Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Newberry Honor Book

Ratings Explanation

Violence:  September 16, 1916 – To the Government of Aleppo.  “It was first communicated to you that the government, by order of the Jemiet, had decided to destroy completely all the Armenians living in Turkey…An end must be put to their existence, however criminal the measures taken may be, and no regard must be paid to either age or sex nor to conscientious scruples.”  An extermination order against the Christian minority, the Armenians, was put into force by the Turks.  The Armenians were deported from their homes. ” The youngest Armenian boys were circumcised and converted to Islam, while the older boys were sold into slavery.  The women who converted to Islam were attached to harems; those who did not were raped and then either murdered or sold to the Arabs.  On the death march, the older people began to fall down, but no one was allowed to stop and help them.  The Turkish gendarmes then rode back and shot the elderly who had collapsed.  When they march through Kurd territory, the gendarmes stood aside while the Kurds robbed the caravans and defiled the women.  The gendarmes also traveled from tent to tent through the camps taking the most attractive women into town.  None who were taken, returned.  Veron’s mother says, ” Our executioner is everchanging, but always death awaits its task.”  The Armenians are infested with lice and then cholera decimates their camp.  Veron is injured in a bombing and loses part of her calf.  The archbishop is brutally murdered.  The Turks burn the city to the ground.  They burn people alive in their homes, and the smell of burning flesh hovers in the air.  Dead bodies are removed from the road to drive the auto.  The Turkish soldiers throw kerosene on a raft in the harbor and burn the people alive.  “The Armenian people, nearly half a million human beings, were herded into an area a mile and one half long and not more than a hundred feet wide.  The Armenians jumped in the harbor, hoping to swim to the ships.”  The Italians took people aboard, but the English poured boiling water down the sides of the ship on the people (apparently, a sign of neutrality?).  The Americans lined up with their movie cameras filming.  The Turkish soldiers came through the Armenians huddled on the wharf, carrying off the young women and girls.

Sexual Content:  (Rape is included under violence.)  Veron becomes engaged and then has a bad feeling about the impending marriage.  She breaks the engagement and saves her family name from disrespect.

Adult Themes:  Veron’s father’s business was harvesting and selling the gum that was used in making opium.  The girls were second class citizens, “When a girl dies, the ground must approve; while she lives, the public must approve.”After Varon is orphaned, her extended family treats her horrribly.  She chooses to go to an orphanage where she will receive an education.  The cousins never visited her, not once!  Many of the young girls who arrive at the orphanage were rescued from Arab harems by the British.  They arrived in the orphanage with little blue tattoos on their cheek or forehead.  When Veron is injured and needs help getting out of the wagon, she asks her aunt for help.  Her aunt “turned and looked at me without speaking and I saw a look of hatred come into her face.  You should have died instead of my children, they are dead, and now you have become my burden – thanks to your grandmother.”  A kind Greek general tries to adopt Veron.  She runs away to the Armenian Archbishop, where she receives help.

Synopsis

Veron Demhjian Kherdian was born into a prosperous Christian Armenian Family.  In 1915, the Turkish Government began to systematically exterminate the Armenian population.  The author, David Kherdian shares the story of his mother’s childhood interrupted by a devastating holocaust.  Veron and her family are forced on a death march by the Turkish gendarmes.  Veron is orphaned, as she witnesses the deaths of her family and friends.  Veron realizes that she will need to take risks to ensure a future for herself.  Veron’s courage ultimately results in her survival.

I love stories with a strong heroine!  Veron witnessed many atrocities, yet she remained resilient and courageous.  Veron took her future into her own hands as she ultimately chose to come to the U.S. as a mail-order bride.  Veron wanted to belong to the U.S. “because at that moment, the darkest of my life, foreign dignitaries had been searching for their citizens and offering them safety.  I wanted to belong to a country that cared for its people in that way, and had the power to ensure their safety, even in time of war.”

I could not put this book down.  I recommend this book for adults as well as junior high level readers.  I love this quote, “What you learn in childhood is carved on stone; what you learn in old age is carved on ice.”

©2009 The Literate Mother