Kent Boy

Beginning in 1989 I intermittently recorded the recollections in Krio of William Africanus Beckley, a family friend, in Tengbeh Town.  Mr. Beckley was born in 1916 in Kent village in Sierra Leone, a century after its founding and a century ago.  He lived there until 1934 when he moved to Freetown.  Although he never returned to live in the village he always thought of himself as a “Kent boy” and wanted this to be the title of his book. As is the nature of conversations, topics would appear, disappear, and reappear again, unpredictably.  I typed out the scripts, and then organized them into chapters, attempting not to insert any words of my own.

William A. Beckley

In January, 1994 I finished a draft of Kent Boy and read it aloud to Mr. Beckley, who was an avid reader in English but did not read Krio. He suggested some changes.  That same year I gave him copies of this book and a book of his proverbs.  He left work not long after that time, and died in January of 2001, at the age of 85.

Read A History of St. Edward’s Church, 3rd edition. Nonfiction. 54 pages. CreateSpace, 2016. $5.95. ISBN 9781530581177 [in English], to learn more about the history of Mr. Beckley’s village.

Gate from inside of King Wall in Kent Village

 

I find myself forgetting to breathe!—Heaven and Kiptieu, reading The Heritage Keeper.

When and Where was the Annie Walsh Memorial School founded?

There is certainly a lot of conflicting information about the founding of the Annie Walsh Memorial School on the internet! Filomena Steady’s article in Hafkin and Bay’s Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change states that it “was founded in 1849 by the Church Missionary Society [CMS], succeeding the Female Institution established two years earlier.” (p. 218)  Hadi Bah’s posting on Sierra Leone 365 asserts that the school was founded not in Charlotte (as some people seem to be claiming) but in Freetown, and includes interesting information about its foundation stone.

However, it is stated both in Walker’s book from 1847, The Church of England Mission in Sierra Leone, p. 575 and on p. 174 in Sibthorpe’s The History of Sierra Leone, which first appeared in 1868, that the CMS Female Institution opened in Regent with eight pupils in 1845 under its first superintendent, Miss A.C. Morris. CMS schools at that time were only for those born in the colony; that is, they would accept (among others) the children of Liberated Africans, but not Liberated Africans themselves, whose education was the responsibility of the Government. When Miss Morris married Rev. Smith in 1845 and took up duties in Bathurst where he lived, the wife of the resident missionary at Regent, Mrs. Denton, filled in for her part-time until her replacement, Miss M. Sophia Hehlen, arrived at the end of December, 1846. In 1850 the Institution moved to Kissy Road where the present parsonage stands. Miss Julia Sass soon became superintendent (she is referred to as carrying on, or continuing, the charge of the Female Institution but not initiating it) and was looking for more suitable accommodation for the school when she left temporarily for reasons of ill health.  It was during her absence from 1853-55 that construction began on the school’s current site, paid for by the Walsh family for whom it was eventually renamed.

Regarding Charlotte, there is documentation that the linguist Hannah Kilham began a school for Liberated Africans in Charlotte in 1830, two years before her death. There was also a long-standing coeducational Government school for Liberated Africans in Charlotte. We know that at least two teachers previously connected with the CMS Female Institution (Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Hehlen) later took charge of the school of Liberated African girls at Charlotte. The answer as to which school’s ruins can still be found at Charlotte must lie somewhere in this information; one thing we know, however, is that the answer is not the Female Institution / the Annie Walsh Memorial School.

The Rhetoric of Trump

There’s been a lot of talk about Trump rhetoric, but I haven’t heard people discussing Rhetoric in the talk of Trump.

I know of two contrasting types of rhetorical argument: demonstrative and deliberative. You expect to see argument while political campaigning is going on, but with Trump in the picture, both types are easily identifiable.

There are politicians campaigning now who see major issues as debatable. They do not claim to have all the answers. They ask their audience to look at the likely consequences, including personal or emotional consequences, of various actions and they recommend their preference. They use future tenses. They keep focused on choice; the choices that could solve the problem. In other words, they use deliberative argument.

