The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

“The Invention of Wings” is set between 1811 and 1838 and tells the tale of slavery in the South of America from two viewpoints, that of the slave, and that of a white girl from a slave-holding family, a girl who sees the cruelty endured by the slaves for what it is but, because of society, feels “alone in the world with my alien ideas.” 

That girl is Sarah Grimke, a famous abolitionist who can be read about on Wikipedia. This work of fiction starts with her being 11 and offered a slave called Handful. She refuses the gift. This, as the blurb says, is where the trouble begins.

From there Sarah realises that she too is enslaved in certain things – “at the age of eleven I owned a slave I couldn’t free.” She is also prevented from being who she wants to be because she is a woman. “If Sarah were a boy, she would be the greatest jurist in South Carolina!” her father says. But “for a woman to aspire to be a lawyer – well, possibly, the world would end.” And her slave Handful summed it up best of all by saying “my body might be slave, but not my mind, for you, it’s the other way round.”

So Sarah goes through her life with her alien ideas, which she also influences upon her younger sister and goddaughter Nina Grimke. Eventually she comes upon her purpose in life, “we can’t accept slavery, it must end. That’s what I was born for.” This is where she, with the help of Nina, discovers her wings – “I saw how cunning the Fates had been. Nina was one wing, I was the other.” Meanwhile Handful’s wings are still clipped. With the slaves having failed in a revolt she is still enslaved back in Charleston at the Grimke’s home.  

Sarah and Nina then become famous, or infamous, speakers across the North of America on issues around abolition and women’s rights which leads to them getting ostracised. They “could no longer set foot in Charleston without fear of imprisonment.”

And onto the ending which sees Handful no longer being able to face being a slave for the rest of her days and so planning to make an audacious and dangerous escape with her sister Sky - “We gonna leave here or die trying” – as they  want to finally discover their wings.

Overall this is a good work of fiction bringing slavery to life. The voices are good too as Handful sounds like how you’d imagine a slave to sound, and Sarah more the “daughter of Judge John Grimke – a Southern patriot, a slaveholder, an aristocrat” although without the pro-slavery elements of course. In the author’s note at the end the author says she was inspired by the words of Professor Julian Lester, “History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.” And that is what this book does.

Publication date: 7 January 2014

Amazon UK link: THE INVENTION OF WINGS 

The Princess and the Foal by Stacey Gregg

I read “The Princess and the Foal” with my 7-year-old daughter over several bedtimes.

This book looks the part. It would make an ideal gift for a young girl (I think 7 is probably too young to read this on their own though and the blurb on Amazon says 9+) because of the dust jacket with the pink and shiny silver parts, the girl there on the cover with the horse, and the fact the story is about a princess. There is also a pink ribbon bookmark which all adds up to making this book feel like something special, even before reading it.

The princess in the book is Princess Haya of Jordan. She is inspired by the real-life Princess Haya, although the book is a work of fiction, so don’t expect all the aspects to be accurate to real life.

The beginning is great. It is a letter from Haya to her dead mama. It is clear that she misses her dearly and she writes of her dreams, things that are to come in the book.

After that we start the story proper with 3-year-old Haya back at a time when her mum, Queen Alia, was alive. However the queen has to go to a hospital urgently to see those less fortunate. She tells Haya, “Your father is the King of a nation. The people of Jordan are all your brothers and sisters and we must love and care for them just like we care for you.” Queen Alia takes the helicopter to be quick, as a storm is on the way, but she is not quick enough and Haya never sees her mother again.

All through the book the grief for her mother shows through, but she finds a release through her love of horses. “The horses at Al Hummar are the most beautiful in all of Arabia. To Haya they are enchanted creatures, with silken manes, muzzles soft as velvet and dark eyes that can see into the soul.” Her father realises this and gets her her own horse, Bint Al-Rhee (meaning daughter of the wind), or Bree for short, for her birthday later saying, “there was so much grief in you that no one could get through. But from the moment you saw that filly, your heart began to open up again, and you came back.”  

The journey then takes Haya through bringing up the horse, riding her, and trying to fulfil her dream “to be a champion horse rider. One day I will ride in the King’s Cup.” There are trials and tribulations along the way of course, like Haya being sent to Boarding School in England, and her governess Frances getting in the way of her plans. “Do you think this is what your father wants? He is trying to run a Kingdom and here you are a tomboy nuisance with mud on her knees and horse chaff under her fingernails, causing trouble again with your filthy horses.”

But at the end she does fulfil her dream.

I liked how the book made the young princess into a normal girl, with her being naughty sometimes, and her getting teased by her younger brother. My daughter said, “I think the book is 5 star because it has exciting things happening to a princess, and it tells you to be brave and what to do if you have a pet horse.”

Publication date: 26 September 2013

Amazon UK link: The Princess and the Foal

Wonderwise: My Body, Your Body by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom

My 7-year-old daughter likes learning facts. About this book she said, "I like it. It has interesting facts, like about the eagle's eyes, and that houseflies can smell food from another street."

But this book doesn't have that many facts in my opinion being quite short, and even those that are in the book aren't necessarily things you didn't already know ("cheetahs are the fastest land animals on Earth"). However the one-liner style snippets together with a picture of the corresponding animal probably suit new readers such as 7-year-olds because of the colour and the bite-size nature.

The facts are grouped into categories based on human aspects like our senses, parts of our bodies... I don't think my 7-year-old really picked up on that, although there are some games suggested on the inside covers to bring out these elements more.

All in all a quick ride but one that she enjoyed.

Publication Date: 9 Jan 2014 (this edition)

Amazon UK Link: Wonderwise: My Body, Your Body

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

“Crazy Rich Asians” gives you the opportunity to be a voyeur into another world, the world of the super rich Chinese. It is a place “filled with jaw-dropping opulence”, a world where you wouldn’t think twice about using your private jet to travel half-way across the world in an instant.

It starts with a family tree to give you an idea of what you are getting yourself into. Here your background matters. And this is the “uppermost echelon of Asian wealth – a secretive, rarefied circle of families virtually unknown to outsiders who possessed immeasurably vast fortunes.” Outsiders, even the newly rich Chinese, are not welcome.

The book has a dual storyline, both of which have the common theme of an outsider being in a relationship with these people. The first strand follows double heiress Astrid Leong and her crumbling marriage to husband Michael, who “everyone in Singapore thinks married you for your money.”

But the main storyline follows Nick Young who lives in New York as a professor and is dating fellow professor Rachel Chu. He is taking Rachel back home for the summer. But news travels ahead of them as “this exotic strain of gossip spread rapidly through the Levantine networks of the Asian jet set, and within a few hours, almost everyone in this exclusive circle knew that Nicholas Young was bringing a girl home to Singapore. And, alamak! This was big news.” And inevitably the gossip leads to claims that she is nothing more than gold digger, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Nick doesn’t prepare Rachel for this despite the warnings that “the minute she walks into that house an innocence will be lost,” and “you can’t just throw Rachel into the deep end like this.”

Meanwhile Nick’s mother is doing her own preparations as she prepares a dossier on Nick's girlfriend. “The investigator thinks that they were most likely working class. In other words, they are PEASANTS!”  

So there are clashes along the way but the ride is great, giving you a glimpse into the high-life, and there is a happy ending. What more can you ask for?

Publication date: 5 Dec 2013

Amazon UK link: Crazy Rich Asians