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Book Review: The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He

Cover art for The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He

 

The Ones We’re Meant to Find  by Joan He

Roaring Book Press, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250258564

Available: Hardcover, audiobook, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

 

 

Every time I thought I had this book figured out, it took me in an unexpected direction.

 

There are two alternating plotlines. First, we are introduced to Cee. Cee is trapped on a deserted island, with few memories but with an urgent feeling that she must get off the island and find her sister Kay..

 

Then we meet Kasey, living in a climate-ravaged world. At sixteen, Kasey is a scientific genius who works for the government office responsible for finding solutions for human survival. The living situation is desperate. The most privileged individuals live in eco cities in the air, where they are required to spend much of their time in stasis, participating in life virtually, as a cleaner option than that available to those with pollution karma. Even this is becoming unsustainable, and Kasey is part of the bureaucracy trying to find a solution quickly, as weather and radiation worsen dramatically, killing millions. Yet even in this desperate state there is debate over whether it’s worth it to survive without freedom and self-determination, or in some cases, at all. As this situation continues, Kasey is also searching for her sister, Celia, a free spirit, who disappeared at sea and is believed dead.

 

There is a really slow start and neither Cee or Kasey start out as deeply emotional, but the puzzle is intriguing and He does a great job bringing both worlds to life. This book is really going to disturb some people but there are some interesting ethical and scientific debates being explored and the choices the primary characters make are often unexpected. It’s not what one expects from typical horror, but it isn’t a title that readers will forget soon.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on December 5, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: The Deep by Rivers Solomon

 

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Saga Press, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1534439863

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

Yetu is the historian for the wajniru, underwater beings created when slave traders threw pregnant African women overboard into the Atlantic Ocean. Although the women drowned, their children, born in the deep of the ocean, were transformed and have founded their own underwater society. As historian, Yetu carries the memories of all the trauma the mothers of the wajniru and the succeeding generations alone, to protect the others, and has done so for sixteen years, suffering tremendously from taking the burden alone. Once a year, she gets a three day respite from the memories when the wajniru hold a Rememberance ceremony. At that time, she carefully lets the memories wash back into the entire population so they can feel it collectively. The experience is physically as well as emotionally traumatic– author Rivers Solomon describes it as a seizure– but all the wajniru go through it together, and once they have absorbed the memories and can take no more, Yetu takes them back. Carrying all the history, violence, and trauma of her people has emotionally, mentally, and physically damaged and weakened Yetu, and since she has been carrying these memories since she was a teenager, they have overwhelmed her ability to establish her own identity. This time, after giving the wajinru’s memories back to them, Yetu decides to escape so she does not have to take on their pain again and can have an opportunity to discover who she really is.

Swimming to the surface of the ocean, away from her kind, Yetu is injured and washed into a tide pool. Thanks to nearby humans, and especially the prickly Oori, she begins to heal. An awkward friendship develops between Oori and Yetu, out of discussions about the ocean, family, and the past. Oori, the last of her people, does not know her history, and the fact that Yetu gave hers up is upsetting to her and causes Yetu to rethink whether she can really develop an identity without any knowledge of her history. It becomes clear to her that the increasingly stormy weather is probably due to the wajinru’s group anguish and that she must return to them to retrieve their history.

This story powerfully brings the point home about the physical, mental, and emotional effects of generational trauma that many Black people still experience, even generations after the end of slavery. The situation that created the wajinru is also not the only negative impact the “two-legs” have on them, even down in the deep of the ocean, as drilling for oil not only has a negative impact on the environment but causes the violent deaths of enough of the wajinru that they rise up to wash it away in a tidal wave.  The Deep is not fast paced, as for much of it Yetu is trapped in a tide pool, but it is a story that can be felt deep in the gut.

