BOW
The Book of the Week is…Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Reviewed by Bronwyn McLoughlin
Brooks delights in finding a little known corner of history to uncover and expose, and this is no exception. With her customary attention to historical detail, even in this case to the awkward English of puritanical America, and the engaging characters with whom she populates her works, she weaves a wonderful story that embraces so many issues with great insight. Caleb is a Native American, nephew to a medicine man. He lives a tribal life on the islands off Massachusetts. Secretly befriended as a child by Bethia, the daughter of a local missionary, Caleb learns to speak English. After his tribe is decimated by Smallpox, while he is undergoing his manhood training in the wilderness, he is able to build relations with the white missionaries and is welcomed into Bethia’s family. Bethia herself suffers great losses and hardship – she is an intelligent young woman who is forbidden to study the classics or undertake an academic education at all, deferring instead to her slow witted brother. Her life is controlled by the men in her family. She is both their domestic servant and something to be bartered. They dictate suitable marriage partners and plan her future without any consideration of her desires.
Caleb “crosses” to the mainland to study at Harvard, as yet in its infancy, with the help of benevolent societies from England who are keen to sponsor Native American education and missionary work. This physical crossing quite obviously parallels his crossing from tribal society to English society, but the crossing is not just Caleb’s. It is also Bethia’s story to tell. The crossing is far from straightforward, and as the aged and dying Bethia relates, ultimately fraught with potential disaster. This account of how the earliest English settlements of North America dealt with the Native Populations, or not, as the case may be, also reminds of the reasons why the Puritans settled North America at all. Religious disputations and disagreements, it seems, have not really progressed very far, and the comparison with modern sentiments is worth making. An intelligent read and worthwhile.
BOW factor: 9/10
WOW
The Website of the week is…The secret annex online
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/
This website was produced last year to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the opening of Anne Frank’s House to the public in 1960. A 3D tour of the secret annex, furnished as it would have been at that time, is a highlight and photos and film clips add further depth. The commentary explains in detail the events taking place at the time. Read the stories of everyone who lived in the hiding place and the people who supported them.
This excellent website won a Webby Award in 2010 as one of the best websites created worldwide and also an Adobe Max Award.
WOW factor: 9/10
From Mrs Judi Hurst