Forgotten Fire-- Adam Bagdasarian

I think Holocaust literature is pretty compelling for a lot of young adults. It's mind-blowing to think of an event so terrible in such recent history. After reading The Diary of Anne Frank, it's terrifying to think that someone your same age, not so different from yourself, had to look death in the eye like that. We had Holocaust literature units all throughout school, and my elementary, middle, and high school libraries all had fiction and nonfiction titles on the subject. The problem is-- and this is embarrassing to admit-- it took me a very long time to realize that the Holocaust was not an isolated incident of genocide, and there were no books about comparable tragedies in those libraries of my youth.

Enter Forgotten Fire, Adam Bagdasarian's account of his great-uncle's survival of the Armenian genocide. In 1915, Vahan Kendarian is 12 years old and living a life of privilege in the Armenian village of Biltis. Things begin to fall apart, however, when his politically powerful father is led away by Turkish gendarmes. Over the following months, Vahan's family members are summarily killed or otherwise lost to him. His survival repeatedly turns on making split-second decisions-- whether to hide or run, to conceal or reveal his identity, say nothing or speak out. Time and again, he meets someone who he grows to love and trust, only for them to be brutalized or otherwise touched by tragedy. We know Vashan escapes and eventually comes to the United States, where many years later his great-nephew will write about his journey, but at so many points in the story escape seems impossible.

I almost stopped breathing when his friend's mother takes Vashan to his old home to work as a stable boy for Talaat Bey, the Turkish governor who has taken up residence there. Bey was known as the "Horseshoer of Baskale," having nailed horseshoes to the feet of his victims. In the story, Bey speaks kindly to Vashan and tell him how much he respected Vashan's father. The whole thing sent uneasy chills down my spine.

The backstory to Forgotten Fire has its own power. Vashan recorded his memoirs on tape when he was dying, and eventually they were given by his son to Bagdasarian. It took Bagdasarian ten years to write the book, which he describes as a highly emotional and self-defining experience:

During the writing of this book, I realized what had happened to the Kenderian family, my grandmother, and my great-uncles and great-aunts had somehow been inside of me my whole life, that the trauma of those events through the seed from one from one generation of Armenians to another. Writing the book freed me of that, in a way. That said, I think of this story, aside from being specifically about the genocide, as being a metaphor for life. The book is about loss and adversity of any kind, and who we become as a result of that.

Recommended for 9th grade and up on account of some seriously heavy content.