) I made with my friend Ara Oshagan about Los Angeles’ Ethiopian community. In it you can hear people, especially parents and their second-generation children, searching for words to describe their identity and struggling to articulate a balance that is true to their Ethiopian-in-America or Ethiopian-American or African-American experience. Here is the link. I think the real significance of this growth is that it permits so many more options around the preservation of culture and identity. Whatever people settle upon, they will not be limited by the kind of isolation my family experienced in central Minnesota in the 1970s.

Second, I’ve been thinking about these questions as a mother. All of a sudden, it seems, my two children have grown out of toddlerhood and are old enough to notice how our family compares to their friends’ families. They know that their mother and her (very numerous) relatives are Ethiopian, that this side of the family comes in different shades of brown and speaks with a range of accents or prefers Amharic. They know that their maternal grandfather is in a wheelchair for reasons having to do with Ethiopia. They also understand that their paternal grandparents are Greek and Armenian, and that their father was raised in Istanbul. At the same time, they are Americans who are very attached to their friends and for the most part feel no different at all.

I have such mixed emotions about Ethiopia. I love the country proper; can dream up in a minute the breathtaking topography of highland peaks covered in golden brush and practically feel the clean cold air of dawn in the mountains. I love the way that nature is always at hand even in the cities, in the cattle that can suddenly block the busiest street, in the drum of summer rain on tin roofs or in the lake-sized puddles that women in heels sidestep with such skill. I love and miss my extended family; I will always be grateful for the unconditional love and safety they provided me and forever mindful of their lessons about caring for others. It is probably also true that I love the idea of Ethiopia, the marvelous historic nation that might have been. I will always wonder, as I wrote in my book, what it would have been like to grow up there, in a place where my family simply belonged.

But I also know that the many things I have come to love about being American, the many freedoms I enjoy as a citizen, as a woman and as an individual, are just not on offer in Ethiopia. And as I think specifically about children, I think about all that is wrong with how children are raised. With love, yes, but also with extreme emphasis on qualities such as obedience and conformity and a general disregard for the individual nature or needs of a given child.

So what do I want for my children? What should I do, what can I do, to give them enough of Ethiopia while also respecting their other connections as well as their right to charter their own course?

For now, here are some of my ideas:

Ethiopian history. This one is easy. There is so much there, from the achievements of ancient Axum to the 3000 year-old written tradition to the encounters and clashes with European powers from the Middles Ages on. I don’t want to romanticize or overplay anything, though. I want my children to know the good and the bad and the mundane in-between and accept it for what it is. I feel so strongly that we have to embrace all aspects of a given subject if we mean to take it seriously.

I imagine that knowing Ethiopian history in this way will matter for my children’s sense of self – we come from this place - and will also teach them to be more sensitive to the complexity of other people and cultures.

Connection/Community. This one is harder. Harder to do, and harder to know how much to do. My children won’t speak Amharic; I recognize that. So I’m very grateful that they see their grandparents and cousins often, as this is a natural way for them to be a part of something Ethiopian – nothing forced there.

In terms of connection to a bigger community, I’m quite interested in how second-generation Ethiopian-Americans are defining their identity and their relationship to Ethiopia. Not all speak Amharic, not many have spent meaningful time in Ethiopia, and yet the connection, or at least the yearning for connection, remains. Without pushing them in any way, I can see how my hybrid kids could find a space within this community that is genuinely open to them.

In terms of on-going cultural exposure -- which is both good in and of itself, like exposure to history, and a critical element of community-building - I’m sure the growth will result in more restaurants, art galleries, bookstores, community centers and organized events and more chances to come into contact with other Ethiopian-American families. For example, last April Harvard hosted a three-day conference on Ethiopian creativity that would have been inconceivable ten years ago. I learned a ton about the art, music and political activity of Ethiopian immigrants from the speakers. And I also left feeling a genuine connection with the other Ethiopian participants, something I rarely feel in more traditional settings.

Two observations about adoptive families here. First, I fully expect you and your children to join this conversation and for your presence and participation to impact this evolving Ethiopian-American identity. It is entirely possible that my kids will have as much in common with yours as they will with kids whose parents are from Ethiopia.

Second, I think adoptive families may help lead the way in establishing more formal ways of transmitting culture. I get a lot of practical questions from adoptive parents – where to buy a specific kind of children’s book, where to get Amharic lessons – and often I come up blank. We don’t have such mechanisms in place yet. The reason for this, I think, is that we come from a majority culture and have only just started to recognize that Ethiopian identity in the next generations could easily disappear under the weight of the dominant American (and African-American) culture. Adoptive parents, on the other hand, it seems to me, emerge from the adoption process having already done a lot of thinking about minority culture and identity and the potential consequences of inaction. Also, of course, as immigrants we don’t have the same resources – financial or otherwise - that more established American families often do.

Communal Sensibility. Within an Ethiopian family or community, you can never think only of yourself. Everyone is very aware of how their actions affect everyone around them, and children are taught to be especially solicitous of parents and other elders. (To this day I can’t get myself a glass of water without offering one to everyone else in the room.) I hope I can pass on something of this very Ethiopian value to my children. That is, I hope they will come to understand their responsibilities and obligations as reaching beyond themselves or their immediate families. It doesn’t matter to me whether the community they think about includes people in New York City or Addis Ababa or whether it is a community of ideology rather than geography – it only matters that they think, and act, in a communal way.

Humility. Ethiopia will humble you. There is humility in being stopped cold by a power outage that leaves an entire neighborhood in darkness. In having a long anticipated trip cut short because there is just no way around a washed out mountain pass. In suffering the arbitrary actions of one repressive government after another, in living with curfews and random police stops, in having everything upended by revolution or civil war. In losing parents or children to military bullets or to illnesses that are routinely treated elsewhere.

Over the years I have found it useful to remember that even foundations can be fragile, and that the best-laid plans must be open to revision. I think some sense of humility and understanding along these lines will be valuable to my children as we move further into this unpredictable new century, a century in which America’s role in the world – and American confidence - may come under challenge. I don’t mean that I want them to throw up their hands or be fatalistic about outcomes. I just hope that some degree of humility informs their thinking and helps them make mindful, effective choices.

So that’s where I am, at least for today. No doubt my ideas will change as my kids grow and change. I’ll end with a bit of advice I got from my father when my husband and I were going back and forth on what to name our daughter: “Well, enjoy your decision. It will be the last one you make about her on your own.”

I think about that a lot.

Rebecca Haile
www.rebeccahaile.com

* Note from Julie...

Rebecca has graciously indicated to me that she would be more than happy to write a follow up post answering any questions we may have about today's post, or about Held at a Distance.

Thank you Rebecca!

February/March Books...

2009-01-31T16:59:00.001-08:00

Here are our new books. It seems like we should let folks continue to review former choices as well. So don't be discouraged if you are behind. Just read when you can, and send your thoughts at your leisure.

My Father's Daughter

(Most inexpensive copy of Pool's book HERE.)

I'm Chocolate, you're Vanilla

The Storyteller's Beads

Whadda Ya think?

Rebecca Haile...

