Empathy Day - June 12th

June 12^th is Empathy Day.  If you’re not totally sure what that entails, this famous quotation from Harper Lee’s wonderful novel To Kill a Mockingbird is an interesting place to start...

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

It was Atticus Finch who said that.  Now I love Atticus and he said A LOT OF WISE THINGS but in this particular instance, I’ve always felt that his use of imagery is distracting.  Actually, if you really overthink it, it’s downright creepy and disturbing.   So rather than taking the advice of Atticus, take the advice of the good people at www.empathylab.uk instead and simply read a thought-provoking book.  Here are my Top Five recommendations for Empathy Day.

Coming to England by Floella Benjamin  

This book is beautiful.  And if you are lucky enough to get hold of the big colour illustrated edition, it’s even more beautiful.  Floella Benjamin tells us about her early life in Trinidad and about her big noisy family and her inspirational mother and the Caribbean food she remembers eating and about her long and exciting voyage to England as one of the Windrush generation.  After that, the story darkens somewhat.  We hear of the hostility that is waiting to greet the family in England and about the unfair treatment Floella frequently encounters at school.  Luckily, and with the support of her brilliant mum, Floella keeps her chin up and finds a way through it all.  This is an inspiring little book and an important one.

Refugee Boy 
by Benjamin Zephaniah

I’ve written about this novel before but I’m writing about it again here.  Alem is a 14-year-old boy from Ethiopia.  His dad is Ethiopian and his mum is Eritrean and that makes life very complicated because Ethiopia and Eritrea are at war.  One day, Alem’s dad takes him on a surprise trip to London.  And then his dad just vanishes leaving Alem all alone and in the care of UK social services.  It’s not difficult to read this book and think, What if that were me?  Or my son?  Or my brother?  Or whatever.  And it’s not hard to read this story and make sense of the truly desperate lengths that human beings will go to in order to get themselves or their children to a place of apparent safety. 

Two Weeks with the Queen by Maurice Gleitzman 

I stumbled upon this when I was doing my teaching practice way back in the last millennium.  It’s a story about a 12 year-old Australian boy called Colin who is sent to England to live with relatives while his brother has treatment for cancer.  Colin decides that the most useful thing he can do while he is in the UK is ask the Queen to recommend a good doctor.  Colin doesn’t get to meet the queen but he does meet a gay Welshman called Ted.  A lot happens and I don’t want to spoil anything by giving too much away.  But basically, this book is about cancer and AIDS and homophobia and grief and it’s.... often really, really funny.  It really is!  Go and read it.  However old you are.

The Catcher in the Rye 
by J.D. Salinger

J.D Salinger’s ground-breaking novel about a 16-year-old boy who goes AWOL for three days in New York City may seem like a strange addition to this list.  Holden Caulfield is a boy with a wealthy and privileged background.  On every page, he whines and sneers and boasts and lies and contradicts himself.  In spite of being arguably the most famous teenager in fiction, Holden isn’t an easy person to get on with.  But Salinger isn’t asking us to like his protagonist.  I’m not even sure that he desperately wants every reader to understand Holden either because Holden’s bravado is so unrelenting, it’s very easy to chuck the book aside and miss the clues that make this novel so powerful.  But look carefully at Chapter Five where Holden tells us about Old Allie’s baseball mitt.  And then ask yourself if you still think Holden Caulfield is just a spoilt whining pain in the arse.

           

The Diary of a Young Girl / The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank 

This book should need no introduction.  I borrowed it from my school library when I was a teenager and the thing that struck me most about it was the ordinariness of it all.  Anne moaned about her mum and her sister, thought her father was the cat’s whiskers, wrote a reasonably detailed description of her own foof and had a slow burning thing for Peter van Pels.  Except, of course, that nothing was ordinary.  This is a true story from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam and Anne was a Jewish girl hiding in an attic for over two years.  And then the diary abruptly ends because the people hiding in the attic are betrayed and everyone is carted off to concentration camps.  Of the nine people in the attic, only Anne’s father survived the war.  I think everyone should read Anne’s diary at some point in their lives.   

