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Shadows of Ghadames
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From: White, Maureen <white>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 11:22:23 -0600
I apologize for the incompleted draft that sent below - computer troubles for the past 2 hours. Maureen
Message----From: White, Maureen Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 11:21 AM To: 'Cassie Wilson'; Kathleen Horning Cc: Subscribers of ccbc-net Subject: RE: [ccbc-net] Shadows of Ghadames
I totally agree about your assessment of Ginny and her skills relative to literature. She was on the 2005 Notable Committee with me (and continues on the Committee). We could always count on her to provide the finest analysis of a book that she wanted to present and/or defend. Ginny encouraged me to nominate Shadows of Ghadames, which I did, and she and others provided a
"skillfully-crafted" analysis of why [White, Maureen] it was Notable.
Maureen White, Chair 2005 Notable Children's Book Committee
Message----From: Cassie Wilson [mailto:cassiewilson at comcast.net] Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 8:11 PM To: Kathleen Horning Cc: Subscribers of ccbc-net Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Shadows of Ghadames
Ginny Moore Kruse is undoubtedly one of the very finest critics or essayists in the youth literature field or perhaps any other. Her skillfully crafted sentences flow or sometimes zing, a perfect balance of intellectual vocabulary and down to earth words which include just the right examples to prove her point about the work under discussion. Actually, "crafted" may be the wrong word because everything seems to flow so effortlessly from her, without art or design. And, damn it, she always makes me read everything she likes whether I want to read it or not! It looks like I'll miss something really special if I don't.
Cassie Wilson
Kathleen Horning wrote:
Ginny Moore Kruse asked me to send this message to the CCBC-Net Community:
The Shadows of Ghadames
I've been thinking about what Kathy Isaacs wrote about The Shadow of Ghadames on March 16. My sense of this splendid book is quite different from hers.
The first two chapters are titled The Rooftop Race and The Fugitive, and that immediately caught my attention. The dramatic race between Malika and her brother Jasim on the narrow edge of the roof establishes the protagonist as feisty and courageous. That Malika runs this risky race blindfolded adds to the excitement; it also serves as one of the novel's first metaphors of confinement.
As the story unfolds, so do the cultural details, but they never overpower or diminish the action. Readers find out more about Ghadames in the late 19th Century, and about some of the mores in Libya at that time. While Malika's father is away, his wives will not wear jewelry and the lamp in the entryway will remain dark. Each of his two wives has a distinctive personality, and each offers Malika her unique type of parenting attention and wisdom.
Malika and the women go at night to the communal baths. Some lanes in Ghadames have a low beam across their widths in order to trap an intruder who wouldn't know where to bend low in darkness. Malika witnesses an even wider community when on another excursion she sees how the city's precious water is tediously measured, recorded and doled out by child laborers something she'll never have to do. Jasim's future entry into male privilege even seems less appealing than what Malika anticipates within the community of women.
The rooftops are the locales for the active lives of the women and children. These high areas can be transformed into markets, work places, play areas, friendship spaces. Brave women hide the fugitive on the rooftop, and it's where he teaches Malika to read. It's where this curious girl will use the telescope her father gave her, saying that it's "our belief that there is a river of milk up there in the stars..."
There was nothing distant about this fast-moving story for me. Although everything was unusual, Malika, the other characters and their interpersonal relationships were so well developed that any sense of the "foreign" just vanished for me as a reader. The book itself is handsome. The author's note is at the back where I think it belongs. I don't have the book in hand to check, but there should have been something on the front flap to indicate where/when.
That it's a translated book would be the last thing I'd say to describe The Shadows of Ghadames to anyone else, because that really doesn't matter
(unless one is interested in French children's literature). What matters is that it's a cracking good story as well as a window into a time and culture about which little is known in the U.S.
However I'm delighted that we can count upon the annual Mildred Batchelder award to honor the U.S. publishers of the most outstanding books of a substantial length translated into English for the first time for U.S. publication. I cheered long and loud at the ALA/ALSC Press Conference when Delacorte was announced as one of the honored Batchelder publishers this year. Teachers will find much to discuss with students in this fine novel. If you like to read, find time this summer to read The Shadows of Ghadames. This year Daniel Half-Human and the Good Nazi and The Shadows of Ghadames can be recommended to adult readers, too. And - if your public library doesn't automatically order the Batchelder winner and honor books each year, make that a request.