Trump uses a different kind of argument. He presents topics as moral or value-related, and inarguable. To make such pronouncements, you need the present tense. He identifies for you (often through name-calling) who is in and who is out, who is right and who is wrong. He does a lot of blaming, so he also makes ample use of the past tense.

His rhetoric fits the pattern of demonstrative argument. It’s tantamount to a fight. If you respond, you can choose to meet him on the demonstrative floor for a brawl, or bring him over to the deliberative floor to argue. I haven’t yet seen anyone do the latter successfully.

Historical Fiction for Children: The Protagonist

I work with children in Sierra Leone who are learning to write down their individual true personal experiences. The more they work through successive drafts, the more both their proficiency in English and their writing skills, improve. We would like to see them contribute to the national literature of Sierra Leone.

In trying to help these students convert their experiences to equally culturally-relevant children’s fiction, however, we come up against an obstacle inherent to childhood: children generally are under the supervision of adults. Therefore, most of our students’ true experiences happen while carrying out an assigned task, and their pieces end with how successfully it was carried out. The task, or the goal of the story, is an adult’s. Good children’s fiction, on the other hand, requires that a child be the protagonist—the plots should be driven by what the children need or want, and how successfully they achieve it.

The problem is not for want of goals. Our students are full of ideas. The problem is that the roles they play in their families and communities do not make acting on those ideas possible, so carrying them out could not be written into a culturally-relevant book. Our young authors share this cultural characteristic with the characters in the historical fiction for children I have been reading. By looking at how those authors solve the problem, we ought to be able to help our child authors write fiction for children.

One way to give children independent agency in books is to make them orphans. More than half of the authors of the two dozen or so children’s historical fiction books we’ve been looking at, used this solution; a related twist is in Nory Ryan’s Song (Patricia Reilly Giff) where the child spends the entire book waiting for her single parent to return. The longer protagonists stay outcast, fugitive, homeless, solely-in-charge of younger siblings or otherwise left to their own devices, the more options they have to act. However, once they are taken into homes, orphanages, apprenticeships or servitude, they are again closely monitored and we know the authors will find another way to give their child characters the freedom to act.

Essentially, authors use only one other device: subterfuge. How else can the protagonist buy time alone? Lying works: In The Ravenmaster’s Secret (Elvira Woodruff), Forrest says he needs to spend a night in the shed with his pet raven. In Akimbo and the Elephants by Alexander McCall Smith, Akimbo says he wants to spend a few days with a friend. Another ruse to buy time is physical disguise: there is the choirboy outfit Alice wears in A Murder for Her Majesty (Beth Hilgartner), the Jewish holiday costumes Sashie’s family wears in Kathryn Lasky’s The Night Journey, and the switched identity strategy Forrest uses to get Maddy out of the Tower of London.

Kathryn Lasky, especially, exposes us to the possibilities of deception on more sophisticated levels. If you use night, why not fog (“Scarves of mist swirled around them”)? And what about using parts of an object (the samovar) for unexpected purposes to disguise both the object and yourself?

I need to make these books available to my students, and devise distancing activities to help pairs of students fictionalize their experiences along these lines. Can’t wait to start.

Historical Fiction for Children: Setting

Naturally, historical fiction writers for children choose periods in history to write about that interest them. But what else do they need to consider, for their book to be a success?

Well, let’s look at our sample books. Each one rises from a unique historical moment that cannot be repeated today. In Nory Ryan’s Song, by Patricia Reilly Giff, the moment is in Galway at the height of the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-1800s. The Ravenmaster’s Secret: Escape from the Tower of London (Elvira Woodruff) takes place in the Tower of London where Scottish Jacobite rebels are being held in 1735. Linda Sue Park, in A Single Shard, describes the strong family basis of Korean village celadon pottery-making of the 12th century. It’s clear the author needs to choose a moment when something special is going on.

These unique historical moments are also emotionally gripping. In each of these books, the setting brings with it social injustices that offend both the reader and the main character. Woodruff has Forrest’s family attending a public execution, which makes Forrest throw up. Giff adds to the steadily approaching potato rot and starvation, descriptions of the unethical evictions and confiscations of property by the English landlords in Ireland. Park shows us how orphans are shunned for being bad luck and barred from learning the village’s profession; but she also thrills us with the art of celadon pottery-making.

