THAT MAD GAME Growing Up in a Warzone: An Anthology of Essays from Around the Globe

Edited by J.L. Powers

Seventeen writers contribute essays about how they became adults in times of war. Essays focus on modern history but take no sides. Vietnam from both sides. Bosnia. The Gulf War. Rwanda. Juárez. El Salvador. The list goes on and on. There are no winners, just the survivors left behind. Picking up the pieces. 

The Box

When I came from work, my mother said, "René, there is a box for you."

It is always amazing to receive a box. I  wondered "What could be the surprise inside the box?" 

What a great gift,  it is THAT MAD GAME Growing Up in a Warzone. My books are finally here! 

This book is an anthology of essays from around the globe. My essay is about my childhood during the civil war in El Salvador. It is wonderful to hold a book for the first time. 

I looked at the spine, title, cover.  That red fly trying to fly freely in the sky! Now the book is not the image on my computer screen. It is the real book.

It is time to read my essay LEFT BEHIND IN EL SALVADOR

But there are more essays in this incredible book. The editor is J.L Powers and it was published by Cinco Puntos Press.

These are  the titles and authors of the essays.

A Talib in Love by Qais Akbar Omar / AFGHANISTAN

No Longer Young by Phillip Cole Manor / VIETNAM

Holland 1944-45 by Elisabeth Breslav / THE NETHERLANDS

Across the River by Nikolina Kulidžan / BOSNIA

Hand-Me-Down War Stories by Jerry Mathes / U.S.

Left Behind in El Salvador by René Colato Laínez / EL SALVADOR

Ways of the Khmer Rouge by Peauladd Huy / CAMBODIA

My War and His War by Alia Yunis / LEBANON, PALESTINE, U.S.

Our America by Marnie Mueller / JAPANESE INTERNMENT CAMPS, U.S.

Exiled to Gansu Province by Xiaomei Lucas as told to Becky Powers / CHINA

Brass Shells by Aria Minu-Sepehr / IRAN

Half a Continent, Step by Step by Andie Miller / RWANDA, DRC, SOUTH AFRICA

Statistical Life by David Yost / BURMA, THAILAND

The Light of Gandhi's Lamp by Hilary Kromberg Inglis / SOUTH AFRICA

From Fear to Hope: Raising Our Children in the World's Most Violent City by Fito Avitia / JUAREZ, MEXICO

A Separate Escape: The Chin of Burma & the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program by Rebecca Henderson / BURMA, MALAYSIA, U.S.

Symphony No.1 (In Memoriam, Dresden, 1945) by David Griffith / U.S., IRAQ, GERMANY

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

“Uplifting tales of survival… War’s most vulnerable victims have their say.” School Library Journal [R]readers will be rewarded by [this] compelling and often uplifting anthology … That Mad Game surprises with its variety. From Taliban-controlled Kabul to a Japanese internment camp in northern California, from a teen girl’s “soundtrack of war” in Beirut to a young man’s long walk across much of Africa, the startling stories make for rough going at times. But the humor, beauty, and humanity shining through the darkness are what make this collection a must-have for all libraries serving high school students. Charles London, author of One Day The Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War "There is heartache in the stories J.L. Powers has assembled here, as well as loss and pain and death. They are about war, after all. But there is humor too, and also love and faith and hope, because they are human stories too, and as each one testifies in its own way, humans are able to heal." Trent Reedy, author of Words in the Dust and Stealing Air "I was sent to the war in Afghanistan with a lot of slogans in my head about freedom and fighting terrorism. What I found instead was a tremendous respect for the good Afghan people, a deep sympathy for the Afghan children struggling for better lives, and a profound hatred of the Taliban for the way they brutalized their own people. That Mad Game is a reminder that such hatred is the same mistake from which all the world’s wars are born. The fact that That Mad Game can steer my hard heart toward sympathy for a young Talib is a sure sign of this book’s tremendous potential to foster a spirit of peace and understanding in readers everywhere."

La Bloga is unlike other sites

Spending much time checking out the Internet, sifting through all the chaff could make you senile. So, when we started La Bloga we intended it not only to focus on Chicano literary themes, but also to strive for higher standards than a typical blog, by our "passionate" (see Laínez's post from yesterday) understanding of cultural distinctions. As example of the type of site we didn't want, one recently came to our attention and warrants comment, given its topic.

On 12/15/06 Manuel Ramos's post introduced Rudolfo Anaya's The First Tortilla: A Bilingual Story. The blurb quoted publisher UNM Press: "She [Jade] has made the first tortilla." It also mentions a Mountain Spirit and talking hummingbirds. Sounds like a fantasy, folktale or leyenda, right?

In our 7/18/07 review of The First Tortilla, Bloguista Gina MarySol Ruiz wrote: "Rudolfo Anaya has written a magical and lovely folktale about the origins of that favorite of us mexicanos/Chicanos, the delicious tortilla." Note her use of "folktale" and "the origins of the tortilla."

When the editors of Guanabee read our review, they remarked: "Finally, a role model for young Mexican girls that doesn’t ask them to sell out so damn hard… but make tortillas instead?" While their first remark may or may not be commendable, it is the "make tortillas instead" that begs literary interpretation.

That anyone, Latino-oriented or otherwise, could misconstrue a folktale about the first tortilla as somehow advocating that contemporary, young Mexican girls should make tortillas instead of aspiring to other (unnamed) activities, indicates either a low level of vocabulary or deliberate misinterpretation.

Using Guanabee logic, we'd expect their editors to review Little Red Hen and the Grains of Wheat and vilify its author(s) for advocating that young females take up bread making instead of other (unnamed) activities. Or perhaps they think the authors of another old story, about Adam and Eve, didn't want 21st century females eating apples.

A folktale about the distant past or a fantasy world, with talking hummingbirds or hens (or serpents), should not be interpreted as providing lessons or role models, solely based on the plot. Guanabee editors seemed to understand part of that. It's the part they didn't that separates Guanabee from La Bloga.

If we read further into the post: "Bless Me, Ultima, the novel that taught us Mexicans/vomiting can be literary motifs", one wonders what they consider to be rational critique. Characterizing Anaya's recognized classic in this fashion seems like a shallow way to artificially create controversy. In their own words, "Guanabee is commentary on media, pop culture and entertainment, spicy coverage for the Latino in you."

Now, I don't know about you, but the Latino in me prefers that spicy coverage not approach the abyss of Fox-TV standards of verity. Guanabee is a commercially supported site, filled with "ads by Google" and other business interests, including Fox (by chance?), so perhaps the "spicy" in Guanabee is simply intended to generate more hits-per-month to support their bottom line. That it generated my hit, indicates outrageous deviations from common sense can make money. This is another aspect where La Bloga separates from other Internet sites in that we deliberately avoid commercial interests.

Comments to the Guanabee post likewise reflect more grasping at straw men and low-level bursts of supposedly smart remarks like, "The highly-anticipated sequel to [The First Tortilla] will have Jade pushing Qdoba burritos in central Los Angeles. . ." That my post may generate more Guanabee hits is only unfortunate in that at times you need to know what a bad tortilla tastes like to better appreciate homemade ones. While we know La Bloga's "cooking" doesn't always reach what we strive for, be assured we won't go commercial on you and forsake the literary for the North American corporate dollar.

* * *

Due to popular demand I decided to pull the second part of this post until I read The Confessional. I will leave the Comments, though.

As I said in that part, "I've had to eat my words before." In this case readers let me know they felt I do need to to set the table and gorge on some of my own masa. I'm going for the masa.

Rudy Ch. Garcia