When the Moon is Low

 Fiction by Nadia Hashimi

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of this story, Fereiba is on a long and perilous journey across Europe with her three children, fleeing her home in Kabul, Afghanistan. The story then takes the reader back in time to Fereiba's childhood and early life. She had loved her homeland as a younger woman, but when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1989, everything changed. Now she is tying to take her family to England where she has relatives, but there are many obstacles along the way.

This was a good book with wonderful characters who help the reader identify with them easily. The story helped me understand a lot about the Afghani people. I didn't love the way the author handled the ending, but overall I enjoyed the novel.

American Dirt

Fiction by Jeanine Cummins

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I read a lot of good things about this book before I got a hold of it. Everyone was talking about this novel. It’s even an Oprah’s book club selection, which I didn’t realize was still a thing. (Who knew Oprah still had a book club? Didn’t that disappear in like 1999?)

Anyways my point is that this book had a lot of hype to live up to, and I doubted it would be THAT good. But good news! I was wrong.

I knew the story was about immigration, and quite honestly I prepared myself to be preached to. But fortunately, it was a STORY first and foremost. 

The novel follows a Mexican woman and her son who are escaping serious trouble in Acapulco and hope to get to El Norte, which is what they call the USA. (Incidentally I think “El Norte” would have been a better title, but what do I know?)

This was a great story!

Day After Night

Fiction by Anita Diamant.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book was a fictionalized account of a part of history I'd never heard about. We all know that Israel was established after World War Two as Jewish homeland, partly as reparations for the atrocities suffered by the Jews during the war. But although I knew that the State of Israel was officially created in 1948, I had never thought about the fact that the war had ended THREE YEARS BEFORE. So what were all the displaced Jewish survivors doing in the meantime?

It turns out that many of them were emigrating to Palestine, trying to find their own Promised Land after the horrors of the German concentration camps. But when they got there, they found themselves rounded up and herded into a camp again, this time by the British, who were trying to enforce the immigration policies that were in an ambiguous post-war state.

That was shocking to read. Although the displaced Jews were fed and treated decently in the British camp, still they were behind barbed wire against their wills at a time when they were already traumatized by their recent ordeals. Why have we never heard of this?

This book focuses on some women in the camp and their personal stories, and is a great read. And I'm grateful to Anita Diamant for writing about such an little-known subject.


I also read recently by this author:  The Boston Girl

On Gold Mountain

Subtitled "The One Hundred Year Odyssey of my Chinese-American Family." Nonfiction by Lisa See.



This was an exceptionally good book.

Lisa See has taken her own family's history, coupled with her extensive research about Chinese immigration to California, and turned it into a fascinating story.

I would love love LOVE to be able to do this with my own family's story, but I doubt I have the skill.

Plus I doubt my family is as interesting as Lisa See's. If they are, they've definitely concealed it....