WOW! daughter's 6th grade book competition includes book exposing Reagan's horrific foreign policy!

[mod mom]

The book, Tree Girl, is based on the real life experience of a Mayan peasant girl who survives the horrific Mayan genocide in Guatemala in the early 1980s. Vivid accounts of torture, rape, dehumanization and murder of the simple indigenous people by the spanish speaking army of the elites trying to prevent the farmers joining together to sell their crops (ie dangerous communism) are told. The book goes on to tell how the US government was not only aware of what was going on but provided training, helicopters and weapons to the oppressors.

I read the book, which I heard was disturbing before my daughter, not sure if it was appropriate reading for the age group, but after discovering this is what our government allowed to another culture, I feel that my 12 you old should know the truth of what was allowed under Ronald Reagan and his fucking freedom fighters to innocent people including children of another culture.

Other reading selections in this "Battle of the Books" included difficult subjects of conditions on a slave ship, the Emit Till murder, extreme bullying.

Nice to see not all school districts adopting the bullshit agenda of TX!

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Obviously not edited and published in Texas.

[bananas]

2. The Sanctuary Movement

FBI agents illegally broke into churches looking for records of who was hiding refugees.
edit to add a link for those who are unaware: http://articles.latimes.com/1987-12-20/books/bk-29928_1_sanctuary-movement

[mod mom]

4. one of the horrific events the girl witnesses while hiding up a tree involves a Catholic Church

After surviving a massacre and walking countless miles w her 5yo sister and a new newborn, all starving they come to a small village. She tells a nun of their plight who urges her to seek shelter in a sanctuary after soldiers enter the town. She elects to instead climb high into a tree and is forced to witness the brutal torture rape & murder of the towns people. They are divided into men, women and children. The men are forced into the church. She hears awful screams and witnesses the men dragging out thebodies of men without noses, ears hands etc. Next women are dragged out, stripped, repeatedly raped and then beaten to death while their children are forced to watch. Older women, including the nun are stripped and forced to act like circus animals. When the nun refuses she is beaten to death. No one except the tree girl survives the ordeal. Very disturbing.

[bananas]

13. Should US mercenaries on CIA payroll be allowed to participate in the massacres,

or just train and observe the local troops performing the massacres?
That was the subject of articles in newspapers like the Washington Post.
I couldn't believe what I was reading.
I'm glad they're teaching kids about this.

[mod mom]

20. My guess is where I live is the exception.

Our school district is small and our community is very progressive. The students who participated in this competition chose to be there, during lunch hour and after school. I wish I could say that this information was part of the curriculum.

[surrealAmerican]

3. The question isn't really if the book is ...

... appropriate for the age group, it's whether it's appropriate for your particular child. If you think it might be too frightening, you could encourage her to choose something else. This book is not the only way she could learn about those events.

[zazen]

10. very astute points

I see the looks of horror on other parents' faces when they learn my children were both taught about the Holocaust before age 10, including seeing dramatic films about Nazi Germany (but not actual footage until a little older). But it's in how you teach it, and it so much comes down to the capacities/sensitivities of your own child.

If introduced gently while assuring children of their own safety (which is impermanent, but they don't need to know this until they get a little older), stories like this really help them with gratitude, compassion, and humility.

[Shanti Mama]

17. To play devil's advocate

Most children in the world are exposed to poverty, death, brutality, REAL life because they're in it, living it. Because we live in Asia my children have seen many things I might not have thought were appropriate if we lived in America. But I couldn't shelter them. My daughter has very mild but medically diagnosed anxiety and she does fine with it all. We need to talk about things, process it, but I think they're better off for knowing that this exists.

At the school to which my children go there are over 40 nationalities represented. Many of these children want to "change the world" when they grow up. I believe part of this is their exposure to what the world really is.

[zazen]

22. going through trauma and being validated by loving adults _can_ make you stronger

Going through trauma in a situation where everyone blames you for your abuse, or you're told it never happened, and you're traumatized repeatedly . . . that gets a little trickier.

It's not the trauma that leads to PTSD. . . it's generally a second similar event (so the research says.) Then the narrative you had about the aberration of the event explodes and it doesn't have meaning for you. If you have a culture/family to provide you with a different, validating meaning, you're much better off. Retraumatization can happen in America too by child abusers, and there's often no one there to provide them meaning or make any sense of what's happened. Internalizing the horror is the final devastation (but Victor Frankl said all this much better than I can).

Sounds like you're provided a great lifelong framework for your daughter given the realities of abuse to which she was exposed.

[2Design]

5. Terrific this is being printed and available so the truth can get out to those who read n/t

[madmax]

7. Ah ha, that's the problem

'to those who read'.

Those who need to know are too busy watching 'The Real Housewives of Fuckknowswhere'. :hi:

[Lint Head]

6. As Steven King said, If the government bans it read it!

[madmax]

8. +1

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Hmm book I might have to go look

I interviewed many of those refugees in pre-placement in (insert country that accepted a family here and there)... the stories, not just of Guatemala, but Salvador and Nicaragua are .... nightmare producing to this day.

Oh and I forgot, all the evidence was gathered not just to make a case for refugee status... but you know it never will go there... for a war crimes tribunal or two.

[mod mom]

11. Clinton's DoJ refusing to prosecute lead to more atrocities by bush/cheney. Malia Obama,

who is the same age as my daughter, should read this book. Perhaps she could convince her father that those behind torture need to be prosecuted so they don't return.

[Horse with no Name]

23. I wonder if a heartfelt note to the President and a copy of the book sent

to the WH for Malia might persuade him?

[bananas]

12. Sounds like you could write a book yourself

Are those interviews online somewhere?

[TuxedoKat]

14. Can you tell me the title of the book on bullying?

I'd be interested in the titles of the other ones too, if you know them, thanks.

[mod mom]

21. "Inventing Elliot" link:

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/0803729642.asp

and somewhat "The Skin I'm In"

[TuxedoKat]

24. Thank you! (nt)

[KittyWampus]

15. Rios Montt - ROT IN HELL.

[n.michigan]

16. Very encouraging. Can you share more of the titles?

[mod mom]

19. Here's a list of the titles:

Tree Girl
Lottery Rose
Skellig
Eragon
King of the Middle March
Star Girl
Whirigig
The Slave Dancer
Al Capone Does My Shirts
The Skin I'm In
The Voice Who Challenged a Nation
Never Trust a Dead Man
Uglies
The Midwifes Apprentice
Inventing Elliot
Chasing Vermeer
The Gospel According to Larry
Mississippi Trial 1955
Mouse Guard 1152
Once Upon a Marigold

[a la izquierda]

18. Good!

Get the kiddos reading about it so I don't get dirty looks by the time they get to me (I am a graduate student-instructor, and will be a professor soon). When I taught about the Guatemalan civil war a few weeks ago, a few of my students gave me evil looks.