Book: Two Suns in the Sky
Author: Miriam Bat-Ami
Characters: Chris Cook and Adam Bornstein
Setting: New York, 1930’s WWII
Theme: Coming of Age, race, relationships and war
Genre: Middle School Historical fiction
Audience: ages 12 - 15 (+)
Curriculum: I can see this being used to introduce students to the concepts of religion, time periods of history and the influences of war on the general people.
Summary: Chris Cook, a young rebellious girl curious about the refugee campus being set up by the US in NY ventures on her own to see what the fuss is about. In the chaos of these camps she meets Adam, a refugee and Jewish Yugoslavian. They have frequent encounters and find they have a connection and chemistry but are also divided. It is through the lens of division the reader connects with these characters to find their similarities and love in times of war.
Personal Response:
There is a strong parallelism between Two Suns in the Sky and the Greek tragety of Pyramus and Thisbe . The girl who wants to get a way from the house to be a woman and the young man coming of age and defining himself in a time of war. There is also the symbolic fence that physically represented the separation between the two characters and the figurative separation of language, religion, and family. This tale has a great story line of two characters who have their own individual trials to defining who they want to become and find themselves attracted to each other but have so many differences, the “forbidden fruit” that encourages the read to hope that it works out. ( )

two suns in the sky takes place during the war. Some of the people could go to the United States with the us soldiers.Then the family wanted to go but the mom decided to not go and wait for her husband. The rest of the family was leaving to the united states with the soldiers. Then after time they go to the united states to. There they lived for some time. Then two teens had fallen in love and they think that their love will last forever. ( )

In 1944, in wartime Oswego, New York, two teens, a Yugoslavian Jewish refugee boy and an American Roman Catholic girl from a strict family reach out to one another. Their relationship results in sorrow and growth. ( )

Susan says: This is a story about the immigration of Serbian-Croatian immigrants from Germany, escaping from Hitler in the 1940's. Adam is one of those immigrants - here only with his mother and younger sister while his older brother and father stayed to try and find their grandmother. He meets Chris, a young lady living in Oswego, NY, where their refugee camp is located. This novel takes place over a year and a half, while they meet and have a relationship. Not only is Adam a refugee, which Chris' dad thinks makes Adam dirty, but he is also Jewish while Chris and her family are Catholic. It's an interesting struggle and coming of age story. While Adam and Chris fall in love, Chris is trying to balance her relationship with her family life. And finally she comes to realize that maybe her father's way isn't always the right way. The story is told in two voices, and Adam's story is fairly horrific as he loses members of his family while they hide from the Nazis. Historical fiction is never my favorite, and this is dated, but still the romance would probably make this a little more palatable to teens today. ( )

It is always such a joy to me when a random book buy turns out to be a fabulous read. I picked up Two Suns in the Sky at the library book sale for only fifty cents, but had I known how good it was going to be, I would have been happy to pay full-price. This young adult novel is a combination of historical fiction and historical romance. It is written in such a way that I believe teenagers could easily understand and relate to it, but it is full of the mysteries and complexities of life which I, as an adult, can appreciate as well. The narrative is written in first person point of view, alternating back and forth between the two protagonists, which I found to be very unique. I wasn't sure that I was going to like that at first, and it did take me a little while to get used to it. Ultimately though, I thought the author did a great job with not only the first person perspective itself, but also with differentiating between the two characters and giving them each their own distinctive voice. It took a little while for the character development to build. However, once I came into a full understanding of the two main characters, the story really hit its stride for me, and I had a hard time putting it down.

The historical aspect centers around the one and only refugee camp that operated on American soil during World War II. Located at Fort Ontario, Oswego, New York, it housed 1,000 European refugees, primarily Jews, for about 1½ years. I thought that the author really brought to life this overlooked snippet of American history by showing what it was like living on both sides of the fence. For those living inside the camp there were some, usually the older residents, who had difficulty adapting and felt like virtual prisoners, while the young people (children and teens) loved this new country and embraced the ability to attend school and just be normal kids without the worries of war hanging over their heads. There was a dichotomous state of mind for those living outside the camp as well, with many Oswego residents welcoming the new-comers with open arms, while others, of which Chris's father was one, exhibited a bigoted attitude of fear and suspicion. It was very difficult for me to read these parts of the story, as I don't think I will ever fully understand the mindset of a prejudiced person. Still I thought it rather ingenious the way the author rendered Chris's father as a rather conflicted man who was not an inherently bad person, just one who made bad choices but was still loved by his family in spite of his flaws. I also liked how the independent-minded Chris pointed out (though silently to herself) in one passage, just how ridiculous and un-Christian-like her father's views were. In addition to capturing the differing opinions of the characters, Miriam Bat-Ami also presented a historically accurate picture of these events. In her notes at the end of the book, she seems to indicate that information on the Emergency Refugee Shelter is not easy to come by, but through extensive research and interviews with actual residents of both the ERS and Oswego during that time period, she has been able to recreate this moment in history. In fact, the two main characters are based in part on real-life people that she met. Each chapter begins with a quote which in most cases came directly from one of the interviewees, making the story all the more authentic.