2009-01-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

Rebecca Haile will be Guest Blogging next week. Sorry for the delay. It gives you more time to read her book!

Liz-On- Held At A Distance...

2009-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

I just finished another book about Ethiopia that I bought myself for Christmas, Held at a Distance by Rebecca Haile. Haile's family were affected by the same events described in the last book I read, Notes from the Hyena's Belly, but Held at a Distance is very different in part because her family was able to leave Ethiopia in the mid-1970s. Haile describes her first trip back to Ethiopia at the age of thirty-six, after growing up in Minnesota from the age of eleven.

Haile spends part of the book imagining the life she might have had in Ethiopia if things had gone differently, which was particularly informative for me to read as a prospective adoptive parent of an Ethiopian child. Will my child have similar thoughts about how things might have been different? Although my future child will leave Ethiopia at a younger age than Haile did, he or she will still be old enough to have memories of life before arriving in the US to live with me, and will probably have the same questions of identity, what-might-have-been and what-was-left-behind, that Haile expresses in her book.

Haile's description of Ethiopia also gives me a good sense of what to expect when I travel to bring my child home, especially in Addis Ababa, the capital. When Haile and her husband arrive in Ethiopia with guide books and maps and a tourist itinerary, expecting to find the attractions open when the books say they will be open, her Ethiopian relatives laugh at the silly ferenji who don't understand power outages and gasoline shortages and the way things work. A good reminder to be open and flexible during this whole adoption process!

I also learned a lot about Ethiopia's ancient culture and history, as Haile and her husband travel to many of the important historical sites - Axum and Lake Tana and Lalibela and others. These are places that Haile had not visited before her family fled Ethiopia, so she is experiencing them for the first time much as I might if I were to visit them. Many of these historical sites consist of grand structures, churches and monuments built by ancient kings, and there is an interesting juxtaposition between the importance of these monuments to Ethiopians in the past and the role of grand building projects - roads and bridges and other infrastructure - in the Ethiopia of the present.

Haile goes to Ethiopia expecting to struggle with how to fit the country she left behind so long ago into her adult self; what she doesn't expect to find is that Ethiopia is also trying to figure out how to fit people like her into itself. The definition of who is "Ethiopian" to Ethiopia is changing, and Haile discovers that immigrants like herself have begun to be included. Again, an interesting perspective to ponder for someone who will soon have a young Ethiopian on my hands - how Ethiopian will our family, and families like ours, become?

Liz- On-' Notes'...

2009-01-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

I bought myself a couple of books while I was doing my Christmas shopping this year, and one of them was Notes from the Hyena's Belly, by Nega Mezlekia. Mezlekia was born in Ethiopia, and the book covers his life and events in Ethiopia from his birth in 1958 through 1997. I learned a lot about the historical and political context of Ethiopia, and have come to understand the country much better than I did before.

In Mezlekia's Ethiopia, nothing is as it seems, including the book itself. The life he describes is like one of the kinae, or poems, that he explains early in the book. A kinae "offers one message to the untrained ear and another to cultured listeners," with the "bronze" meaning being the obvious one and the "gold" meaning being the hidden meaning.

At one point Mezlekia describes a long bus trip in which the driver stops in a particular town and showers the local young people with toys and candy and smiles; when Mezlekia praises his generosity, the bus driver explains that if he were not so generous with the youngsters, they would pelt his bus with rocks and make passage through the town impossible. The entire book is like this bus trip, with stops along the way that have a bronze explanation as well as a gold explanation.

Book One is full of colorful characters, from the woman who lives with Mezlekia's family and cannot hold down a job because she must observe so many saints' days and spirit days and other religious holidays - 368 days in total, or three more days per year than the calendar holds - to the morality teacher who explains that it is moral to poison a neighbor's dog that runs wild in the neighborhood (because then the neighbor will learn to treat his next dog better), but immoral to kill the hyenas who roam the town at night killing anything or anyone they catch outside (because this encourages the homeless of the town to find safe and secure places to sleep at night, which can only be to their benefit). Book One lulls you into thinking that this will be a sweet memoir, where even the unpleasant memories (such as corporal punishment at the hands of school teachers) are washed in the warm glow that comes from the passage of many years.

But once you get into Book Two, where you read about student protests that are violently suppressed by the police, and the first time Mezlekia was thrown in jail, at the age of fourteen, you come to realize that this story is not what it seemed at first.

The rest of the book is full of political coups, military juntas, secret cells, random executions, refugees, famine, lessons on socialism, protests, guerrilla armies, and a revolution that "was eating Ethiopia's children at an alarming rate." Part way through the book, Mezlekia "discovered to my horror that when someone you don't know fires a .50-calibre anti-aircraft gun at you, he actually means to kill you."

And yet, much of it is still written in the same tone as Book One, light and quaint, full of colorful characters and tall tales where the animals have personalities and there is a lesson to be learned. People still go about their lives. As Mezlekia explains, "Apathy in the face of continual violence is something someone who has never lived through a war cannot understand...Death was random and continual, and people simply got on with what living was left to them; the long wait in line for a bucket of water, the preparation of what food there was to be found. People simply gathered about themselves, like rags, what life there was left, deafened and inured to the inevitability of death."

There is a level of absurdity to many of the events in the book as described by Mezlekia, and some of the most absurd occur when the rest of the world gets involved in Africa's affairs. Mezlekia explains how Ethiopia becomes one more pawn in the game between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, resulting at one point in the two superpowers simply trading places in Ethiopia and Somalia and continuing to wage war-by-proxy against each other from different sides of the border than they originally started from. Mezlekia eventually ends up as a political refugee in Canada at the end of the book, and says he holds no ill will against his adopted homeland - which provided financial assistance to the military junta that came to power during his adolescence - but simply wishes that "they, like much of the Western world, could be more considerate of the welfare of those who live in distant places."

The saddest part of the book to me was the disintegration of Mezlekia's family. It was sad because they don't fall apart due to the violence and hardships that they endure, but because of the mundane reasons that often tear families apart - jealousy and greed, petty disagreements and sibling rivalry. Mezlekia's mother says that "the only siblings that God intended to be lifelong friends were cheetah cubs, and that everyone else would have to work hard at it." Good advice from a wise woman, but unfortunately - as Mezlekia acknowledges - her own offspring did not heed her advice.

I'll be passing Notes from the Hyena's Belly on to my mother, who will probably pass it on to one of my sisters, and eventually most of my family will have a better understanding of the country that my future child will come from - as I do now after having read it.

In The New Year I Resolve To...

2009-01-13T11:10:00.000-08:00

Read More Books!!

Where is everyone? At the gym? Putting away the Holiday decorations?

Feel free to e-mail me any reviews or thoughts on our books.

Rebecca Haile will be posting on the 30th of January.

Here is a link to her website.

She has also agreed to do a follow up entry answering any questions we may have.

I am really looking forward to this.

Also, we should start thinking about our next selections!! Any ideas!!

Happy Reading !

Oh, and I am going to publish a new review on a prior selection from Liz. Why not?!

December/ January Books...

2008-12-01T15:15:00.001-08:00

Held at a Distance

Owen & Mzee

Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child

Would Anyone Mind....

