Set during the Philippine’s Marcos dictatorship, this story by Jose Dalisay Jr. takes place in the garden of an isolated one-room school. As the children tend their vegetables, a group of soldiers appears and begins to pull them out. Their orders are to take or destroy all local food sources in retaliation for the killing of one of their number. The younger children are sent home, but the oldest (a fourteen-year-old girl) is ordered to stay to “cook and do the soldier’s washing”. Bravely, the teacher insists on staying with her. Themes include innocence, oppression, intimidation, helplessness, fear, responsibility, courage. More…
The Heavenly Christmas Tree
This famous Christmas story is from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s self-published periodical, Diary of a Writer. A young boy has recently arrived in a big city with his poverty-stricken, dying mother. On Christmas Eve the boy ventures out from their rented hovel in search of food. He is both terrified and intrigued by his experiences as he walks the streets. Hungry and freezing, he shelters behind a woodpile. He feels sudden warmth, and wakes surrounded by other happy children along with his smiling mother around Christ’s Christmas tree. Themes: poverty, isolation, class discrimination (rich vs. poor), inhumanity, suffering and death, Christianity. More…
Menagerie, a Child’s Fable
Like George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Charles Johnson’s confronting allegorical fable about animals left to fend for themselves in a locked pet shop is not for children. Some see the story as a religious allegory for the consequences (chaos and hell fire) of losing faith in God (Tilford) and listening to the devil (the monkey). Another interpretation is as a political allegory for the anarchy that can arise after a breakdown of authority and the rule of law, much like modern day (2024) Haiti. Themes include oppression, freedom and democracy, pluralism vs. racism, lawlessness and power (greed, violence, murder and rape). More…
The Weeping Fig
This story by Judith Wright is a tribute to the pioneering families who tamed the harsh Australian outback. A man comes into possession of his great-grandfather’s diary. In search of his roots, he visits the cattle station on which his ancestors had settled. He finds what he came for in a weeping fig tree planted by his great-grandmother… a mass of green and the tallest tree for miles. The tree stands as a testament to his forefathers’ courage and determination, and in reconciliation for their failure. Themes include man vs. nature, the pioneering spirit, hope, suffering and defeat, reconciliation, identity/connection. More…
Overcoat
The major theme of this story by Ghulam Abbas is how people judge others by their appearance. A clearly impoverished man uses an overcoat, scarf and cane to create the persona of a well-to-do dandy. He enjoys a leisurely stroll through the streets of Lahore, and is welcomed in shops he could not otherwise enter. Importantly, the reader is also taken in by the guise until it is stripped away as his clothes are removed in hospital. Other themes include loneliness, social class, the human desire to “fit in” and be treated with respect, the unpredictability of life and death. More…