A Company of Swans ~ Eva Ibbotson

Publisher: Speak (1985)
ISBN: 978-0-14-240940-4
374 pgs

Classification: YA fiction
Genre: Historical fiction, romance
Age Level: 13+

Reader’s Annotation: When Harriett Morton runs away from her oppressive father’s household to join a traveling ballet company bound for the Amazon, she falls in love with enigmatic Rom Verney and refuses to return home even after her father tracks her down.

Summary: Harriet Morton’s father is Merlin Professor of the Classics at Kings College in Cambridge. Professor Morton is sexist, frugal and narrow-minded, and he envisions for his daughter a life married to a respectable academic. He has even selected the perfect candidate: fussy, unimaginative entomologist Edward Finch-Dutton, whose great ambition is to classify as many species of fleas as he can discover. Harriet has other ideas for her life. A gifted ballet dancer, she is offered a position in the corps of a traveling company journeying to the Amazon. Harriet goes against her father’s wishes and after her debut performance meets British exile Rom Verney. They quickly fall in love, but their dreams for the future are threatened when Harriet’s father and would-be fiancé track her all the way to South America.

Notes: This historical romance has all the sophistication and story-telling finesse of adult romance writers Jude Devareaux and Judith McNaught without the steamy (and usually cheesy) love scenes.
Flags: 4

Whale Rider (Movie)

Based on The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera
Studio: South Pacific Films (2002)
Rating: PG-13

Genre: Drama
Director: Niki Caro
Main Cast: Keisha Castle-Hughes

Viewer’s Annotation: A young Maori girl, Pai Apirana is committed to helping her community preserve the ways of their ancestors even though her grandfather, the tribe’s chief, refuses to teach Pai because she is a girl.

Summary: Koro Apirana’s visible and devastating disappointment that his grandchild is a girl causes 12-year-old Pai to struggle to hold her head up around the stern man. Though Koro has two sons, he will be the last chief of his tribe unless a new leader emerges. Determined to find such a leader, Koro trains all of the tribe’s boys in the ways of their people, the descendants of Paikea the Whale Rider. Banished from Koro’s school, Pai still learns the chants and skills, surpassing the boys in every area and winning a regional speech contest with an essay about her Maori culture. Unmoved, Koro continues to ignore Pai. When a pod of whales beach themselves, the whole community despairs, for the hopelessness of the whales seems to mirror the tribe’s situation. Only Pai is able to pull everyone, even the whales, through the tragedy.

Notes: With incredible acting from the entire cast, this film is incredibly moving, depicting the tension between tradition and change for a community whose very identity is threatened by modern culture.
Flags: 5