If I Should Die Before I Wake (25 page)

She has to exist, I tell myself.

I pray for courage. I pray that when the time comes for me to speak, for me to tell the story, I'll know what to say.

I want to go home, I'm ready. I want to speak to Simon. He's already home. I want to tell him I understand and ask him to understand me. I'm afraid of what he will say, of what's going to happen to me. I'm afraid of what I have to do.

I ask Mama if she's sure there has been no one, besides her, staying with me in the hospital room while I was in the coma.

"No, no one else," she says. "Now come on, let's see how you sit in your wheelchair."

I know she's worried about me. I know she doesn't like my questions. She has sensed the sadness growing in me as the days pass and I remember more of this other life, my life as Chana.

I try to joke with her. "This is ridiculous. I don't need a wheelchair. I'm a pro with these crutches." I whirl around on one foot.

"Hey now, watch out. If you trip while on your way out of the hospital, you could end up back in bed, so just get in the chair, Hilly. Just do it."

"Yes, Mama." I hobble over to the chair and fall back into it.

"Such grace."

"Of course. I trained with the Royal Ballet."

"More like the Royal Air Force."

"Very funny, ha ha."

"Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt, but are you Hilary Burke?" A woman wearing a blue hat and coat and looking strangely familiar stands in the doorway.

"Yes, I'm Hilary." I wheel around to face her.

"I know this is a bit unusual. I'm Nadia Berg man. My sister was in the intensive care unit with you." She looks at my mother. "Perhaps you remember seeing me, Mrs. Burke."

"No, I'm sorry, I..."

"You're Nadzia! You're Chana's baby sister!" I say.

"Thank goodness you know me. I didn't know how I was going to explain myself. Maybe Chana knew what she was talking about after all."

"Chana? Is she here?"

"Hilary, who is Chana? I'm afraid, Mrs. Bergman, I don't understand."

"I don't understand much myself. My sister told me to give this to you, Hilary. She died. Of cancer."

"Yes, she—I remember—I mean, I'm sorry, too." I look down at the book she has placed in my lap.

"This is—it's the photo album!"

"Hilary, I've never seen that book in all my life. Who are all those people?"

"They're my family, Mrs. Burke."

"Then why are you giving this to Hilary? This is crazy."

"I have saved some photos, but I never knew any of them—except Chana. I was sent away from them when I was just an infant. They all died in the war. Chana was the only survivor. She came to the States to live near me. I'm sorry, I don't really understand myself, but it is Chana's last request that Hilary have it."

"No—Hilary, we must give the book back, don't you think? How could these people have anything to do with you?"

"I'm sorry to upset you. Chana said Hilary would understand."

"Hilary?"

"Yes, I understand. I remember." I look back up at Nadzia. "There's this notation in the front of the book—Jeremiah 1:4–10."

"Yes, Chana told me to put that there. Again, she said you would understand."

"Well, Mama, you have your Bible. What does it say?"

"Oh—okay, let me see now." She fumbles with the book. "Yes, here we go...

 

"Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.'
Then I said, 'Ah Lord God! Behold,
I do not know how to speak,
for I am only a youth.'
But the Lord said to me,
'Do not say, "I am only a youth;"
for to all to whom I send you you shall go,
and whatever I command you you shall speak.

Be not afraid of them,
For I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord.
Then the Lord put forth his hand
and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
'Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.'"

1. Why is Hilary angry and full of hate? What are her reasons for turning her anger on her mother and on Jews?

2. Why does Hilary feel like she fits in with the Great Aryan Warriors?

3. Bubbe tells Chana that she must remember everything. Why is this important?

4. How can everyone share the same past and the same future yet see it differently? How does her experience with Chana change the way Hilary sees things?

5. Why does caring for Matel in Auschwitz save Chana? How might taking action, as Chana or Jakub or Bubbe does, affect one's chances of survival? What are the risks of taking action?

6. Hilary wonders if she's wicked How would you answer her?

Question:
How long have you been writing?

 

Han Nolan:
I started writing stories as soon as I could write, or so my mother says. What I remember is reading Nancy Drew mysteries and wanting to write some of my own mysteries. I was about nine years old at the time.
Harriet the Spy
also influenced me back then. I started spying and keeping a journal. I soon realized that I didn't make a very good spy (I kept getting caught), and that I wanted to write more about my own thoughts than about the people I spied on. Still, that was the beginning of keeping a journal, and I've kept one ever since. I wrote my first novel-length story in the hopes of getting it published back in 1988.

 

Q: What is your writing process? Do you work certain hours or days?

 

HN:
I use a computer to write, and I try to write from about five or six o'clock in the morning until about four o'clock in the afternoon. When my children were living at home, I wrote during the hours they were at school and stopped when they came home.

 

Q: Are your characters inspired by people you know?

 

HN:
I guess they would have to be in some way—but not really. I never sit down to write and think I'm going to write a story based on this person I know. The characters evolve as I'm writing and they act and react to the situations I've created. I never know who I'm going to meet when I write.

 

Q: How do you come up with story ideas?

 

HN:
I write about things I care about—those things closest to my heart or things that scare me the most. My ideas come from inside me, but they are stimulated by conversations I've had, things I've read, and stories I've heard.

 

Q: Do personal experiences or details ever end up in your books?