2008-11-22T07:06:00.000-08:00

if I made an executive decision and chose this book as our December/January book?

Rebecca Haile has agreed to be a guest blogger! The book is excellent, and I am thrilled that she has the time to do this.

Also, Sara recommended a kid's book, but I can't find the e-mail. Sara, if you are reading this, leave your suggestion in the comments.

Anyone else have a kid's book suggestion?

Also, I am wondering if we should keep the same 'How to' book? I haven't finished the Cogen book, but would like to. I figure with the holidays, people might be short on time. If you disagree, and would prefer a new choice, let me know and we will pick something else.

And, don't be afraid to e-mail me your reviews! Anybody else finish, "The Train to Djibouti"?

Sara-TX- On 'A Mother for Choco'...

2008-11-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

I read A Mother for Choco in the car to my husband on our way home from the library. By the time I finished, we were both a little teary eyed. I liked how the end of the story showed Mrs. Bear's family as a diverse group. Everyone was a little different, yet the house was clearly filled with love. I think this book would be good as a way to talk with a young adopted child about looking different from his/her mother and father.

The one issue I had with the story stems from reading the works of adult adoptees. At the start of the story Choco is all alone, but there is no explanation as to why. It seems that most adoption stories have a clear beginning. What if the story had started with Choco's birth mother leaving him in a safe place? Or giving some other explanation as to why Choco was alone, but at least acknowledging the first mother in some way?

Cindy-OK- On 'The Train to Djibouti'...

2008-11-15T09:51:00.000-08:00

Djibouti presents an intriguing fictional journey, a "treasure hunt," and love story. Italian historian/writer living in London finds herself taken to Ethiopia by attractive Habesha to help him find his nephew. Searching for nephew turns into searching for treasure with only the guidance of a cryptic message left to "posterity" by a scribe from centuries past. Searching for treasure turns into love.

However, the book didn't really grip my attention. I felt like the authorship, and perhaps the publishing as well, was amateur, even down to typos and abruptly ending, and thus slightly confused, sub-plots. The story was incredible in that my mind didn't really allow itself to buy into the fantastic sequence of events that happened to fall perfectly into place for the treasure-hunting protagonists. Orthodox monks appear out of nowhere to tell Ms. Ferenj that they will essentially bend over backwards so that her and her boyfriend can singlehandedly excavate the area where the Awash river springs to life in their hunt for antiquated booty because their search for "truth" is deemed a credible and beneficial one? Whatever. I more bought into the love story than anything else, which was definitely sweet notwithstanding the love-bird bantering ad-nauseum.

What did I really dig though? I enjoyed learning more about Ethiopia, even in the context of outrageous fiction; culture, language, cuisine, and geography. Inviting the reader to get to know Ethiopia, the book extolls the virtues of its culture and people. The books is interstrewn with Amharic words in bold. Clever how the author was capable of throwing those words in naturally, but also in such a way to make it seem like it was a lesson in Amharic for the reader.

Eyes on Books: Guest Blogger Edition-Jane Kurtz, Part Three: Life as a Circle: Ethiopia Comes Around Again

2008-11-14T05:30:00.000-08:00

From the outside, it appears as if the publication of Fire on the Mountain made my life click into gear and roll sweetly down the hill. I had at least one new book published every year…a current grand total of 27 once Martin’s Dream (Simon & Schuster), my new ready-to-read book comes out this month.

The view from inside was considerably messier. By the time my first book was published, I knew exactly how rejection felt—I just didn’t know how much rejection was lined up and waiting for me after publication. I naively thought once a book existed, readers would find it. And read it. And buy it. And love it. Actually, most of us only have to ask ourselves how many new hardcover books we buy in any given year to realize what a chilly world it is for books, especially in a time of pinched funding for schools and libraries.

Still, the day came when I stood up to begin a school visit, glanced at the table beside me, and thought, Whoa…I have a LOT of books published. I even started to be brave enough to put “author” on forms (along with “teacher”). I experienced the thrill of speaking at schools or conferences where students and teachers had either no picture or only grim pictures of Ethiopia in their minds and, after reading my books, let the sunshine in. Once, I was in a school that had done a terrific job of crafting a big author celebration. A girl turned to the boy next to her and asked—in my hearing—“Are you from Ethiopia, too?”
The boy nodded uncertainly.
“Wow,” she said, breathing out with a small sigh. “You’re lucky.”
For a long time, her words made all the agonies of travel feel fine.

With my own children growing up in North Dakota, I found myself more homesick than ever. I imagined I would never see Ethiopia again. My brother went back as a teacher during the time of the Marxist government. Then my older sister. Another sister went to Togo to repair helicopters used to spray for river blindness. I was stuck in the frozen northland. Then, to my astonishment, in 1997 I was asked by the international school, the British school, and a mission school to come to Addis Ababa as a visiting author.

I’ve written on my website about what it was like to go back for the first time in 20 years. That event launched a period of international speaking for me. I’ve gotten to talk to book lovers in Uganda, Kenya, Botswana, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Romania, England, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Indonesia, and Cambodia. India and Morocco and Norway are on the horizon. One year, educators in both Uganda and Nigeria asked me, “How can we begin to plant a reading culture here as you have in America?”

I began to mull the answer to that question, thinking about the role that libraries, public education, publishers, writers, illustrators, and literate parents play in the children’s book world in the United States. It was an interesting question, but a somewhat academic one, until the day I got an email from Yohannes Gebregeorgis, a children’s librarian in San Francisco. He told me he’d never held a book, outside of school, until he was 19. He wrote, “I want to go back to Ethiopia to start publishing books. You know how much Ethiopian children are deprived of the joys that books bring. I know that you have great love for the country you grew up in, and I want to ask you if you can join me in making this idea a reality.”

I was fascinated…and stunned. Such a huge problem. Two people with little power or money. But as he wrote, “We have to start somewhere.”

Start somewhere, we did, with the help of an adoptive mom, Maureen Evans, who interviewed Yohannes and wrote down some of his ideas for beginning. The story has been told beautifully—by Melissa Faye Greene in last October’s issue of Good Housekeeping and a recent article in Rocky Mountain News, and on my website and at Ethiopia Reads.

The dream that is now Ethiopia Reads has showed me the amazing power of ordinary human beings to do something important. Something big. We started by publishing the first color children’s book for Ethiopian kids and opening the first free library for children in Addis Ababa, a city of five million people. A few years down the road, we’ve planted 16 school libraries; we operate two community libraries; we’re the proud owners of a donkey mobile library; and we have funding for 12 more school libraries and several more donkey mobile libraries. The staff in Ethiopia has recorded more than 100,000 visits from children per year.

We want more, more, more.

The dream has also gobbled up a chunk of my life. We’re a tiny group trying to do so much. Never again will I make snarky comments about money that goes to administration. No, I’ve seen the light: without creative and thoughtful administration—without money for infrastructure—programs may have heart-stopping impact but they are always piecemeal, often herky-jerky, inevitably only an experiment. We’ve shown ourselves to be a great experiment. Now we have to see if we can turn ourselves into an organization that will change the future for Ethiopian children everywhere.