The setting takes an active role in the book. It provides the protagonist’s goal. Nory’s is a family goal, of survival. Tree-ear wants to be apprenticed to the best potter in the village. Forrest feels imprisoned in the Tower, and wants to prove himself. In some cases, the setting also intensifies the immediacy of the goal and builds suspense. Living in the Tower has taught Forrest the certainty that hangings of the condemned are inevitable, so Maddy must be moved now. Nory and her family are starving and about to lose their house, so she must act.

Choice of a time and place in history for a historical fiction story for children takes more thought than you’d think!

Historical Fiction for Children: A Writer’s Point of View

We are looking at historical fiction books from a writer’s, rather than a reader’s, point of view. In doing so, we’re rather like Min in A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park. Yet Min isn’t a writer at all, but a potter.

Unique among the other potters in his village who only come public with their finished best pieces, Min works from start to finish in an open-air shelter. Anyone can watch him interacting with his clay—Tree-ear does. Park tells us the other potters worry their designs will be copied; surely ego must also be involved. We imagine the potters were told they had talent from an early age, and as a result, they don’t want to be seen struggling to create art. It makes sense to me that Min is the most successful at the end. As James Hamblin says in his article, “Don’t Call Kids ‘Smart’,” “’Smart’ kids stand to become especially averse to making mistakes, which are critical to learning and succeeding.”

I view Min’s pursuit of his craft as very much like the writing process, and his attitude as very community-, or education-oriented. He would probably say he does not care whether watching him try, and try, and try again helps anyone else. But owning the process in such a natural way, making the process visible, especially where children are around, is as enabling as seeing other writers draft and evaluate and revise in a workshop setting. The moment where Min—and later Tree-ear also—pauses and studies the clay before him, as if trying to learn what it wants to be, tells us a good deal about the writer’s point of view.

At one point, Tree-ear, in his frustration at not being allowed to work with Min, prepares clay for himself and makes a monkey for his friend, Crane-man. Park validates that effort of Tree-ear’s by having Min discover the monkey and offer Tree-ear an apprenticeship on the basis of the quality of that piece, teaching us the lesson that the urge to create—to write—comes from within. We own it, and it will out.

Historical Fiction for Children: Introduction

I always liked historical fiction. The classics—The Secret Garden, Johnny Tremain, The Witch of Blackbird Pond—basically made up my reading.

The main characters had heart, and that fact talks to how reading feeds the writer in us. Fiction notwithstanding, their histories were my histories. I was the protagonist. It was my chance to learn how another society worked and try to succeed there. With each turn of the page I begged the author not to let me down.

Now, I want my student authors in Sierra Leone who are putting their personal experiences onto paper to feel that link: Your experiences are histories, too. There’s a reader out there identifying with your family’s stories; your character’s trials. Draw them as they were. Paint the colors and sounds of that long road. Show how your mother turns to wave.

I’ve been looking at what could be called multicultural children’s historical fiction, written for 8-12 year olds, set in other countries than the US but commonly found in US school and public libraries. I have a list of 25 such books. I’m standing a few against each other to see what elements they have in common. One is that it seems any part of the world could provide a rich setting for historical fiction. Six are set in the UK, three in Rome, two in France, two in Korea, and one each in Russia, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Japan, the Netherlands, China, Ireland, Cambodia, India, British East Africa and South Africa. In four of these (including both African books) the main character is an expatriate in the country where the story takes place.

We’ll be looking for more books set in Africa, but from this alone, I’d say the continent is a bit under-represented—wouldn’t you?

A Place to Write and Re-Write

The nonfiction title A History of St. Edward’s Church, Kent, Sierra Leone, 2nd ed. appeared last month just in time for the 170th anniversary of the church. It’s fun gathering feedback: I am enjoying what widely varied pieces of information readers find interesting.

I’m also looking forward to finding new documented information from original sources—to correct errors or imbalances or bring more insight into how this church developed. Hopefully, enough will come to light to warrant producing a 3rd edition.

I see each blog entry here as a living piece of writing, something to keep adjusting just as I do the book. A way of joining an ongoing conversation that perhaps you are already engaged in. If so, let me know. . .