The Brave

By James Bird

Feiwel & Friends     2020

311 pages     Middle Grade

The Brave is a brave, sober, loving book that was introduced to me by my sixth grade granddaughter, Adela. I bought the book at her request, and we will have a book discussion after she finishes. While it is realistic fiction, it has some aspects of magical realism.

Collin is a 12-year-old with an OCD problem that makes it difficult for him at school. He counts all the letters in the words that people say to him. When he responds, he begins with the number of letters. So if his teacher says, “Good morning, Collin.” He would respond : “17. Good morning,” No matter how hard he tries, he can’t stop counting, and the school kids can’t stop harassing him. When things become unbearable, his alcoholic father sends him across the country with his dog, Seven, to live with his mother, whom he has never met.

Cecilia, his mother, is Ojibwe and lives on the Fond du Lac reservation outside of Duluth MN. Wait! Duluth! My home town! I called Adela and said, “You didn’t tell me it takes place in Duluth.” Oh yeah” she responded, “I forgot.” Actually, the reservation is about 15 miles from town.  Of course, to me, that made the book all the more important.  As a kid growing up in Duluth, there were kids from the reservation in our school, but native culture was pretty much a given in the culture of Duluth.

The native culture takes a secondary role in the story line, except, perhaps, for the magic that seems to surround a new acquaintance, Orenda. Orenda lives mostly in a tree house next door to Collin’s mother and grandmother. She believes that she is turning into a butterfly as her body deteriorates from ALS. Her mother, who died of ALS, is a butterfly that visits her frequently. Orenda is an incredible character in the book, and the fact that her father built her a treehouse makes her all the more magical.

As Collin becomes her friend, she teaches him about strength and bravery, and the stronger he becomes, the easier it is for him to manage at school and control his counting obsession. His mother teaches him about the purity of love, and he finds himself growing into the person that he wants to become. He gains enough mastery over his life that when Orenda is dying. he is able to manage the pain and grief. Collin muses at one point: “I wish I could take her pain away. I’d happily feel it if it meant she would feel better, but I also know she would never let me. It’s hers. It’s part of her story.”

I tried to read the book through the eyes of my 11-year-old granddaughter. She definitely will have seen the depth of the crisis at hand, and is responding to the challenges of bullying and the joys of beautiful relationships. One reviewer complained that some of the natives were stereotypes. “Still we should be past stereotypes of stoic, wise Indians who speak little and are abnormally attached to the great outdoors.” These details were things I was looking for as I read, but I became so involved in the beauty of the story line and the relationships that I didn’t pay attention to potential stereotypes.

Before I began The Brave, I read that it was on several lists of best books of 2020, including School Library Journal, and the New York Public Library, so I was surprised when I read negative reviews in The New York Times, The Circle Newspaper, among others. They felt that the Native American experience wasn’t accurate enough. But, that’s wasn’t what I was reading the book for. I saw a young boy and a teenage girl struggling, finding, and becoming the butterflies that they were destined to become. In my opinion, The Brave was just that, brave and beautiful.

Just two small caveats: Orenda is constantly followed by butterflies, and the woods around their homes are filled with butterflies. Ah, butterflies have a very short season in northeastern Minnesota. Likely they aren’t there in the autumn and winter. Also, she feeds peaches to  the butterflies. Peaches don’t grow in Minnesota—too cold. Oh well, but it’s a beautiful illustration.

James Bird, the author of The Brave, is a filmmaker and author. He is of Ojibwe descent and went to school in Minnesota. He has a new book, No Place Like Home, coming out in August.

The Soup and Bread Cookbook

 

By Beatrice Ojakangas

University of Minnesota Press     2020

266 pages     Cookbook

Bea Ojakangas is a living legend in my hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. She had a restaurant for a time in our neighborhood. It was called Somebody’s House and served terrific sandwiches and other comfort foods. Thus, I was thrilled when I was offered an advanced copy of her book, The Soup and Bread Cookbook.

This is what I learned about her from a feature article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

 “The year was 1957, and a young cook, wife and soon-to-be first-time mother living on a military base in England entered her recipe for cheese bread into the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Beatrice Ojakangas didn't win first place that year -- the top prize went to Mrs. Gerda Roderer of Berkeley, Calif., who received $25,000 for her "Accordion Treats," a delicate horn-shaped walnut cookie. But Ojakangas' bread took the second grand prize and helped launched an enduring career that has included 27 cookbooks on a wide range of subjects, from whole grain breads to casseroles to pot pies to her specialty, Scandinavian cooking and baking.  

Ojakangas first appeared in Taste in a 1978 profile, the first of seven such features during the intervening 32 years (she was also a frequent contributor to the section in the 1990s). She may not have won the top prize, but in retrospect, Ojakangas may be the Bake-Off's biggest success story. After all, how many other food careers were launched with a single recipe?” 

The University of Minnesota Press recently reissued one of her popular cookbooks, The Soup and Bread Cookbook, which was first published in 2013. Actually, the University Press has declared that her cookbooks will never go out of print, because in part, she is the only Minnesota cook and cookbook author who is a James Beard  prize winner. I gave this particular cookbook to my sisters for Christmas this year.

