Tag Archives: haunting

Sep10

The Misadventures of Mina Mahmood: School Trip by Farhana Islam illustrated by Simran Diamond Singh

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The Misadventures of Mina Mahmood: School Trip by Farhana Islam illustrated by Simran Diamond Singh

The illustrations in this book, by a Muslim author featuring Muslim characters, are impressively fun and complimentary to the story.  Yes, the 184 page book is highly illustrated.  The publisher says it is MG, and I can see that based on the length, but I think it is a solid second grade to fourth grade read.  The storyline is singular and surface level, and the scary silly bits are just meant to be funny and not taken too seriously.  I enjoyed the book, the normalizing of the Muslim kids in a non Muslim setting just living their life, and the main character’s voice had me smiling throughout.  A school camping trip is overshadowed by bullies and then consumed by the ever growing out of control scary story of Bertie Blackteeth.  An epic laser tag battle, quad adventures, and the comical banter of Mina and her friends, Mobeen and Reema, make for a light engaging read.  Sensitive kids might find the fright to be too much, but I think most will finish and be glad to learn there are more books to come in the series.

SYNOPSIS:

Mina Mahmood and her friends are ecstatic, it is finally their turn to head off on the annual camping trip to Shiremoor Oaks.  A weekend of laser tag, orienteering, archery, and quad biking without adults, well teachers, but no parents.  All Mina has to do before the fun begins is get through a family dinner with Auntie Selma and her cousins.  Mina doesn’t believe anything her cousin Abbas says, so when he mentions he went camping in school to Shiremoor Oaks and heard about a girl, Bertie Blackteeth who vanished there, Mina pays him no mind.  When her older sister Affa, also mentions that she heard the story, Mina starts to wonder if there could be some truth.  The next morning on the bus, when Bilal the Bully and his minions Owen and Brodie are also talking about Bertie Blackteeth and her need for a new body, Mina and the rest of the class are properly spooked. The fear hangs over all the activities, ruins the midnight snack extravaganza, and makes this a camping trip they will never forget.

WHY I LIKE IT:
I enjoy when Muslim kids drop mention of Eid and Ayatul Kursi in their adventures. When a character wears hijab, but she is the teacher, so the book isn’t about her identity, it is just a part of who she is.  I also really like when books are funny, characters are snarky, there is a plot, a climax and a resolution.  The book doesn’t have layers and heavy themes, sure you could discuss bullying, and fear and friendship.  At times Mina is tasked with saving Mobeen and other times advised to sacrifice him.  But considering he feels to young to be a father if the spider that just landed on him lays eggs in his eyebrows, it is probably best to just enjoy the story for what it is and not look to make it more.

FLAGS:
Could be a little scary, it is a little imaginative in the lies and embellishments of Bertie Blackteeth.  Bully and dealing with bullies.

TOOLS FOR LEADING THE DISCUSSION:
I handed it to my 10 year old and said enjoy, not much more than that is needed. A fun addition to elementary shelves, and one that will be picked up often.

Dec30

The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

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The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

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I didn’t realize how many characters this 308 page adult book has until I sat down to write this review.  The slow peeling back of layers into their backstories, motivations, perspectives, and insecurities, makes you get to know them in a way that feels real and deep, but in no way can be succinctly explained in a review.  First off to clarify, I feel the title is a bit of click bait, the djinn is there, but not a big part of the book, there is also a ghost, who is a more impactful character, so the vibe is more haunting than Islamic lens.  In fact, a few characters are Muslim, but that is about it.  The writing though, oh the writing is quite lovely and immersive.  The culture of desi characters in South Africa, the slivers of colonization and caste that get commentary, and the heartache of all those who have called, and do call Akbar Manzil home, will linger even if the details fade over time.  I listened to the audio book, so it is possible that triggers or flags might have been missed, for the most part the book is relatively clean, death, murder, attempted murder, and supernatural beings being the most obvious.

SYNOPSIS:

The main character is very much the grand estate of Akbar Manzil, a palatial home off the coast of South Africa that shaped lives and futures and hid horrors and loss.  In modern times it has been subdivided into apartments where lives and futures are still shaped and horrors and loss are also hid, and hid from.  When Sana and her father arrive to take up residence, the past and the present begin to unite, a djinn that has never left the house is stirred, and the more Sana pokes and prods, and the more she understands about the original inhabitants of the home, the more the house pushes back.

I don’t know how much to tell, as spoilers aren’t so easily defined in this book.  The family in the past is a man from India, Akbar, who falls in love with the area, builds a house despite his wife hating it all and desperate to leave, opens a sugar factory, his mother comes to live with them, they have two children, servants, friends, he stocks the gardens with monkeys, giraffes, a lion, and then one day he is enamored by a Hindu worker, Meena, at the factory and takes her as his second wife.  The jealously and family drama reaches a crescendo when she is pregnant and has a little boy.  Beyond the family storyline is a djinn also enamored by Meena, who takes up residence in the house to be close to her.

In present times, the other tenants in the house have their own baggage, loss, regret, and fears that cause daily squabbles and plottings.  Sana deals with the loss of her mother who hated her, and a dead sister who haunts her.  There is also Pinky in love with Shah Rukh Khan, Zuleikha a former famous pianist who has lost her edge, the Doctor who owns the home, a mother waiting for her son to visit, a parrot named Mr. Patel, Fancy, Razia Bibi, and so on. The house is occupied, but hollow, not full, and the the lingering djinn seems to always lurk just beyond the surface, in the corners and shadows that haunt them all.

