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On Waiting and Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed's When Stars are Scattered

Here in the land of Sheltering-in-Place, it feels obvious to say we understand waiting. We wake up and do the same things each day, and we sigh and wonder when our real life will get back to being real. We are tired of waiting. We are tired of the uncertainty of our futures. We are tired.


For some, of course, this time is covered over with personal tragedy, some are grieving the very real loss of loved ones, some are waiting for test results or for the escalation of this disease that they definitely have and can only hope to come through. But for the rest of us, the waiting is all there is. When our faces in the mirror is all we see, it becomes easy to think our story is the only story.When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed are able to remind us of how small our waiting really is.

Though some might find it an unusual choice, Jamieson sees the immersive quality of the graphic novel as an ideal medium through which to tell Omar's story. And it is his story, his voice, and his community that jumps off each page. A native Somali, growing up in a UNHCR refugee camp in Kenya, Omar's story is already a departure from the standard fare of kid lit graphic novels. Add the fact that his father was killed in the conflict and he is caring for his younger brother alone, and you might be tempted to read this story as fiction. Reader, do not make that mistake. Omar's story is true -- as is the story of countless refugees who will likely never that camp. And it is important that we hold that truth for them and for ourselves.


At several points in the narrative, Omar returns to the familiar refrain of waiting: In the opening pages as he describes his daily routine of morning prayers, fetching water, and cleaning their tent, he explains, "for me, one of the worst parts of living in a refugee camp is . . . it's really boring. Every day is basically the same." And then again, some years later, after they have finally been granted an initial interview with the UN regarding resettlement:

"In a refugee camp, it felt like all you ever did was wait. Wait to see if your brother gets well again. Wait for water. Wait for food. Wait to hear from the United Nations. Wait for your life to start. Wait for your life to get better. Every single person in this camp was waiting for something better. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. How long can you wait before you lose all hope?"

For Omar, the wait at least had moments that helped keep that hope alive. For others in the camp, like his friend Maryam, life is a series of disappointments. The brightest and most driven student in school, Maryam hoped to win a scholarship to a university in Canada. Her father, however, wants her to marry. She is fifteen. She is also at the heart of perhaps the most profound, convicting lesson to Omar, and to readers everywhere. Upon learning that Maryam will not return to school and will be married, Omar is angry on her behalf, rightly so, but the mother of another school friend gentles him, saying, "There are many people in the world less fortunate than you and I. Remember that, Omar."


Remember that, reader. Omar doesn't have to believe his life is perfect; he can know - fully - the pain and difficulties of his journey and still recognize the pain and difficulties of others. Your fatigue at the waiting, the isolation, the tension between your brain and your body, the murder hornets, the everything of this season is real and true; and "there are many people in the world less fortunate than you and I." Goodness. What a reminder.


Omar's community delivers several such reminders, but my other favorite is this:

LOVE IS A GIFT!

Omar's guardian in the camps, Fatuma, reminds him that every human is a gift and that the love and protection of a community is a gift. We may feel disconnected from our communities right now, but the disconnection is a form of love, a way to protect each other. And so we wait. Each day the same. Waiting. But like Omar, we wait with hope.


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The 2021 Newbery Medal selection committee spends the whole year considering titles. As always, I will be reading and reviewing along with the committee, keeping one eye on today's young readers and the other eye on each book's prospects. After each review, I'll offer my one-sentence take (OST) on medal-worthiness.


OST: Moving, well-drawn, and a story that should be heard, but lacking some of the narrative complexities of other graphic novels, it won't be enough to compel the committee's final decision.


Previous titles under consideration:


 

The best books spark the best conversations! If you have thoughts to share, please feel free to email me at sarabethwest52@gmail.com. I promise a reply.

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On Truth and Gene Luen Yang's Dragon Hoops

At the 2017 SLJ Leadership Summit in Nashville, TN, Gene Luen Yang participated in a panel entitled "Using Graphic Novels to Develop Racial Literacy in Today's Teens." Driven by the work of Jesuit High School English teacher Megan Mathes and helmed by some incredibly thoughtful and accomplished students, this panel explored the ways in which comics, specifically Yang's American Born Chinese, can serve as a springboard for dynamic growth and discussion regarding race and identity. Yang was intelligent and warm, a strong addition to the panel, but the students were really the stars because they demonstrated so fully the thesis of the panel. They brought to that Tennessee conference room the reality of kids being changed by their engagement with a graphic novel.


