Our Secret,Siri Aang (Aspca Henry Bergh Children's Book Awards (Awards)) [Hardcover]

Cristina Kessler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2004 | Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up | Series: Aspca Henry Bergh Children's Book Awards (Awards)

Twelve-year-old Namelok can't tell anyone about the mother black rhino and her baby that she found in the bush while collecting firewood for her Maasai tribe. She vows to protect them always, visit them often, and to keep them secret. But when her initiation into womanhood threatens her secret visits, Namelok must say goodbye to her precious animal friends. Before she can, though, she makes a horrifying discovery, one that sends her on a harrowing journey into the bush in a desperate search for poachers and the justice they deserve.
Cristina Kessler has written a powerful and authentic story of a young girl's love for a rhino mother and her baby, and of her courage to challenge tradition to defend them.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-8–While gathering firewood in the bush, 12-year-old Namelok stumbles upon a pregnant rhino and watches her give birth. She names the baby Siri Aang ("Our Secret"), vowing to keep the animals' existence hidden. Times are changing for her Maasai community, and her father has moved the family to a new home with better grazing and water for his cattle, near a Kenyan national park where tourists and a store offer new opportunities to earn money and to spend it. With the advent of Namelok's monthly period, it is time for her to stop wandering freely to visit the animals and to prepare for the circumcision ceremony that signifies her entrance into womanhood. Although she is reluctantly prepared to go along with this, she also wants to attend school and keep up her contact with the rhinos. When the mother is killed by poachers, Namelok tracks the baby through the bush for days, eating little but berries and tree bark, and encountering a lion. She is a curious and courageous character, caught between the values of a nomadic culture and a more sedentary modern society. Because of the wealth of descriptive detail, readers will easily envision the Kenyan landscape and be caught up in the suspense of this intriguing survival story. The cultural dilemmas of the Maasai should stimulate discussion. While the small rhino's story ends happily, youngsters can only hope that Namelok and her family can negotiate the changes in their lives as successfully.–Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 7-12. Told from the viewpoint of a Masai girl in Kenya today, this novel brings close the painful conflict between the traditional and modern in a changing world. In the exciting opening scene Namelok, 12, witnesses the birth of a baby rhinoceros in the bush and vows to keep it secret to protect the animals from dangerous poachers. Her other secret is getting her period, which she keeps to herself to delay the painful traditional initiation ceremony and arranged marriage. (There's no clear explanation of what that initiation is except in the glossary; presumably it's female circumcision, which has long been practiced by the Masai and is now being challenged). Namelok wants to go to school, but her beloved father, the tribal leader, heartbroken that his people have been displaced and angered by tourists who pay for posed photos, insists she follow the old ways. Neither exotic nor sentimental, Namelok's personal story is part survival and part coming-of-age. She spends days alone in the bush as she tracks the poacher who killed the mother rhino, and she takes her first step toward independence when she learns the poacher's shocking identity. Kessler has spent many years in Kenya, and she writes with authority about both the wildlife and the cultural struggle. Always there are the questions: Is tradition sentimental? Are all new ideas bad? Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Philomel (October 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399239855
• ISBN-13: 978-0399239854
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,592,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If I bend that far, I shall surely break, July 6, 2005

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Our Secret,Siri Aang (Aspca Henry Bergh Children's Book Awards (Awards)) (Hardcover)

A book that bears more similarities to "Fiddler On the Roof" than (as I originally assumed) "Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind". After reading a certain number of children's books, a person runs the danger of becoming ever-so-slightly jaded. You start ticking of the cultures and countries covered. Have I read a tale of a nomadic child in the Cholistan Desert of modern day Pakistan? Check. How about a child in nineteenth century Southern Libya? Check. So when I saw this book about the contemporary trials of a girl living as a Maasai, I was already checking the title off in my head. I was not particularly heartened by the fact that this book had sat, untouched, in the New Books section of my library for a month or two. For all its good writing (which I will get to) this book sports a cover that kids do not readily gravitate towards. And this is a pity. Author Cristina Kessler is a far better author than most of the two-bit hacks out there, and as a Peace Corps volunteer, she knows from whence she writes. In "Our Secret, Siri Aang", we find that all human beings are complex characters with both good and bad inside of them. It just takes one girl to learn the hard way that her heroes may not be as perfect as they first appear.