Best, Ginny
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Kathleen T. Horning, Director Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
horning at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608&3721 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Wed 23 Mar 2005 11:22:23 AM CST
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 11:22:23 -0600
I apologize for the incompleted draft that sent below - computer troubles for the past 2 hours. Maureen
Message----From: White, Maureen Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 11:21 AM To: 'Cassie Wilson'; Kathleen Horning Cc: Subscribers of ccbc-net Subject: RE: [ccbc-net] Shadows of Ghadames
I totally agree about your assessment of Ginny and her skills relative to literature. She was on the 2005 Notable Committee with me (and continues on the Committee). We could always count on her to provide the finest analysis of a book that she wanted to present and/or defend. Ginny encouraged me to nominate Shadows of Ghadames, which I did, and she and others provided a
"skillfully-crafted" analysis of why [White, Maureen] it was Notable.
Maureen White, Chair 2005 Notable Children's Book Committee
Message----From: Cassie Wilson [mailto:cassiewilson at comcast.net] Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 8:11 PM To: Kathleen Horning Cc: Subscribers of ccbc-net Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Shadows of Ghadames
Ginny Moore Kruse is undoubtedly one of the very finest critics or essayists in the youth literature field or perhaps any other. Her skillfully crafted sentences flow or sometimes zing, a perfect balance of intellectual vocabulary and down to earth words which include just the right examples to prove her point about the work under discussion. Actually, "crafted" may be the wrong word because everything seems to flow so effortlessly from her, without art or design. And, damn it, she always makes me read everything she likes whether I want to read it or not! It looks like I'll miss something really special if I don't.
Cassie Wilson
Kathleen Horning wrote:
Ginny Moore Kruse asked me to send this message to the CCBC-Net Community:
The Shadows of Ghadames
I've been thinking about what Kathy Isaacs wrote about The Shadow of Ghadames on March 16. My sense of this splendid book is quite different from hers.
The first two chapters are titled The Rooftop Race and The Fugitive, and that immediately caught my attention. The dramatic race between Malika and her brother Jasim on the narrow edge of the roof establishes the protagonist as feisty and courageous. That Malika runs this risky race blindfolded adds to the excitement; it also serves as one of the novel's first metaphors of confinement.
As the story unfolds, so do the cultural details, but they never overpower or diminish the action. Readers find out more about Ghadames in the late 19th Century, and about some of the mores in Libya at that time. While Malika's father is away, his wives will not wear jewelry and the lamp in the entryway will remain dark. Each of his two wives has a distinctive personality, and each offers Malika her unique type of parenting attention and wisdom.
Malika and the women go at night to the communal baths. Some lanes in Ghadames have a low beam across their widths in order to trap an intruder who wouldn't know where to bend low in darkness. Malika witnesses an even wider community when on another excursion she sees how the city's precious water is tediously measured, recorded and doled out by child laborers something she'll never have to do. Jasim's future entry into male privilege even seems less appealing than what Malika anticipates within the community of women.
The rooftops are the locales for the active lives of the women and children. These high areas can be transformed into markets, work places, play areas, friendship spaces. Brave women hide the fugitive on the rooftop, and it's where he teaches Malika to read. It's where this curious girl will use the telescope her father gave her, saying that it's "our belief that there is a river of milk up there in the stars..."
There was nothing distant about this fast-moving story for me. Although everything was unusual, Malika, the other characters and their interpersonal relationships were so well developed that any sense of the "foreign" just vanished for me as a reader. The book itself is handsome. The author's note is at the back where I think it belongs. I don't have the book in hand to check, but there should have been something on the front flap to indicate where/when.
That it's a translated book would be the last thing I'd say to describe The Shadows of Ghadames to anyone else, because that really doesn't matter
(unless one is interested in French children's literature). What matters is that it's a cracking good story as well as a window into a time and culture about which little is known in the U.S.
However I'm delighted that we can count upon the annual Mildred Batchelder award to honor the U.S. publishers of the most outstanding books of a substantial length translated into English for the first time for U.S. publication. I cheered long and loud at the ALA/ALSC Press Conference when Delacorte was announced as one of the honored Batchelder publishers this year. Teachers will find much to discuss with students in this fine novel. If you like to read, find time this summer to read The Shadows of Ghadames. This year Daniel Half-Human and the Good Nazi and The Shadows of Ghadames can be recommended to adult readers, too. And - if your public library doesn't automatically order the Batchelder winner and honor books each year, make that a request.
Best, Ginny
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Kathleen T. Horning, Director Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706
horning at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608&3721 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Wed 23 Mar 2005 11:22:23 AM CST