Top Ten Novels about Teenage Love and Loss

It’s no spoiler to tell you that my latest novel, ‘The Nearest Faraway Place’ begins with a terrible accident.  It’s the literary equivalent of delivering a knockout punch before the audience has even got comfortable in their seats.  Game over.  Story finished.  The end.  Except of course, the game is not over and the story must go on.  In fiction - just as in life - endings and beginnings blur together in a never-ending cycle and we humans reveal ourselves to be a remarkably resilient bunch.  And nowhere is this resilience more strikingly apparent than in the teenager.  Where there is grief and loss, there is almost always love and hope.  Below is my top ten list of books which show teenagers and tweens at their most vulnerable - while celebrating, too, youth’s infinite capacity for recovery and optimism.  

         Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

Surely everyone knows something of this story whether they’ve read it or not.  It’s one of those nineteenth century emotional rollercoasters which lifts the reader up on one page only to bring them crashing down on the next. Orphaned Jane Eyre lives in the house of her rich cruel aunt with her rich cruel cousins and keenly feels the absence of love in her life.   But then Jane is sent to Lowood School and is finally free of her hideous relations.  Hooray!  Except that Lowood turns out to be a joyless hellhole just screaming to be shut down by OFSTED.  Boo!  It’s OK though because Jane is befriended by the wise, kind and saintly Helen Burns.  But then Helen dies of consumption.  And so it continues.  Jane is feisty, self-reliant, irrepressible and wonderful.  I first read this book when I was twelve - or rather, I repeatedly read the first half of it.  My twelve-year-old self had zero interest in Jane’s adult shenanigans and all that soppy Mr Rochester stuff.

2.       Life: An Exploded Diagram – Mal Peet

Oh how I love, love, love this book!  Is it a novel or is it an autobiography?  In a note at the back, Mal Peet tells us it’s actually a bit of both.  Clem - or is it Mal? - looks back on his life and narrates the story of his origins in rural Norfolk.  He tells us about his stern and domineering grandmother – the marvellously named Win Little – and his own premature birth during World War Two when a German bomber crash-lands into the garden of the house where Win and his heavily-pregnant mother live.  The novel grows into a touching and funny teenage love story which culminates in a disastrous ending.  Love, lust, regret, loss – it is all here.  Oh, and there is not one but two jaw-dropping endings.  Ultimately, it is hope that prevails, of course.        

3.      A Time to Love, A Time to Mourn – Paige Dixon

Way, way back before the words Youtube, Smartphone or Ice-Bucket Challenge meant anything to anyone, I read a book that made me aware of a serious degenerative illness called ALS.  Or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis to give it its full term.  All eleven syllables have been burned on my brain since the age of thirteen when I powered my way through Paige Dixon’s heart-breaking teen novel about an eighteen-year-old boy called Jordan who, one day, experiences a weird loss of sensation in his arm while playing tennis.  From there onwards, Jordan’s health plummets.  BUT, in this unforgettable story, the bleaker things get, the more Jordan’s mental strength soars.  I remember that I cried snot and tears at the ending.  I also remember that I loved Jordan Phillips absolutely.  And secretly vowed that Morten Harket and I would name our future son Jordan Phillip in Jordan’s memory.   

4.      Tape – Steven Camden

At the heart of this novel is a premise built pretty much upon cassette tapes.  Having spent my entire childhood and teenage years winding chewed-up tape back into its rightful place with the end of a pencil, I was OBVIOUSLY GOING TO LIKE THIS BOOK.  In fact, I loved it.  It’s a love story.  It’s also a very sad story.  And it’s about family too and wanting to know more about those who came before you in order to get a clearer understanding of who you are.  It’s touching and real and very, very clever.  I wish I’d written it.

5.      Broken Soup – Jenny Valentine

This is another book about family.  Jenny Valentine is particularly great at capturing in words the more difficult aspects of family life, and this book is a quiet little masterpiece in the study of grief and breakup and how that can impact upon the life of a teenager.  But we needn’t fret too much about 15 year old Rowan.  While everyone around her is losing their heads, she keeps hers firmly on her shoulders.  What a woman!

