Sylvia & Aki (MG)

Sylvia & Aki. Winifred Conkling. 2011. Random House. 160 pages.

Sylvia Mendez imagined her first day of third grade at Westminster School. She would use her freshly sharpened yellow pencils to write her name in cursive at the top of her worksheets. Her just-out-of-the-shoe-box black Mary Janes would glide across the polished linoleum of the hallway. At the end of the day, she would come home and her father would hug her and ask, "What did you learn today?" Then she would tell him about her teacher and her classmates and everything else.
Sylvia never imagined the one that that actually happened even before her first day of school: she was turned away.

This wonderful little book is based on true events. The main characters Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu are real people, the novel is based on their experiences during World War II.

Sylvia Mendez and her siblings have been told they cannot attend Westminster School because they are Mexican. They will need to attend the Mexican school in the county. Every Mexican--no matter where they live--are to go to the same school. To say that the two schools are anywhere close to equal would be a joke. But Sylvia's father takes his children's education VERY seriously. And the answer the school board gives him just isn't acceptable to him. What he sees is injustice, and he wants it to end. This fight for justice and equality will end in court. And the chapters focused on this trial are fascinating and disturbing. Those chapters alone would make this one a worthy read.

Aki Munemitsu and her family are one of many families of Japanese descent being deported from California after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Her family is being sent to an internment camp in Arizona. The novel focuses on her experiences during those years.

So how do these two stories connect? Sylvia's father is leasing the farm from Aki's family. Sylvia is living in Aki's house, sleeping in her bedroom. Sylvia discovers Aki's doll, the doll she had to leave behind. Sylvia decides to go with her dad on one of his trips to the internment camp to pay rent. The two girls meet and decide to write one another.

I liked this one. I did. It was a wonderful little novel. I found it informative and fascinating. I learned so much while reading this one. I would definitely recommend it!

Favorite quotes:

After weeks of trying to convince people to sign his letter to the school board stating that Mexican and white children should go to school together, Sylvia's father had collected only eight signatures.
"What are you going to do with the letter?" Sylvia asked her father. She didn't think he would turn it in with so few names.
"I'm going to deliver it," he said. "It would be the right thing to do, even if no one else is willing to sign."
Sylvia rode with her father to the courthouse in Santa Ana on the day he dropped off the letter. Just a couple of blocks from the courthouse Sylvia saw a sign posted in a diner window: NO DOGS OR MEXICANS. The words made her feel sick. She was glad her father had spotted someone he knew on the street and hadn't noticed the sign.
That sign is talking about me, she thought. Dogs and Mexicans and me. The sign gnawed at Sylvia all afternoon and into the evening. Before drifting off to sleep that night, she stared at the ceiling and thought about how those four little words could hurt her so much. Then she recalled the hateful signs she had seen posted in town about the Japanese--hand-lettered signs reading JAPS GO HOME and government-printed notices telling them that they had to go away, to leave their houses, to go to the camps. This made her think of the girl she knew only from a photograph and the few scraps of her life that were left in what was now Sylvia's bedroom.
How did Aki feel when she saw those signs and read those posters? Sylvia wondered. Did Aki feel as hurt as I do now?
Sylvia looked over at her dolls. Carmencita leaned against the corner of one shelf, and Keiko stood in the corner of another.
Sylvia got out of bed and moved Keiko to the shelf next to Carmencita. She placed the dolls side by side, then stood back. How nice they look together--almost like sisters. She rested Keiko's pale china hand in Carmencita's brown cloth one. It seemed right and good to see them so close. I wonder if I will ever meet Aki. Could we ever be friends? (65-6)

Read Sylvia and Aki

• If you like historical books written for children
• If you like books written about this time period, the second world war
• If you like books written about different cultures

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Help

The Help. Kathryn Stockett. 2009. Thorndike Press. 722 pages.

August 1962
Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, that's what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning.

Have you read The Help yet? What did you think?! I thought it was one of the best books ever. It was incredibly intense, very emotional, fascinating, disturbing, thought-provoking and unforgettable. I could go on and on. It's just one of those books that I know I'll never forget. One of those books that I just have to recommend.

If you're looking for great storytelling, you'll find it in The Help. If you're looking for great characters--very well-developed, unforgettable characters--you'll find it in The Help. If you want an absorbing, fascinating, can't-put-down book, you'll find it in The Help.

The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early sixties. To be precise, 1962-1964. The story is narrated by three characters. Two black maids, Aibileen, who works for Miss Elizabeth Leefolt, and Minny, who works for Miss Celia Foote, and a young white woman, Miss Skeeter, who dreams of becoming a journalist or novelist. (Miss Skeeter's 'real' name is Eugenia Phelan.) Each narrator has their  own story to tell. Each is very human, very memorable, very unique. Each voice matters in The Help. In fact, that could be one of the themes perhaps, that each person has a story to tell, but not every person has the freedom to tell it--well, not without taking risks.

So, one day Miss Skeeter is playing bridge with her friends. She is shocked by the turn of conversation. Is shock the right word? Maybe not. Perhaps made uncomfortable is a better fit. The disturbing conversation is about how horrible, how dreadful it is that Miss Leefolt does not have a separate toilet for her maid, Aibileen, to use. How horrible it is--the group is actually repulsed--by the idea that a black woman uses the guest toilet. Miss Hilly Holbrook, the bossiest woman in town--take my word for it, wants not only to help her friend out, but wants to start a movement (get an initiative) so that everyone will build separate bathrooms--in their garage, in their sheds, etc--for the help to use. As I said, Miss Skeeter is uncomfortable with this. It's not like she knows Aibileen well, though she does see her--maids aren't invisible to her like they seem to be to others. But the way the ladies are talking--with Aibileen in the room--makes her squirm. She begins to ask herself, how does Aibileen really feel about this? Does this talk of her (and other colored people) being disease-ridden make her angry?

About this time, Miss Skeeter is trying to find a writing job. She's very ambitiously written to a publisher in New York, Harper & Row, I believe. And a very kind, very generous editor has taken a few minutes to tell her the truth. She just doesn't have the experience needed, not yet anyway. If she wants to be somebody, she's going to need a big story. She's going to need to be creative and tell a story like no one else. Writing about the experiences of maids isn't her first idea. But it is her best idea. If only she can get volunteers for interviews.

But where can she find maids willing to talk to her about their lives? About their experiences--past and present--in working for white families. How can they trust her? Wouldn't they be risking their jobs and maybe even their lives by talking to her?

Aibileen and Minny are two of the women that are brave enough to work with Miss Skeeter. And between the two of them they might just encourage more to join the secret project. But will it be worth it in the end?!

This book is so wonderful. It really is. It's so intense, so powerful, so well written. Each of the narrators is so well done, so unique, so persuasive. I cared about each one. I could write so much about each woman, each story. But not without spoiling it, not without saying too much. It's just there is so much to say!!!

Here is just one of the dramatic decision-points in the novel. Miss Skeeter has to choose whether to publish this item in the League's newsletter. She's put it off 'accidentally' for many months. But now it's time to make her choice...

Hilly Holbrook introduces the Home Help Sanitation Initiative. A disease preventative measure. Low-cost bathroom installation in your garage or shed, for homes without such an important fixture.
Ladies, did you know that:

• 99% of all colored diseases are carried in the urine
• Whites can become permanently disabled by nearly all of these diseases because we lack immunities coloreds carry in their darker pigmentation
• Some germs carried by whites can also be harmful to coloreds too

Protect yourself. Protect your children. Protect your help.
From the Holbrooks, we say, You're welcome! (257)

I loved this novel. I really LOVED it. And I definitely recommend it!!!

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews