A Girl Named Disaster

Farmer, N. (1998). A Girl Named Disaster. New York: Puffin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-038635-6

Why read this book

You’d call Nhamo streetwise if she lived in urban America, but since she lives in rural Africa let’s call her rainforestwise. Forced to flee her village or become the third wife to a man nearly three times her age, Nhamo needs all the rainforest wisdom she’s got to survive an epic journey to find her father in a neighboring country.

Plot summary

Nhamo’s status in her Shona village in rural Mozambique is very low, given that her mother had been killed by a leopard when Nhamo was three and even before she was born her father had gotten into trouble with people in a neighboring village and fled back to his own family in Zimbabwe. Nhamo’s days are filled with tasks like planting, weeding, grinding corn into flour, baby-sitting, gathering firewood, and washing clothes, unlike her favored cousin, Masvita, who gets to sit in the shade making pottery. But all this work has taught Nhamo a lot of skills. She knows a lot more than Masvita about the many plants and animals in the rainforest that surrounds their village. Nhamo also has the advantage of a loving grandmother, her mother’s mother, who imparts the knowledge and wisdom she has accumulated in her long life to Nhamo by telling her stories in the evening when the day’s work is done.

Nhamo and Masvita are approaching the time for marriage. Their family pledges Masvita to a promising young man in a nearby village and decides that Nhamo should marry a frail old man who already has several wives and lives in a village that has a claim against Nhamo’s family. Nhamo’s grandmother knows Nhamo deserves better, and she orders Nhamo to flee her village to search for her father in Zimbabwe. After careful, secret preparations, Nhamo sets off in an abandoned boat on an adventure that lasts several months and calls on all her knowledge of rainforest life and Shona spirits to survive.

Critical evaluation

Nancy Farmer tells Nhamo’s story with a third-person narrative, but it is through Nhamo’s eyes that we learn about her world and share her river journey from Mozambique to Zimbabwe. Although I am not qualified to judge the accuracy of the many details of natural life and social life in rural southeast African that enrich the narrative, I can’t doubt the broadening value of these insights for readers whose perspectives have been shaped by urban, industrialized lifestyles. Both the rich resources and the serious challenges that the rainforest offers to humans who live there shape the drama of the narrative. Farmer also explores the challenges to social structures that are negotiating the transition from colonial domination to political independence and from local, agricultural traditions to integration into a globalized, industrialized world. Perhaps the most important theme of Nhamo’s story is the clash between traditional village values and the western, Christian values that foreigners have brought. The clash is revealed subtly through Nhamo’s experiences, and Farmer doesn’t stack the deck against one side or the other. The reader comes to see the strengths of both worlds as Nhamo integrates them into the future she builds for herself. Although Nhamo is an extraordinary character, I found her to be believable (and very likable, of course). As a Horn Book Magazine review notes (Parravano, 1996), Farmer portrays the African setting matter-of-factly rather than exotically. The fairy tale ending rings a bit artificial, but positive and upbeat is not the worst thing for young readers.

About the author

According to the Web site biography.jrank.org, Nancy Farmer was born in 1941 and raised in Yuma, Arizona, where she worked in her family’s hotel during her youth. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in India from 1963 to 1965 and worked as a scientist in Mozambique and Zimbabwe from 1972 to 1988. While living in Zimbabwe she began writing children’s stories and young adult literature, a career she pursued full time since returning to the United States to live in 1991.

In addition to A Girl Named Disaster, which was a Newbery Honor book in 1997, Farmer’s best known young adult titles include:

· The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (1994), a 1995 Newbery Honor book set in a futuristic Zimbabwe

· The House of the Scorpion (2002), a story about cloning set in a fictional land on the border between the United States and Mexico that was a Newbery Honor book, a National Book Award winner, and a Printz Honor book in 2002.

· The Sea of Trolls (2004), set in 8th century England

Genre: Adventure, International

Curriculum ties

Modern world history — Chapter 1 of A Girl Named Disaster gives students a good picture of daily life in an agriculturally based economic system, an important foundation for understanding the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Overall, Nhamo’s story is a window into the complex interactions between traditional social values and outside influences, especially in the context of 19th and 20th century colonialism.

Cultural geography — In addition to Nhamo’s story itself, the summaries of the history of the peoples of Zimbabwe and Mozambique and the Shona belief system found at the end of the book are good resources for students studying the cultural geography of southeast Africa.

Book-talking ideas

· To reach young people interested in environmental issues, focus on the information about the rainforest and how Nhamo lived in harmony with nature before and during her journey.

· For students who like Cinderella stories, present the book as a Cinderella story in a new context, rural Africa.

· To pique the interest of students who like survival stories, read a passage that describes how Nhamo satisfied her material needs from the natural environment.

Reading level/interest age

Although the format of the book — 300+ pages of relatively small type — might be daunting for 9th and 10th graders, the subject matter may be of more interest to them than to older readers (the protagonist is middle school age). About half the San Francisco public high school libraries own one or more copies of A Girl Named Disaster, but more than half the middle school libraries also own a copy, as do a number of elementary school libraries.

Challenge issues

Although there are harrowing episodes in the novel, there is no sex or violence. The religious issues may evoke challenges, since the story positions traditional animist beliefs and Christian missionary beliefs in opposition, with neither privileged over the other. This may disturb Christian fundamentalists on one hand or African nationalists on the other hand.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Inform the challenger that the book received the following awards (according to biography.jrank.org): National Book Award finalist for Children's Literature, 1996; Silver Medal, Commonwealth Club of California, 1996; Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults, American Library Association, 1997; and Newbery Honor Book, 1997.

• Direct the challenger to the positive review in Horn Book Magazine.

Why I chose to read this book

I found this book on the San Francisco Public Library’s list of books for teens in the category “International Experiences: Books about Teens in Other Countries.”

References

biography.jrank.org (n.d.). Nancy Farmer. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1658/Farmer-Nancy-1941.html

Brown, J. M. (2002, July 22). Nancy Farmer: Voices of experience. Publishers Weekly 249(29), 154-155. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/hww/results/results_single_fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=YT1NZX2KCJEWNQA3DIKSFF4ADUNGIIV0

Parravano, M. V. (1996, November/December). A girl named Disaster. Horn Book Magazine, 72 (6). Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://web.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=7&sid=2a27f86c-c5af-4b58-b744-4c727675a2ae%40sessionmgr4&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=lih&AN=9704171564#db=lih&AN=9704171564