Things We Couldn't Say by Diet Eman with James Schaap

Things We Couldn't Say by Diet Eman
Copyright 1994
William B. Eerdman's Publishing Co. -  WWII Memoir
392 pp., incl. Postscript and photos

Source:  Personal Library, purchased for F2F discussion . . . which I had to miss due to a migraine.  Bummer.

What's it about?

Diet (pronounced DEET) Eman's story is about falling in love just before WWII and how she and her fiancé, Hein Siestma, helped start a branch of the Dutch Resistance when they agreed to hide 3 Jews by finding them homes with farmers in the countryside.  From the original 3, the number grew and exploded to the point that it was difficult for those in the Resistance to keep up with the needs of the hidden.

What I liked about Things We Couldn't Say:

Let's just stop right at the word "liked" and back up.  I was astounded by the bravery of Diet and her fellow resistance workers.  "Like" doesn't even begin to cover my feelings.  I think Things We Couldn't Say is one of the best WWII books I've read in my life.  It is also one of the most harrowing.   There were many, many times I discovered that I'd been holding my breath during scenes of danger.  How anyone summoned the courage to take the risks Diet and the other Resistance members did (transporting people by train in full view, finding places to hide them, carrying forged ration cards and other documents) is truly beyond me.

The most amazing thing about Diet Eman's story:  Diet and many of the Resistance workers were imprisoned and some died but not a single Jew that they hid perished.  Not one.  Wait, no, that's not the most amazing thing!  The real jaw-dropper was the fact that after being imprisoned, in spite of having lived through horrendous conditions and being faced with torture or death, when she was released Diet went right back to work in the Resistance.

What I disliked:

Nothing.  I am shocked that this book hasn't been made into a movie.  It's one of the most heart-pounding, mind-blowing WWII books I've ever read.

When the war ended, I felt like I'd lived through it with Diet.  I had tears of relief streaming down my face.  While I don't think Things We Couldn't Say is as beautifully written as The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, that's actually a good thing.  Because of the way it's written, you can almost hear Diet's accent.  Incidentally, she was held in the same prison as Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsy, for a time.  Diet and Hein were also Christians and there's a lot of talk about and to God in the letters and diary entries within the pages of Things We Couldn't Say. But in their case Christianity was a guiding light, a comfort and the compelling reason for their continued work.  Their mission was not to spread Christianity but to put its principles to work. There were times Diet was so exhausted she felt as if she couldn't go on, succumbed to exhaustion or felt her faith floundering, but she continued to do everything within her power to provide for those in need till the end of the war.

There were at least two times Diet received warnings that sent chills down my spine.  In one case, she actually heard a voice telling her she'd better get a good look at the man she was with. Although she refused to give in to what she knew in her heart was true, it was the last time she saw that man alive.

The bottom line:

Highly, highly Recommended - There aren't enough glowing words to describe Things We Couldn't Say.  I found myself thinking, "If everyone in the U.S. read this book, the whining would go away . . . at least for a while."  It's difficult to fathom the hardship, the terror, the hunger and cold and cruelty people experienced during WWII but as I read . . . I was there.  I was simultaneously terrified for Diet and staggered by her courage and intelligence.

Interesting/scary fact:

When Diet wrote the book she said, in spite of ample photographic evidence and first-hand accounts, 22% of Americans didn't believe the Holocaust even happened.  That was almost 20 years ago.  Now, we see denial of horrifying events practically the moment they show up on the news, which only makes Diet's story more important than ever, in my humble opinion.

Will post a week in review on Saturday:

Apologies for the onslaught.  I need to go ahead and write while I'm in the mood and I decided to just go ahead and post three reviews on the same day so that I can add the links to my Books Read in 2013 list.  It's just easier.  I need easy, this week.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Copyright 2008
Walden Pond Press, a children's division of HarperCollins
Ages 9-12
311 pages

Liam is twelve but he looks thirty and that fact is a bit of a nuisance for him. "You should know better, big fellow like you," people are always saying. Why should he know better merely because he's big? he wonders. At any rate, he's caught between the world of the young and that of adults. And, when he's offered an opportunity to do something kids love but has to pretend to be an adult in order to do so, it's not so much of a stretch for Liam. He's used to pretending to be an adult with his young friend Florida. He's often pretended to be her father; Liam got in a good bit of trouble for that incident with the Porsche.

"Oh, dear." Dr. Drax sighed. "We girls are so complicated. Let's leave Dad to sort this out, shall we? I imagine Mr. Digby knows how to deal with his own daughter."
I don't know what made her imagine that. Florida was actually kicking me now and bawling,"You said we were going to a theme park!"
"We are. This is it."
"It's in the desert. Not even a normal desert. A Chinese desert. In China. You said it was down south."
"It is down south."
"I thought you meant London."
"But we were on a plane for hours. If you're on a plane for hours and hours, obviously you're going to go farther than London."
"I thought it was a slow plane."
A slow plane.

--from Cosmic, page 96

Pretending has gotten Liam in quite a bind, this time. Offered a chance on the "ultimate thrill ride", he has pretended to be the responsible adult in a group of children. The thrill ride? A trip to outer space. But, something went terribly wrong and now they're stuck in space with earth totally out of view.

I won't ruin the potential experience by sharing too much of what happens, but I will go ahead and tell you that this book was just about the most fun a kid can have. Even an old kid. Cosmic begins with Liam noting that he and his shipmates are lost in space and then you find that he's dictating his experience into his rather fancy cell phone. Then, it backtracks to how he ended up in space in the first place and most of the book details the adventure that led to the trip on the ultimate thrill ride and why he and the rest of the children were stuck in space.