 

HN:
Yes. All the interiors of the houses in my stories come from houses I've been in before. They never come out just the way they are in real life, but in my mind's eye I am picturing a certain familiar house. Casper, Alabama, in the book
Send Me Down a Miracle,
was based on a street in Dothan, Alabama, where many of my relatives have lived. The street is named after my great-uncle. I created a small town based on that one street.

 

Q: Your characters often face a life without one or both parents. What do you hope readers will take away from your exploration of this situation?

 

HN:
Every reader comes to a book with their own history and will respond to the book according to that history. I would want my readers to take away from this exploration whatever they need. I don't create a story to teach a certain lesson to my readers. I create a story to explore a certain truth about life.

 

Q: Why did you decide to use time travel to tell Chana and Hilary's stories?

 

HN:
Time travel was the best way for me to tell the story I wanted to tell. I wanted to literally put Hilary in another person's shoes and let her walk around in them for awhile.

 

Q: Why did you want to write about the Holocaust?

 

HN:
I feel strongly that we all need to take responsibility for what happened back then and what is happening today. As long as we keep saying that the Holocaust is the Jews problem, the Jews history—instead of understanding it is humanity's problem—we will never learn to be tolerant, or to love one another, or to live in peace.

 

Q: Chana saved her own life by taking care of Matel. Why did you choose to make your main character survive by giving away her food and emotional energies to someone else?

 

HN:
In my research through journals, personal accounts, and newspaper accounts, I read about people who gave away their last piece of bread even though they themselves were starving. I was deeply touched, and I wondered if I could have been so selfless if I were in that situation. I thought about it a lot. I know from my own experiences that stepping out of myself to care about others and to give what I can to others is life enhancing, life-giving. Our survival depends not just on what we can get in life but on what we can give. Many people don't realize this. Studying the Holocaust really brought that home to me, and it was important for me to include it in my story.

 

Q: Memories are important to your characters. How have memories played a part in your own life? In your writing?

 

HN:
I think writers in general have very good memories and even remember their dreams better than most. Memories are part of our subconscious mind, and when I'm really into writing a story, I know it is coming from that same place, the subconscious. Memory is a crucial part of any story.

 

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from Hilary's experience with Chana?

 

HN:
Hopefully, as Hilary comes to understand and care about the Holocaust and what happened to Chana and her family, so too will the reader.

Also by Han Nolan

 

N
ATIONAL
B
OOK
A
WARD
W
INNER

Dancing on the Edge

 

A girl teeters on the edge of insanity.

 

Miracle McCloy has always known that there is something different about her. Gigi, her clairvoyant grandmother, won't let her forget that she had been pulled from the womb of a dead woman—a "miracle" birth—and that she expects Miracle to be a prodigy, much like Dane, the girl's brooding novelist father.

Having been raised according to a set of mystical rules and beliefs, Miracle is unable to cope in the real world. Lost in a desperate dance among lit candles, Miracle sets herself afire and is hospitalized. There, she undertakes a painful struggle to take charge of her life.

 

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A
Booklist
Editors' Choice
A
School Library Journal
Best Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

 

*"Masterful."
—School Library Journal
(starred review)

*"Intense, exceptionally well-written."
—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

*"Compelling."
—Booklist
(starred review)

N
ATIONAL
B
OOK
A
WARD
F
INALIST

 

Send Me Down a Miracle

 

Visions from heaven make all hell break loose.

 

Things used to be normal in Casper, Alabama. Charily Pittman was a regular fourteen-year-old, the perfect daughter, destined to follow in her preacher fathers footsteps. But then Adrienne arrived, with her big-city ways and artsy ideas. Reverend Pittman thinks she's the devil incarnate. Charity thinks she's amazing.

But no one knows what to think of Adrienne when she claims she's seen Jesus.

Adrienne's vision splits the God-fearing community between believers and nonbelievers, and Charity is stuck in the middle, questioning her father, her religion—and herself.

This small town is praying for a miracle, but heading for disaster.

 

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
A
Parents' Choice
Award Winner
A YALSA Popular Paperback
for Young Adults

 

*"Hilarious."
—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

*"Thought-provoking."
—School Library Journal
(starred review)

*"The plot is intricate, sharp, and invigorating."
—Booklist
(starred review)

Born Blue

 

She has no last name.

She has no real home. But she has a dream.

 

Janie ... Leshaya ... whatever she's called ... she's a survivor.

Rescued from the brink of death, this child of a heroin addict has seen it all: revolving foster homes, physical abuse, an unwanted pregnancy. Now her childhood is coming to an end, and she is determined to make a life for herself by doing the only thing that makes her feel whole ... singing.

Can this girl, born to a life of hardship, find the strength and courage to break away from her past and become the legend she is meant to be?

 

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
A
School Library Journal
Best Book of the Year

 

*"Raw, rough, and riveting ... Superb."
—School Library Journal
(starred review)

*"Genuinely moving."
—The Bulletin

*"Powerful and gut-wrenching."
—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

A Face in Every Window

 

Life spins out of control in an instant.

 

JP's once safe and secure world quickly unravels with the death of his beloved grandmother. Grandma Mary had always been the guiding hand of the O'Brien family, lovingly raising his mentally challenged Pap and allowing Mam to remain free of adult responsibility.