The Wind Knows My Name

After hearing Isabel Allende interviewed on TV about The Wind Knows My Name, I knew this was a novel that I wanted to read.

In this novel, Allende connects the plight of Jewish youth on the Kindertransport for England during WWII with the current family separation crisis at our southern border.

The story starts out pretty disjointed and as a result, I had a very hard time getting absorbed in the novel. We first meet Samuel in Vienna. After his father disappears on Kristalnacht, her mother is convinced that the best bet for Samuel is to put him on a Kindertransport with a small suitcase, some large clothes (for him to grow into), his violin, a photo of his parents, and a bravery medal from his neighbor.

Next we meet Leticia who comes to the United States in the 1980s with her father after the town they lived in in El Salvador was massacred and they had nothing else left.

Finally, we meet Anita who also flees from El Salvador after her mother feels like their lives are in danger. The trip to the north is a difficult one and they arrive in Nogales at the time when the family separation policy was being enforced. Anita and her mother are separated.

We get a glimpse of each of these characters' stories, but it wasn't until the stories got connected that I found the book absorbing to the point that I couldn't put it down. This is a novel that I will be thinking about long after reading the last page.

 

I recently re-read The Star and the Shamrock by Jean Grainger. It's the book my synagogue book club is discussing this month for a Holocaust Remembrance observance. I read it last spring and wanted to refresh my mind before leading the discussion (or participating in the discussion). I'd gotten it as an Amazon Prime First Read, enjoyed it and thought it would make for a good, slightly different discussion.

After I reread The Star and the Shamrock, I immediately purchased the sequel, The Emerald Horizon, and quickly devoured that one. I think I found The Emerald Horizon a more satisfying read and truthfully, I think that this book would make for a better discussion, but only if The Star and the Shamrock is read first.

In The Star and the Shamrock, Ariella Bannon puts her children, Liesl and Erich, on the Kindertransport out of Germany. She's connected with her missing husband's cousin in England. Cousin Elizabeth will take the children off the train and will care for them until Ariella is able to be with them again. The Star and the Shamrock is about Ariella's difficult decision and the life the children come to have with Elizabeth - first in England and eventually in  Northern Ireland. It's primarily the story of Elizabeth, Liesl and Erich. We don't learn much more about  Ariella or what is happening to her back in Germany.

The Emerald Horizon picks up where The Star and the Shamrock left off. The sequel has two storylines going. We learn about Ariella's life during the war as we continue to learn about the children's lives in Ireland at the end of the war. Ireland at the end of the war is a place of uncertainty for the children of the Kindertransport as they wonder the fate of their families left behind in their home countries and what that will mean for their futures. Berlin at the end of the war remains an extremely dangerous place. Germany might have surrendered but conditions are still grim and it is impossible to know who can be trusted.

Of course what drives Ariella forward is the determination to be reunited with her children. That is something I can definitely relate to.

Grainger keeps adding books to The Star and the Shamrock series. Currently, there are two more novels. Each was declared to be the last in the series so who knows what might be coming. The Hard Way Home is about Liesl's university years and The World Starts Anew which picks up Erich's story in the 1950s. I'm on the fence about whether I'll read on, but I would highly recommend the first two novels in the series.

The Star and the Shamrock

I learned about this delightful book from Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. If you can say that a Holocaust novel is delightful. What was especially nice about The Star and the Shamrock by Jean Grainger was that the kindle version was free! How nice is that.

This is a historical fiction novel about the Kindertransport in the early days of World War II. Ariel Bannon, a Jewish woman married to a non-Jew who was arrested and taken away in Germany, feels that the salvation of her children rests on sending her children to Ireland, to her husband's Catholic cousin, Elizabeth... who just happened to have been married briefly to a Jew who was killed on the last day of World War I. Elizabeth was living in Liverpool, England, when Ariel's letter arrives via a circuitous route.

Liesel and Erich Bannon's arrival in Elizabeth's life causes major changes. A bombing in Liverpool forces Elizabeth back to her home in Northern Ireland where she and the children meet a large group of other Kindertransport children - and their protectors.

Back home, living in her mother's house, Elizabeth comes to terms with her relationship with her mother. And she is able to open her heart again, something she thought she would never be able to do after losing her husband and her baby many years before.

There is a sequel available on Amazon about Ariel's story. And then there's a third installment coming out later this summer.