 What I like about this particular cookbook is that the recipes are grouped by season. As I have learned from my own cooking, soup is seasonless when seasonal vegetables are used. And that is the point of her grouping by season. We are using the vegetables, etc. that we know are available during that particular season. I recently made her Cream of Tomato soup that was linked with her recipe for grilled cheese sandwiches.  Ah, you say, I know how to make grilled cheese, but have you ever made it with sliced apples and basil? The whole thing was so satisfying and comforting. I am ready to try some other recipes

 

Easy Cream of Tomato Soup

• 2 cups Basic Vegetable Broth (page 6) or low-sodium store-bought
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 4 cups crushed fresh tomatoes, or 1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
• 1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
• 3/4 cup heavy (whipping) cream
• Salt and ground black pepper

In a soup pot, whisk together the broth, flour, tomatoes, and tomato paste and bring to a simmer, stirring, until slightly thickened. Using an immersion blender or a standard blender, puree the soup. Stir in the cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

Old-Fashioned Grilled Cheese, Apple, and Basil Sandwiches 

Slices of crisp fall apples and fresh basil leaves lend a whiff of the season to this classic sandwich.

• ·         8 slices Basic Home-Baked Bread, white or wheat, or good-quality store-bought
• ·         8 thin slices extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
• ·         1 Fuji, Gala, or Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced
• ·         4 large fresh basil leaves
• ·         1 to 2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

Arrange 4 of the bread slices on a work surface and place a slice of cheese on each. Top each evenly with the apple slices and a basil leaf. Top with the remaining cheese and the remaining 4 slices of bread.

Spread both sides of each sandwich with a little butter. Preheat a skillet, griddle, or panini press over medium heat. Toast the sandwiches over medium heat until golden and the cheese is melted, about 1 minute per side. Cut on the diagonal and serve.

In my opinion, Bea Ojakangas’ recipes are essentials for the home cook. The Soup and Bread Cookbook is a must have and is very representative of the entrepreneurial cook who created the recipes. I need to add that Bea is now 86 years old and many of her cookbooks are still in print. Also, You Tube has many wonderful videos of her in action; even a couple with Julia Child.

 Bea Ojakangas is Duluth’s pride and joy!

The Long Shining Water

By Danielle Sosin

Minneapolis, Milkweed Editions, 2011

274 pages     Fiction

I grew up along the shore of Lake Superior in the harbor town of Duluth. When I read that Danielle Sosin, a Duluthian, had written a novel about Lake Superior, I had to read it. The Long-Shining Waters is a unique and satisfying read. It is a remarkable tribute to the majesty and the mystery of the world’s largest inland lake, as well as a tribute to the resilient people who live, and have lived, along its shores.

The alternating narrative concerns three women during three years of Lake Superior history. Grey Rabbit, an Ojibwe woman in 1622, Berit a Norwegian immigrant and fisherman’s wife in 1902, and Nora, a Superior WI, bar owner in 2000. All three women are involved in heartbreaking situations—Nora has lost her bar in a fire; Berit has lost her husband to the lake, and Grey Rabbit is lost in disturbing dreams. Their stories would be ordinary except that they take place on or near the lake.  The lake is influential in the lives of each of the women, and the lake is a determinant in the actions they take.

What Sosin evokes so brilliantly in The Long Shining Waters is the sense of the power of the lake. When you live by Lake Superior, you are aware of that power every day. The lake determines everything: the mood of the day, what you wear, how you will proceed. For the women in the novel, as it is for all who choose to live on its shores, the lake is an integral part of who they are. Sosin writes: "The waves like wolves leap over each other, toss sea foam from their open mouths. They hit the rocks and fall back again, only to rise howling and leaping, hitting and falling back again, until one after another they paw over the rocks, escape from the churning water, pads icing up in the snow, yellow eyes and patches of grey fur blowing." This is a beautifully written book; I became immersed in the words, and in the images.

In an interview, Sosin said of her decision to write a book with Lake Superior as the backdrop: "The premise that I ended up working with was that, the idea that Lake Superior is holding all of its history, literally as in the stuff that is down there, which there's a lot of. But more importantly in a watery subconscious way, so that everything that has happened on or around the lake is held in the waters, which affect the people who live on its shores."

The reviewer in the Minneapolis Star Tribune spoke of the lake in her review. "And always, in the background, is the lake, its waves light and lapping or whooshing and pounding. Sometimes the water's music soothes, sometimes it unsettles, but always it is present, a stern border to their known worlds, provider of danger, beauty and a powerful sense of geographical belonging. It "blazes blindingly through the trees" when Nora takes a walk along a South Shore gravel road. It "mirrors the sky, except for dark, skittering patches where it's grazed by a zigzag breeze" as bereaved Berit watches the horizon for a boat. It is the "Great Spirit" before which Grey Rabbit stands humbled, looking up from a cooling wade one hot summer's day to see a canoe gliding in with a strange pale-faced man in the bow.”

I first totally realized the power of the lake when I was away in college. A terrible storm came up and three teenaged brothers were washed away as they foolishly tried to brave the winds on the causeway. They were friends of my sister, and the devastating effect of the tragedy on the community was never forgotten. I never took the lake for granted again.


There is a spot in Wisconsin on US 53 where I stop every time I drive to Duluth. It is at the crest of a hill. When you arrive at that spot (and the weather is just right), all the coastline for many, many miles comes into view. I catch my breath; I’m almost home.

Here is an interview with Sosin on Minnesota Public Radio: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/06/01/sosin/

The review in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/books/120917074.html
An article and review in Publisher's Weekly:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/46369-the-not-so-old-woman-and-the-sea-a-profile-of-danielle-sosin.html
Danielle Sosin's website: http://daniellesosin.com/