In the dark, hard moments, I have several thoughts I hang onto: Need is everywhere, opportunity isn’t. And Money isn’t always the answer; in this case, it is.

I also take comfort in what teachers everywhere know: the reality of ripple effect. Andualem, the shoeshine boy from Only a Pigeon did so well on the test students take after high school that he got to attend Addis Ababa University and went on to work for Ethiopian Airlines and Northwest Airlines. One of the young Ethiopian women who worked for Ethiopia Reads loved translating my first book, Fire on the Mountain, for children at Shola Library so much that she approached Simon & Schuster and got permission to publish an Ethiopian version. You can read about her work HERE.

The most important ripple effect? Two Ethiopian-American grandchildren. (When my son and daughter went to Ethiopia to volunteer at Shola Library, my son fell in love with one of the young women working there.) Could anything be sweeter?

I’m often asked what adoptive parents can do to help their children celebrate their Ethiopian heritage. I wonder the same thing with my own grandbabies. A few completely biased answers are here: 1) Bring my books and any other books you can find about Ethiopia into your homes, your schools, your libraries, so that your own family members and community will see positive images of Ethiopia. No book stays around forever. Grab them while they’re in the world! (I, myself, was caught without any copies of Trouble when it went out of print.) 2) Support other people’s efforts. Treasure the adoption camps that are growing up in different geographic areas. Get to know your local Ethiopian community if one exists. Bring beautiful images of Ethiopia into your homes and lives. When my son, a photojournalism major at KU, went back to Ethiopia last summer, I asked him to remember adoptive families as he traveled around looking for stories to tell. Some of the results are HERE. 3) Healing for me, a bi-cultural child, has come as I reach back to the land of my childhood and believe I’m making a difference for those children I once felt helpless to help. Come on over. Give me a hand with Ethiopia Reads. (If you don’t know how, just email me and ask.)

As Yohannes says, “"The real heroes are the children who collect pennies, the people who help us bring books to Ethiopia. It was my idea, my dream. But the people who help us, they are the dream realizers."

* Note from Julie...

There are still a few days left to vote for Yohannes, although I think the nomination committee made a mistake by not including Jane as well. The winner will be announced on CNN on Thanksgiving. You can vote more than once.

To Donate to Ethiopia Reads, click HERE.

Jane,
Thank you such much for doing this series. You are truly an inspiration. I can't wait to share your books with my children.

Christine- On "Parenting..."

2008-11-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

Listen, I am only on page 26, but I want to comment now before I lose the already potent thoughts I have running around in my head. First of all, I really love that so much of what she says is research based (i.e., the concept of left eye to left eye contact so that the right hemispheres of the child and parent are communicating, or the actual blood levels of the pleasure hormones....) as it makes me feel like she is truly speaking from a place of reality, not just intuition. The idea of a "stress-shaped brain" is hard for any parent to think of in term of her child, but it makes sense to me in so many ways. Having grown up in a stressful atmosphere myself, I think my brain was formatted to function in that type of atmosphere. I think that is why I feel like my best decisions are made when I have time to get past my gut reaction and move onto higher processing and also a good night's sleep will almost always cement a good decision for me. It does make me feel sad for an adopted child, those attachment issues, the trust issues, so much for a young life. I also feel like adoptive parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place at times, trying to tweeze out the attachment stuff from the temperment stuff, knowing how to set healthy limits, not overthinking it, not underthinking it. That is the difficulty with parenting in general, I think, it is an obsession of your mind. This book is fantastic.

Eyes On Books, Guest Blogger: Jane Kurtz, Part Two: On to publication...agony and joy.

2008-10-31T05:30:00.000-07:00

By the time I was in high school in Ethiopia, I thought of myself as a writer. Good Shepherd School, where I got most of my education, existed thanks to the Presbyterian, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Lutheran, and Mennonite churches, and—while most of my teachers might not have known some of the things many teachers today know about writing (thanks to superb advice from Lucy Caulkins, Katie Wood Ray, Ralph Fletcher and others)—my love of reading was nurtured during elementary school through lots of read-aloud time and a visits to our small library. In high school, though, a new teacher came into my life. Stan Kano.

As the only freshman to be invited into Stan Kano’s Honors English class (full of vigorous conversation about novels), I was shiny with pride. At last I was on the edge of the circle that included my older sister, someone I actually wanted to be but at least was thrilled to be around. Stan roared with a great belly laugh when any of us had an opinion that was outrageous but well-supported. He encouraged me to take risks in my writing—not play it safe—and to quit using the word “it.” I took umbrage at all the red-pen marks on my papers, but now I know he did me the favor of being a tough editor and critic.

I headed off to Monmouth College to be an English major. But I was only seventeen when I dived into a sophomore level course in Old English Literature—and promptly switched my major to psychology. Still, I enrolled in creative writing as many times as the college would let me, and I emerged from my early academic years thinking of myself as A Writer…only with no idea how to get a book published, no clue about how to craft the plot of a novel, no practice in deep-to-the-bones revision, and no guess that one day I would long to write a picture book.

Having children changed all that.

My early story ideas were drawn from my children’s lives. Some of those ideas did eventually turn into books, although not before ten years of rejection letters, which led to my giving myself an immense, lengthy course in really becoming a writer. The initial idea for Do Kangaroos Wear Seatbelts? popped into my head as I zipped and buttoned and buckled in my toddlers. (Ironically, it didn’t get published until I had my first baby granddaughter.) Rain Romp, my hymn to family love--even when we don’t want to get up, even when we’re having grouchy days—was inspired by my six-year-old daughter but didn’t click together until she was in middle school and our family was living in a FEMA trailer after the Red River flood of 1997.

In those years when I was slogging the path toward becoming a published author…convinced that Americans weren’t interested in the world outside of their noses…tired of feeling like an outsider…I rarely talked about Ethiopia with anyone. But, to my astonishment, in 1994 I was given the gift of my voice. Fire on the Mountain was published by Simon & Schuster, illustrated in moving and memorable scenes by an artist who had never published a book before, and chosen as a Book of the Month Club alternate selection.

I had discovered that by writing picture books and, later, novels for young readers, I could offer glimpses of what I knew best and cared about most when I was a young reader. Luckily for me, in those days librarians and teachers were asking for (and had budgets to buy) books that showed the lives of children in other countries. So editors, one by one, agreed to bring my Ethiopia-connected stories into the world: retellings of Ethiopian folktales (re-cast with the children of my childhood)--Fire on the Mountain, Pulling the Lion’s Tail, Trouble-- my contemporary stories—Only a Pigeon, Faraway Home, Water Hole Waiting, Jakarta Missing--my historical fiction—The Storyteller’s Beads, Saba: Under the Hyena’s Foot—even a fantasy novel that drew heavily on my memories of Ethiopia, The Feverbird’s Claw.

Here are answers to a reader’s (Cindy's) questions about Trouble.

1.) "Tef" and "hyenas" are things I've learned to associate with Ethiopia and both are noticeably absent in Trouble. Did you have any experience or run-ins with hyenas growing up in Ethiopia?

