Book n Movie Review: The Freedom Writers' Diary by Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers

I'm sure one of these days she's going to go to principal and ask for her leave, but then again, what else is new?

"These kids are going to make this lady quit the first week," my friends were saying. Someone else said, "She'll only last a day."

I give her a month.

I first heard of this book in Sheila's blog when she reviewed this during the Banned Books week last year. At that point, I wasn't too keen on reading the book, but when I saw the movie pop up in my Netflix recommendations list, I decided to check it out. I didn't have too many expectations from it, but by the end of the movie, I loved it. Who doesn't love a rebel? And I mean a good rebel -- someone who succeeds in something when everyone else expected him/her to fail. The movie was everything about changing your destiny, and all through my life, I've never tolerated the 'fate' and 'destiny' philosophies that anyone dished out to me. I like to believe that I'm the only person who can control my life -- of course there's the butterfly effect and then there is the case where someone else's actions can affect what happens to you, but they are usually single events, and most times, one can always decide one's reactions to such events. Would you rather wallow in depression because you are going through a life-changing mess or would you rather change the way you respond to that mess?

The Freedom Writers' Diary is the strongest proof I've seen about how you can make a difference to your life and to those around you. All the kids in Erin Gruwell's class have already been written off as failures, by other teachers, other students, and even their own parents. Worse, none of the kids could identify with Erin -- a white woman staying in a safe suburban residence, with no teaching experience and who had no idea of life in the violent gang-controlled streets of LA. Since even their previous teachers had given up on them, they gave Erin just a month before they believed she would move on.

The following 300-odd pages of this book shows so well how every single student has been transformed by Erin's teaching methods, the students' life experiences, their choices and willingness to perhaps hope that maybe they'll come through it all fine. So many stories in the book are moving. There's the student who's the sole caretaker of the family and is on the verge of eviction because he/she has to pay 800 bucks in rent and the car payment is also due. Then the girl who had a really wonderful family life at one point and within a few years, the mother left, the father remarried to a woman she and her siblings couldn't adjust to; soon they moved to an aunt's place who loved her a lot until her lover returned from the jail and the kids were back to square one -- homeless and family-less. There's the boy whose family doesn't have a home to stay in because they are so poor. There's the girl whose parents stole her stuff so that they can fund their drug addiction. There's also the girl who had to bring herself up because her mother was tired of being a mother. There's the boy whose father doesn't think his son will succeed and offers no hope or encouragement. 

So many of the diary entries make you really sad, but by the end of each entry, I still smiled because the kids weren't writing with despair, they were writing with hope. They made promises to themselves and expressed their gratitude that they at least still had the Freedom Writers. Erin Gruwell and her class were a symbol of hope for all these kids. It's beautiful reading about how these kids change and how they do and wish good for others too. Their hostility is very evident in the initial diary entries, but as I read, I could vividly see the changes happening. It's also a reminder that just because a kid walks around with a gun or a knife, it doesn't mean that they are bad. It means they need help and there are no adults offering them that.

I've never had a teacher like Erin Gruwell, but then I've never been in a challenged class like Erin's. Still, every school needs someone like her -- if not to help those 'written-off' kids, then to at least empathize with the kids in their class. All kids have problems -- maybe not as tragic as the circumstances of the kids in this book, but certainly important problems that can have far-reaching consequences later on in life.

If four years ago someone would have told me that Ms. G was going to last more than a month, I would have laughed straight in their face. She wasn't supposed to make it, we weren't supposed to make it. But look at us now, the sure-to-drop-out kids are sure to reach higher education. No one would have thought of the "bad-asses" as high school graduates -- as any kind of graduates. Yet, in four years we will be college graduates. Our names will be on the alumni lists of Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, and even Harvard.

I loved both the movie and the book -- both are remarkably similar in plotline, but the book is just a bunch of numbered diary entries (you never know the identity of most kids and that lends a poignant innocent feel to the book). In the movie, there are some characters that are more central to the storyline. I loved all the actors who portrayed the students. They really got well into the skin of their characters. The movie also gives a personal look into Erin's life, which is not present in the book. As I understand it, the movie also used Erin's memoir to put together the various threads. I will recommend both the movie and the book to you -- they are both well-done. If like me, you aren't feeling motivated to read the book, you should certainly watch the movie then. I promise that you'll be checking out the book the very next day.

I borrowed this book from the library and rented the movie from Netflix.

