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Black Dove White Raven Elizabeth Wein 9781423183105 Books

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Black Dove White Raven Elizabeth Wein 9781423183105 Books

Americans Rhoda and Delia met during the Great War and immediately became soulmates. Both marry: Rhoda an Italian and Delia an Ethiopian, and both have children, a girl and a boy, respectively. Together they performed airplane acrobatics as Black Dove (Delia) and White Raven (Rhoda) and raised their children alone—until the day Delia died from a bird strike. But she and Rhoda had a dream: to go live in Ethiopia, where Delia and her son Teo would live a life without the segregation rampant in the United States in the 1920s; Rhoda was still determined to make that dream come true, and eventually it did. But the little family of three—Rhoda, daughter Emilia, and Teo—are about to lose their happy life when the Italians advance on Ethiopia.

Taking place mainly in the 1930s, and told alternately by Em, Teo, and through their fictional Black Dove/White Raven stories in which the fears emerging in their lives take fictional form, this appealing adventure story follows Em and Teo from their earliest memories to the "now" of the threat of Italian invasion, where Rhoda fights for their home and Teo learns a horrifying secret about his father that affects his future. Both children learn to fly from Rhoda, but while Teo is a natural pilot, Em struggles with each flight, until a crisis forces her to face her fears.

Wein paints a lovely portrait of pre-invasion Ethiopia, where modern medicine and respect for native culture co-exist, and of the bond shared by Delia and Rhoda that lasts beyond death and the friendship of Emilia and Teo. Rhoda's unconventional Quaker family is also a compelling factor in the opening chapters of the book. The landscapes are lovingly drawn and, as always in a Wein novel, the magic and majesty of flying has a prominent role. While the situation may not be quite as compelling as CODE NAME VERITY, the characters and setting are unforgettable.


Tags : Black Dove, White Raven [Elizabeth Wein] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <BR>Emilia and Teo's lives changed in a fiery, terrifying instant when a bird strike brought down the plane their stunt pilot mothers were flying. Teo's mother died immediately,Elizabeth Wein,Black Dove, White Raven,Disney-Hyperion,142318310X,Historical - Africa,Historical - Military & Wars,Travel & Transportation - General,Adoption,Adventure and adventurers,Air pilots,Americans - Ethiopia,Americans;Ethiopia;Fiction.,Brothers and sisters,Ethiopia - History - 1889-1974,Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1936,Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1936;Fiction.,Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1936;Juvenile fiction.,JUVENILE FICTION Historical General,JUVENILE FICTION Social Issues Friendship,Race relations,1889-1974,20th century,Action & Adventure - General,Adventure fiction,Adventure stories (Children's Teenage),Africa,Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9),Ethiopia,Fiction,Fiction-Historical,Historical - General,Historical Fiction (Young Adult),History,JUVENILE,JUVENILE FICTION Action & Adventure General,Juvenile Fiction,Juvenile FictionHistorical - General,Juvenile FictionSocial Themes - Friendship,Juvenile Grades 7-9 Ages 12-14,Race relations,Social Themes - Friendship,TEEN'S FICTION - ACTION & ADVENTURE,TEEN'S FICTION HISTORICAL,Travel & Transportation - General,United States,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Historical Africa,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Historical Military & Wars,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Travel & Transportation General,Young Adult Fiction,Action & Adventure - General,Historical - General,JUVENILE FICTION Action & Adventure General,Juvenile FictionHistorical - General,Juvenile FictionSocial Themes - Friendship,Social Themes - Friendship,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Historical Africa,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Historical Military & Wars,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Travel & Transportation General,Young Adult Fiction,1889-1974,20th century,Adventure fiction,Ethiopia,Fiction,History,Historical Fiction (Young Adult),Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9),Adventure stories (Children's Teenage)

Black Dove White Raven Elizabeth Wein 9781423183105 Books Reviews

I think my favorite part of this book was how rich the historical setting and details are. Evidence of how hard the author worked to get things right are seen throughout the entire book. She brings to life a part of the WWII era not often explored, in fiction or otherwise, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and how WWII impacted this part of the world. She also brings to life a culture that is unique, colorful, and different than any Westerners are used to. She definitely transports her readers in every way, the hallmark of a great historical fiction writer.