I fell asleep listening to the weird cries of hyenas almost every night in Addis Ababa—where I lived on what was then the outskirts of the city--and captured that memory in Faraway Home. Outside the city of Harrar, I long ago watched the Hyena Man feed hyenas at dusk (something my granddaughter also did last summer). And I used real stories of hyena encounters (though not my own) in Saba: Under the Hyena’s Foot. Although I usually ate injera made from tef, I also lived and traveled in areas where injera was made from corn or where people ate foods that weren’t wat and injera, including bread made from false banana roots. Ethiopia is diverse…in cuisine, in climate, and in terrain.

2.) Both Notes from the Hyena's Belly and Trouble give the impression that a childhood in Ethiopia could well be wrought with mischief. From other sources, I've learned that Ethiopian mothers are charged with raising children to have deep respect for their elders such that it is considered disrespectful even for children to look at the eyes of an adult when being spoken to. How do you reconcile the theme of childhood mischief with the obedience and respect that the Ethiopian culture demands from kids?

It’s so true that children were traditionally raised (and to some extent still are raised) to respect elders. (Although, as in many places, boys always have been given more leeway than girls.) In fact, I used this reality to help me shape the plot in my retelling of a folktale, Pulling the Lion’s Tail. One could argue that a similar culture prevailed in the times Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about—yet in the Little House in the Big Woods and other books, the author doesn’t give a picture of children behaving perfectly. I think kids everywhere will find some ways to fly under the radar and make mischief.

3.) How do you feel about the reported tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia even now, given that it is not uncommon to read news stories about conflicts between the two countries?

Yes, it’s my impression, too, that the undercurrent of tension is still strong. After all, the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia existed—sometimes in a bubbling way, sometimes in a ferocious way—for more than thirty years. I am no expert on Eritrea, having only been a visitor there, myself (in the days when the Ethiopian boundaries included Eritrea). I was inspired to set Trouble in Eritrea because of Ethiopian-Eritrean friends who feel torn by their love of both countries. A former Eritrean classmate (and roommate) of my sister Cathy looked over both text and rough sketches before the book was published and caught some picture errors.

In 2005, I was asked to write a book for older children, teachers, and parents that would show how I have used my real life in my fiction and would also highlight some of the skills I learned and practiced over the years of becoming a published writer. Jane Kurtz and You is a book I’d love to see in every library where Ethiopian-American children go to school. It’s full of pictures and the true stories of my childhood, and I hope it will also inspire those children who struggle—like me—to know exactly where they belong and encourage them to write about their experiences, to try the approaches and techniques that helped me share my world.

However, it seems all good things come to an end. For a variety of reasons, big publishers became less and less able to take a chance on what’s often called “multicultural literature.” Pulling the Lion’s Tail, Trouble, Only a Pigeon, Jakarta Missing, The Feverbird’s Claw and Saba: Under the Hyena’s Foot all went out of print, something that happens whenever sales drop under a certain level in a given year. In some cases, I have a small stash of my own books; volunteers for Ethiopia Reads sell both Saba and Only a Pigeon on amazon.com. In other cases, I’ve scrambled to find copies. People pass along ideas of books they want me to write, but I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to publish an Ethiopia-connected book again. Sheer economics is not on my side. Thus, I often remind parents and teachers and librarians of Ethiopian-American children to be sure they buy the books of mine that are still around, since I’ve learned from bitter experience that any book, alas, can go out of print very suddenly.

In the meantime, I treasure all the contacts I’ve had with adoptive families and Ethiopian-American families who’ve written to say such things as, “My child fell asleep with his hand on your book every night.” Those who read and treasure my books feel like my extended family, a family I couldn’t survive (literally and emotionally) without.

Rana-Canada- On 'A Mother for Choco'...

2008-10-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

I have had "A Mother for Choco" for a while and I love this book. I love the animation, the colors and the characters.

I love that young and old will enjoy the story. Young children will identify with the story and hopefully it will help them understand that even though you might look different from your family - love will still be there. It brings a tear to my eye every time I read it and we don't even have a kidlet to read it to yet. I recently made one of my "non-adoptive" friends read it and she loved it!

I actually order a copy of this book every so often to give to friends who are also adopting!

Eyes On Books, Guest Blogger: Jane Kurtz, Part One: My magical, confusing Ethiopian-American childhood.

2008-10-24T04:16:00.000-07:00

With World War II raging and sacrifice a word thousands of families were learning from the inside out, my father and his four brothers, each one in turn, left their family farm in the dry, sagebrush hills of eastern Oregon (a place that seemed so isolated my dad, as a boy, assumed he’d never even get to see the capital city of Oregon) and headed to Europe. My dad’s turn came when he was 18. Later, in an interview, he said, “When I came back, the world was on my heart.” Having seen a world at war, he thought there had to be a better way.

In Monmouth , Illinois , he met my mom at a small Presbyterian college, which he was able to attend thanks to the G.I. bill. On a recent author trip, the husband of my librarian hostess (a history buff) told me that as the original G.I. bill nearly stalled in Congress in 1944, presidents of major U.S. universities argued against it and the riff-raff that would flow into in the American college system if it passed. I’m sure my dad was more-or-less the type of riff-raff they had in mind. After graduating from college and a Presbyterian seminary in Pittsburgh , my dad—who was a challenged but motivated student--headed to Portland , Oregon . That’s where I was born.

During those years, a lot had been happening in Ethiopia . The emperor Haile Selassie had returned from exile to discover that the Italian occupation of his country had resulted in the wiping out of a generation of educated Ethiopians. This place--fiercely proud of its independence, a country that had long fought to keep outsiders out—began to invite outsiders in. TWA advisors and pilots came to help with what would become Ethiopian Airlines, often named one of the best airlines in Africa . Church groups also responded. Each was assigned a different section of Ethiopia and charged with starting schools and hospitals where none had ever been. The Presbyterians, who had already established the country’s first school for girls (in Addis Ababa), were asked to concentrate on part of southwest Ethiopia, a rugged area of multiple distinct ethnic groups and languages.

Someone in the United States heard about this opportunity and told my dad he’d be great in this kind of role—a storyteller, an idealistic but pragmatic person with lots of skills in patching things together and making them run. My dad agreed. He also saw a way to respond to the world on his heart. A family photo shows two-year-old me in chilly post-war England …on the way to Ethiopia …on a leash.

We landed in a capital city where hyenas provided garbage-control, skulking along the streets at night (as they still do) and where we trundled here and there on my dad’s bicycle or in a small, horse-drawn taxi called a gari. My mom had to figure out diapers for two toddlers, household necessities and food for all of us, and a hospital for the baby on the way. When my first little brother, died at four months—crib death, it was assumed—my parents’ neighbors and Amharic tutors came to simply sit, silently, in our living room. Ethiopian customs dictate that people should be not be left alone with their grief. Later, my father said it was a strong message that the people he had come to minister to would, in fact, minister to us.

