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THE SONGBIRD AND THE RAMBUTAN TREE

Name: THE SONGBIRD AND THE RAMBUTAN TREE
Author: Lucille Abendanon
ISBN: 9781631638206

by Lucille Abendanon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 23, 2024

A flawed but engaging narrative that broadens readers’ understanding of the geographic reach of World War II.

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Eleven-year-old, Batavia-born Dutch national Emmeline Abendanon has been unable to sing since her mother’s death.

Despite the looming threat of the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), Emmy refuses to leave for vocal training at a prestigious school in England. She clings to the familiar, including Javanese best friend Bakti, the son of a family servant. But Emmy soon learns uncomfortable truths about her life of privilege and the systemic discrimination and exploitation non-Europeans like Bakti face under colonial rule. When the 1942 Dutch surrender results in Japanese occupation, Emmy ends up in the Tjideng prisoner-of-war camp for women and children, where she must find the strength and will to survive. Drawing from her grandmother’s account of living in what is now Jakarta and surviving Tjideng, debut author Abendanon weaves a compelling narrative that highlights the experience of many white European and Australian prisoners of war. Yet, despite cultivating Emmy’s awakening to a broader view of her position in the Dutch colonial hierarchy, the ending oversimplifies and elides critical nuances. The narrative also suffers from a lack of cultural texture, failing to convey the setting’s ethnic and religious diversity. The author’s personal and historical notes add some context but fall short in communicating the broader history of the Dutch state, the Indonesian archipelago under the Dutch East India Company, and the Indonesian independence movement.

A flawed but engaging narrative that broadens readers’ understanding of the geographic reach of World War II. (map) (Historical fiction. 10-14)

Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024

ISBN: 9781631638206

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Jolly Fish Press

Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

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Best Books Of 2017

New York Times Bestseller

Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner

REFUGEE

by Alan Gratz ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2017

Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.

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Awards & Accolades

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Our Verdict

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Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2017

New York Times Bestseller

Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner

In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.

Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.

Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)