Global YA Novels (Genocide) and Rhetorical Reading

Genocide Education. Sarah J. Donovan, PhD, donovan.sd@comcast.net, www.ethicalela.com

Genocide Literature in Middle and Secondary Classrooms: Rhetoric, Witnessing, and Social Action in a Time of Standards and Accountability

Coming September 2016

Middle Passage Native Peoples of North America Armenians (verse)

Ukraine (picture) Cambodia Guatemala

Former Yugoslavia Iraq Rwanda Sudan Girl at war : a novel

Additional Genocide Titles for Your Classroom Library

Bosnia Herzegovina

Filipović, Zlata. Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo . New York: Viking, 1994. (memoir)
Nović, Sara. Girl at War: A Novel.. Random House 2015. (more high school)
Galloway, Steven. The Cellist of Sarajevo . New York: Riverhead Books, 2008. (multiple narrators)
Mead, Alice. Girl of Kosovo . New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2001. (easy read, short)

Cambodia

Ho, Minfong. The Clay Marble . New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1991.
Ho, Minfong. The Stone Goddess . New York: Orchard Books, 2003.
McCormick, Patricia. Never Fall Down. New York: Balzer and Brey, 2012.
Ratner, Vaddey. In the Shadow of the Banyan . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Smith, Icy, and Sopaul Nhem. Half Spoon of Rice: A Survival Story of the Cambodian Genocide Manhattan Beach, CA: East West Discovery Press, 2010. (picture book)

Armenian Genocide

Bagdasarian, Adam. Forgotten Fire . New York: Laurel-Leaf, 2002.
Bohjalian, Chris. The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel , 2012. (adult fiction but appeals to teens)
Skrypuch, Marsha F. Nobody’s Child . Toronto: Boardwalk Books, 2003.
Walrath, Dana. Like Water on Stone . New York: Delacorte Press, 2014. (verse)

Iraqi Kurds

Ellis, Deborah. Children of War: Voices of Iraqi Refugees. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2008.
Laird, Elizabeth. Kiss the Dust. New York: Dutton Children’s Books, 1992.

Guatemala

Brown, Skila. Caminar . Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2014. (verse)
Cameron, Ann. Colibri . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. (also available in Spanish)
Mikaelsen, Ben. Red Midnight . New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002.
Mikaelsen, Ben. Tree Girl . New York: HarperTempest, 2004.
Pellegrino, Marjorie W. Journey of Dreams. London: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2009.

Middle Passage

Draper, Sharon M. Copper Sun. New York: Athenaeum Books for Young Readers, 2006.
Fox, Paula, and Eros Keith. The Slave Dancer: A Novel . Scarsdale, NY: Bradbury Press,1973.
Hendry, Frances M. Chains. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Rwanda and Burundi

Combres, Élisabeth, Shelley Tanaka, and Michael Solomon. Broken Memory: A Novel of Rwanda. Toronto: Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2009.
Cornwell, Nicki, and Karin Littlewood. Christophe’s Story. London: Frances Lincoln Children’s, 2011. (easy read)
Jansen, Hanna. Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books, 2006.
Stassen, Jean-Philippe. Deogratias, a Tale of Rwanda. New York: First Second, 2006.

Native Peoples of North American

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown,and Co., 2007.
Bruchac, Joseph. Hidden Roots . New York: Scholastic, 2004.
Edwardson, Debby D., Alex Ferrari, and Melanie Kroupa. My Name Is Not Easy . New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2011.
Gansworth, Eric L. If I Ever Get Out of Here: A Novel with Paintings . New York: Arthur A.Levine Books, 2013.
Tingle, Tim. How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story. Oklahoma City, OK: The RoadRunner Press, 2013.

Ukraine

Mak, Ol’ha. Stones Under the Scythe . Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Inc., 2011.
Skrypuch, Marsha F., and Michael Martchenko. Enough. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2000. (picture book, folktale)
Watts, Irene N. Touched by Fire . Toronto: Tundra Books, 2013. .