6.      The Outsiders – S.E Hinton

If, like me, your introduction to this book was via the 1980s brat-pack film, things can only get better.  The film was great.  The book is better.  Ponyboy Curtis is a sensitive soul in a brutal world.  No wonder he feels like he is an outsider.  There’s nothing more I need to say really.  Other than that S.E Hinton was 16 years old when she wrote this.  SIXTEEN.  And that this book about gangster-boys was WRITTEN BY A GIRL.

7.      Refugee Boy – Benjamin Zephaniah

I first read this book with a class of thirteen year olds when I was an English teacher almost twenty years ago.  But, sadly, the issues in this book seem more relevant than ever.  14-year-old Alem lives in Ethiopia.  His father is Ethiopian and his mother is Eritrean.  The two countries are at war.  One day, Alem’s father treats him unexpectedly to a holiday in London.  And then... he just disappears leaving Alem completely alone in a foreign country.  This is another story about love and loss.  It’s also a story about human beings who find themselves in situations so dire that they’ll do anything to get themselves or their loved ones to a safer place.  And about how the people in those ‘safer places’ receive them.  

8.      Waterland – Graham Swift

This is another one of those novels I’ve never been able to forget.  I read it in my first year as an undergraduate and it has stayed with me and haunted me ever since.  There’s an awful lot going on in this novel.  Love, grief, breakdown, family secrets, abuse... and it’s all set against a very atmospheric Fenland setting.  Tom, Dick and Mary are the teenagers.  There is love, there is certainly loss and.... well, actually, the teen resilience either burns out or peters out for all three of them.  Oh dear.  But quite simply, this novel is magnificent.  Depressing?  Hell yes!  But still magnificent.  

9.      We Were Liars – E. Lockhart

Clever.  Clever.  Clever.  Cadence Sinclair is seventeen and has survived a horrific trauma which has affected her memory.  We aren’t quite sure what it is.  In fact, as the title suggests, we can never be too sure about anything that Cadence is telling us.  But slowly, Cadence starts to work things out and so do we.  And I’m sure the experience of reading this unique story is different for every reader.  I read this just as I was in the early stages of mulling over an idea that became ‘The Nearest Faraway Place.’  I’m sure it added something to the flavour of what I would go on to write.  The very next book I read definitely added something too.  It was...     

1    The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt

Wow.  Just wow.  In the opening pages of the novel, 13-year-old Theo Decker finds himself in the middle of a devastating terrorist attack which will impact upon his entire life.  It’s shocking.  It’s entirely convincing.  And it is, of course, a beautiful and captivating read.  And Theo’s story goes from New York City to Las Vegas and back  again and then to Amsterdam.  It’s heart-breaking and nail-biting and frequently very funny.  And at the end, I felt there was a section where Donna Tartt stepped away from her role as story-teller and just started talking to me – ME – directly – about THE MEANING OF MY LIFE.  At the end, I remember closing this brick of a book and thinking Wow.  Just wow.

Seven Great Books by Black Writers

Just recently, a couple of things have got me thinking about books by black writers – and how few of them I’ve read or even know about.  The first thing to get me thinking was Norfolk’s Black History Month.  I was really chuffed to be invited to take part in an event about inspiring books.  But why me though?  I’m not black.  Well that’s very true - but here’s the thing:  You don’t have to be black to read a book by a black author.  Books are for everyone.  So I talked about one of my favourite teen fiction writers, an American called Walter Dean Myers – I’ll say more about him a little later on.

The second thing which got me thinking was something one of my A Level students said to me just the other day.  I’m teaching the The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  It contains some dodgy old language and attitudes.  To help my students understand why, I gave them a quick history lesson on America and slavery and the Civil War and the racial segregation which followed.  This sparked quite a few discussions in my all-white Norfolk classroom.  We got talking about the ‘n’ word and why I don’t think a white person should EVER use it.  We got talking about Stephen Lawrence too.  And then, at the end of my lesson, Sophie said to me, ‘I want to read more books by black writers.  But apart from Malorie Blackman, I can’t think of any.  Are there other black writers?’

