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Nana's Shoes

Name: Nana's Shoes
Author: Aisa Softic
ISBN: 978-0-9962949-1-1

A STORY OF A FAMILY’S FAITH, HOPE AND COURAGE IN A TIME OF ETHNIC CLEANSING

by Aisa Softic ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 24, 2015

A prescient memoir about one woman’s emotional triumph over war and religious persecution.

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Debut author Softic shares her family’s moving ordeal in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina in a meditation on the sustaining power of faith.

The author’s father died in 1956, when she was 6 years old, and her impoverished mother struggled to retain the family’s farm in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, her children’s only inheritance. The sole child to progress in school beyond the eighth grade, she achieved a bachelor’s degree in psychology and pedagogy. She happily married a doctor, Husein, settled on the inherited farm, and eventually had two children. But in the early 1990s, the country succumbed to rising ethnic tensions and dissolved into the Yugoslav Wars. The family was Bosnian Muslim, a minority that many of their fellow citizens, including Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs, wanted out of the area. Her daughter, Aida, left to study in the United States and Husein immigrated to Austria to escape the conflict, but the rest of the family stayed because the author’s infirm mother-in-law, Nana, couldn’t travel. As a result, the author was on her own with Nana and her own teenage son, Samir. Their vulnerability opened them up to increasingly violent attacks and predation as the war escalated. Overall, though, this is more a memoir of faith than a history of the war. For example, Softic tells of how her strength to survive came from her faith in Islam: “I am confident in His protection and in His mercy, so I do not have to cry.” That said, the narrative style lacks polish and readers will find it difficult to clearly determine the chronology of the story. Readers with only a basic knowledge of the conflict will be particularly challenged to follow the plot. These minor deficits aside, however, it remains a strong personal story about an underrepresented conflict for informed readers.

A prescient memoir about one woman’s emotional triumph over war and religious persecution.

Pub Date: May 24, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-9962949-1-1

Page Count: 248

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.