How War Change Rondo written and illustrated by Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv, translated by Oksana Lushchevska

 

How War Changed Rondo

written and illustrated by

Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv

translated from the Ukrainian by Oksana Lushchevska

Enchanted Lion Books, 2021, 40 pages

I originally posted this on my other blog, The Children's War, but given the current situation in the Ukraine, I thought I would repost it here.

Three friends, Danko, a bright light with a shiny transparent heart, Fabian, a red balloon dog with a knot for a nose, and Zirka, a paper origami bird covered with notes and sketches of his journeys, loved living in Rondo. Rondo was a place with clear air, where residents grew and tended flowers everywhere, and where they all lived in distinctive houses. In other words, Rondo was a pretty great place to live. 

Rondo was especially famous for its flowers and the thee was a large greenhouse which housed a collection of rare plants and flowers that could sing. Concerts were often held in the greenhouse and the town anthem, Mozart's Rondo alla Turca, was always played for residents and visitors alike.

One ordinary day, Danko and Fabian were on their way to meet Zirka, who had just returned from a trip with new stories. But whispers has begun...war was on its way to Rondo and leaving a path of death and destruction everywhere it went. No one in Rondo knew what war was, but once it arrived, everything there was dark and ugly. War planted "black flowers" (bombs) and prickly weeds that no light could shine through, causing Rondo's beautiful flowers to stop singing. 

The three friends resisted war, but Danko, Fabian, and Zirka were all hit by the "stones" (bullets) that war sent out. How could the three friends ever defeat war, especially now that they were all wounded - Danko's heart had cracks, one of Fabian's legs were pierced by a prickly weed, and the edges of Zirka's wings were burned? When Danko decides to try to provide light to the flowers in the greenhouse, he realizes that war is afraid of light and so he, Fabian, and Zirka rally the other residents of Rondo in an effort to produce a powerful enough light to finally defeat war. 

War is finally defeated, and Rondo is repaired and rebuilt. The flowers in the greenhouse begin to sing again, but the poppies that had grown all around town no longer grew in different colors. Now, they only grow in one color - red.

The interesting thing about How the War Changed Rondo is that war itself isn't the focus of the story, but rather how it impacts Rondo and the lives of its residents during and after the fighting is over. Here we see the lasting effects of injuries received in the war. Because, even though Rondo is repaired, its residents are forever changed. Now, they know what it is like when their beloved flowers stop singing, now they will have to live with sad memories of loved lost friends and relatives, as well as with the physical wounds that were inflicted on them by war, including Danko with his cracked heart, Fabian with his injured leg, and Zirka with his burnt wings.

Mixed-media illustrations in this picture book for older readers harmonize brilliantly with the text, going from pale green and an golden yellow to darkness followed by that same pale green with buildings tinged in a sooty black - another physical manifestation of the lasting impart of war. Interestingly enough, there are only two illustrations where a human arm is seen - first dropping bombs, then later retreating, yet none of Rondo's citizens are depicted as human. It really brings home the point that only humans start wars. 

FYI Enchanted Lion Books, the publisher of How War Changed Rondo, has added this to its website: 

ALL PROCEEDS FROM WEBSITE SALES ON HOW WAR CHANGED RONDO WILL BE DONATED TO UNICEF'S RELIEF EFFORTS IN WKRAIN, FOR AS LONG AS THE CONFLICT IS ON GOING

Mary Seacole: Bound for the Battlefield by Susan Goldman Rubin, illustrated by Richie Pope

 

It's always a pleasure to read a book about a little known historical figure who should be more well-known. That is certainly the case of Susan Goldman Rubin's new book about Mary Grant Seacole. Mary was a Creole woman, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805 to a Jamaican mother and a Scottish father. Though her father died when she was young, his stories about war left Mary with a desire to someday travel. Her mother was a "doctress," making her own medicines using different flowers and plants, and Mary wanted to follow in her footsteps. 

After two trips to London, where she experienced racism for the first time Mary began helping at her mother's boarding house when an outbreak of yellow fever hit Jamaica, caring for the sick. During that time, she met an Englishman named Edwin Seacole and married him in 1836. Sadly, he died in 1844. Later, Mary acquired more experience caring for the sick when an outbreak of cholera hit while she was visiting her brother in Panama. 

