Part I: Bibliographic information
Type: Nonfiction/Graphic
Title: A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return
Writer: Zeina Abirached
Copyright Date: 2012
Publisher: Graphic Universe
ISBN: 978-1-57505-941-9
Genre/subgenre: Autobiography/War stories
Interest Age: 11+
Reading Level: Upper Grades (UG 9-12)
Pages: 188
Awards: ALSC’s Batchelder Award 2013 Honor Book (for best foreign language book for children)
Part I: Reader’s Annotation, Plot Summary, Critical Evaluation
Reader’s Annotation -- Told through the eyes of a young girl who has only known civil war as a way of life, this tale of Beirut during the turbulent 1980s focuses on one family still living in their apartment despite the snipers and bombings that threaten their safety.
Plot Summary -- Zeina and her brother are left behind for safety reasons while her parents go to visit their beloved grandmother across town. The trip is dangerous due to sniper activity along the route. The phones do not work well and when they are delayed the children are safer in the apartment. Essentially, they are only safe in their foyer and even neighbors gather their in the evenings to keep clear from the dangers of shelling. The children pass the time playing make believe. The adults include a building caretaker, Churci, whose father disappeared in the streets -- he visits and keeps the children entertained. Anala is a housekeeper that has long been with the family and cooks for the family still. Another character is Ernest, a French-speaking Lebanese man who is well-dressed and cultured. He visits and offers stories to the crowd. The listen to the bombing reports on the radio and the sense of dread is almost unbearable. Another couple who used to own a restaurant fill out the compliment of neighbors -- they bring liquor kept from their now closed restaurant, Veni Vidi Vici. All of these details and backstories make up young Zeina sense of the outside world that she cannot directly experience.
Her parents still have not return and the night comes. We meet the housekeepers children who are grown but live there for lack of anywhere to go. He is an architect but there is no work due to the war. The two dream of leaving but are also scared this would mean never seeing their family again. It’s also not that easy or safe to depart Lebanon. They tell the story of their wedding to the children and the banquet and festivities. But a gigantic bomb drops and ends the stories. A call finally comes from grandmother indicating that the parents are on their way and not to worry. But they are all worried and Churchi goes out in his car to look for than -- which is not very safe. At long last, the parents return. But Churhi does not. Ernest tells an entertaining rendition of Cyrano De Bergerac that passes the time. But a shell land on a bedroom -- and they are finally forced to leave not know what became of Churchi.
A week later the parents to back and are told of the stories of each of the old neighbors -- all have left except Ernest and Churchi, who did finally return. And, in the end, Zeina’s family leaves the country for good.
Critical Evaluation -- This work is titled after a saying spray-painted on a bullet-riddled building in Beruit. “Mourir partir revenir c’est le jeu des hirondelles. ~ Florian” -- this translates to, “To Die To Leave To Return It’s A Game for Swallow”. The meaning is ostensibly that we as humans are at the mercy of larger forces and our direction is often unpredictable and sometimes death-defying. This becomes an analogy for the characters in this moving work about individuals connected to young Zeina, who grew up in the battlefield that was Beruit of the 1980s.
The book does not delve into the politics of the war. We hardly understand the dynamic of who is fighting whom. She focuses on her own family and their experience of living in a bombed-out neighborhood in an apartment building that is largely abandoned at the time except her family, an older neighbor and the superintendent. This is her world and she learns all that she knows from them. The sense of community felt amongst this small grouping brought together by circumstance forms the basis for her sense of security amidst chaos.
And, the theme becomes that essential goodness of ordinary people that she lets unfold in this work -- that in spite of the chaos, our humanity is our foundation and her foundation as a small child forming beliefs about an outside world she has hardly seen. It is the older man who tells of Cyrano De Bergerac, her grandmother who refuses to give up on Beirut and the building superintendent who refuses to leave his post in spite of the danger that give this work so much warmth and sense of the human spirit.
Part III: Author Info
Zeina Abirached is a Lebanese-born woman who lives in France.
She “was born in Beirut in 1981 in the middle of the civl war, and was ten years old when it finally ended. She studied graphic arts and commercial design at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts and in 2002 was awarded the top prize at the International Comic Book Festival in Beirut for her first graphic novel, Beyrouth Catharsis” (Abirached, 2012), a work that was published in French in 2006 that is primarily illustrated.
She published two additional graphic novels in French as well, according to “About the Author” statement in this more recent work included in the 2012 American edition of The Game of Swallows. She decided to tell the story of her family’s experience in war-torn Beirut after seeing her grandmother interviewed on television following a bomb raid. The resulting work is A Game of Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return (2007), which she both wrote and illustrated. The first American additonal was published in 2012 by Graphic Universe.
Part IV: Curriculum Ties, Diversity, Booktalk Ideas, Challenge Issues
Curriculum Ties, if any -- This world could be used in conjuction with any current affairs course that addresses the human impact of war. Specifically, it has some background into the nature of modern warfare, which involves living through crises often while isolated to a neighborhood in unsafe and unpredictable conditions.
Diversity of Cultures -- This work offers a very unique look at a Middle Eastern family that shatters some of the stereotypes we may have. They are quite modern and yet not unlike a typical family anywhere in their desire for safety and connection to their cultural traditions. It’s a work that sheds positive light on a culture that too often is portrayed with simplicity and stereotype.
Booktalking Ideas -- Children are often the innocent victims of war. Sometimes these children come to America and start new lives here. What recent conflicts can you think of that have brought newcomers to America? What might it be like to be one of these children?
Challenge Issues -- There are really no challenge issues in this work. It’s innocence almost defies it’s heavy duty subject matter.
Part V: Reasons chosen
The graphic medium for storytelling has a lot of appeal to a younger reader. They are simply a generation who finds cartoons quite normal and engaging. It’s also a way to indulge a heavy topic like civil war in Beirut and not loose the young reader in the first sentence. This work is a memoir more or less -- and it features a family with two young children. That dynamic appeals to a young adult reader as well as they try to figure out the meaning and importance of family. This work makes very clear that even children can appreciated their parents, grandparents and other adult people who keep them safe and enrich their lives in important and significant ways. I’m often asked if there is a book for my child to read that is not ‘snarky’ -- that is to say something that does not encourage a bad attitude. I’d say this work fill that bill. It’s hard to complain about not getting some new toy or clothing item you want when you expose yourself to the reality of what many have suffered through. It’s also a tale that fills in a piece of the complex puzzle that is Middle East relations. So, in the respect of broadening one’s understanding of current affairs, I feel this work is a valuable read as well for young people.
Part VI: Citations
Abirached, Z. (2012). A game of swallows. Minneapolis, MN: Graphic Universe.
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