The Good Daughter by Jasmin Darznik *WOW!*

The argument started like any other of their arguments. He'd come home late from a party. In the circles in which he then moved, it had lately become fashionable to take a puff of opium with liquor, a combination that had brought him home even more bleary-eyed and unsteady on his feet than usual. The old curses and recriminations flashed between them, though this time he didn't strike her with his open hand but instead made a fist. He struck her just once this way, but even in his state he managed to do it with such perfection that the room went black and she fell to the floor. When Kobra opened her eyes it was to the sight of her own blood, streaming so profusely onto the tiled floors that it had formed a small pool beside her.

Jasmin Darznik's The Good Daughter is a beautifully written compelling biography about her own mother, Lili, who was born in Iran -- almost doomed to a docile and probably condemned life but instead goes on to pursue her studies in Germany and eventually moves to the United States at the dawn of the revolution. The book is full of all things Iranian that I love. The revolution is a sour taste in the whole of Iran's history, but the people who came forward to say that story have been wonderful. Jasmin herself didn't know much about her mother until she accidentally comes across an old photo featuring her mother with her first husband, whom Jasmin does not know at all.

I just loved this book. This is one of those magnificent reads from which I found it so hard to look away. I finished it in just two weekdays though sadly my review is a couple of months late. Even after all these days, I still remember how awesome this book was. Lili is one of those amazing heroines, who don't let their fates decide the rest of their lives. She was sufficiently traditional that whenever Jasmin did something "un-Iranian", Lili would keep talking about the good daughter who did good things. But she was sufficiently modern that she didn't let anything come in her way once her education in Germany was approved, where she met her husband-to-be. I couldn't help but root for Lili. She had easily lived the life of any 30-year old woman by the time she was thirteen. She'd been dismissed from school, married, abused, lost her virginity, become pregnant to a girl she couldn't keep, and fallen victim to a drug overdose - all because of being swayed or influenced by a society that was intent on hiding its women, yet making sure they got roped in to wedlock as early as possible.

Lili's father, Sohrab, was not in love with his wife, Kobra. He abused her, kicked her out of his home many times, abandoned her while he went to live with his long-time lover, and yet Kobra never stopped looking out for him. She literally bore his abuses if they made him feel better. I wanted to whack her many times and persuade her to move on, but a collusion of circumstances - Iranian customs, the taboo that is divorce, and her own insecurities - made her a servant of his mood swings. While I hated Sohrab for how he treated Kobra, he was the perfect father for Lili. He was not supportive of her early marriage, and when Lili left her husband, destined to a horrible life, Sohrab insisted that she make something of it -- this is what provided her an opportunity to study in Germany.

Although divorce was frowned upon, and as in many Muslim communities, Iranian women didn't have the option of calling a divorce (the men could easily divorce their wives by word of mouth), I found it interesting that the Iranian society (at least in those days) accepted divorce with a lot more ease than what I'm used to hearing from news sources in the Middle East. There were a lot of wagging tongues and a considerable amount of scandalized gestures, but none of them were so significant as what I've heard the situation to be out there. Divorced Iranian women were ridiculed, but they could move on with their lives, and make something much more of it, with fathers like Sohrab. In Iran, education wasn't wasted on girls, as in so many countries. Their marriages were arranged as early as when they were 11 years of age, and the couple's first night (read sex) is a celebrated event, wherein the ladies of the house spend the night by the door, waiting for the bloodied handkerchief. (Ok, writing that grossed me out.)

The Good Daughter reads like a riveting fictional story. I had to remind myself many times that this was nonficion. After all, who said nonfiction cannot be suspenseful or intriguing? My review doesn't do justice to it, because it's only a tiny fraction of the awesomeness filled in this book. Really, you should just go pick the book and read it -- there's nothing more that I can say. Lili is a woman I would love to meet and know personally -- she is strong, ambitious, and even as a child, she had plenty of perseverance. Reading this book made me feel like I was lost in an incredible saga, and at all points, I wanted Lili to come out successful. 

I received an ebook version of this title for free for review from the publisher Hachette via NetGalley. The Good Daughter was released on January 27th. Check it out on the publisher's page, Goodreads, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. To visit the author's website, click here.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

With a start Malika realized that the figure huddled in front of them was a woman. She lay in the middle of the street, crouched in a ball, and was trying to fend off the blows. But the men would not stop. Malika heard the dreadful slapping sound of the wooden batons as they hit the helpless woman -- on her back, her legs, over and over again.