But it was reading about the Crimean War in 1854 that convinced Mary to head to the battlefield with her mother's healing recipes. Volunteering as a nurse in London, she was turned away, so she headed to Turkey on her own. There, she tried to volunteer at Florence Nightingale's army hospital, but Nightingale rejected her because of the color of her skin. Undaunted, Mary headed straight for the battlefield, where she and her homemade medicines were more than welcomed and where Mary spent a number of years nursing wounded soldiers. 

Mary certainly risked her life more than once, but sadly returned from war in great debt. It was the praise of a war journalist that finally gave Mary the credit she deserved for all she did, and helped get her out of debt. 

Mary lived a very exciting life, and it has certainly been captured in this short, but informative picture book for older readers. Most surprising to me was her encounter with Florence Nightingale, who felt that Mary's race and class made her character automatically questionable. Clearly, Mary's character was both impeccable and strong, given what she unselfishly gave to the soldiers she nursed, a few of whom recognized her having been cared for by her in Kingston. 

Mary Seacole: Bound for the Battlefield is a compelling biography, written in accessible language, and full-page, full-colored stylized digital illustrations. There are plenty of quotes, most from Mary's own book, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands published in 1857, as well as other sources noted in the back matter. 

Mary is shown to be brave, dedicated, and very tenacious. She is an historical figure that deserves to be recognized and admired by today's young readers.  

This book is recommended for readers age 8+

This book was gratefully received from the publisher, Candlewick Press 

The Emperor of Any Place by Tim Wynne-Jones

This review was originally posted on my other blog, The Children's War, but since I have just reread the new paperback edition, I thought I would share it here as well.

After his father suddenly dies, Evan Griffin, 16, discovers that he had been reading a book written by a Japanese soldier named Isamu Ōshiro, who found himself stranded on a small island in the Pacific during World War II. The book is a memoir of his life on the island, which he called Kokoro-Jima, and is addressed to his new bride, Hisako back in Saipan. But Evan also discovers a letter to his dad from a man named Leonardo Kraft that seems to connect his estranged grandfather, Griff, a career Marine, to the events that are in the book.

Curious, Evan begins to read Ōshiro's memoir one night when he gets a phone call from his grandfather that he will be at the house for a little while - arriving a week earlier than Evan had expected him. But why? Clearly, it has something to do with Ōshiro's story. But what?

Isamu's story, framed by Evan's story, is riveting. He describes his arrival on Kokorro Jima, what he does to survive despite being severely injured, but he also writes about something else. There are ghostly children on the island who hover close by him, and who Isamu calls his ghostly family. Soon, however, he begins to notice that there are also zombie-like ghoulish creatures, which he calls jikininki and who feed off the dead.

It is the jikininki who lead Isamu to a crashed cargo plane and the two dean pilots. Isamu realizes there is a missing person, the navigator, and eventually he find Derwood Kraft on the beach, seriously injured and who seems to have his own ghost family of children. But along with this gaijin (foreigner), Isamu also discovers Tengu, a monstrous black creature about to attack the American.

That pretty much sets the stage for this incredibly well-written, well-developed, wonderfully crafted novel. At the heart of the story is the mystery of what happened to Isamu and why this is connected to Evan's grandfather. But Tim Wynne-Jones keeps the mystery going without even a hint of what happens until the very end, and getting there is never dull or boring.

As far as I'm concerned, The Emperor of Any Place is definitely top-drawer fantasy, and yes, it is also very graphically detailed. The novel switches between the present and past seamlessly, and Wynne-Jones throws in some seemingly unimportant scenes that only serve to deliciously increase the mood and tension. I'm not much of a zombie fan, but I was totally drawn to this novel and hated to put it down when I had to do something else.

But there is something else that Wynne-Jones wants us to take away beside a great story and that is how tenuously connected the lines between war and peace, friends and enemies, love and hate are and how they impact past to present, generation to generation. As Griff explains to Evan, "[war] ends and then it starts again, and the end of one war inevitably grows out of the war that came before it."

The Emperor of Any Place is one of those novels that took me totally by surprise when I read it and, I have to confess, that reading this novel again was just as pleasurable as the first time.

This book is recommended for readers age 13+
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Candlewick Press