Manga review - Emma by Kaoru Mori

Preparing for this week's first ever teen MANGA SHARE tomorrow, I took home a stack of manga to read. In a mere 30 minute train ride, I devoured the first volume in Kaoru Mori's Emma series, and felt myself transported to a different time and place than I ever expected manga would take me. Emma is essentially the manga version of historical fiction, and while the narrative version may have bored me, Emma had quite the opposite effect. You see, Emma is a mere maid in Victorian London, which isn't a desirable fate exactly, but Emma is lucky. Emma is beautiful, and she has all sorts of suitors with way more money than her family ever had.

In the first volume, her main love interest is William Jones, a member of the landed gentry whose father would be crushed to find out his son is actually in love with a maid.

But no good love story comes without complication, or in the case of this volume, a bit of a love triangle. William's friend Hakim Atawari, is visiting from India and staying with the Jones when his gaze falls on Emma. It's anyone's guess who she will end up with, and volume one is just the beginning.

While this may be not the right manga for our Naruto fans, it could definitely interest fans of the popular historical romance series by Anna Godbersen that begins with The Luxe and other readers of shojo (girl) manga.

FYI - Emma manga has a cult following in Japan, and even spawned a maid-themed cafe in Shinjuku (a section of Tokyo).

Book Review - Guardian by Julius Lester

I'll be the first to admit I don't read a lot of historical fiction, but when it sounds compelling and it's only 130 pages, well, I'm there! The esteemed Julius Lester's latest (I say this because this author has written Newbery Honors, won the National Book Award, and much more) offering was at times heartbreaking, infuriating, and painful, but a completely important book. Set in 1946 in a rural southern town, it is the story of a lynching. (FYI, a lynching is when a mob violently punishes someone, outside of the law. Lynchings have been illegal in the United States since 1922.)

Beginning as a quiet tale about a Caucasian boy Ansel and his African-American friend Willie, who hang out outside Ansel's father's stores and ponder their future, Guardian weaves you in and out of other happenings in the town on the same day, a day that will change Ansel's life forever. The laconic start to story filled me with dread, knowing that at any point, the whole tone of the book would change. In one dramatic incident, everything does, and the person least likely to commit the crime is accused and punished before everyone's eyes. Some may turn a blind eye, but nobody tries to change the outcome.

It's painful to read about the past, both through this fictionalized past in this brief novel, and in the appended tables at the end, statistics compiled of lynchings in the United States from 1882 to 1968. Only three states in the continental United States have no recorded lynchings, and Illinois is not among them.

* * * * (four out of five stars)
RIYL: Julius Lester's other books, historical fiction, tales set in the deep South

Book Review - Sister Wife by Shelley Hrdlitschka

Imagine never having used the Internet. If you're female, imagine that you've never worn anything besides long dresses, and that you're very concerned with modesty. Starting to feel like you've stepped into a historical fiction book? Think again. This book is set right now. Confused? Now imagine that you've just turned fifteen, and your husband has been picked out for you. He's in his forties, and already has several wives.

As Celeste approaches her fifteenth birthday, her impending marriage to a man (not a guy her own age, mind you, but a much older man) is constantly on her mind. Celeste lives in Unity, a rural polygamous community. It's all she's ever known, outside of brief trips into town to go shopping with her father. While Unity itself is fictional, the kind of story it tells is real. In the United States and Canada, there are thousands of people living in polygamous communities, just like Celeste.

Celeste knows she has other options, because many teenage guys have left Unity, and there are stories of women who have. But could she leave her family behind, leave behind everything she's ever known?

Sister Wife is a fascinating yet quick read that really considers what it would be like to live in Unity. Told from two other viewpoints in addition to Celeste, Sister Wife allows you, the reader, to step into the mind-frame of Celeste's younger sister Nanette, who can't wait to become a sister wife, and Taviana, an outsider who found an unlikely safe haven in Unity. It offers no easy solutions to Celeste's predicament, and keeps you wondering until the very end about what she will do.

* * * 1/2 stars (out of five)
Read if you: are interested in learning about the hot topic (the subject of today's Oprah!), are curious about other lifestyles, or want an engaging book about a person in a real predicament