LAWS ARE SILENT by Elaine Hankin

I didn’t think I was going to enjoy ‘Laws are Silent’. According to the jacket notes, it is set in a country about which I know very little – Italy – and deals with a topic about which I rarely read – war.  However, after just a few chapters, I was hooked into the story and raced through all 384 pages in just a couple of days.

The title comes from a quote by Cicero: Laws are silent in times of war. In fact, this book is about much more than Mussolini’s Italy. Starting in Tuscany in 1939, it covers a period of 26 years, taking in Fascists and Resistance Fighters in Italy; the early stirrings of Communism in Western Europe; the trials of being a teenager in a strange land; love in the Blitz; post-war Britain and academia in the USA; before returning full-circle to its origins. It is the story of Vincenzo Di Tomasi, his wife Alice and their son Beppe – who becomes Joe.  It is also the story of Livia Carduccio and her young child Isabelle. A constant theme throughout the book is another Di Tomasi son, Enzo. His death is announced in the opening paragraphs, but his presence and influence on the lives of the other characters lingers delicately in the background.

This was an excellent holiday read. Reading this book was like having a really good magazine serial – without have to wait each week for the next instalment. The ending, while perhaps inevitable, is well written and very satisfying.

Published by YouWriteOn.com; ISBN 978-1-84923-801-4

(Review first published in The Women Writer by Society of Women Writers and Journalists)

CHAVOS – THE KIDS OF DISTRITO FEDERAL by Anna Mckann

This book touches on many lives in the poorer side of Mexico City.  We learn about the homeless kids of the title, old beyond their years and living by the Street Kid Code.  We meet Alejandro and Daveed from the Crisis Centre who do what they can to help the kids.  There are not too many adults in the book and those that are there are usually incidental to the main action.

Primarily this is the story of Dolita, eight years old, who has spent most of her life on the streets.  We hear how her mother came to the city to make her fortune but ended up deserted and homeless with a baby she was unable to bring up.  Leaving Dolita with beggar-woman Ma Kensie, she disappears – just one of the adults appearing fleetingly in the story and then departing, never to be seen again.

 We follow Dolita through a year of adventures, with her faithful dog Raggy Man.  With the other kids, they break into an empty house looking for treasures.  She is injured when she falls on the rubbish tip rescuing an abandoned baby.  She succumbs to an infection which leads to a hospital stay; is offered a place in a children’s home; but finds her way back to her friends and life on the streets.  She makes an unlikely friend in a tough member of a rival gang – only to lose him the same day through a tragic accident.

 I found it hard to decide for whom this book was written.  I searched the covers for an indication this was a book for children or young adults.  I wondered if it was a book for adults, written through the eyes of a child.  Yet, the story is narrated by Charlotte, a woman from the UK who appears to be modelled on Mckann herself.  She has recently come to Mexico and appears in the story every so often, visiting hospitals, crisis centres, meeting the kids and observing their lives.  Despite the transient bond she forms with Dolita at one point, I felt this character added little to the story and found the way in which she occasionally addressed the reader directly to be frankly irritating. 

 There are some sad moments in this book and a true air of realism about the lives of these kids.  However, there is also a feeling of hope and optimism.  One final adult appears out of nowhere at the end of the book, leaving the reader with the suggestion that maybe the future is going to be brighter for Dolita after all.

ISBN 978-0-9554438-1-7 Published by Sharon House Publishing Ltd

(Review first published in The Women Writer by Society of Women Writers and Journalists)