I say I grew up in Maji, a magical place of fog and waterfalls, of frogs and fern-tips we picked and called our water babies, of mule trips and stories around the fire at night and bursts of music and spear-shaking dancing. Maji is where my mom taught me to read and to love books and words. It’s the place where I had Ethiopian playmates until I was about six or seven. After that, Ethiopian girls had to work in their own houses, not come to play, not go to the school my mom and dad helped with. It’s where—without television—I learned to invent games and act out stories with my siblings, eventually four sisters and one brother.

My childhood was really more complicated than that, though. It included two initial language-study years in Addis Ababa where I picked up Amharic from hearing it around me—and dashed in, during a rainstorm, to announce, “It’s zin-ah-bing..” It included two awkward trips to the United States (when I was 7 and when I was 13) where other kids asked, “Did you see Tarzan?” and where, in a New York City elevator, my sisters and I struggled to know how to answer the man who asked, “Where are you from?” (finally deciding the correct answer must be, “We’re from America ”). It also included five years in boarding school in Addis Ababa, where I loved getting the chance to have classmates, teachers (who were not my mother), and a library, but where I learned about pillow-crying at night and homesickness.

Even after I, too, trekked to college in Monmouth , Illinois , I didn’t lose the idea of Ethiopia as home until my parents left in 1977, three years after the Marxists overthrew the last emperor--His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie, who had first invited my mom and dad (and others) in. During those mid-1970s years, I was a visitor, a question-er, someone still scrambling to find an answer to the question, “Where are you from?” Once my parents were back in Portland, Oregon , I tried to put Ethiopia away in a little memory box and simply learn how to be an American—a teacher, an aspiring writer, and a mom.

To be continued...

A Message From Jane Kurtz...

2008-10-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

"Hi Julie,
I wanted to be sure you knew about this (article below), I believe in all my bones and cells that education of the next (or NEXT) generation is going to ultimately be the only way Ethiopians are going to start solving their country's problems. This is the most heroic person I know to come along to tackle the issue of literacy--and we've planted 16 libraries where children used to have no books. But we're also really on the edge because the more our donations grow, the more we try to DO things in Ethiopia. Please let everyone know to vote for Yohannes (it literally takes minutes--and people can vote more than once). We have volunteers who've mobilized schools and Girl Scout troops, and colleges, and churches and other organizations to vote, too. And will you ask people to consider even a small donation to Ethiopia Reads? We're on the edge of great things but it feels more like purely on The Edge :> Hope you might get to meet Yohannes in star-studded LA. Thanks! Jane"

Yohannes Gebregeorgis, a native of Ethiopia and children's literacy advocate, has been named a Top 10 Hero of the Year by CNN. Mr. Gebregeorgis was selected from more than 3,000 individuals nominated by viewers throughout the year. Finalists were selected by a Blue Ribbon panel of judges that includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall and Deepak Chopra. The Top 10 Heroes will be recognized in CNN's "All-Star Tribute" to air on Thanksgiving.

Yohannes was first recognized as a "hero" by CNN in May for his work championing children in Ethiopia.. A former political refugee who worked as a librarian at San Francisco Public Library, Yohannes is the co-founder of Ethiopia Reads, a non-profit organization that works to create a reading culture in Ethiopia by connecting children with books. In a country where 99% of schools have no libraries, Yohannes and Ethiopia Reads are improving lives, one book at a time.

Here is a cool video about Yohannes' Donkey Mobile Library...

For more on Ethiopia Reads go HERE.

For more on Jane Kurtz go HERE.

Please remember that if you have any interview questions for Jane, you can e-mail them to me at eyesofmyeyes@yahoo.com

Thanks!

Has everyone picked up the three new books? Any thoughts or reviews?

Our Next 'How to' Book...

2008-09-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

More Here.

Our Next Kid's Book...

2008-09-29T07:14:00.001-07:00

More Here.

Our Next Book...

2008-09-28T09:00:00.001-07:00

More on the book HERE.

If you have a 'Kid's' or 'How to' book to recommend, please do!

Shannon-Canada- On 'Trouble'...

2008-09-24T00:01:00.001-07:00

Thank you so much for getting a copy of this book to us in Canada ! I loved it and can’t wait to read it someday to my little one. My husband teaches at an elementary school and I am going to show it to him so he can share it with his students (who also have some penpals in Ethiopia and are trying to learn more about Ethiopia ).

- I love that I was able to learn about a few new Ethiopian/Eritrean things myself ie. What a masinko is….

- I really enjoyed the inquisitive nature of the character. It goes to show that a child can learn a lot by being inquisitive and exploring the world around them.

- I think the main characters generosity makes him a good role model for kids today (sometimes our modern consumer culture promotes too much greed amongst youngsters – in my opinion anyways).

- To me it is a story of cause and effect. With our actions we put energy out into the world and that energy comes back to us in one way or another. Through the story the main character gives and gets back, it is not until the end when he gives his fruit to the kids and doesn’t expect anything in return that he gets his gebeta board back. What a life lesson, it is when you don’t expect anything that you get the most.

Shannon from Ontario Canada

http://warrenfamilyjourney.blogspot.com/

Lori-CA- On 'Notes'...

2008-09-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

Hi All

I havent posted yet, but wanted to chime in on Notes...

I read Notes from A Hyena's Belly and was fascinated to read about the derg or Red Terror. It's hard to imagine people living through such a thing.

We have a 3.5 yr old adopted daughter, SIlanchi, from Ethiopia who has been home with us for a year. I found out recently that her paternal grandfather was killed during the time of the derg and that the family had their home and property taken from them. As a consequence, her grandmother had to raise 10 (!) children on her own, in poverty. I'm so glad that I read Notes...
so that I had some understanding of what that time was like.

I am reading The Famished Road by Ben Okri, a Nigerian writer right now and I am loving it.
It is African magical realism. Prior to that I read
The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta which i also enjoyed.

Lori Precious

Looking Ahead...

2008-09-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone. I have received some suggestions for our next book/books. Here is what I have so far:

The Hospital by the River.

The Train to Djibouti.

Held at a Distance.

28 Stories of Aids in Africa.

Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child.

Please voice your vote for one of these.

Please keep your critiques and comments coming on our current books! I know you're out there! Say something!!

Thanks.

Oh, and don't forget to get your questions ready for Jane Kurtz. She is ready for her interview!!

Sara- On 'Notes'...

2008-09-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

- I enjoyed the way Mezlekia poked fun at people and situations. Sometimes I had to re-read a passage before I realized that he wasn’t being serious in his over-the-top description.

- The sections that dealt with violence were hard to read. It seemed like nobody knew who they could trust or what side was the “right one.” And the people in power seemed to change frequently. I can’t imagine living with that constant fear of being arrested, beaten or killed for my actual or perceived beliefs.

- Spirituality seemed to be a mix of Orthodox and folk traditions. And it seemed that the situation determined which tradition was called upon.

- As I read I couldn’t help but think about the text in relation to our future child. How did these historical events impact our child’s family?

Julie-Ca- On 'Trouble'...

2008-09-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

I picked the book 'Trouble' as our first book because I absolutely love it. Jane Kurtz's books are truly an excellent resource for all of us who are adopting, or have adopted children from Ethiopia. My friends' adoptees are absolutely riveted by 'Trouble' (well, okay, Squeak looks asleep but she is just resting her eyes).

