Celia Barker Lottridge
Before reading this book, I primarily knew Lottridge as the author of One Watermelon Seed a colourful counting book that I sometimes use in preschool library programs. My six-year old enjoys reading this book as well. Of that experience, Lottridge says, “About 1983, a publisher who had done an alphabet book asked me to write a counting book, and so I wrote One Watermelon Seed. They liked it but said it had to have coloured illustrations, something that house wasn’t then doing. Later I happened to be at Oxford University Press and showed it to Bill Toye who immediately said he’d publish it. That experience led me to the conclusion that it was time to start writing the books that I wanted to write” (as cited in Jenkinson, 1997).
I also knew that she was co-author of Telling Tales: Storytelling in the Family with our own professor Gail de Vos, and Merle Harris. Clearly family stories are very important to Lottridge; she draws on her own family’s history for Home is Beyond the Mountains. She has also authored an adaptation of a Russian fairytale, Music for the Tsar of the Sea. I was not aware that she had adapting the Hungarian folktale The Little Rooster and the Diamond Button, and have added it to my TBR.
In researching for this project I learned that Lottridge has been a librarian and is a professional storyteller. She is an American-born Canadian, and “helped to form the Storyteller’s School of Toronto to promote storytelling in the city’s schools” (The Gale Group, Inc., 2006). Lottridge began writing seriously in the 1980s “as a way to supplement her income as a single parent, and in the 1980s she began to take writing seriously” (The Gale Group, Inc., 2006).
Her other novels for children include:
- The Curlew series: Ticket to Curlew (2001) and Wings to Fly (1997)
- Ticket to Canada (1992)
- The Wind Wagon (1995)
- Berta: A Remarkable Dog (2002)
- The Listening Tree (2011)
I haven’t read any of her other novels. With the exception of Berta, they are all historical fiction. Wings to Fly takes place in 1918, the same year that Home is Beyond the Mountains begins. The female protagonist in Wings to Fly is older than Samira and from a different cultural background. It might be interesting to read this novels together and compare them in more detail.
The Setting
According to the blurb, Home is Beyond the Mountains is about “the chaotic time at the end of World War I, when hundreds of thousands of Assyrians and 
Armenians were forced to flee from the Turkish Army.” I know very very little about Iranian history, and even less about the Assyrian population in Iran. (To be brutally honest, I wasn’t entirely sure Turkey and Iran shared a border and had never heard of the region of Urmieh, Iran. I had no idea that the Assyrian genocide existed. My closest point of reference would have been Atom Egoyan’s film Ararat about the Armenian genocide.) For this reason, I found “The History Behind the Story” pages of the book very helpful. It would have been more useful to me, if this information had formed an introduction to the novel rather than an afterward.
How the Book Came to be Written
Lottridge includes two afterwards to the book, “Where the Story Came From” and “The History Behind the Story” (p. 222-3). In the first, she tells the story of her mother’s older sister, Susan, who was “the director of an orphanage for Assyrian refugee children in Hamadan” (p. 222). Her maternal aunt is Susan Shedd, the orphanage director in Home is Beyond the Mountains. Lottridge used family letters, stories her mother told her about her aunt, and newspaper articles as sources for her book. While researching the book Lottridge (2006) sent out a request for information via Gorgias Press. She wrote,
“I have found nothing about the experiences of the orphans who survived the war, only to be left in refugee camps for several years before they could find a home of any kind. I would especially like to find out more about the orphanages at Hamadan and Kermanshah run by the Near East Relief. Any personal accounts of children’s experiences in the orphanages, on the trek from Hamadan to Tabriz or after returning to Urmia would also be of tremendous help. If anybody could help me at all with my search I would be very grateful” (as cited in e-Gorgias, 2006).
Image Sources (from top to bottom)
One Watermelon Seed [Book Cover]. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9781554550340/MC.GIF&client=sirsi&type=xw12&oclc=
The little rooster and the diamond button [Book Cover]. (2001). Retrieved from http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=0888994435/MC.GIF&client=sirsi&type=xw12&oclc=
Storytelling Toronto. (2014). Storytelling Toronto [Logo]. Retrieved from http://www.storytellingtoronto.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/logo_cover.png
Wings to fly [Book Cover]. (2007). Retrieved from http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328770797l/1931599.jpg
Ararat [Movie Poster]. (2002). Retrieved from http://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=Lu16o83NsD0ovM&tbnid=vRgFeJnJHBY8vM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rogerebert.com%2Freviews%2Fararat-2002&ei=UfDfU4KVI-KrigLP_IGYDw&bvm=bv.72197243,d.cGE&psig=AFQjCNHCwYnQQxBZBHrD79cM5GtRTQjdVw&ust=1407271372277705
William A. Shedd with his second wife Louise Wilbur Shedd and his four daughters, the youngest one is Louise (Celia’s mother) [Photograph]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/images/gp/Shedd-and-his-family2.jpg
United States Government. (n.d.). Lest they perish campaign poster of the NEF [Poster]. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Neareastrelief2.jpg/220px-Neareastrelief2.jpg
References
The Gale Group, Inc. (2006). Celia Barker Lottridge: Biography. In Answers.com. Retrieved August 5, 2014, from http://www.answers.com/topic/celia-barker-lottridge#ixzz39S0adpil
Gorgias Press. (2006, December). Enthusiast of the Month: Celia Baker Lottiridge [sic]. e-Gorgias, (13). Retrieved from http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/t-e-Gorgias13.aspx
Jenkinson, D. (1997, September 23). Celia Lottridge. Canadian Review of Materials. Retrieved from http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/profiles/lottridge.html
Lottridge, C. B. (2010). Home is beyond the mountains. Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press.
Hiromi Goto has her own website, which makes it easier to find out about her and her work. From it we learn that she writes poetry, short and long fiction. She writes for children, teens and adults. It makes sense to me that Goto is a published poet, because one of the the standouts of Half World is the language. Her writing asks the reader to utilize all of their senses. She has written a sequel to Half World called Darkest Light. It takes place sixteen years after the events of the first novel.
lis516lesku 