The author, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, was an MBA student at Harvard Business School, when she yearned to do some research in a subject that mattered but which no one cared for much. That brought her to the topic of women entrepreneurship in war-torn Rwanda, and then to Afghanistan. Her initial search efforts in Kabul raised no potential candidates. It was after a long hunt that she found the protagonist of this biography and this book, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana is her attempt to tell the story of that woman entrepreneur.

Kamila Sadiqi was just returning home after receiving her diploma when she overheard many rumors about the Taliban's arrival at the outskirts of the city, fully intending to take control. The past four years wasn't the safest period for Kamila and her sisters, but their father was every bit insistent that the girls be educated. "The pen is stronger than the sword" - he loved to say. He had grown up watching European women work side-by-side with men, and he wanted his girls (and two boys) to be educated and capable of looking after themselves and their family in any dire situation.

But with the Taliban's arrival, a lot of avenues close up. Girls and women were forced to wear the chadri (the full-length burkha with just a tiny latticed slit for them to see through); they couldn't step out of their homes without a mahram, a male familial companion, and they weren't allowed to converse with any man who is not family. That figuratively shut them in their own homes. Those who didn't follow the rules were beaten ruthlessly. Kamila's parents were originally from the north and her father had worked for the previous government. This made their lives even less safe, prompting her father, her mother, and finally one of her brothers to leave to the north. Only Kamila, her youngest brother and her sisters were left behind.

Perhaps the only aspect that I didn't understand was how these girls - of whom only one was married and living separately with her husband and children, and also happened to be pregnant with twins, and Kamila, the elder of the rest was herself just seventeen - were left behind by their family. It was not safe outside, the author has reiterated time and again. Kamila's father has also explained that the girls were safer at home, but the menfolk weren't, because they were either put in prisoner camps (esp if they were found to have had worked for the previous government), or sent to the front lines to battle. And it was dangerous to move the whole family together. But I felt it was even riskier to leave the girls home alone, since they could barely get out of the home at risk of being beaten or taken to jail, and their only mahram was a thirteen-year old boy, too young to take responsibility (though Rahim proves to be so much more dependable, to be honest).

Since their funds are running real low now, Kamila comes up with a really risky idea to start a tailoring business. If she is caught, it can mean a lot of danger for herself, her mahram (Rahim), the shopkeepers who place orders, and her sisters. But Kamila being as stubborn as she is, she goes ahead with her plan. After a few initial misgivings, her sisters, who have been feeling lacklustre from nothing to do, jump into the opportunity. But everyone was having the same thought - how long will this continue?

Kamila is clearly a really strong woman, endowed with not just determination, but also a strong set of business skills that come in real handy and are even necessary. Gayle writes a really inspiring account of this young woman's life and those of her hard-working sisters, especially her older sister - Malika. I spent page after page rooting for the girls, hoping that none of the terrible danger befalls them. I'm not going to spoil it for you by saying what happens - you should find it out.

While not one of the best biographies I've lately read on this topic, the story is no less inspirational. This is a fast and short read - only occasionally the writing disappointed me. One really sad consequence of the war in Afghanistan is the warped perspective that we have all developed as outsiders. Most of our opinions have been shaped by the statements of the warring governments, the media, the Taliban, the soldiers/fighters. Amidst all this din, the voices of the civilians actually stuck in the war have been very subdued. I've always wondered - how did the women feel about wearing the burkha? How did they accept the no-education-only-housework role? Didn't they yearn for freedom, to be heard, accepted for who they were, loved? How did they settle into this kind of life? Probably the most revealing fact was that these women had never seen or even owned a burkha until the Taliban came by. Until then, they were quite adventurous women - who partied in stylish western wear, educated themselves to be doctors, teachers, etc, and were very very respected by men.

I received an ebook version of this title for free for review from the publishing imprint, Harper, via NetGalley. The Dressmaker of Khair Khana will be released next week on March 15th. Check it out on the publisher's page, Goodreads, Amazon (also featuring an interview with Greg Mortenson) and Barnes and Noble. To visit the author's website, click here.

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri

I first came across this title at Helen's blog. I had never heard of this book before, nor the incident narrated in it. Moreover, the title of the book - Yummy - sounded too weird, too out-of-place to me. I could tell from the cover that this book had no relation to food, whatever the title. Yummy is the nickname of the protagonist of this book, Robert Sandifer, because he loved sweets.

