Queen of Hearts

Brooks, Martha. Queen of hearts. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011. ISBN 978-0-374-34229-6.

Plot Summary:

Queen of Hearts portrays the story of Canadian teenager Marie-Claire and her fight with tuberculosis. Set in the 1940’s, she is moved to a sanatorium with little privacy, abundant grief, and challenges galore. As she fights the disease, Marie-Claire builds new friendships and even meets her first love. 

Critical Analysis:

Queen of Hearts is a story of life, death, healing and love. The story is well written and painfully honest. The book is set in Canada during World War II.  Marie-Claire and her two younger siblings are diagnosed with Tuberculosis and forced to move to a sanatorium for treatment. Marie-Claire, who comes from a modest farm family, finds it challenging to adjust to life at the Sanatorium. Marie-Claire shares a room with a young girl who comes from a much wealthier family, and both girls learn that a person’s wealth is not as important as many think. In this story, Marie-Claire must learn to adapt to living in the sanatorium, which includes breathing treatments, surgeries, and “chasing the cure.”

Cultural markers included in this book are Canadian patriotism shown by the patients; French names, including Maman and Josée; and war-time vocabulary. Since the majority of this story takes place in the sanatorium, the reader doesn’t get much insight into life in Canada during the 1940’s. The reader does gain a great familiarity of living with Tuberculosis, the challenges within, and the fight to survive.

Reviews:

Booklist:

Set in a tuberculosis sanatorium in Canada during the early 1940s, this moving perspective of the home front during wartime is told in the first-person, present-tense voice of Marie-Claire, who at 14 is infected with TB and must move with her younger brother and sister from their Manitoba farm to a treatment center, where they are separated. Over nearly three years, she suffers not only the crushing physical symptoms of her disease but also loneliness, fury at her parents, and overwhelming sorrow and guilt when her little brother dies. So weak at first that she cannot get out of bed, she slowly recovers, but others do not. Along with the medical details--lesions and treatments, infection, collapsed lungs, fluoroscopy--the personal drama drives the story, from scenes of Marie-Claire venting furiously to her sweet, supportive roommate abou. this stupid pathetic plac. to surprising reversals. Marie-Claire falls in love, but there is no easy resolution, especially with her distant dad. Readers will be held by the story's heartbreaking truths, right to the end.

School Library Journal:

It is 1940, and Canada, along with the rest of the world, is at war. Marie-Claire, 15, lives on a farm with Maman, Papa, and her younger brother and sister. Never easy, life gets much harder after down-on-his-luck Oncle Gerard comes to stay and then dies from tuberculosis in the local infirmary. Soon, Marie-Claire and her siblings are diagnosed with TB and consigned to the same institution. Adventuresome and headstrong Marie-Claire is confined to a bed next to painfully cheerful Signy and told to be a "patient patient." When her brother dies just before Christmas, Marie-Claire must come to terms with the blame she has placed on herself for having taken him to visit their Oncle, as well as her father's inability to deal with what has happened to his children. The novel provides an intriguing glimpse into the now-unfamiliar world of TB sanatoriums. From a scene in which the women tan naked to soak up the sun to Marie-Claire's stolen moment spent flying a kite by moonlight with her new love, the story is played out in small moments, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes sweet, and always poignant. Brooks masterfully re-creates a TB sanatorium through the protagonist's experience and believable characters. A well-drawn, innocent, yet compelling work of historical fiction.

Connections:

This book can be used in a study about World War II, Tuberculosis, or Canada.

Check out the following titles also about Tuberculosis…

Graff, Nancy Price. Taking wing. New York: Clarion Books, 2005.

Hayles, Marsha. Breathing room. New York: Henry Holt, 2012.

A Faraway Island

Thor, Annika, and Linda Schenck. A faraway island. New York: Delacorte Press, 2009.

ISBN 978-0-385-73617-6

Plot Summary:

During the summer of 1939, two Jewish sisters, Nellie and Stephie, from Vienna are sent to Sweden by their parents to find safety from the Nazis. The sisters live in separate foster homes. They expect Sweden to be a wonderful place to stay, but Stephie finds it challenging to fit in and is mocked by most of her peers. While the sisters are not reunited with their parents by the end of the story, Stephie finds her place in Sweden, and is finally able to live happily on the island.