I also really enjoyed her characters; all are different and exceptional. Steady Teo, intrepid Em, and protective Rhoda all make their mark on the reader’s hearts. Even Delia has a strong presence, even though she was dead for most the book. She serves as a motivation and driver for the book after that event due to her strong personality early on. The secondary characters also exhibit their own personality traits and quirks, making them remarkable and remember-able to the reader long after reading.

The format of the story was different than I’ve seen used before, but then, I’ve grown to expect that from this author. The story is told in a combination of letters, memories, flight logs, and fictional stories written by Teo and Em. I liked how this gave the story a distinctive feel and flow. The only part I wasn’t that thrilled with was the fictional story parts. As they were written by children, of course their tone and content will be way different than the flight logs and such. But I found myself thrown out of the story more than once trying to digest these pieces in the middle of the others.

Overall, this is a great book looking at a part of WWII that isn’t often explored in WWII literature. Great characters and historical details make this an engrossing read and puts the story into the reader’s hearts hard. The unique format works in most places but not as well in others. Still definitely a book to look at and recommend to lovers of the genre. Another great example of this author’s work as well.
This historical novel for young adult readers is a remarkable achievement. First of all, the novel has a great plot. It is set in Ethiopia during the Italian-Ethiopian war of 1935-1936, which in East Africa ushered in World War II. Its main characters are two teenagers, both children of American mothers who earned a living as stunt pilots after World War I and married foreign husbands. Emilia (or Em) is the daughter of a white mother from Pennsylvania (Rhoda or “White Raven”) and an Italian aviator father, while Teodros (or Teo) is the orphaned son of an African American mother (Delia or “Black Dove”) and an Ethiopian expatriate father. Rhoda is heart-broken when Delia dies in a plane-crash caused by hitting a swarm of birds. After several years of emotional paralysis, she decides to honor the plans she and Delia had made before the latter’s death and moves her family, now including both Em and Teo, to a clinic in a rural village in Ethiopia. They arrive on the eve of Mussolini’s invasion, just as Emperor Haile Selassie begins to prepare for war by drafting Ethiopian men into his army. Em’s Italian father is a pilot on the Italian side. Teo, as the son of an Ethiopian father, is drafted on the Ethiopian side, even if for a very special and unexpected mission. In her attempt to save her children, Rhoda teaches both of them to fly, thus confirming the roles Teo and Em had already adopted in their fantasy life – those of the newly embodied “Black Dove” and “White Raven.”

The second remarkable feature of this novel is that all its major characters are beautifully and imaginatively drawn. Em and Teo, as non-traditional siblings and creative soul mates, come fully alive, Teo as the super-smart, quiet, reflective boy, who can make himself almost invisible, and Em as the impetuous and flamboyant girl, exceptionally gifted in her own tomboyish ways. Even in the midst of the most unlikely events, Teo and Em’s characters make full emotional sense to the reader. The friendship between Rhoda and Delia, whose spirit is an inspiration to all of them, is mirrored in that between Em and Teo, giving both relationships extra depth and power. The novel’s other characters include Rhoda’s close Ethiopian friend Sindiku, a nurse who cares for the victims of Italian mustard gas bombs; the old Ethiopian priest Habte Sadek, keeper of some of the most sacred Ethiopian objects of devotion, and the flamboyant African American pilot in Haile Selassie’s service, Horatio Augustus (based on the person of Hubert Julian, who in real life indeed crashed the Emperor’s private plane in a rehearsal of the coronation ceremony).

