Miriam Bat-Ami

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.… (mais)

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.… (mais)