WHY I LIKE IT:
I like that the writing keeps you hooked, even at times when there is no rising action, or conflict, you are genuinely drawn in and invested in just learning about the characters and how their lives, both those in the past and the present, intersect.  I didn’t like the fact that there is a djinn and a ghost, I feel like the ghost negates the realness that djinn.  It is possible that the ghost was a metaphor, or symbolism, but it was a little off to me, to have both as I understood it.  I don’t know how I feel about the vagueness of the final climax, yes I’m trying not to give anything away, but SPOILER: who set the fire?

FLAGS:

Loss, death, ghosts, djinn, murder, attempted murder, lying plotting, manipulation, music.

TOOLS FOR LEADING THE DISCUSSION:

I don’t know that this would work for an Islamic school book club, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work, but rather I need someone to discuss with me, so that I feel like I understood some of the lingering threads that are unresolved.  Basically, I would need to have someone explain parts to me, before I could help 15-16 year olds and up make sense of it all.

Oct3

The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette’s by Hanna Alkaf

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The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette’s by Hanna Alkaf

This 352 page young adult mystery, thriller could possibly be classified as magical realism, or speculative fiction, I’m not really sure, but I do know, that my expectations were really low, and I was so pleasantly surprised by how the story pulled me in and kept me engaged.  Told primarily by dual points of view, Khadijah and Rachel, the book offers commentary on sexual assault and believing victims.  The book starts with a trigger warning of “ghosts and monsters, some of whom hide beneath human faces. It includes discussions and descriptions of sexual assault, trauma, and PTSD,” before diving in to a prestigious Malaysian girls school full of secrets, hysteria, and a past that seems to be repeating itself.  There are no religious identity crisis or issues, the student body is diverse and it is a non-issue, Khadijah recites Ayat ul Kursi, makes time to pray, and wears hijab as she tries to figure out what is making the students at St. Bernadette’s scream, what happened to those that have gone missing, and how to overcome the trauma that has made her stop speaking.  The symbolism is solid, the book starts out with the screams, but builds on it by adding backstory to the main characters, mystery with the disappearance, and numerous red herrings to keep the reader guessing.  I told myself to get to the midpoint before calling it quits, but once I was there, I read the second half of the book in one sitting. I appreciated that the book was unique, there was no relationship side stories, the cultural authenticity heightened the reading experience, and that I understood the haunting magical elements.

SYNOPSIS:

St. Bernadette’s is an old prestigious all-girls school, but one day a chain reaction of girls screaming starts and the hysteria doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon.  When Khadijah, who is dealing with her own trauma of being sexually assaulted by her step-father, starts to look into the causes, more questions than answers arise.  In efforts to protect her younger sister, Khadijah discovers not only has this happened as their school before, but it doesn’t stop with the screaming, and the shadows, last time a girl went missing.

Rachel’s life is controlled by her single mother, who is determined that Rachel is successful and a reflection of how perfect and successful they are, despite, Rachel’s father abandoning them.  When in an act of rebellion Rachel signs up for monologue competition, she plans to get into character, not to become the character.  As Rachel starts to lose her self to the girl with pink lipstick and white ribbons in her hair, she starts to notice sights and sounds around the school, but when she falls victim to the screaming hysteria herself, will anyone care enough to save her?

WHY I LIKE IT:

So often with magical realism, I honestly don’t get it, so I’m not sure if my excitement of having it all be clear means the book was a bit simplistic, if I’m getting better the more of the genre I read, or if the writing was just good.  If I’m being honest, it is probably a little bit of all of it.  Often with the author’s book, the story is really good, until it is not, and I honestly feel like this is her best book yet, with the threads coming through, the ending feeling satisfying, the pacing being consistent, and the plot not getting lost on tangents and over explanation.

I loved the symbolism of screaming and it being largely brushed aside as society’s collective apathy to victims of sexual assault.  No one at the school has answers, no one likes questions being asked, everyone just wants to carry on as if nothing is happening, and the juxtaposition of the silence and the hysteria for me was powerful. A few plot holes were the result of telling over showing such as the case of the Khadijah and her sisters relationship, but that Khadijah stayed largely silent throughout the book, did not mean she was unable to communicate or not present, and I thought it was shown in a meaningful way.

I liked that the overbearing mom, with high expectations, and lacking emotional maturity was not from the Muslim parent, at least in Western literature, that is a common trope.  But it is worth noting that presumably the rapists mentioned in the story are Muslim.  Their faith is not a factor, but I noticed, and so I do feel that should be shared.

FLAGS:

Sexual assault, ptsd, rape, kidnapping, trauma, hysteria, lying, ghosts, monsters, magic, fear

TOOLS FOR LEADING THE DISCUSSION:
I think this would be a great high school book club read.  The conversation about sexual assault, both in the story and in real life would be important to have in a safe space.  The triggers would require some evaluation if the book is a good fit, but I think the elements that unfold and the commentary on expectation, honesty, trauma, monsters, etc. would create incredible discussion.