Have you ever finished a book and just held it to your heart? Well, this was "one of those" for me. Besides being a terrific story, this did exactly what I have been railing about for months -- kept a real story real. Caitlin is a young girl not particularly thrilled with school when her teacher asks for volunteers to write to pen-pals in different parts of the world. Caitlin picks Zimbabwe because the name sounds interesting. The recipient of her letter? A boy named Martin Ganda, who is at the top of his class in his very impoverished corner of the world. What follows is a two person narrative about their lives over the years, showing not only how their friendship grew, but what their worlds were comprised of. Understanding each other gave Martin, and his whole family, a way "out" of a difficult existence. For Caitlin, her world-view exploded upon realizing that her existence was
privileged in comparison to children of some other nations. The story is NOT fictionalized. It's the recollections of Caitlin and Martin as unvarnished as possible. The narrative includes all the warts and realities which accompany an actual biography or memoir. Caitlin doesn't shy away from discussing a somewhat shallow focus on the social aspects of her teen years and a boyfriend who didn't measure up. Martin is honest about the abject poverty in his war-torn nation and cultural aspects of his life (like the relationship between his parents) which might make some readers shake their heads. In a fiction book, some of this would have been glossed over. Here, without getting into gritty details, the facts are laid out in a way which most kids will "get". Things do turn out okay, but this is a story with shadings, not black and white. Young people will understand the story, older people will feel the nuances. It is powerful, joyous and sad, all at once. Four hankies by the end. Bravo, Brava, to Martin and Caitlin, with a significant tip of the rabbit ears to Ms. Welch, for telling it "like it is."
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