I love the fact that Tekleh is a tad mischievous. Throughout the story, which is well structured and suspenseful, one thing becomes very clear; Tekleh is generous. He gives and gives and is rewarded in return. Great theme. Beautiful illustrations. The book evokes all sorts of memories for those older kids from Ethiopia. They start talking about their time there (at least in my experience). I think kids by seeing familiar images, (i.e. a coffee ceremony, or a wedding feast,) become more open, and more comfortable sharing their stories.

I have also read this story to twenty American first graders. The best part of this experience was the loud, collective gasp that happened as the Gebeta board was thrown on the fire. It takes a lot to captivate the attention of twenty, first graders. For Ms. Jane Kurtz... not a problem.

It is also refreshing reading this story to Ethiopian kids because unlike the American kids they don't giggle and say, "You said Dik Dik!!!"

What is the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations?

2008-09-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

That is a quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She has a point. What is the use of a book without pictures or conversation?

So let's converse! What do you think?

I am extending the first three book choices through September. They will be our August/September choices. Please feel free to e-mail your thoughts when you are ready. Don't be shy!

Also, let's start talking about our next books. Are three too many? Do you just want to focus on one adult book at a time?

Has anyone had the time to look at some of Jane Kurtz's other books? They are wonderful.I am really looking forward to having her as a guest blogger. Please send me any questions you would like to ask her.

The Los Angeles members of the "Eyes on Books" club are planning to meet on Tuesday, September 16th. If you are in town, and want to come, please send me an e-mail and I will send you the evite. If you want to set up your own live version in your town (Sara's cool idea)on the 16th, DO IT!

That's it for now! Happy Reading!

Remember...

2008-08-29T14:39:00.001-07:00

that your books are beach friendly. Please check in and let me know how the reading is going for you.

Thanks,

Julie

Rebekah-WI- On 'Trouble'...

2008-08-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

I really liked this book - so much so that we rechecked it out of the library for another round. It struck me first as a parent. You just never know what your kids are up to, and truth be told, you're not always supposed to know. Consider the adventures Tekleh has without any parents looking over his shoulder. He follows what interests him, learns new things, gets some treats, and keeps the goats happy all at the same time.

I also loved the visions of East Africa - I know Jane Kurtz sets this story in Eritrea, way north of our Ethiopian son's hometown, but I'll take it anyway. Looks familiar enough to me.

It's a beautiful story of making friends, following your curiosity, sharing with your community. I hope we find a used copy someday so we have it around when Matthew is older.

Rana-Canada- On 'Trouble'...

2008-08-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

- I really enjoyed the tale of young Tekleh who is still figuring out what
his role in the family is. He is trying to help yet always finds himself in
trouble for getting dust in the coffee beans or letting the goats stray.

-The Gebata is supposed to help keep Tekleh out of trouble but it seems to find him no matter how hard he tries.

- When Tekleh is given the responsibility of taking the goats to the field to eat, he does his best but his youthful curiosity gets the better of him.

-It so like a young child to be given instruction and then to instantly forget when something peaks his interest. The fact that he lost his Gebata board made me laugh because it took no time at all for him to get into trouble once again but youthful optimism wins and off he goes with his new treasure.

- As he moves on with his journey he encounters many different people and ends up with many different items in trade for his. Tekleh's luck and spontaneity allowed him to enjoy a succession of trades.

- The moral of the story for me was "what you give you in life is what you get back".

- Tekleh was willing to share with others his Gebata board and in the end he got it back!

- We could learn a lot about giving and sharing with others from Tekleh and I can't wait to read this story to my wee one someday.

Adam-PEI,Canada- On 'Notes'...

2008-08-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts on the first 100 pages of Notes from the Hyena's Belly:

I was very surprised at how engaging and reader friendly Mezlekia's writing style is. The narrative grabbed my attention and would continuously spark my curiosity as to what might happen next.
After the descriptions of the two people living in their house, I knew that I was going to enjoy the book. I particularly enjoyed the comparison of how each would work at avoiding work. Mustafa's constant scheming and Ms. Yetaferu's religious beliefs that forced her to pray and sacrifice. "Alas, the calendar was three days too short to complete her prayers." pg 15. It was statements such as this that caused me to enjoy his subtle humor.
Interesting how he describes the various reasons and beliefs that were the shape of his childhood. For example, the belief of his mother that to be a successful student one must enter school at precisely 4years and 4 days.
The struggle against the moral authority of Mr. Alula was a great coming of age test for Nega. The strong will of a boy challenging the staus quo and forging his own identity, even if the result was unpleasant( having the evil spirit smoked out of him.
I can still picture two young boys (Nega and Wondwossen) plotting retribution and then awestruck by the outcome of their prank.
The striking differences in how the children would dare each other to do something such as chasing the hyenas or to drive a nail into a grave in the cemetery at night. In my youth the dares were never so bold as to chase after a wild and dangerous animal and goes to illustrate the differences in our versions of normal.
The first 100 pages comes to an end by Nega having his beliefs in the world around him changed by learning that the King of kings was not as great and generous as he believed, setting the stage for his questioning mind to challenge the status quo again and change the course of his life. ''As a young boy who'd grown up inspired by this democratic atmosphere, it was a shock to learn abut the existence f such a monster as the "Feudal Lord" who kept a world of peasants on his leash, deciding what crops they would grow and what their share of the harvest would be." I took this to be the beginning of the end of Nega's innocence and that he would soon come to see the workings of the Ethiopia that lived outside of his village, but we will have to wait and see in the coming pages....

Sara-WI- On 'Notes'...

2008-08-19T06:32:00.001-07:00

I am thoroughly enjoying this book!! I would already like to read it again, and I have yet to finish it:) To add to the previous comments, I also love the use of fables in this book, and his writing style that is heavily laden with supernatural elements (this book reminds me of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in that way). I imagine these stories being passed through the generations, their origins and intent, and it is such a unique way to give the reader an inside perspective into the workings of this Ethiopian community.

Nega's descriptions of the prejudices between the different ethnic groups in Ethiopia is also very interesting. It is interesting how deeply ingrained the prejudices are and what purpose they serve. I feel like I understand the subtleties a little better after reading Notes.

His writing style is beautiful and easy to absorb. I hope he has plans to author his next book soon!

Jenny-CA- On 'Notes'...

2008-08-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

The book is interesting and eye opening. I always find it intriguing to learn about the life of a different culture through the eyes of someone who grew up in it. History books or other books on Ethiopia are usually written by an outsider looking in or looking back in time. Whether we agree with some of the things that happened or disagree, it does not matter because it is what happened to the author. It is his reality and life.

I can not wait to see what happens. The book is written beautifully.

Cindy-OK- On 'Notes'...