This graphic novel was written by G. Neri and illustrated by Randy DuBurke. I thought the narration and the illustration effectively communicated the guns and gangs problem in the shady law-crippled areas. The setting is in Chicago actually, but it could have been any other place - don't we regularly hear about gang crimes in LA, NY, and many countries around the world?

Yummy is just 11. He has already been recruited into a gang. He wants to impress the older members of his gang by displaying toughness and proving that he can do any kind of work. The US law couldn't convict kids - they could go to juvenile prison and walk out free once they turned 21. (I don't know what the law is now, but that's what it was during Yummy's days). I still think wasting your youth in jail is a far more tragic punishment than being in jail forever, but the gang members used that law to their advantage by recruiting younger kids to do their dirty work, knowing that they wouldn't be arrested forever.

Yummy is really short, hence called a shortie by many of his "friends" and gang members. A tough shortie, because he could get really nasty and tough if he wanted to. He didn't like being taken advantage of, and if possible, he would get his revenge too. Being obsessed about getting higher up in the gang hierarchy (as he was promised as bait to commit crimes), Yummy was out on a mission, when he aims wrong and shoots the wrong person - a girl named Shavon Dean, who just happened to be in the wrong place at that time. When you stop to think about it, it's really tragic, not even filmy-tragic. A girl who has no connection to gangs, who just wants to work in a beauty parlor someday because she could style hair really well, is killed. A boy, whose voice has probably not even broken yet, and didn't even train to aim properly is a murderer. He comes from a fractured family, so there's no one really to help him. And now the gang members would be mad because of the law officials who'll be coming to investigate.

What I loved about this book is how Yummy is portrayed. Coming from a troubled home, his confusion is very obvious. His parents are in prison, and he was left in the care of his granny, who was also looking after (if that could be said) a whole other bunch of grandkids, sometimes up to 20. Yummy could disappear for days from her house, and she wouldn't notice. When he wants to appear tough, you could see it clearly in the drawings. In fact, his expressions could even scare you if you were looking at him closely. And at other times, he would be the 11-year old kid that he actually is, who loves the usual boy stuff and yearns to be loved and accepted.

This book was a really fast read, but it left me thinking for a long time. This is one of those cases where you never know who is to blame. Far from being dangerous, the fact that a kid can easily walk around with a gun is simply tragic, mindblowing and unbelievable. I've always been against liberal gun laws, and I can't imagine changing my viewpoint, whatever anyone tells me about most buyers being responsible, and just intending to use it for hunting or for safety. But of course, if someone wants a gun, they will get it, however tight the laws are.

I borrowed this book from the library.

Anne Frank by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón

Anne Frank is no stranger to us. We all know about how she hid with her family and four others in a secret annex in Netherlands during the infamous Holocaust, for two years. Whether or not we have actually read or loved her diary, none of us would deny that she went through a harrowing experience - just as million other Jews, victimized simply because of their faith. But in so many ways, Anne has become a symbol of that period chiefly because she was just fifteen when she died (murdered is what I like to say, even if it was disease that eventually claimed her), and also because she recorded her stay in the annex in her diary, which has already been read by millions.

That said, when I first read and loved Anne Frank's Diary two years back, the most common sentiment I heard expressed among those who didn't rate it highly was that the book felt too "immature". In other words, it read like any fifteen year old's diary - with all the typical squabbles, complaints, teenage infatuations/crushes/desires and worldly wisdoms. It seemed anticlimactic or too flat considering all the hype around it. I know many who tried to read it as any diary and eventually gave up. Most people loved it though, and what particularly struck me about the diary was that it was the manifestation of the dreams and desires of a girl (like any other girl), who never got to experience them, because of a man-made tragedy.

From that perspective, this graphic nonfiction is a really excellent accompaniment to the diary. Many have attested that when reading Anne's diary, it is really crucial to be in Anne's position - trapped for two years in an annex with just a single bathroom and not much privacy; a young girl at the cusp of those years when she is discovering herself, every single day - the age at which any girl or boy wants to experiment with a lot of things, including love and all the desires it invokes. Add another family to that annex, a family you now had to live with for two years, or rather for an unknown amount of time.

In Anne's diary, the events following their capture are chronicled in the Afterword section of the edition I read - who died and how, who survived. This book actually shows the events. Pictures can have a more powerful effect on the reader, and it did so in this case. Did you know that Anne and her sister died just weeks before rescue arrived at their camp? If she had been rescued, her diary might never have seen the light of day. But at least the world would not have missed having such a remarkable woman in its midst.

