Being An Ally by Shakirah Bourne and Dana Alison Levy - A World Book Day Book - Review

My partner and I popped into The Works on a trip into town a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed they had the World Book Day books. I had looked at them all online and knew this was the only one I was bothered about, so I picked it up for just a pound! I read it in less than an hour ten days ago while curled up on the sofa after a busy day. 

It is a tiny book but with such a lot of info in it, I really liked it and would recommend it for anyone aged from about fifteen. There is a warning in the front of the book and it does tackle difficult subjects like racism, ableism, transphobia and more. The book is a collection of seven short essays by a few current authors like Lizzie Huxley-Jones and A J Sass, as well as the two editors. The essays are all about how to be a good ally, how to do it non-perfomatively, how to use your privileges to be an ally to people in minorities, and so on. The essays are all really personal, which I really appreciated. 

I am giving this four out of five - it's very good. 

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I recently read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and liked it, but I didn't feel it fitted my usual format so I thought I'd just write about it. I feel like I'm the last person on earth to read it anyway!

I've heard of the book, of course, and the subsequent film, but I'd never picked it up. A friend of mine teaches it to teenagers and really recommends it, so when I came across it in the teen section of my local library last week, I picked it up.

The story centres on Bruno, a 9 year old boy living in Berlin in the early 1940s. His dad is high up in the SS and the family gets moved to what we as older readers recogise as a concentration camp (probably Auschwitz) in Poland. Bruno doesn't want to move and is very unhappy as he has no friends at the new house, and his older sister is a Hopeless Case. Out of his bedroom window, Bruno can see a lot of men in striped pyjamas who live in huts, but he doesn't know who they are. His father tells him that they're not people like Bruno and his family are.

The family has one of the prisoners, Pavel, helping out in the house, who tells Bruno that he isn't really a waiter, but a doctor. When Bruno hurts himself, Pavel cleans and dresses the wound, but later Bruno's mother tells him that they mustn't tell his dad that Pavel helped him.

One day, Bruno goes on an Exploration around the edge of the camp and comes across a boy wearing striped pyjamas, sitting cross legged facing the fence. Shmuel is much smaller than Bruno but the two share the same birthday.

Bruno and Shmuel meet every day for months, becoming friends even though neither of them really understand why things are as they are. The end of the book is horrifying - but totally right for the novel, and I don't honestly know how I'd have otherwise written it. I liked this quick read and think it's a great book for a young teenager's introduction into the horrors of the Second World War and the death camps.

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley - Review

Where did I get it? I bought it off Wordery along with the rest of the Carnegie shortlist. I picked it up because my friend Stacey (who was responsible for my buying all the Carnegie shortlist in the first place) was raving about it.

What's it about? It's set in 1959 in Virginia, just after the county has decided that the schools must be integrated. White parents have been fighting it, and black parents have been fighting for it, and eventually ten students are chosen to attend the white school. Sarah and her sister Ruth are two of them. Sarah is a senior, about to graduate from school to attend college. She's had feelings for girls before, but has tried to ignore them.

As soon as the black students arrive, they're subjected to horrible racist abuse and viciously violent attacks. Then Sarah comes up against Linda, whose dad is horribly racist and whose views she's absorbed. The two are put together on a joint project, and argue with one another. Linda's views start to change and eventually the two kiss. 

What age range is it for? 15+ I think. The violence and abuse aren't tempered in any kind of way and are hard to read. Just to read the n-word being slung around so much is difficult. 

Are any main characters LGBTQ+? Yes, but it's not framed in those terms. Sarah really struggles with her identity for quite a bit of the novel, She talks about the Bible condemning homosexuality so be aware of that

Are any main characters people of colour? Yes, I mean that is very much the point. 

Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? No

Is there any sex stuff? No, just some kissing. 

Are drugs mentioned or used? No

Is there any talk of death? A little, and I will warn again for graphic violence. 

Are there swear words? No, but there are plenty of racial slurs as I said. For me, living in 2016 in Britain, it was hard to read them. I do understand that keeping the novel historically real was needed, though. 

Would I recommend the book? Yes. I didn't love it, but I did like it. Sarah is a really lovely, flawed, human heroine; I loved her. Linda is a good antagonist, too. I loved the ending - it felt really hopeful and sweet. 

How many stars? Six out of ten.