The Deep is the third iteration of storytelling based on the premise of an aquatic people born from drowned pregnant African women kidnapped to be enslaved(although each version can stand on its own).  A musical duo called Drexciya first imagined it, and their music created a mythology for an underwater utopia born from this terrible oppression. The hip-hop group clipping then wrote their own musical version, “The Deep”, a haunting song about underwater beings who rise as a collective against the “two-legs” after they begin drilling for oil, leading to dramatic climate change and destruction of the oceans, that won a Hugo Award for best dramatic performance. This novella takes the repeated line “y’all remember” from clipping’s song and focuses on the effects of history and collective memory that follow the uprising, While I’m not familiar with Drexciya, both clipping’s song and Solomon’s novella tell powerful, complementary stories about the violence and horror caused by white supremacy and enviromental destruction. Recommended.

I received this as a complimentary ARC from Saga Press through NetGalley.

Posted on November 13, 2019 by , Reply

Guest Post by Piers Torday: Climate Change Horror: Too Real For Middle Grade?

Piers Torday photo credit James Betts

 

     Piers Torday is the author of the middle grade novel The Last Wild, a unique book that deals with a topic usually dealt with in nonfiction with children– climate change. I asked Piers why he chose to write fiction on this topic for children instead of teens or adults, and he wrote this guest post for us here. Having just returned from vacation in Alaska, where my children actually held a chunk of melting glacier in their hands, this hits home for me. For them, it was a novelty and photo opportunity, although I found it to be pretty disturbing to see the pieces melting in front of me. Now that I’m home and have read what he has to say,  I think it’s very important for there to be books like his, that appeal to the imagination while creating an opportunity for awareness of this situation. Look for a review of The Last Wild to be posted shortly. Many thanks to Piers for sharing his thoughts with us.

CLIMATE CHANGE HORROR: TOO REAL FOR MIDDLE GRADE?

 

Of our many fears that can animate great stories, for me perhaps the greatest and the most palpable is our fear of the future. Wherever you stand on the politics, from dwindling (not to mention overheating) power supplies to water wars, housing space to food security, we all face major ecological challenges in the years ahead.

Most of those challenges, whether they come in the form of rising sea levels, increased immigration or extreme weather, are not predicted to come fully online until later in the century. It’s the middle grade readers of today who will have to face them.

The level of economic and political sacrifice required to avert major climate change make it nigh impossible for any decisive global unity on how to approach it. Certainly I don’t pretend to have the answers. What I do know for sure is that it’s going to take more than recycling the odd soda can to change anything.

The first problem with tackling this subject for middle grade readers is no one, especially children, likes being lectured to. Saving the planet, as the science currently stands, would require a level of sacrifice across the board that makes it hard for one person or country to stand up and tell another how to behave. I am writing this blog on a computer (and you’re probably reading it on one) which I use constantly for my work and am not really prepared to use much less. And I am just one of seven billion people on the planet who probably, given the chance, would all like to use a computer which they can turn on and off at will.

The second problem is that, unless you’re a polar bear on a shrinking ice cap, it still feels very abstract. Statistical modelling of carbon emissions and ocean acidity levels are hard to grasp at any age, and bar the odd unexpected hurricane or drought, most young people in the West don’t necessarily experience the effects of climate change in a tangible first hand way. Yet.

As a storyteller, I relish the challenge of animating these vital issues for the readers in whose hands the planet’s future resides.  First off, I can ask some questions. Do animals have an equal right to share this planet with us? What is greater within us, the desire for consumption or the ability to conserve?

Secondly, these abstract concepts are a gift for metaphor. In The Last Wild series I’m primarily using the animal characters – a heroic stag, a brave cockroach, some ditzy pigeons, a mini-spread of biodiversity – to represent the earth itself and through their different characters, provide some emotional heart to global issues that can feel dry and lacking in genuine, page-turning jeopardy.

Then, rather than scaremongering developing minds with totally bleak catastrophe scenarios (although there is no denying their power) in telling the story of my hero’s quest to save the last animals left alive on earth, what I can offer most of all is hope. Because, believe it or not, what I really feel is that human beings – through our curiosity, ingenuity and humanity – do have the ability to overcome those challenges and still make Earth a pleasant place to live for all creatures. If we choose.

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Piers Torday is the author of The Last Wild (Viking, $16.99). The sequel, The Dark Wild is due out next spring. You can follow him on Twitter @PiersTorday or catch up with him at www.pierstorday.co.uk.

Posted on June 28, 2014 by , Reply