Sudan

Bassoff, Leah, and Laura DeLuca . Lost Girl Found. Toronto: Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2014.
Farish, Terry. The Good Braider: A Novel . Las Vegas, NV: Amazon Children’s Pub, 2012.
Mead, Alice. Year of No Rain. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Park, Linda S. A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story . Boston: Clarion Books, 2010.
Pinkney, Andrea D., and Shane Evans. The Red Pencil . New York: Little, Brown and Company,2014. (verse)

Rhetorical Reading Strategy

Process

Preparing to read: do a “close” reading of the book’s frame; note the cover, summary, chapters, maps, images, author’s note; attend to ethos, pathos, logos
Read about the author: book jacket and/or Goodreads or Google search; attend to ethos
Read. Notice what you notice. Mark with sticky notes for discussion and/or teacher conference.
Attend to the book’s ethical (ethos), emotional (pathos), and rational (logos) appeals as you read. What do you notice? What makes you say so?

Attending questions for self, small group, and whole class discussions:

Attend to the ethos of the text: Who is the author and how did he/she prepare for this story? Who did he/she choose as the narrator why? Is the narrator reliable? Whose experiences are privileged and hidden? What do you notice about the author’s craft – prose/verse, shifts in points of view, sequence of events, character interaction, shifts in setting, sensory language, symbols, language? Are the graphic details necessary and ethical for a teen audience – are children or victims overly exploited, is their suffering treated with dignity? Is it a child or teen narrator, and if so, is she/he treated as clever, brave, naïve, helpless? How does the author use supporting characters –for guidance, to teach, for support, to show conflict? What seems cliché or stereotypical? Is there something unexpected or fresh here?
Attend to the pathos of the text: What feelings are you experiencing? How is the author moving you to feel anger, pity, joy – narrator’s voice, dialogue, imagery, sensory language, mood? How is the author trying to satisfy you as a reader – action, images, description, violence, cliffhangers, suspense, secrets? What feels familiar and unfamiliar, comfortable and uncomfortable? How will you process the pain, anger, or confusion you experience- journal, discussion, questioning, conferring?
Attend to the logos of the text: How is the author blending fact and fiction (rational appeal)? What are you learning about the subject? What issues or groups of people are intersecting—how did they come into contact? Why? What words or language does the author use that seem especially important to what is going on in the story? Does a character or event feel like a teaching device? Is the book overly didactic- preachy? What further inquiry will you do (research, books from other perspectives, other beginnings and endings) to fill in the gaps?

Some Examples:

Ethos: The author is Native and infuses his experience with discrimination and the need to hiding native roots; narrator is 11 and is observant, questioning, naive

Pathos: I am moved by the first person, 11 year old Sonny as he tells the story of a year when he discovered a family secret, which made me do additional research.

Logos: The story is in the 1950s after the 1931 Vermont law to sterilize Native peoples by tricking them; research: international push for eugenics (Sweden, Canada, later Nazi Germany) -- the idea that traits such as poor health and bad character could be bred out of the race preventing inferior genetic material from being passed on.

Ethos: Multiple narrators of family members and an eagle, which serves as a protector of children; the author’s grandparents were survivors of the Armenian genocide Like Water on Stone

Pathos: confused, a little detached because of the verse style; torn, pulled by the different experiences and emotions of parents, children, eagle

Logos: Many ethnic groups living together yet only some are targeted; long journey to safety shown in maps; research: during and after WWI (1915), Indigenous and Christian ethnic groups including Assyrians, Ottomon Greeks, Turks (Muslim), Arab; now Armenian diasporas world wide; ongoing denial, Pope visiting, Kardashians are Armenian; Obama refusing to use the word “genocide” because Turkey is a key partner against ISIS, realities of diplomacy

Never Fall Down

Ethos: Writer interviewed Arn-Chorn Pond, a child soldier; child narrator with dialect, observational tone

Pathos: I am truggling to follow the dialect, connecting with the childhood stories of play in the beginning; later, disgusted by the graphic details. Are they necessary for teen readers?

Logos: Learning about child soldiers; music saved the narrator; research -- 1975-79, during Vietnam War, U.S. against Vietnam, so was Cambodia; Stalinism, agrarian economy as revenue for Cambodia; US aware of genocide, but President Ford, reluctant to get involved in Southeast Asia; 1978, Carter declared human rights violations but interventions; humanitarian efforts in Thai refugee camps, adoption of refugee children