Elvis & Olive

Elvis and Olive
by: Stephanie Watson
2008
Hardback, 230 pg, kids print size

I've noticed that we have some after-school home-work doers pop into Menchie's so yesterday I asked one of the young boys (the one with glasses) what was a book he read recently that he liked.  He thought and said, Elvis and Olive.  I asked him if it made him laugh and he said yes.  So he wrote it down for me and today i went to check it out from the library and it just happened to be on display!  I rode home pretty excited and read chapters in between doing Saturday chores while icing my neck.
Oh, what a disappointment.  I was not disappointed in the author's attempt to communicate cleverly and effectively a story told from the viewpoint of two 10-year-olds.  What made me sad was the story line.  Summer vacation for kids should be fun but what i read was disturbing to me as a 47 year old reader and i thought i would never want my soon to be 10 year old niece reading this.  These kiddos experienced abandonment, deceit, infidelity, betrayal, hate, sadness, theft, confusion, destruction of property, invasion of privacy... and then a few pages of somewhat reconciliation at the end.  Looks like i need to become more familiar with books at this age-level so i can recommend a good one. 

Left to Tell

 Left to Tell
Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
by: Immaculee Ilibagiza
2006
210 pages, paperback (with a few photos too)

There are gaps in what I know about history, the world, and the people who live in it.  How did i not know of this awfully tragedy that took place in my own lifetime?  In 1994, over 1 million people were brutally murdered in about 100 days in Rwanda, many died at the hand of what had been a friend or neighbor.  Tragic indeed.  Thankfully Immaculee's retelling of her own survival story has a redemptive tone.  Yes, it was very hard for me to read, yet i read through it quickly and will think about it maybe for the rest of my life.  Stories like these change one's perspective on so many things.  
One Tuesday in my ladies prayer time we were discussing various aspects of Col. 3:12 (putting on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience) and one of the gals used this book to to further explain elements of compassion.  She loaned Left to Tell to me, and as I wanted to learn more about Africa while Sophie was living there, I began to read it.  Then I put the book down for these images were too much for me,  then i thought i can not simply stick my head in the sand.  I read on.  It is a very sober, straightforward firsthand account giving just enough background to make some sense of two tribes Hutus and and the Tutsis that have for years lived with a form of unity including intermarrying within  Rwanda.  Hope springs from the pages; hope in God, hope of forgiveness, hope of healing. 
It is a book worth reading.