Everything Old is New Again

Meet Our Contributor: 
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Dr. Cindi Koudelka (@cmkoudelka) is a Curriculum Specialist with National Board Certification in Adolescent Young Adulthood/English Language Arts at Fieldcrest School District in Illinois and an Adjunct faculty member at Aurora University.  She holds multiple certifications from PreK - 12 and is an active member of several literacy and research organizations. Her research interests reflect her passion for youth advocacy by focusing on critical adolescent literacies, young adult literature, positioning, and youth participatory action research.

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Everything Old is New Again
​by Cindi Koudelka

As the current news cycle continues to highlight divisive conversations and human rights violations, I have been thinking a lot about how history seems to repeat itself in patterns of oppression, which lead to struggles and gains for reform, followed by setbacks and the need for continued activism against injustice. As this cycle repeats itself, authors of young adult novels help us understand how it has played out across the decades. There are several excellent historical fiction novels that explore the array of timelines and locations throughout the world, where people have struggled for the most basic human rights and respect.

The Prince & the Coyote by David Bowles

What I love most about this story is that it is inspired by Mesoamerican history. Often, when we discuss historical fiction, it is limited to modern history. However, David Bowles’ Pura Belpré-winning book delves into the ancient culture that ultimately led to the formation of the Aztec Empire. Prince Acolmiztli is heir to the throne in a time of great unrest and warring people, including his own family. At just fifteen years old, his family is betrayed. He watches helplessly as his mother and siblings are killed and escapes into the woods with his father. However, that safety didn’t last long as his father was eventually cornered and also killed. The young prince escapes into exile, where he survives by pretending to be a commoner. While he spends years in exile, he embarks on numerous journeys and recounts his story through poetry. He vows revenge, plotting to reclaim his home, and he eventually emerges with new alliances and a new name, Nezahualcoyotl—Fasting Coyote. The book is gloriously illustrated by Amanda Mijangos, honoring the culture and art of the Aztecs, including maps and family trees. Together, Bowles and Mijangos weave a beautiful story that incorporates the renowned poetry of Nezahualcoyotl while capturing the grief and growth of the young boy in exquisite prose. Not only would this book be a brilliant resource in a mythology or traditional English course, but it would be a powerful tool for a world history class.

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Rebellion 1776 by Laurie Halse Anderson

Leaping forward a couple of centuries, comes Laurie Halse Anderson’s newest book. Set during the American Revolution, we meet Elsbeth Culpepper, a smallpox survivor who has relocated to Boston with her father after the rest of their family died from the disease. She is employed as a live-in maid for a Loyalist while her father lives in a boarding house and works as a sailmaker. As the Siege of Boston drives the Loyalists out and creates havoc in the city, her father goes missing, and another smallpox epidemic arrives. Like Anderson’s previous historical fiction work, Rebellion 1776  is steeped in well-researched information and dialogue that fully draws the reader into the timeframe. Even though we may not be in the middle of a war, many of the themes and conflicts she shares remind us that history repeats itself in both wartime and peace. The concept of vaccines, relatively new at the time, was a source of conflict between detractors and proponents. The misogyny Elsbeth faces throughout the book may have been more pronounced in 1776, but the fight for women’s rights and autonomy continues today. How the wealthy are treated as opposed to the poor, working class mirrors much of the same injustices in healthcare and opportunities that exist generations later.      
What is most powerful about this book is that it doesn’t sugarcoat the harshness of the time and critically examines the issues without being didactic. Even though Elsbeth is just 13, she has to navigate a complicated world without much support, so she must be clever and sometimes break her own moral codes to survive. Anderson has created beautifully nuanced characters who must examine what freedom means, what they are willing to do to survive, and decide who they can trust—questions many people face today.​

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The Davenports  by Krystal Marquis

Too often in reading historical fiction, the narrative surrounding people of color is either a slave story or a civil rights story. This narrative, instead, is inspired by the real-life story of C.R. Patterson and his family, who founded the first black-owned automobile manufacturer. This story focuses on the wealthy Davenport family in 1910s Chicago. Despite being one of the wealthiest families in the city, they still must contend with the racism and sexism of the time. Told through alternating viewpoints, we come to follow four main characters as they navigate life and the expectations that shape their choices. More romance than history, the book still paints a picture of pre-war Chicago and the role of intersectionality in identity. I appreciate the heavy focus on characterization, where the historical setting shapes the characters, but never feels like the challenges they face are limited strictly to the era. Through the romance and ambition of the girls, the reader comes to understand the challenges faced by young people growing up within any context that labels or limits them by gender, race, and/or class. I am not generally a fan of romance, but I absolutely appreciated the way Marquis blended love and ambition within a time period and setting not often explored.

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For Lamb by Lesa Cline-Ransome 

The next book takes us to the late 1930s/early 1940s in Jackson, Mississippi to witness the beauty and pain of a family living in the South under Jim Crow laws. Through alternating perspectives, we meet Marion, a closeted lesbian working to raise her vocal son, Simeon, and Lamb a shy, quiet girl whose naivete and friendship with a white girl sets off a series of events that endangers the family.  Ransome’s writing is brutally honest with some strong language, a sexual assualt, and lynchings, while simultaneously honoring the experiences of the characters. Her sensitivity in writing assures that the brutality is never exploitive or graphic. She deftly balances the ugly truth with the resilience of the people who face such hatred.  The strong, multidimensional characters demonstrate the reality of identities and the various motivations that drive people to act as they do. As we continue to deal with systemic racism today, Lamb’s story is a stark reminder of the intergenerational trauma and the work we must continue to do if we are ever going to heal and repair the wounds from our history. ​

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The Blood Years by Elana K. Arnold

There are many, many great Holocaust books, but this one stands out as it is set in Czernowitz, Romania—an area that was considered a safe haven for Jewish people. This setting adds another layer to the other Holocaust stories as a reminder about how far the hatred and antisemitism extended and how those deep wounds still impact people today. Based on her grandmother’s stories of growing up in war-torn Romania, Arnold shares the story of Rieke, her older sister Astra, their mother still reeling after the girls’ father left, and a very religious grandfather. As antisemitism spreads across Europe, their family faces increased threats and injustice as their grandfather’s business is vandalized and they are kicked out of public school. As war breaks out, the country is invaded first by the Russians and then by the Germans. Although there were no concentration camps, the experiences in Romania were equally as unjust. The girls lose their home and sent to a ghetto where Rieke faces health issues, a sexual assault, and her grandfather’s murder.
​Throughout these horrors, she continues to carry on, but how much can she take before they break her? Once again, readers witness the greatest depravities of humans, but yet are able to hold onto hope through the strength of the characters. ​

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Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray

Libba Bray is one of my favorite authors. I especially love how fresh each of her books are and yet maintain that Libba Bray touch. Her newest novel blends historical fiction, mystery, and realistic fiction with an intricate weaving of timelines that cross from Germany in the 1940s and 1980s to New York City in 2020 while the world is impacted by Covid. It reminds me a little of Pam Munoz Ryan’s Echo in which a harmonica tied the story together, but in this novel, it is a Bridegroom’s Oak tree and the story bounces between the three time periods. The tree’s legend is that if you write to the tree, the love of your life will write back. (The real-life tree that inspired this can be found in Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany).But in a country ripped apart by war and later a wall, the tree holds a promise of so much more. Bray’s ability to authentically build the worlds across the time periods is particularly impressive. She has created three sets of characters facing different circumstances that are grounded in the same issues of friendship, hope, and resistance.
​As she builds connections across time and place, she proves that everything that is old is new again and we must continue fighting against hate and oppression to create a better world.

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