When I Was a Soldier

Valerie Zenatti, When I Was a Soldier: A Memoir, 2007, Bloomsbury USA.

In Israel when you turn 18 you enter the Israeli Defense Forces even if you are a woman.* Although Valerie immigrated with her family from France to Israel when she was 12, like her friends she will enter the IDF where she will serve for two years. Once she arrives at her basic training base she realizes that nothing has prepared her for the regimented and difficult life of the defense forces. And she must still deal with her life on the outside, knowing that she won't always be in the military.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this book is the interplay between society's and the military's expectations when it comes to the women serving in the IDF. Valerie and her friends have always known that they would enter the military upon graduation [unless they were Orthodox Jews or got married]. This is something which the average American female will not experience. Even though most males in this country are required to register for the draft upon their eighteenth birthday, there has not actually been a draft since Vietnam. So chances are they have not had that experience, unless they are planning to enter the military after high school graduation. As the book progresses we see the strain that Valerie undergoes as she attempts to reconcile the civilian aspects of her personality with the emerging military aspects of it. She experiences a thrill at becoming a member of the radar team who track pilots from neighboring Arab countries, listening in to them over the frequencies all day and learning practically every inch of her country and the ones that surround it.

Valerie comes to find herself at odds, she is proud of her service in the IDF but she is also counting the days until her release. She serves her adopted nation of Israel and yet yearns to return to France someday. An especially poignant scene centers around a bus trip back to the base which takes her through Gaza where the bus is stoned by Palestinians. Instead of being angry and indignant, Valerie is afraid and lets the reader know she understands why the Palestinians are angry at Israel. At one point in the book, she and many other soldiers question the purpose of the patriotic materials that make up part of their training. Some soldiers even debate the validity of Israel's occupation of Palestine with their superiors.

Although much has changed in that corner of the world since Zenatti wrote this book, at its very heart the unusual situation of a teenage girl serving in the military will be a draw for teens who want to see what it is like to live in a country where such service is required.


*You are not required to serve if you are a married woman, prohibited by your religion from serving, or have a physical or psychological reason which prevents you serving. Men serve three years and women two. (IDF)

hole in my life

Jack Gantos, hole in my life, 2004, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.

I know I haven't read much YA non-fiction yet but I feel inclined to say this book is my new YA-non fiction fav. As in, I'm a total Jack Gantos fan-girl omg!!! Er, well sort of. I DID really like this work and when I become a Young Adult Librarian this book is going on my list of recommended reading. Read on and you'll see why . . . .

When you think of what makes a children's author I'm sure the words 'ex-con' don't exactly come to mind. Nevertheless Jack Gantos is a well-known children's author who once upon a time (as in back in 1973), was a nineteen year old who got busted by the Feds for taking part in smugging hashish into NYC from St. Croix. That's not his whole story though. Jack tells us about the period of a couple years where he went from high school graduate to one-time drug smuggler to his decision to become a children's author. Unlike other stories of getting in with the wrong crowd and how teenagers go bad, this isn't a problem novel; and Jack isn't about to tell you he regrets his behavior. Jack doesn't BS the reader, he knows you'd probably feel the same way if you did the same thing and got caught.

I'm kicking myself now because when I helped out at an awards ceremony for YA student writers last spring, Jack Gantos was the Guest of Honor. In fact, the people in charge gave out this book to the winners and Jack signed the copies. I should have bought a copy and got him to sign it, but oh well. In writing this book Gantos has done a superb job. While his character does engage in recreational drug use and some months of crime to smuggle that one load of hashish, he neither condemns his actions nor glamorizes them. They are what they are, his experiences, his decisions, his past. You may identify with it or else find it completely alien to your own life experiences. I haven't read anything else he has written (children's or otherwise) so I can't say how it compares to that. I can say that the style of his writing is engaging. You don't read it because it keeps you on your seat nor because you're secretly hoping Jack gets shot by the drug smugglers, it is the way he tells his story that draws you in and keeps you there even though you know all along how the story will end.

Eleanor's Story

Eleanor Ramrath Garner, Eleanor's Story: An American Girl in Hitler's Germany, 2003, Peachtree Publishers.

The year Eleanor Ramrath turned ten, her parents moved the family back to Germany practically on the eve of Germany's invasion of Poland, and the subsequent outbreak of World War II. What was supposed to be a two year stint for her father to work as an electrical engineer turns into the family being forced to remain in Germany until the war is over. Living in Berlin, the family experiences the war firsthand, undergoing nightly bombing raids by the Allies, rationing, fear for their status as enemy aliens, and the constant hope they will emerge from this war able to return to America.

This book is one of my first forays into Young Adult Non-Fiction. I thought the plot was an interesting spin on the war-time memoir. Instead of the experience of an American living in the United States or a German living in Germany, Ramrath has the unique story of the experience of living as a German-American citizen in Nazi Germany. From the beginning you wonder if the parents will be allowed back into their adopted nation when the war is over (Ramrath and her older brother Frank were both born in the United States, her father was a naturalized citizen but her mother still had German citizenship).

The part of the book Ramrath does best are her vivid descriptions of how her physical environment changes over the years, months, and even hours of the war. You will not be able to forget the fates of those trapped under a neighboring apartment building. Nor will you fail to appreciate how devastating the bombings were to the city of Berlin. What Ramrath does NOT do well is to write about the physical and verbal abuse her father subjected his children to. She glosses over these aspects of her childhood as though it were the standard for anyone growing up during that time, which frankly I'm skeptical about. Ramrath also does poorly in describing what was happening to the Jewish citizens of Germany at this time. There is only one anecdote that deals with the treatment of these citizens (Her brother gives up his seat to an elderly Jewish woman and is screamed at by a fellow subway passenger). At a later point in the book she claims to have stumbled upon a "slave labor" camp, yet at the end of the book she makes the statement that she thought what happened to millions of people was a rumor until she was taught about it in history class upon her return to the US.

While I feel strongly about my critiques I also realize that the reason she glosses over much of this is because of her audience. She probably feels that it was not appropriate to discuss such topics as child abuse and the Holocaust to her projected audience. It brings up an interesting question to my mind, how much is too much discussion of such difficult issues in YA literature? I'm not sure myself as of yet. Probably once I read more I'll have a better answer for you.