PICTURE BOOK - The Girl With a Brave Heart: A Tale from Tehran by Rita Johanforuz

Illustrated by Vali Mintzi

2010, Barefoot Books, Cambridge, MA

avail in HC and paper - and at Bosler

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.37 - 112 ratings

My rating: 3

Endpapers- a solid muddy brown

1^st line/s: "On a quiet street in the city of Tehran lived a little girl called Shiraz."

My comments:  Another Cinderella Story - this time from Iran.  Shiraz lives in Tehran and loses a ball of yarn in a very strange woman's garden.  I would have loved a little more cultural "stuff" from Iran, but some of the illustrations give hints about this.  The title seems a little misleading, too, since they never talk - at all - about Shiraz being brave, only being loving and kind.  Excellent for comparing and contrasting several different Cinderella stories.

Goodreads:  After showing kindness to a strange old woman, Shiraz receives the gift of beauty but her lazy and unkind stepsister, Nargues, suffers a less pleasant fate in this adaptation of the Grimm's fairy tale, Mother Hulda, reset in Tehran, Iran.

21. Digging to America - Anne Tyler

Audio read by

Audio discs/hours

2006

277 pgs.

Adult CRF

Finished 3/13/2015

Goodreads rating: 3.51

My rating:   4 - Enjoyed it very much, made me think

PBS

Contemporary rural Baltimore, MD

My comments:  Oftentimes when I take a break from my "usual" murder mystery or YA, I miss them and wonder why I strayed.  This book, however, didn't do that.  I was taken with the story right from the beginning.  Character-driven, this is the story of two families, both American, though the roots of one are Iranian. They are linked by the adoption of two baby girls from Korea, meeting at the Baltimore Airport when both were brought to the US.  This is the story of personalities; how we understand - or don't understand - each other for the simplest of reasons.  Different personalities that are not understood. Misunderstanding. Friendship. Throughout the story the "voice" comes from different characters, but it is the character of Maryam that sings out the loudest to me.  She is no more interesting than any of the others but because she is so different in personality than me but has so many similar feelings, I really related to her and enjoyed looking at the world through her focus.

Goodreads book summary:  In what is perhaps her richest and most deeply searching novel, Anne Tyler gives us a story about what it is to be an American, and about Maryam Yazdan, who after thirty-five years in this country must finally come to terms with her "outsiderness." 
Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport--the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryam's fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian American wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate with an "arrival party," an event that is repeated every year as the two families become more deeply intertwined. 
Even independent-minded Maryam is drawn in. But only up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by one of the Donaldson clan, a good-hearted man of her vintage, recently widowed and still recovering from his wife's death, suddenly all the values she cherishes--her traditions, her privacy, her otherness--are threatened. Somehow this big American takes up so much space that the orderly boundaries of her life feel invaded. 
A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that cast a penetrating light on the American way as seen from two perspectives, those who are born here and those who are still struggling to fit in.

24. The Rug Merchant - Meg Mullins

2006
258 pgs.
Rating: 3/Mixed
$14.00

Ushman Khan has been in New York City for three years, establishing his very lucrative rug business. He thinks often of his home in Tabriz, Iran and waits for th day that his wife, Farak, can join him. She has stayed behind to take care of his invalid mother and find the very best rugs for Ushman to sell. He has not returned to Iran during this time, and he has heard rumors that Farak has been visited by a Turkish tailor. Through their eleven years of marriage, Farak has had five miscarriages, and it is a heavy weight on both of them. When Ushman discovers that Farak is pregnant and divorcing him to move to Istanbul, he crashes and almost burns. He continues with his business dealings, but life is joyless.

Woven throughout this narrative is the story of his relationship with Mrs. Roberts, a wealthy, older Manhattanit who has bought many carpets from him. They have a strange relationship, and it is this relationship that begins and ends the story. Full of metaphor, hidden meaning, and much sadness, Mullins has Ushman meet a 19-year old college freshman (half his age), and tells of the wiggle and dance they go through before becoming lovers. Stella has her own baggage to deal with, but her natural "Americanism" and her easy way with Ushman is the most charming part of the story.

This was sad, depressing, gave me a tiny look into another culture - a Moslem one at that - and into the heart and mind of a gentle man. I really can't say I liked the story. However, I couldn't put it down. I knew there was no happily ever after, and I think that Mullins ended the story beatifully. I'm glad I read it. I'm going to search the faces of mid-thirtyish MidEastern men now, looking for Usman.....