My Grandmother: A Memoir
Adult/High School—Cetin recounts the 1915 Armenian genocide, when the Turks sent thousands of Armenian people to their deaths. After they rounded up the men, they slit their throats, and marched the women and children until most of them died. Literally snatched out of her mother's arms, Christian-born Heranus was rescued from death by a Muslim gendarme who brought her up as the Muslim girl Seher. Treated as a servant by his wife, Seher eventually married the son, and unsuccessfully searched for her family. The Turks euphemistically called the Armenians "converts," or those who have impure blood. Those who survived the marches were called "the leftovers of the sword." Cetin was an adult when she learned of these horrors and of her grandmother's original family; and her grandmother implored her to help find them, which Cetin set out to do. It is not always clear who is narrating, and Cetin often tells readers something through one individual and then again through another. In spite of these slight problems,My Grandmotheris a fascinating account of a story that needs to be heard by teens. It well deserves to be used in world history class, or as a biography for genre assignments in English classes.—Ellen Bell, Amador Valley High School, Pleasanton, CACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.