The proximity to pain makes for a choppy narrative but also vitally draws attention to a global crisis
This memoir of modern domestic slavery ends with hope and determination, as young author Hall (born Shyima El-Sayed Hassan) is “one of the fortunate 2 percent” to be freed from servitude.
Shyima’s childhood in Egypt ends when her parents are blackmailed into turning over their 8-year-old daughter to a wealthy couple. Every day, Shyima cleans the five-story house and the 17-car garage, “standing on a stool doing the dishes” because she’s too tiny to reach the sink. When she’s 10, Shyima’s captors move to California, illegally trafficking her into the U.S. After two more years of hard labor and increasing ill health, a worried neighbor calls the police, and Shyima’s journey into freedom begins. A chain of Muslim and Christian foster parents (some protective, others exploitative) leads her to become an anti-slavery activist. Unsurprisingly, Hall’s representations of Arab and Muslim men are filtered through her appalling experiences. Though she acknowledges misogyny “is not what the Muslim faith is about,” readers should expect to find depictions that hew closely to negative stereotypes. Those readers prepared to brave a dense, adult tome could move from Hall’s memoir to John Bowe’s Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy (2007) for a deeper look.
The proximity to pain makes for a choppy narrative but also vitally draws attention to a global crisis . (Nonfiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8168-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Readers don’t always need another heroine—sometimes a young woman living an ordinary life in extraordinary circumstances...
Amina Khalid is a sweet, amiable teenager—and a solid counterexample to Islamophobia and negative notions about Somalis.
The 14-year-old Somali Muslim teenager lives in war-fractured Mogadishu. She shares her grenade-damaged home with pregnant Khadija, elderly Ayeeyo, her older brother, Roble, and her father, political artist Samatar Khalid. Unlike the stereotypes of Muslim men oppressing Muslim women and girls, Amina’s loving father and exasperated brother support the “itch in her fingertips” that “[drives] her to keep creating.” Like her dad, Amina creates renegade art—not paintings on canvas like Samatar, but multimedia street art using bombed-out buildings, hoarded charcoal, poetry, cloth strips, and other pieces of her beloved metropolis. Powers’ prose is honest, though descriptions of events such as giving birth as a circumcised woman, kidnappings by real-life Islamist group al-Shabab, and death are sometimes elliptically described. She leavens Amina’s difficult situation with school, crushes, unexpected friendships, faith, spoken-word face-offs, and real-life context as Amina and her fellow citizens reconfigure what “normal” means for their families, city, and, by extension, country. Taken as a whole, this entry in the Through My Eyes series is solid but not gripping—and that’s OK.
Readers don’t always need another heroine—sometimes a young woman living an ordinary life in extraordinary circumstances will wilt stereotypes better than heroics. (map, author’s note, timeline, glossary, further reading) (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-74331-249-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
An up-to-date if not in-depth introduction to a topic that has certainly affected many people’s lives throughout the ages.
Royal weddings, a campaign for toilets in India linked to marriage, and trash-the-dress photo shoots (a new U.S. custom) are introduced in this whirlwind tour of courtship, marriage, and divorce.
Using catchy chapter headings (“Control Freaks” focuses on the historical, political, and economic reasons for marriage), this slim volume offers a cursory glance at marriage in many religions, the ancient world, and some contemporary cultures, primarily the U.S. and Great Britain. China, Japan, and India are mentioned, while most European cultures are lumped together. The chapter on polygamy, “More Ways Than One,” starts off highlighting Zulu traditions with Jacob Zuma, the South African president with four current wives. Scant information about Latin America, the Middle East, and the Pacific region appears. Same-sex marriage and interfaith and interracial marriage are covered in “Forbidden Love,” which starts with celebrity couples such as David Bowie and Iman (white and black, Christian and Muslim) and Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka (two men). The legal struggles for interracial marriage (1967 Loving v. Virginia) and same-sex marriage (2015 Obergefell v. Hodges) are summarized, but the last sentence of the chapter again refers back to famous couples. This celebrity approach and such sections as “Over-the-Top Weddings,” along with references to YouTube and Vimeo, seem meant to ensure teen interest. Photographs (mostly in color) are clear and relevant. Readers can tease out interesting takes on feminism and women’s history. Some self-help sidebars on dating and relationships are generalized and superfluous.
An up-to-date if not in-depth introduction to a topic that has certainly affected many people’s lives throughout the ages. (source notes, glossary, selected bibliography, further information, index) (Nonfiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4677-9242-4
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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