Like Water on Stone by Dana Walrath
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
While some reviews suggest this book is more geared toward adult readers, I disagree. I have read many novels that represent genocide, I think this one takes care of teen readers with her beautiful verse and eagle character to protect the young characters. That said, I do think middle and high school readers do need to be patient. This is not a fast moving, plot driven book. There are many characters narrating the story, and, for me, this made the first 135 pages quite laborious. I had to constantly refer back to the “cast of characters,” which I think may not have been necessary if the author chose the eagle as the narrator or perhaps one character and the eagle.
In other novels that tell a story of genocide, the author has to make decisions about how to represent the atrocities, and I think Walrath’s use of the eagle to describe the violence from above was helpful in distancing the reader from the young Armenian siblings in the story. (The eagle reminded me of the narrator in The Book Thief –sort of watching out and observing, but this eagle protects.) For this reason, I think teen readers can handle this, but they do have to be patient readers who appreciate verse.
As I reflect on the narrative, I think the verse and multiple narrators worked to show how impossible it is to tell “the” story of the Armenian genocide. There are gaps and fissures in this narrative that the different voices try to piece together; still, the atrocities are unimaginable and no amount of words can capture the pain and suffering. The poetry honors that, leaving the white spaces on the page to honor that which we cannot know.