I felt that this book was really well-done. I read in an interview (whose link I can't find now) that the drawings of the characters, their attires and even the layouts of the annex strongly resemble the original characters and their hideout. Towards the end of the book when everyone is captured, they all look so different from their original selves - malnutrition, disease and fatigue eating out their muscle and body mass quickly. That's something I can never get used to - all those horrific images of the camps and their inmates. How could humans be so callous? I knew before I started, thanks to Ash, that this book is not a duplicate of Anne's diary. Instead, it covers a significant period before and after Anne starts writing her diary. That's really helpful because it puts Anne's diary in context much better than the diary itself does. Suddenly, the events seem much more harrowing, more scary, vivid and dangerous than how Anne says it. And after reading this graphic book, when I recollect some of the entries from Anne's diary, I see them in a much different light.

I borrowed this book from the library.

Review: Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi

Title: Chicken with Plums
Author: Marjane Satrapi
First Published: 2006
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Source: Library
84 pages



In a nutshell
Nasser Ali Khan's beloved instrument, the tar, is irreparably broken and finds that no matter how many tars he try, none of them sound right to me. Convinced that he will never find a good tar, he decides to take to his bed and let go of his life. The rest of the book shows the next few days in his life, as the reader comes to understand the breadth of his decision through flashbacks and through his relationships with other members of his family.

I am a big fan a Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels. This is yet another one that didn't disappoint, and I connected with this book more than I expected to.

I think...
Marjane Satrapi's skills as a storyteller are amazing. There is humor throughout her books, as they tell the state of affairs. None of her books are light in matter though. While they are meant to be enjoyed, there are usually very important messages and social or political themes in them. Her Persepolis I and II are her memoirs during the Iranian revolution. Embroideries brings together the wonderful women in her family one day at tea, when they share their very sexual problems in life and issues with their husbands/ex-husbands/boyfriends. Chicken with Plums follows Nasser Ali Khan's life as a musician, a lover, and a husband.

I found Chicken with Plums more complex than the other books. In addition, it was done in a suspenseful format, as opposed to the previous books of hers that I have read, which I found to be written in a contemporary style. Within the first 18 pages, the reader already knows what happens, and is even told why it happens. The remaining 60-odd pages of the book give us a portrait of Nasser Ali Khan as he waited for his death. Nasser Ali Khan is shown as a self-conceited selfish person initially. We see him in the first few pages as he is seen by the other characters in the book. It is when he decides to die, that Marjane starts showing him through his experiences. His flashbacks morph his character further, as we understand how he arrived at his deathbed.

What I loved most about the book was how very wrong my understanding of Nasser turned out to be. Can a person really decide to give up on his life just because his instrument got damaged? I tried to put myself in Nasser's situation. I'm sure I would be devastated, but how can I even take such a decision that cuts all my links with every person I love? I highly admonished Nasser for his train of thought. Even after all the flashbacks and the complexity of the decision was revealed, I can't say I forgave him, I can't say I appreciated what he did, since it still smacked of selfishness. He was putting his desire above his children's lives (four, that too). But I appreciated that it wasn't a childish decision either.

The character I loved the most is Nasser's son, Mozaffar, who is so talkative that no one on their bus during a journey slept due to his incessant chatter. I almost felt sorry for Nasser's wife, Nahid, seeing Nasser not give her much regard. Nahid clearly loved and cared for Nasser. Nasser, however, is too blinded by his past to notice.

One thing I found particularly touching was the idea that the person you least appreciate is probably the one who loves you the most. This is something I've experienced in real life and something I've come across many times in plenty of books. Chicken with Plums touched a nerve with that theme, through one single picture that spoke volumes. You could almost feel sorry for the particular person, and it makes you want to shake Nasser, and tell him to open his eyes and look at the people around him, without being so self-obsessed.

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to, mainly because it had more in it than I assumed there would be. This book isn't a simple retelling of the fourteen days of a man's life as he waited to die. You could almost see the shock on my face as I turned the last page, as the enormity of the tar's damage clicked into place. The last few pages turn several wheels into place, you could almost hear the clicks as the gears engaged. You know some of those scenes, where piece after disparate piece falls together to form this enormous picture, and with each piece comes a thought of comprehension? That's how it felt reading this book. I will recommend this book to everyone, but it will be easier reading it if you have already read her Persepolis books.

What did you think?
Have you read this book? I'd like to know what you thought about it. Please leave your review link in the comments, or a brief opinion, if you hadn't reviewed it.