Long considered a fringe element of literature for young people, graphic novels have recently begun to assert themselves on the world stage, especially after the Newbery Medal was awarded (so deservedly!) to Jerry Craft's New Kid. It is gratifying to see this form begin to be elevated, but for authors like Yang, it is a case of the rest of world just catching up. Since 2006, when he burst on the scene with American Born Chinese, winning the Printz award and becoming the first graphic novel to be chosen as a finalist for the National Book Award, Yang's books have demonstrated the best of what the graphic novel form could do. They are complex, tightly woven, intricately organized, and utterly accessible. Now that you are convinced of his talent, listen closely: Dragon Hoops is next level: an unparalleled heights, above-the-rim, legendarily good book.

Chosen to provide the Opening Keynote for the Everywhere BookFest, Yang talked some about his forthcoming comic for DC, Superman Smashes the Klan, in which he draws upon the real life1946 radio show that had Superman fighting hate groups and resulted in a significant drop in those groups' activities in the aftermath of the show. He also highlighted how before Pearl Harbor, Chinese-Americans were considered "genetically criminal," but after the attack, they were critical allies against their common enemy "The Japs." Yang makes clear that the stories we tell about each other make a difference in how we see each other. His other main point is that stories will be an essential part of how we rebuild in the days and months (and years!) following this pandemic. It is a time of uncertainty and fear, and we will all be challenged by it. In Dragon Hoops, he weaves together multiple narratives, including his own story, that demonstrate what happens when we take small steps, walking into uncertainty with courage and conviction.


Dragon Hoops is a lot about basketball, its broader history, the racial tensions and conflicts over the years, and specifically the story of the Bishop O'Dowd Dragons and their quest to win a State Championship in 2015. BUT it is also about lies and the truth and the ways stories do their work; it's about the trust granted a storyteller and the responsibility that trust demands; and it's about all the ways people have to take small steps to achieve change. In fact, the book opens with a small step: Yang decides to go talk to a fellow teacher at his school, the basketball coach Lou Richie. It ends with a much larger step, as Yang decides to leave his teaching job at Bishop O'Dowd to focus on his work in comics. In between, Yang provides insights, humor, instruction, and perhaps the most impressive set of panels: a meta-moment where Yang (the character) argues with his wife about whether to include a controversial element of the story.


She says, "Even me, Gene. I'm not really your wife, am I? I'm not really Theresa," and he replies, "Well, you're a cartoon of Theresa. But everyone in this book is a cartoon," just before she transforms (with a turn of the page) into Yang - or his conscience. He finishes the debate as his conscience-self argues, "When you chose to tell this story as a comic, you chose to lie!" and his real self concludes,

"You might be right. But in this book, at least, I need the lie to serve the truth."

He's right, of course. All books are a form of a lie. In a different Everywhere BookFest panel, Jewell Parker Rhodes distinguished between the bad kind of lies and the ones she came to as a writer of stories. But he's also right that the work of a story (a lie) can, and perhaps should, be to serve a greater truth. It takes a sort of faith, doesn't it? A willingness to step out there into the uncertainty with a conviction that there is a greater good, a higher truth to apply yourself toward.


Multiple times in Dragon Hoops, Yang refers to the timeframe of the actual events and his place within them, specifically commenting on the years it took to bring this book into the world. Looking back, I realize that he was working on this story during that 2017 panel. He was working on this story as the National Ambassador to Young People's Literature in 2016. He some ways, he has been working on this story in every moment of his career, even as he completed his Master's project on the power of comics in education. His devotion to truth, to the rightness of stepping out in faith, to children and the infinite capacity of their minds is present here in Dragon Hoops, just as it is in everything he has done. He stepped away from the classroom, but he is still teaching.


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The 2021 Newbery Medal selection committee spends the whole year considering titles. As always, I will be reading and reviewing along with the committee, keeping one eye on today's young readers and the other eye on each book's prospects. After each review, I'll offer my one-sentence take (OST) on medal-worthiness.


OST: This book will and should be discussed, but the question of its audience will likely play a part - there is profanity (though it is ed*&ted) and deals with high school students, so it may fall into the category of "too old" though it will undoubtedly be admired and lauded widely.


Previous titles under consideration:

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