The romance aspect of the book is all about the forbidden love shared by two teens, Chris, an American Irish Catholic girl and Adam, a Yugoslavian Jewish boy. I related to both characters quite well. Chris is a girl with an adventurous spirit, dreaming of joining the WACs to help in the war effort. She also has an incredible curiosity about and compassion for other people. Chris seems to want nothing more than to travel the globe and learn about other cultures, so when the refugees arrive in her home-town, she, not surprisingly, is right there in thick of things, making new friends and fitting right in with these new kids. Adam is a boy who has experienced far more pain, hardship and horror than anyone his age should ever have to. Coming to America gives him a sense of freedom, and he wants nothing more than to start a new life in a country that he hopes will soon adopt him as a citizen. There is an instant attraction between Adam and Chris when Chris generously loans her bicycle to Adam's little sister on their first day in the refugee camp. Their relationship is slow building though, with them first becoming friends through school and the occasions that Chris sneaks into the camp to visit, not only Adam, but other friends she has made there. In spite of initially just being friends, they both often dream of kissing each other, and once they do become boyfriend and girlfriend, theirs is a romance filled with all the tenderness and sweet innocence of first love. As the relationship progresses though, it becomes rather bittersweet as Chris must constantly battle against her father's bigotry and the feeling that she is doing something wrong just by seeing Adam, and both must deal with the reality that at some point Adam is going to leave the camp, whether it be to become an American citizen living elsewhere or to go back to his home country. In the meantime they try to enjoy their stolen moments together to the fullest. At times they would make what in my opinion, was a very mature decision to stay away from each other, either in deference to Chris's father's edicts or to minimize the pain of the separation that seemed inevitable, but no matter how long they were apart, they never stopped loving one another. In some ways, I felt that it just made their feelings for one another grow stronger.

As a parent, I am always on the look-out for quality books that are not just entertaining, but also teach something while being age-appropriate, and I think that Two Suns in the Sky fits that bill nicely. If I, as an adult, learned something about history from this book, then teens most certainly will as well. I also thought that it had some good lessons in compassion for others and standing up for what you believe in. Content-wise, I thought the book is quite appropriate for the teens at which it is aimed. I only recall one or two mild profanities. Chris's dad and uncles drink beer on Thanksgiving, and Adam mentions being allowed to have a sip of brandy on the Sabbath. As I mentioned earlier, Chris and Adam's relationship is very innocent. Except for one scene they share nothing more than kisses, some sweet and others a bit more heated. On that one occasion, they engage in a small amount of moderate petting, but in my opinion, it is handled very well. At that point, both characters were feeling extremely vulnerable, which certainly could have led to things getting out of hand, but they both made a conscious and responsible decision to stop. Although the story contains some mature thematic elements such as body development and image, the death of loved ones, and the various horrors that are associated with war, I thought that everything was treated in a pretty matter-of-fact way and nothing was described in explicit details. Chris does disobey her father on several occasions by visiting the camp against his wishes, but I was not bothered by that because it is abundantly clear that her father is being unreasonable. If he had not been prejudiced and had invited Adam into their home, there would have been no need for Chris to sneak around. Chris's father does say some rather harsh things at times and meets out a very severe punishment to Chris on one occasion, all of which was difficult to read but can also teach lessons on the stark realities of life. Young or not, readers who are averse to overt depictions of religion may not care for this book, as both of the protagonist's religious backgrounds play a strong role, particularly Chris's Catholic faith. I personally was impressed with the care the Jewish author took in describing Catholicism, and anyone who is open-minded and interested in a love-overcomes-all, inter-ethnic romance which is blind to religion, should really enjoy it.

As a romance, Two Suns in the Sky has a rather ambiguous ending, not bad or sad, just no concrete answers about what the future holds for Chris and Adam. They were still young though, and their love for each other was so strong and passionate, it is easy for me to imagine them eventually riding off into the sunset of the fictional happily-ever-after. As a connoisseur of romances, I normally need a strong HEA to be fully satisfied when finishing a book with romance in it, but in this case, I was able to overlook it because of the strong historical element, which I believe was meant to be the main focus. The author makes a comment in her notes at the end about Two Suns in the Sky being her contribution to preserving the memory of the ERS camp, and in that capacity, I think she excelled beautifully. Not only did I learn things that I previously did not know, but I turned the final page only to discover a hunger to learn more. I was compelled to look up the works Ms. Bat-Ami cited in her notes, and have already put one of the books on my TBR list for just that purpose. In my opinion, one of the characteristics of a truly good author is the ability to both teach and stir up the innate desire for learning. I also had never read any books set in WWII before, but now I plan to look for more. I highly recommend this book for anyone who likes a good romantic story, both young and old alike. For me, discovering Two Suns in the Sky was like finding a bit of buried treasure that now forever has a home on my keeper shelf to hopefully be shared with my children and re-read many times over the years to come. ( )