There is so much to love about this book that I'm afraid I'm going to forget to mention half of it, but here are a few items of note:

• Liam is "gifted and talented" and, as such, tends to spout some very informative material. Ha! What a sneaky way to teach kids, making them laugh their socks off while sneaking in bits of information!
• The author makes some astute observations about children and adults in a way that may possibly cause you to spit out your drink. I would definitely set the book down before taking a drink.
• Cosmic is hilarious. Did I already mention that?
• The hero, Liam, is a really good egg, a terrific character.
• The ending is upbeat and the entire book is delightful.
• There are some touching parent/child moments and yet the author still manages to make you laugh through most of them. Also, you really want to reach in and give Liam's dad a nice pat on the back (and the rest of the dads the occasional head-slap).
• The other characters are, for the most part, annoying -- in a funny way, of course. The contrast makes you love Liam even more.
• There's a whole lot of "clever" in Cosmic. Like, the way the names of the characters fit their personalities (Mr. Martinet, for example) and the way Liam uses his head to solve various dilemmas.
• The author is English, so the characters are English. Because I'm a total Anglophile, this is a big thumbs-up, for me. But, it's never so British as to be confusing. Another thumbs-up.

"And why is it so sandy?" She seemed to think the Gobi Desert was my fault.
"Because the area in which we are standing was once the seabed of a great ocean that was exposed by a fall in the water level. The rocks and the mountains that were on the seabed have been broken down into sand by the wind over the last thousand million years." . . .
. . . "Well, Mr. Digby, you've done this before. What do you suggest we do now?"
I said, "Wait for the wind to die down?"
"You'll be waiting a long time," said Florida. "It's been blowing for a thousand million years so far, apparently."

--from Cosmic, page 132

The bottom line:

Oh, how I loved this book. There is nothing I like better than a book that makes me laugh and if this book had been around when I was a youngster, I would have reread it a dozen times or more. Also, it's notable that both of my kids experienced the, "You should know better, big fellow like you," thing, as they both reached their full height around the same time as the protagonist. I had to reassure ticket-sellers at theaters and sellers of kids' meals that, yes, that giant critter was younger than he looked. In fact, when Kiddo was 4 years old, someone asked him what grade he was in and he proudly replied, "I'm in Miss Jackie's 4-year-old preschool class!" You should have seen the eyeballs pop.

Also, I love that cover. Don't you just love that cover? It's really eye-catching.

In other news:

Our little Isabel is wounded. Awwww. Apparently, she tried to stop her fall when she plummeted off the back of a chair, earlier today. She split open one of her little paw pads and bled and bled and bled all over the place. I've been instructed by Carol at the veterinary clinic to watch for infection or abcess because there's not a whole lot you can do about minor cat injuries. They lick off ointment and bite off bandages. We did lock the poor girl into the utility room with a super-fresh litterbox, some food and water and a couple of toys until she stopped bleeding, just for her safety (okay, yes, and because my husband was worried about the new carpet -- but really for her safety).

I have 10 pages to go before I finish reading Voice of America. And, we're under a tornado watch. Here I was, thinking we were beyond tornado weather because it's been so nice and cool! Serves me right for thinking. Sending warm thoughts to those of you who are experiencing the winter storm.

Bookfool in muggy weather with injured kitty

©2010 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Ten Big Toes and a Prince's Nose by Gow & Costanza

Ten Big Toes and a Prince's Nose
By Nancy Gow
Illustrated by Stephen Costanza
Copyright 2010
Sterling - Children's (ages 4-7)

There once was a princess so lovely and fair
with ruby red lips and a mane of brown hair.
Her voice was like honey, her smile soft and sweet . . .
but the beautiful princess had gigantic feet.

So begins Ten Big Toes and a Prince's Nose. As you might imagine, the prince has his own flaw:

Now far, far away in our fanciful yarn,
there lived a young prince with a nose like a barn.
The prince loved to laugh.
He was bright like the sun.
He was warm, he was kind,
he was charming and fun.

But, of course when they saw him, the maidens would run. <---I wrote that; it just happened to rhyme. Ten Big Toes and a Prince's Nose is one of my absolute favorites of the children's books I've read in 2011 -- and I've read quite a few. The illustrations are kind of dreamy and yet they're also bold, bursting with color. But, it's the story that I truly love. Of course, you know they'll end up together, but the way the story is told is so sweet and funny, the rhythm perfect and the characters so lovable that you really, really, really care about them in spite of the fact that they're characters in a very short children's picture book. They also just happen to have very wise parents, so the book has an upbeat, positive message -- it's not just the romance.

But still there was hope, for the prince had a dad
who was clever and wise. He would say to him, "Lad,
my father would sing me a rhyme every night
just before he would kiss me and turn out the light:

I am what I am and that's all right with me.
I don't have to be different. I just have to be.
I don't want to be somebody else. No sir-ree!
I am what I am and that's all right with me."

Isn't that wonderful? The prince and princess meet while skiing -- he with his nose completely covered and she with her feet so big they merely look like skis. And, then, after they fall for each other they reveal their secrets.

He stared at her toes. She stared at his nose.
They laughed and they giggled, and then he proposed.

I love it!!! Highly, highly recommended. Ten Big Toes and a Prince's Nose is a wonderful tale with a lovely message. Fun, dreamy illustrations and even some laughs make this book a winner, a wonder, a thing to put under . . . your tree, that is. Since it's Christmas season, I'll just tell you: Buy this one for the little girl on your Christmas list and then come back and tell me whether or not she loves it as much as I did. Okay? Go forth and shop.

©2010 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.