Thanks for the invite Caterina. It was great to meet your talented students!
Category: book reviews
The Georgetown Boys
A moving experience in Georgetown Ontario with Armenian students bussed in from all over. As I sat on a picnic table and watched these very young children playing in the trees and chasing after each other with shouts of joy I couldn’t help but think of those first orphaned little boys who came in 1923, in what became known as Canada’s Noble Experiment — ie — Canada’s first international relief effort.
Thousands of children had been orphaned during the Armenian Genocide. By 1923, many had taken refuge in Corfu, in caves, on beaches, in old abandoned barracks.
109 boys got a chance to start a new life in Canada. They left behind grandmothers and sisters and younger brothers, but they never forgot who they were.
It was heartening to see hundreds of Armenian Canadian children and their families coming together in Georgetown today, to remember those first little boys, and more importantly, to remember those who didn’t survive. One hundred years ago the Turkish government tried to obliterate Armenians, their culture, their blood. They killed 1.5 million Armenians, but the nation and memory lives and thrives worldwide.
It was an honour to be one of the speakers at this commemorative event. I will never forget.
Goodbye, Antoura
After my presentation at the Watertown MA Public Library last week, I was honoured to be presented with a copy of Karnig Panian’s memoir about his time as a child genocide survivor who is taken to the Orphanage of Antoura in Lebanon where the administrators tried to Turkify him. Panian’s daughter, Houry Panian Boyamian, wrote the acknowledgements. This photo shows Houry and I together. She is inscribing her very first autographed copy. Here is more information on this important memoir.
Writing YA books about the Armenian Genocide
From this interview.
Interview with Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch: Dance of the Banished and the Armenian Genocide
Posted on April 23rd, 2015 by pajamapress
On April 24, 2015, Armenians around the world will mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, a systematic campaign by Turkish leaders in the Ottoman Empire to remove the empire’s Christian Armenian population. As evidenced by recent headlines, the subject is controversial today because the Turkish government denies that these deportations and killings can be labelled “genocide.” Continue reading “Writing YA books about the Armenian Genocide”
April 21: Worldwide Reading in commemoration of the Armenian Genocide
It poured rain and there was even some hail as I lugged my books plus a large object in a garbage bag into the Brantford Public Library. As I was drying out and setting up, Sharon Gashgarian also came in with a mystery object wrapped in plastic. Paula Thomlison, librarian extraordinaire, got us each an easel and we propped up our items, then hid them behind babushkas.
People began to come in, from Brantford, Cambridge, Burlington, Toronto … Soon, Paula had to get more chairs. It is a lovely thing when a presentation needs more chairs.
This presentation was to commemorate those writers who had been killed for speaking out about the Armenian Genocide. It was happening on April 21 all over the world. In Canada, the Montreal Armenian community was presenting at the exact same time as I was.
I read the passage from Dance of the Banished when 800 prominent Armenians were loaded into oxcarts used for garbage and taken out of Harput. Hours later, the oxcarts came back, bloodied and empty.
I then read an excerpt from a Danish missionary’s memoir recounting the eye-witness testimony of one man who escaped that massacre and made it back to the mission. After the reading, Victoria Bailey asked if I could show her the book that I had just read from. It turned out that one of her own ancestors had been given refuge at that Danish missionary’s orphanage, the Bird’s Nest. It was an emotional connection.
Next, I turned the floor over to Sharon Gashgarian, who, with much emotion, spoke of how she was affected by the painting that graces the cover of Dance of the Banished.
With permission from both me and the artist, Pascal Milelli, Sharon created a fabric artwork inspired by Pascal’s art. I unveiled his original and she unveiled her fabric art. Hers also included an inscription of “I remember” in Armenian, Ukrainian, English and French.
The library is displaying Sharon’s beautiful art piece in their window for the rest of April in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Within the window too, are some of my books an also other books about the Armenian Genocide.
A moving evening for very many reasons.
Talking about Genocide with very young children
I was honoured to present at St Stephen’s Armenian Elementary School in Watertown MA last week. Before speaking to the older students, I dropped in on the very youngest. How do you talk about genocide with the very young? And especially how do you do that about a genocide in which their own ancestors had died? Gently, and not directly.
With my chapter books, Aram’s Choice and Call Me Aram, I spoke about the fact of these first 50 orphaned Armenian boys and their journey half way around the world to Canada and Georgetown Ontario. How and why they were orphaned wasn’t part of the conversation. Instead, we concentrated on what it would be like to be one of 50 very young children traveling across the world with just one adult teacher. In increments, they will learn the rest.
Author presentation at the Watertown MA Public Library
Student stars for Underground Soldier
Got this lovely message from a Vancouver teacher today, and she sent me this jpg of the book with the student stars:
I just had two students come and ask me to put a student starred sticker on Underground Soldier. This means that they believe it is so good that everyone should read it! Within five minutes, two others added their stars to the book!!
Dance of the Banished trailer
Thank you, Karen Upper, for creating this amazing trailer!
Brantford Ontario: Reading to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