Critical Analysis:

A Faraway Island is a beautifully and painfully written book concerning Jewish assimilation into the Swedish culture. Cultural markers included in the book are relevant and accurate. Of course, the language barrier for depicted in the story presents a constant struggle for the sisters. The sisters, who have grown up speaking German, are rushed into a Swedish speaking country with no prior experience. It is only when Stephie begins to speak and understand Swedish that she begins to find a comfortable place in her new country. While Stephie is often bullied because of her lack of knowledge of Swedish, she is also picked on because of her clothing, attitude, economic status, and level of schooling.  

In this story, the reader becomes vaguely familiar with the Jewish culture, but the Swedish culture is discussed in more detail, especially pertaining to religion. Stephie is forced to attend a Christian church while in Sweden. Attending a new church, with vastly differing beliefs from her own, while speaking a different language presents an immense challenge to the sisters. While Nellie fits in quickly, Stephie is more determined to resist the new culture and religion. While in Sweden the sisters celebrate many Christian celebrations, including Easter, which is a new cultural experience for both.

This story offers a painful and uplifting look into the experience of the young Jewish refugees in Sweden. Through the story, the reader gets an inside look at the Swedish and Jewish cultures, language assimilation, and the challenge of building friendships in a new and different culture. Stephie and Nellie’s story is uncomfortable at times, but honest to a fault.  

Awards and Reviews:

Mildred L. Batchelder Award, 2010 Winner United States

Sydney Taylor Book Award, 2010 Honor Book Older Readers; United States

Best Children's Books of the Year, 2010; Bank Street College of Education; United States

Horn Book Fanfare, 2009; United States

Notable Children's Books, 2010; ALSC American Library Association; United States

Booklist:

In 1939, Jewish sisters Stephie and Nellie Steiner are evacuated from their home in Nazi-occupied Vienna to an island off the coast of Sweden, where separate foster families take them in. Eight-year-old Nellie adjusts very quickly—learning Swedish, making friends, and enjoying her new foster siblings. Twelve-year-old Stephie has more difficulties—she is tormented by school bullies, must deal with a cold and critical foster mother, and worries about her parents’ safety. Thor successfully captures the feel of small-town Sweden circa 1939-40, with its kindly citizens devoted to Christianity and good works who nevertheless harbor latent anti-Semitic views. The translation is mostly smooth, and the use of third-person present tense narration helps distance readers from Holocaust realities while subtly reminding them that child refugees still exist. The first of four volumes featuring the Steiner sisters, this should be popular with fans of Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars (1989) and make a good bridge to more visceral memoirs such as Anita Lobel’s No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War (1998). Grades 4-6.

Kirkus:

At the onset of World War II, Jewish Stephanie and her younger sister, Nellie, are sent to a Swedish island to live with separate host families while they await their parents' visas to America. Even after the turmoil of Vienna, Stephie struggles with separation from her sister and living with strict Aunt Marta in lonely isolation, while Nellie quickly finds friends and comfort. As time passes and her Swedish improves, Stephie learns more about why her circumstances are more difficult than Nellie's. While the parents encounter multiple barriers to reuniting the family, some small adjustments are made in the girls' daily lives to ease their situation. The increasing involvement of Sweden in the war provides a commonality between the girls and the villagers, allowing Stephie to look outside her pain to find an inner strength and determination that she never knew she had. Straightforwardly told in the present tense and easier for tender hearts than the brutal stories of concentration camps, this still conveys the reality of war and the suffering of those displaced by it. 2009, Delacorte, 256p, $16.99. Category: Historical fiction. Ages 9 to 14.

Connections:

This book can be integrated into the curriculum to teach about varying cultures, bullying, language acquisition, and religion.

Check out the following titles concerning World War II refugees…

Casanova, Mary. The klipfish code. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007.

Hartnett, Sonya, and Andrea Offermann. The midnight zoo. Somerville, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2011.

Thor, Annika, and Linda Schenck. The lily pond. New York: Delacorte Press, 2011.

Brave Emily: 1944. Middleton, WI: Pleasant, 2006.