Never before has a book so completely spoken to my heart. I originally found this last year when I was looking around for around for women's memoirs to be put into my Diverse Books Tag focused on that genre (a book with a biracial protagonist). I recommended it to my library but got quickly absorbed in a number of other books while I waited for it to be available or for the right time to pop up. At last, my library purchased it and I was the first one to get it when it came out.

I have to say that waiting for the right time worked out fantastically. Some books just seem to know when you need them. As I said, this one just spoke right to my heart. That's not to suggest that I "know" what it was like for Rebecca Walker to navigate her life or what it's like to be black and white and Jewish all at the same time. What I do know is that I am quite familiar with that sense of not quite belonging to anyone, but maybe belonging enough to be claimed here and there for this or that trait. I have drifted from one home to another within my family or neighborhood or group of friends and felt that change that Walker describes as "switching radio stations". I've felt the sting of being in one group while people denigrate the other part of you, the part that they don't claim, while they insist that it's not you but you know that it is, even if only in part. I've felt it on both sides of me.

We've lived vastly different lives in different times within this country and I couldn't possibly relate to all of Walker's experiences, but I had never known anyone to describe this being and not being so well, so beautifully. The idea of being a "movement baby" sounds terrifying, like for too much to live up to. Later, I found it far easier to relate to what happened when the ideas of the movement were gone and she was treated like her existence was half-oppressor and half-oppressed, when people asked her navigate those waters and explain what it felt like. I was never able to explain what it was like to be fragmented this way and now I have someone to turn to for that.

I loved Walker's style of writing and relating everything back to memory and the way that memory shifts, that way that it can be wrong and right at the same time and the way it shapes us and perceptions of us without ever asking for permission. I loved the poetic feel that accompanies most of the book. I peaked at some other reviews and it's not the kind of book that everyone loves, but I still find it an important book to read and discuss. Perhaps it would make a great book club memoir because it does bring in questions of race on several fronts and it could open conversations about sex in adolescence, the effect of divorce and/or neglect on a child's upbringing and other important issues that Walker goes through that still plague us.

The downside to that, of course, is that using the book that way invites criticism of Walker and her parents as people who were theoretically doing the best they could. I don't mean to sound like I doubt that anyone was doing their best but I also don't want to make it sound like I'm making assumptions about what could/should have been done. The point is simply that getting judgey about someone's life and story like this would miss the point of reading the book.

Despite what others might think, I found this book engaging, even at it's lowest moments. I appreciated the way it was a little episodic, moving through periods in her life and only stopping to fit in the moments that best sums up the time-frame for her rather than dwelling on incidentals. As mentioned above, what I loved the most was the way she relates what it is like to not fit succinctly into any single category of race, to be a part of something and not a part of it at the same time, close and yet removed from it. I have felt these things so many times in life when I am in Hispanic or not Hispanic depending on the way whoever I'm talking to feels about it and it rarely seems up to me to let them know who I am and how I fit into these categories and whether or not I even want to.

As I’ve been thinking about this book, I’ve been very aware of the fact that I am white and American, and that Elizabeth Wein is white and American-born, and that this book is set in Ethiopia during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie and the lead-up to the Italian-Ethiopian war of 1935-6. I am far more aware of these facts than I was five years ago when I read and reviewed Wein’s earlier books set in the earlier Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum. I don’t know how modern Ethiopians would read and react to this book, nor can I claim to say how well the history has been shown here.

And yet, I know that Wein does her research and has a deep love and respect for Ethiopia and its history and culture. So I suppose all of this examination is really a declaration of biases. I am bringing my own history of being a long-term Elizabeth Wein fan, my own slight knowledge of Ethiopian and Eritrean culture, my own fears about appropriation and representation. And as with the Aksumite books, I loved this story.

Black Dove, White Raven is the story of Emilia and Teo, siblings of the heart if not blood. Teo’s mother Delia and Emilia’s mother Rhoda were the original Black Dove and White Raven, daredevil pilots who flew together all over the US. But the US is not always friendly to two women, one white and one black, raising children on their own. And so Delia dreamed of moving to Ethiopia, where Teo’s father was from. Then she is killed in a freak accident and Rhoda, Emilia, and Teo are left to find their own way to fulfill Delia’s dream.

The story itself is told in various bits Teo and Emilia have written, framed by the letter Emilia encloses when she sends all of it to the Emperor. We don’t know at the beginning of the book exactly what has happened to Teo or Rhoda, only that the Emperor is Teo’s only hope. It’s this anxiety that drives a lot of the book, as the story gradually unfolds. We see Emilia and Teo’s school assignments which reveal their pasts as well as their lives in Ethiopia, in the community at Tazma Meda. We see their imagined quests as the superheroes Black Dove and White Raven, always saving each other.

It’s Emilia-and-Teo that are really at the heart of this book. Another sensational team, although family this time. I loved them together, their shared stories and their hands making wings to greet each other.* And yet, we also see their differences. Emilia is practical, determined; she doesn’t love flying and is ashamed of that, since Rhoda and Teo love it so much. Teo is thoughtful, quick, sensitive. And he’s totally my favorite. I loved him; I loved his love for flying; I loved how he loves the Ethiopian church and how part of him comes home.

But Delia and Rhoda are also, if not at the heart, then in the bones. I found myself fascinated by the depiction of their relationship. They have led an unconventional life. Rhoda is still married to Signor Menotti, but they haven’t lived together in years. For Rhoda, Delia is her soulmate, the other half of her life. I’m not entirely sure if I read this as friendship or romantic love, but regardless, the depth of feeling is astounding. When Delia dies, Rhoda is lost too, and she has to find her way back.

One of the things I loved about this book was the feeling of the physical landscape. The mountains where the family moves are evoked with such haunting loveliness. As Emilia and Teo learn to fly, they see the country laid out beneath them. It reminded me, of course, of the descriptions of England in Code Name Verity. But the landscape also echoes through the book in a more personal way. The high plateau where Teo and Emilia land, the church near Tazma Meda shape the story. For Teo, Ethiopia is a complex place, both home and not. He is half-Ethiopian, and yet he is also American and the questions of identity that this brings up really define his journey.

And all of this is set against the backdrop of the rich history and culture of Ethiopia, proud Ethiopia who was never been colonized, a country that is modernizing rapidly and at the same time hold its ancient customs close. Ezra and Sinidu, the doctor and his wife who live at Tazma Meda, the priest of the church there, the prince who changes Teo’s future–they all are real, complicated, human people. I felt the complexities of this struggle, the contradictions that build into a moment where everything twists and nothing is ever the same.

Because war is coming. Italy under Mussolini wants to hold Ethiopia, and is prepared to do anything to conquer it. Wein brings this little-known part of history to life, in the way she does so well. When I finished this book, I was absolutely FURIOUS with Italy. The story that is told is so heartbreaking, all the more so because it actually happened. I wanted to tell the world, and I think that’s partly what this story does.

Most of all, though, it’s the story of a brother and sister, who love each other so much that they rescue each other over and over again, who find courage in each other and strength to deal with whatever life brings them.

“Are you scared?” “I am not scared.”

Book source: eARC from NetGalley, also bought
Book information: 2015, Disney Hyperion; YA historical fiction

My favorite author page for Elizabeth Wein

* YOU GUYS. I’ve been saying for awhile now that hands are possibly the most important image throughout Elizabeth Wein’s books, and I’m so right.