Wein’s story and characters reveal the destructive power of institutional racism (differently configured, of course) in both the U.S. and Ethiopia, as well as that of colonial aggression and occupation. Individuals cannot fully escape such structures of inequality, Wein’s story suggests. However, they are, at the same time, not fully determined by them and their choices and actions make a real difference resisting and overcoming injustice. This, together with the taken-for-granted, enjoyable, feminism of the characters, makes this an uplifting story.

The novel’s form is a third remarkable feature of this novel, for it allows Em and Teo to tell the whole story through their own writings and in their own voices. These writings include compositions written as homework for their homeschool teacher in Ethiopia and, later, for Em’s mother; diary-like flight logs of their training as pilots, and even fantasy adventure stories (fiction within fiction) in which Teo and Em imagine themselves as the heroic protagonists “Black Dove” and “White Raven.” These fantasy stories, including, for example, “Episode from ‘The Land of Glass,’” (pp. 222-223), and are so imaginative, whimsical, and rich in metaphor that one could love this novel for them alone.

Finally, the image of Ethiopia that emerges from Teo and Em’s descriptions is stunning and rich. The reader can smell the warm, dusty, and smoky air of Addis Ababa by night as the two teenagers walk through the city on their way to Teo’s uncle; and we can see the flat and bare mountain tops, the green and fertile valleys, and the isolated mountain monasteries, as the two young pilots fly their small plane high above it all. Like the Ethiopian landscape, Ethiopian characters such as the bodyguard of a feudal lord, the Ethiopian staff of a small rural clinic, the abbot of a monastery built into a set of caves, the feudal lord in a mountain stronghold, and the Emperor himself, are beautifully and respectfully drawn with a sharp eye for the concrete and the everyday as they impact senses and sentiment.

This reviewer found the form of book’s beginning (respectively, a flight log including a letter to Emperor Haile Selassie by Em, a brief episode of an imaginary adventure story by Teo, and a homework composition by Em) structurally too complex and somewhat off-putting. This might discourage any reader, let alone a young one. However, whoever perseveres beyond the first pages, whether one is 15 or 65 years old, will enjoy this imaginative novel and learn much on the way.

Elizabeth Wein is the author of two other highly acclaimed and prize-winning historical novels for young adults, Code Name Verity (2012) and Rose Under Fire (2013), both set in World War II.

Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Lidwien Kapteijns, Ph. D., Wellesley College

Published in Africa Access Review (March 11, 2016)

Copyright 2016 Africa Access
Americans Rhoda and Delia met during the Great War and immediately became soulmates. Both marry Rhoda an Italian and Delia an Ethiopian, and both have children, a girl and a boy, respectively. Together they performed airplane acrobatics as Black Dove (Delia) and White Raven (Rhoda) and raised their children alone—until the day Delia died from a bird strike. But she and Rhoda had a dream to go live in Ethiopia, where Delia and her son Teo would live a life without the segregation rampant in the United States in the 1920s; Rhoda was still determined to make that dream come true, and eventually it did. But the little family of three—Rhoda, daughter Emilia, and Teo—are about to lose their happy life when the Italians advance on Ethiopia.

Taking place mainly in the 1930s, and told alternately by Em, Teo, and through their fictional Black Dove/White Raven stories in which the fears emerging in their lives take fictional form, this appealing adventure story follows Em and Teo from their earliest memories to the "now" of the threat of Italian invasion, where Rhoda fights for their home and Teo learns a horrifying secret about his father that affects his future. Both children learn to fly from Rhoda, but while Teo is a natural pilot, Em struggles with each flight, until a crisis forces her to face her fears.

Wein paints a lovely portrait of pre-invasion Ethiopia, where modern medicine and respect for native culture co-exist, and of the bond shared by Delia and Rhoda that lasts beyond death and the friendship of Emilia and Teo. Rhoda's unconventional Quaker family is also a compelling factor in the opening chapters of the book. The landscapes are lovingly drawn and, as always in a Wein novel, the magic and majesty of flying has a prominent role. While the situation may not be quite as compelling as CODE NAME VERITY, the characters and setting are unforgettable.