This week, I’m reading: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Rebel of the Sands is the first book, published today, in a forthcoming trilogy of what is billed as a Young Adult (YA) series, but which could be enjoyed by anyone who loves a strong story set in a fictional, dystopian world, fully fashioned by first time author Alywn Hamilton. The world in question, centred around the unforgiving, dead-end town of Dustwalk and the deserts which surround it, is an at times unnerving steam-punkesque mash-up of nineteenth century wild west USA and an Arabic-type fundamentalist religious culture, in which plural marriages, the servitude of women, covered heads and faces and calls to prayer abound. As one character comments:

“I’m a girl who could’ve done just about anything if I’d been born a boy.”

In this setting, we first meet our sixteen year old heroine Amani, disguising herself as a boy and using her sharpshooter skills as the Blue Eyed Bandit to find a way to escape her life as an orphan in her uncle’s home.

Various adventures, encounters and shoot outs lead to her going on the run, before falling into an oasis (in every sense of the word) of allies, family members and a new understanding of herself and her background. The latter half of the book is full of spoilers (which are in turn, I would guess, setting up all manner of plot twists for the forthcoming sequels) so I’m being deliberately vague here … but the pace really picks up as the novel progresses and I found it to be a riveting and compelling read. And,  as one review I read commented, I did indeed find myself: “cheering for Amani the whole way as she escapes the bonds of oppression and finds her own power.”

From both a feminist and a diversity perspective, I loved the fact that Amani is such a strong protagonist – and that all we initially know of her appearance is that she has blue eyes, which in this world indicates that she’s from “foreign” stock.  There’s lots of coded stuff in the book about being different, Other, standing out or fitting in, being included and excluded. And, as with other YA series (like the Divergent and the Hunger Games books) Rebel of the Sands gives a clear message  about the role of women and how different societies can limit or grant freedoms.

The book was sold at auction and is due to be made into a film – I can already imagine some of the special effects and shapeshifting that we’ll see on the screen and I’m so curious to learn who’s been cast as Amani; it will be a gift of a part for a young actress and this is a gem of a book.

 

Thank you to Faber & Faber for the pre-publication copy of this book.

This week, I’ve been reading: I Am Malala – How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World

Ahead of the UK release (in November) of the film He Named Me Malala, a revised and updated version of her original memoir has just been published, written by Malala Yousafzai (with renowned teen author Patricia McCormick) for her peers and containing some very thoughtful discussion materials at the end of the book.

But who is Malala? I first heard of the Pakistani school girl shot by the Taliban shortly after the attack (in October 2012) and of course she’s now world-famous as the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and as a global advocate for both peace and education, especially for girls (on meeting President Obama: “I told him that if America spent less money on weapons and war and more on education, the world would be a better place”).

Perhaps what I had not really appreciated, prior to reading this wonderful book, was the extent to which Malala, then a school girl with dreams and ambitions (“That summer I turned fifteen. …. I knew for certain now that I wanted to be a political leader. … I would do the things politicians only spoke of. And I would start with education – especially girls’ education.”) was specifically targeted by the Taliban, who knew of her through her BBC blog on life in the Swat Valley (near the Pakistani border with Afghanistan), her appearances in local media – “Throughout 2008, as Swat was being attacked, I didn’t stay silent. I spoke to local national TV channels, radio and newspapers. I spoke out to anyone who would listen.” and even her appearance in a New York Times feature. At the beginning of the book,  she describes the day of the October 2012 attack:

Two young men in white robes stepped in front of our truck.

“Is this the Khushal School bus?” one of them asked

The driver laughed. The name of the school was painted in black letters on the side of the van.

The other young man jumped onto the tailboard and leaned into the back, where we were all sitting.

“Who is Malala?” he asked

No one said a word, but a few girls looked in my direction.

He raised his arm and pointed at me. Some of the girls screamed and I squeezed Moniba’s hand.

Who is Malala?

I am Malala and this is my story.

A week later, Malala awoke in fear and confusion in a Birmingham hospital, recovering from her terrible injuries. She fought back to full health and now lives, with her parents and two brothers, in Birmingham – as well as travelling the world (“I met one of my favourite people in the USA, a man named Jon Stewart, who invited me to his TV show to talk about my first book and the Malala fund”.), studying, speaking and fund raising.

I love this quote from her speech to the United Nations:

One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world

At the end of the book,  she tells us that “I am Malala. My world has changed, but I have not … we have all adapted, little by little, to this new place. My father wears a handsome tweed blazer and brogues now when he goes to work. My mother uses the dishwasher. Khushal is having a love affair with his Xbox. And Atal has discovered Nutella.”

But yet she is still the same teenage girl who played in the streets, argued with her friends and learned English from DVDs of Ugly Betty and Mind Your Language.

It’s a wonderful book, thought provoking, uplifting and inspirational. Make a note of 12th July in your diary as Malala Day (it’s her birthday) and check out The Malala Fund at www.malalafund.org/voice

I’m currently reading … “Nella Last’s Peace”

From time to time, I thought I’d share the details of a book which I’m reading; as of today, I’ve read 90 books so far this calendar year, but don’t worry; I’m only going to review or mention the really great ones which have a gender angle.

“Nella Last’s Peace” is a sequel to, yes, “Nella Last’s War” (filmed for TV a couple of years ago, with Victoria Wood in the title role, as “Housewife, 49”) and it’s also written as diary entries. Nella was a housewife living in Barrow-on-Furness, an English north western ship-building town, when the second world war broke out in 1939, and she contributed her bit to the war on the home front’s efforts by working for the Red Cross, running a mobile canteen to feed servicemen and, most memorably, writing a diary about her wartime experiences for Mass Observation.

(For more examples of published and edited WW2 MO diaries, check out Simon Garfield’s three compilations, which are all quite wonderful if the war on the Home Front is of interest or fascination: “We Are At War”, “Private Battles” and “Our Hidden Lives”).

However, unlike most of MO’s contributors, Nella not only stuck like glue to the concept of writing regular diary updates and posting them off to the MO team each week (I’m sure if she was around today, she’d be a dedicated blogger), she also continued once the war was over, and this is where the second book, post war and set in austerity Britain, picks up her story. I’m currently up to late 1946 and this particularly poignant extract resonated with me, as Nella ponders to the pages of her diary about how she feels post-war and asks herself what she will do with her life now that she is no longer “needed” or employed in useful wartime service:

“I sat so quiet and still … longing for a job of some kind. There seems so little to do in Barrow and so many to do it. Women like myself who have been busy and useful, feeling they were helping, cannot find a way to help the peace as we did in wartime. With 2000 women on the Labour exchange [ie, unemployed], it would not be not be right to do anything [men] could do, yet I know many who, like myself, long to do something.”

I wonder how many other “Nellas” found themselves in a similar position sixty-odd years ago: unemployed, unwanted in a commercial sense, and yet brimming with energy, feeling they had contributions to make and wanting to be part of a wider world beyond the domestic environment?