2008-08-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Here are some things that I am really liking about Hyena's Belly: 1.) Learning about the history of Ethiopia in a non-textbook persuasion; from the vantage point of someone who lived out their childhood there, who laughed and played tricks, who grew into a man and who's life was affected by the political turmoil. Someone who acquired deep conviction about the peasant farming system and, in his youth, went about fighting against "the man" or "the system"...despite the peril. It's like the counterpart to the 70s in the U.S., only a lot more volatile and dangerous. 2.) The use of fables in the book...and how he grew up with fables as a method of teaching....so cool. The personification of the animals. 3.) His colorful writing style is amazing. The metaphors he uses....I would never think to describe things the way he does. It really places the emotive scenes into your mind so clearly. This, on page 220, is one of my favorite lines [SPOILER] "It would be remembered in history as a time when it rained upwards, for many would shed tears that they scooped up by the tips of their fingers and flung at the faces of the treacherous gods." Genius. Also, when he talks about being forced to inhale the toxic smoke as a remedy for his behavior on pages 69-71 "Generations passed before the flamed lost its vigour..." and the tale of lunacy that follows about cloud steps and ears bursting from armpits. His writing is supremely clever.

Today is August 18th...

2008-08-18T07:01:00.001-07:00

(Photo from Ethiopia Reads).

Let's get started.

Hopefully by now, everyone has been able to reach our goal of reading the first 100 pages of "Notes from the Hyena's Belly."

Please start e-mailing me your thoughts at eyesofmyeyes@yahoo.com. I will publish them immediately. You can also leave comments.

If you haven't completed the reading, NO WORRIES! Please don't get discouraged and drop out. This is supposed to be fun. Just read when you can, and jump in when you want.

So, whadda ya think of the book?!

Are You Reading ?

2008-08-15T10:47:00.001-07:00

(Backseat Readers-Picture courtesy of Zufan's mom.)

I Heart Jane Kurtz.

2008-07-29T09:10:00.001-07:00

Last week, I wrote to Jane Kurtz to see if she would be interested in doing an interview/and or Guest Blogger post here at "Eyes on Books." She said yes!

That same day, Ricki let me know that she was unable to order 'Trouble' in Canada. Rana faced the same problem. I wrote back to Jane and she replied,

"Alas, Trouble went out of print without warning, and I was stuck with no copies, myself! I bought a used copy on amazon. A dear librarian friend managed to track a non-used one down for me for my birthday last spring.
It's so hard when books go out of print...one thing I always tell people
is, "If you see a book you like, buy it now, since things can disappear
fast." I wish I could help. "

Even Jane is having trouble finding it. I have received permission from her to scan my copy, and e-mail it to the lovely Canadians. Hopefully my technical abilities will be sufficient to pull off this task. If not, put your pj's on, brush your teeth, call me, and I'll read it to you over the phone.

If anyone else can't find it, let me know.

If you would like, start familiarizing yourself with Jane's other books. Maybe we can collectively come up with some scintillating questions for this very prolific author. I am really interested in hearing about her childhood in Ethiopia.

Exciting huh? How great would it be to do this with every author? I am dreaming about podcasts. Anyone know how to do a podcast? A live online chat, with all of us present, would be cool too. I'll see what I can come up with.

Let me know if you can't find 'Trouble'. I promise that I will try to only pick books that are not out of print. Rookie mistake.

Happy reading!

The ABC's...

2008-07-25T00:17:00.000-07:00

The title of this Ethiopia Reads picture is "Exuberant Readers."

We have over three dozen exuberant readers of our own. Let's get started.

It seems like the consensus is that three books a month is too many. For the first attempt, I think we should set a goal of 100 pages of "Notes from the Hyena's Belly" by Aug. 18th. This will coincide with the ‘in person’ Los Angeles club. If you start the book and don't like it, pick up one of the other two and peruse. If you feel like reading ahead, by all means do.

This is my thinking behind choosing three books. I will use my imaginary friends Bette, Boo and Bozo as examples.

Bette has already read, "Notes from the Hyena’s Belly." She loved it, and looks forward to seeing what other people think. She can’t wait to discuss it.

Boo has yet to read it. Boo starts with a reasonable goal of 100 pages by August 15th, or even by August 18th to get in an extra weekend.

Bozo is working eighty-hour weeks, and has very little time. He (and Adam as the only male in this group I am in no way suggesting that you are Bozo in this scenario) needs to make less of a commitment and chooses to read the short but sweet, "Trouble" instead.

Bette digs into, “Attaching in Adoption.”

All three of my bookish friends post comments, thoughts, reviews, and questions at their leisure. They e-mail them to me so that I can publish them, or they just leave a comment. If they want to include a reference, a picture, or link to something else, I can do that too.

Let's add another reader to the scenario. I'll call her Julie. Julie started “Attaching in Adoption” six months ago, and was promptly scared shitless. She quickly returned the book to the library, and picked up the Bradt guide to Ethiopia instead. She now feels ready to try the Deborah Gray book again, but would like to have some fiction (i.e. "Notes from the Hyena") standing by in case she needs an escape. Having read some of the attachment book, and some of the Hyena book, she can post comments and engage in discussions about both.

Having three books gives variety.

I am making this sound way more complicated then it is.

First, get the books.
Second, pour yourself a cup of coffee.
Third, sit your fine self down and start reading.

See if you can get through the 1st hundred pages of Hyena.

If you are dying to post about the attachment book, or have a burning question for someone who may have been through the experience in real life, please do. This will be a great opportunity to learn from each other, and hopefully have some fun.

Here are two sample blog posts:

Julie-CA (If there is more than one Julie we can differentiate by state abbreviation) on Humpty Dumpty…

I really love the development of the characters….. Humpty is an affable fellow. The language is accessible and strangely riveting….blah…blah…

Julie-CA on Humpty Dumpty/ Spoiler (info goes beyond group reading goal)…

Holy Crap! He fell of the wall….blah…King’s men….blah

Let’s just agree to add the word, 'spoiler' (or the abbreviation 'SP' if you'd prefer) to any comment or post that shares info past the groups’ current reading goal. Maybe I can experiment with Blogger to come up with a way to have the post title be color categorized by book.

"Hyena" will be our main book. If you want to comment on one of the other two, maybe just put On “Attaching”, or On “Trouble” at the start of your comment.

Sound good?

Now get cracking!

Welcome Readers!!!

2008-07-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

Well it isn't a virtual chat room with avatars and lounging couches, but it will have to do.

This book club was started as an offshoot to a real life Ethiopian Book Club started in Los Angeles by my dear friend Lauren.

If we can't all meet in person, we can at least get together here. I would like to expand the book topics to include children's books, parenting books, and maybe even cook books (I should probably learn to cook before my kids come home. Are pop tarts a food group?).

I am open to suggestions as to how you would like this to work. I have chosen three books this month, but for the next selections we should come up with our titles collectively. I am also aware that many of you are much busier than I am (Your babies are home!) If it takes longer than a month, so be it.

I would love to just become a moderator for this blog. If you could send me your thoughts on the books as you have them, I could publish them and we could 'discuss'. Sound good?

Any ideas? Comments? Should we set a 'pages read by such and such date' goal?

I will add a link to all of your blogs, if you have them, when I figure out who's with me, so...

WHO'S WITH ME?!!

p.s The books are on the sidebar.

p.s.s You don't have to have a blog to join! Everyone is welcome.