A twelve-year-old girl in the Maasai culture will inevitably have a lot on her mind at all times. Namelok is no exception to this rule. Namelok carries with her the weight of a series of secrets, all exciting and all dangerous. First, she witnessed the birth of a baby black rhino in the bush, and has committed herself to the health and well-being of both the mama and the child. Second, her menstrual cycle has just begun, and she wants nothing to do with it. Menstruation can only mean an end to her childhood days and a fast circumcision (or "emuratare") before being married off to a man her father chooses. Third, she wants to learn from the village schoolteacher. This is expressly forbidden, not only because she is a girl but also because the Maasai do not believe such knowledge to have much use. All in all, the odds are stacked pretty squarely against Namelok. Then, one day, things get worse. Poachers are spotted in town. Her beloved older brother participates in a bit of foolishness that sets off a whole series of events. And when Namelok goes to visit her beloved rhinos, she sees vultures circling above. By the end, Namelok sets out on a quest to bring justice to the world and make her father see her as an equal and not just a young girl fighting to understand the world around her.

The book runs the slight danger of falling into the category of girl-refuses-an-arranged-marriage books (ala "Catherine Called Birdy" or the aforementioned "Shabanu") or the female-circumcision-in-children's-books camp (as with "No Laughter Here"). Fortunately, author Kessler avoids such trite topics. Namelok will have to deal with these problems later on down the line, but this tale is far more concerned with the ideas of change in a community and dying traditions. Our heroine's father fights the encroachment of unfamiliar ways and, in doing so, is led to a supremely foolish act. Readers of this book may not initially understand why it is so shameful for young Maasai warriors to pose for tourists' photographs for money, but the story eventually shows just how wrong the act can be. I loved that this was a book in which the heroine really does grow and mature before your eyes. I also loved that the ending left multiple strings hanging in the breeze. If "Our Secret, Siri Aang" were a more popular title, I would suspect that a sequel might be in the works somewhere. Alas, this is probably not the case.

Basically, this is a good title for those kids who want books with complex moralities. Where the world is not necessarily drawn into sections that are either black or white. At the same time, Kessler seems to have a firm grasp on Maasai culture and its people. You can put yourself completely into her hands as a writer without fear of any skimping on the details. All in all, the book takes an initially unrecognizable setting and puts the most human of faces onto it. A splendidly written piece of work.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sharing a Secret, December 17, 2004

By 

Martha Hills (St John Virgin Islands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Our Secret,Siri Aang (Aspca Henry Bergh Children's Book Awards (Awards)) (Hardcover)

This touching tale is a coming-of-age book about a twelve-year old Maasai girl, Namelok. It is set in today's Africa, where the Maasai face unwelcome changes imposed upon them by the outside world. Namelok is a mature and aware young woman who is unafraid to question the traditional ways. She is lured by the sights and sounds of the bush where she goes to gather firewood. One day she witnesses a black rhino giving birth. She whispers to the mother, "...let's call your beautiful baby Siri Aang, for that's what she shall be - Our Secret." Christina intertwines the theme of Namelok's protective stance toward the rhinos with the girl's maturing in a way that weaves a captivating story.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our Secret, January 28, 2005

By 

B. etty Story "critical reader" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Our Secret,Siri Aang (Aspca Henry Bergh Children's Book Awards (Awards)) (Hardcover)

Our Secret is a powerful story of a Masai girl facing a web of dilemnas. Christina Kessler has the ability to mix intrique, cultural values, and strong yet not sentimental characters. This book relates an important tale of a culture that is rapildy changing.

The details of daily life in a Masai village will appeal to readers as well as the indentification with an adolescent girl who must make difficult decisions.

Adolescent readers will not feel pandered to by reading this book that makes the reader a better person.