Name Me Nobody-- Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Friend P suggested I read something by Lois-Ann Yamanaka. Thank for leading me to this great book!

I immediately love Emi-Lou. Outcast, overweight, and abandoned by her mother, she has three bright spots in her life, her grandmother and her best friend Yvonne being the two obvious ones. But Emi-Lou is also her own bright spot; over the course of the book, we see her become more compassionate, a better friend, and able to stand up for herself and others.

Emi-Lou and Yvonne are soul sisters-- "wherever Yvonne go, Emi-Lou go too." Together, they join the local softball team; Emi-Lou pushes Yvonne to be the best player she can, and Yvonne pushes Emi-Lou to lose weight. But when Yvonne gets romantically involved with her teammate Babes, Emi-Lou feels her world falling apart-- she wants her best friend to be "normal."

Watching this all play out is so painful. Emi-Lou just doesn't know how to handle Yvonne's relationship with Babes. She gets crap from her aunt Vicky and her classmates about being Yvonne's spurned "femme," accused of being jealous. Meanwhile, Emi-Lou isn't used to her newly-thin body and how people treat her; she continues to "feel fat" and struggle with emotional eating. She has an on-and-off relationship with a guy who cares more about his image than about her, and crushes on a popular jock who tries to use her in every way. It's like a high school horror show. I wanted to scream watching all these bad things happen, the very worst of which is seeing Emi-Lou drive a wedge into her relationship with her best friend.

In the end, the best part for me was the story's three heroines-- tough and forgiving Yvonne, solid-loving Grandma, and an Emi-Lou who emerges from codependency and inadequacy and self-doubt. It's worth all the hurt.

(And, seriously, I cannot overstate the awesomeness of Grandma.)

Da Word-- Lee Tonouchi

“Who can tell the class what is wrong with Barry’s writing?”

“Oh Barry, he da kine. He stay abundantly writing in one freestyle kine manner using, I mean utilizing, large quantities of neologisms, ah?” Mits attempted trying fo’ incorporate as many of da new coconut-kine vocabulary words as he could remembah into dat one response.

“The problem is that both Barry AND Mits use too many colloquialisms,” Laurie volunteered, dis time without raising her hand.

“Try like, dat not wot I sed?” Mits whispered into my ear.

I want to call Lee Tonouchi an author, but he’s more than that. Tonouchi is also a language advocate, a promoter of the literary power of Hawai’ian Pidgin (aka Hybolics). When I prepared to read his collection of short stories, Da Word, I was a little concerned that the writing would feel gimmicky. Tonouchi’s common usage of Pidgin in mainstream and academic outlets—graduate school papers (including his Masters thesis); book reviews, letters to the editor, features, and columns; his resume (and interview) for the Ford “Emerging Pacific American Leaders in the Arts Convening”— is not without cultural statement. He calls himself “Da Pidgin Guerrilla,” not shrinking from his role as a linguistic and cultural activist. That said, I needn’t have feared Da Word— Tonouchi is a master of narrative voice.

There are many deep, conceptual things at work in Da Word, both linguistic and literary, and one could easily go there in a classroom setting. On the other hand, the stories are just plain entertaining and, for the most part, humorous.* I could see it being very relatable for young male readers. Beyond the language itself, Da Word is full of observations about Hawai’ian culture and the islands' relationship with Mainland. Overall, very insightful and broadening, but also a lot of fun.

*There is one story in particular (“Black Leather Hot”) with mature content—not graphic, but troubling. For this reason, I recommend Da Word for 8th grade and up.