‘Of course there are,’ I said – in that overjoyed way I get when anyone tells me they want to read more books.  And I reeled a few names off.  But then I stopped.  And it suddenly dawned on me that – in the scheme of things – there aren’t actually very many black writers at all.  Not that I know of anyway.  So – for Sophie – and anyone else who is interested, I’ve put together a MAGNIFICENT SEVEN of my favourite books I’ve ever read by black writers.  I apologise now – because they’re all massive bestsellers – there aren’t any undiscovered gems here.  Because I don’t know any.  So please feel free to add to my list if you want to by leaving a comment. 

So here they are.  In no particular order.

Coming to England – Floella Benjamin

This is the autobiography of Trinidadian TV presenter Floella Benjamin.  The book begins by beautiful, colourful descriptions of her life in Trinidad and then moves on to the gloomier environment of London in the 1950s.  When I was teaching in secondary schools, I read this book with every Year 7 class I taught.  They loved it.  They were also appalled by the racism that Floella and her family found themselves on the sharp end of.  Really this book is written for kids but I gave it to my mum who likes autobiographies and she liked it too.  A good story is for everyone.  Apart from Floella, my favourite person in the book is Floella’s mum.  Marmie.  That’s an inspirational woman for you.  Right there.

Refugee Boy – Benjamin Zephaniah

Benjamin Zephaniah is best known for his poetry but he’s written hard-hitting teen novels too.  Alem is a teenage boy from Ethiopia who comes to London for a holiday and then finds himself abandoned there.  What can I say?  This book made me cry.

 

Monster – Walter Dean Myers

I mentioned WDM earlier.  He’s MASSIVE in the states but hardly anyone has heard of him over here.  His teen fiction is mostly all set in Harlem, NYC.  This is interesting to me because I like travelling and learning about the world – even if it’s from my armchair.  Monster is an ASTONISHING novel.  ASTONISHING.  It’s about a teenage boy called Steve who is being held in a New York detention centre.  For murder.  Steve imagines his life as a film and writes his story in the form of a film script.  Walter Dean Myers is original, talented and inventive and I love him.

26a  - Diane Evans

This is adult general fiction.  It won the Orange prize for New Writers.  I can see why.  It’s beautifully written and very very moving.  It’s about twin girls who grow up in Neasden, North London.  A little part of why I loved it so much was because I lived for a while in Willesden which was just down the road – but mostly, I loved it because it’s beautifully written.  It’s also extremely sad.  I cried at this one as well.

White Teeth – Zadie Smith

The world and his wife are always going on about Zadie Smith.  But that’s because she’s young and clever and writes like a total dream. (She’s also very beautiful and very cool – but that shouldn’t matter.)  Zadie Smith writes dialogue brilliantly.  When her characters speak, it’s like you’re actually there, listening to them.  She’s written a few novels now but my favourite is her first, White Teeth.  It’s set in Willesden Green, North London.  I lived there once.  This is not the only reason I like this book though.  The other reason is that it’s brilliant.

Noughts and Crosses – Malorie Blackman

Even though Malorie Blackman is the only black writer that Sophie has ever heard of and even though everyone in the entire world has read Noughts and Crosses, I can’t leave Malorie or this title off my list.  Malorie Blackman was writing teen dystopian fiction waaaaaayyyy before The Hunger Games.  And the Noughts and Crosses series really is extraordinary.  I was lucky enough to meet Malorie this summer.  I told her I loved N & C and said, ‘It was the bit about the plasters which really got me.’

And Malorie laughed and said, ‘Everyone says that.’

If you’re read the book, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t, you’re lucky because you can go and do it now J

To Sir, With Love – ER Braithwaite

I love this book.  LOVE IT.  It’s a novel based on the real experiences of Ricky Braithwaite, who came to London in the 1950s from British Guyana to be a teacher in an East End School.  It’s simply and powerfully written and  ER Braithwaite is a total hero.  There’s also a wonderful old film which has handsome Sidney Poitier as the young teacher who weathers loads of racist sh*t and STILL has the generosity of spirit to turn around the lives of those East End ragamuffins.  Lulu is in the film too.  And she sings the soundtrack.  It’s a brilliant soundtrack.  It’s a brilliant film.  It’s a brilliant book.  Ricky, you were a brilliant teacher.

On that note, I’ll leave you with this: