Cat At The Wall

by Deborah Ellis

  Ten years later, the two groups are even more divided. I have learned — through countless conversations with many people who have very different perspectives — that the situation is hugely complicated. Instead of just Israelis and Palestinians, there are many groups and many complex points of view. It often can feel as though the power of the individual to make a difference can get lost in the complexity of the world. The Cat at the Wall tries to figure out a place for individual choice in the face of big events.

  Q: Fans of your Breadwinner series and your novel No Ordinary Day will find The Cat at the Wall an innovative departure from your past methods of weaving a memorable tale. In this new story, the narrator, Clare, once a thirteen-year-old girl, finds herself reincarnated as a stray cat in the West Bank. Did you always imagine the novel from this creative perspective, or did Clare’s unique situation develop over several drafts?

  A: The prompt for this novel was learning from former Israeli soldiers about the “Straw Widow” operations, wherein Israeli soldiers take over the home of a Palestinian family and use it to spy on the neighborhood. The family is usually in the home at the time, made to remain quietly in one room, sometimes for days. Israeli soldiers tell of families who have been through this a few times. They offer the soldiers coffee and discuss football matches. The whole thing is fascinating — how everyone relates to each other in a very enclosed, very loaded situation. It got me wondering how it all might play out. I wanted to be a fly on the wall in one of these situations, but thought that a cat would be just as good as an interloper. But I didn’t want to write in the voice of a cat. That’s how Clare came into the picture.

  Q: In 2004, you released Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak, a collection of interviews. Are there threads of themes or voices from this collection that readers will recognize in The Cat at the Wall?

  A: In Three Wishes, over and over we meet good, kind-hearted people who do not know the other side. It is easy enough for us to get things wrong when we are communicating with people who share our own culture, history, language and situation. So it is easier still to get things wrong when we speak through a fog of differences. By trying to clear away that fog and find out what we have in common, we can have a better chance of not misunderstanding each other.

  Q: Tell us a bit about the two Israeli soldiers in the novel. Simcha is a somewhat over-zealous American Jewish transplant, while Aaron seems to resist seeing the world as “good versus bad.” Both soldiers are rather young themselves, barely out of their teenage years. What kind of research did you do to bring these two characters to life? What is their role in the story?

  A: One of the lessons I have had to learn over and over in my life is that every group is made up of individuals, and those individuals each have their own motives and ways of interpreting the world. I was reminded of that when I was writing my books on Afghanistan and also when I wrote Off to War, a book of interviews with North American military families.

  When I was writing The Cat at the Wall, I thought about what it might be like to be a soldier in this situation — young, away from home, stationed in a place that has always seemed like foreign or enemy territory, trying to make good while still in the midst of forming themselves into the people they want to be. The two soldiers in the book, Simcha and Aaron, act quite naturally out of fear on occasion, but they also make deliberate choices that affect the outcome of the story.

  Q: Where do you find hope for reconciliation and peace in the West Bank?

  A: It is so easy to look at the Middle East and see only a colossal mess with people firmly entrenched in their versions of the story and with powerful forces benefiting from keeping the conflict alive. Look a bit closer, and we find a host of smart, kind, strong, forward-thinking women and men who are reaching beyond old hatreds and habits to create a new destiny for themselves and those around them.

  Q: You speak to young people in middle schools across North America. Did these school visits influence how you wrote about the conflicts in Israel and Palestine? What have you learned during these visits that helps you better write conflict in language that middle-grade readers can understand?

  A: I’ve been doing school visits since 1999, when my first book, Looking for X, was published. It is a huge privilege to be invited into schools and meet with kids who are learning how to figure out the world around them. When I’m writing, my main goal is to try to understand a situation better myself. I generally don’t think about the audience. If kids read and like my books, I think it is because they — like all of us — are attracted to courage. I get to write about incredibly brave people from all around the world.

  Q: You first engaged with political activism as a teenager. What were the early causes that inspired you to action? How might educators and parents encourage young people today to take a stand and change the world for the better?

  A: I first got engaged in political activism in the late 1970s, when I was a teenager campaigning against atomic weapons. That led me into women’s rights and work for social justice. And we learn so much through the examples of others. My parents were not involved in politics but they were always volunteering in the community, stocking shelves at the food bank, planning activities in old-age homes, taking Alzheimer’s patients on outings, or gardening for a sick neighbor. They taught me that we can contribute to one another and that these small actions build a better community.

  Q: Your commitment to issues of social justice and disenfranchisement permeates many facets of your work, including the money you earn for the twenty-plus books you have written (you donate most of your royalty income). To which organizations do you donate, and what about their missions inspires you?

  A: I’m a terrible fundraiser and a lousy organizer, so I’m grateful to be able to contribute to some terrific organizations through the sale of my books. The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) has a Children in Crisis fund that sends books to kids in war zones. Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan works with grassroots women’s groups in Afghanistan to build schools, train female teachers, put libraries into communities, assist women to start income-generating projects and more. The Leprosy Mission Canada works with people affected by leprosy around the world, getting drugs to those still infected with the disease and working with them afterwards to ensure they have lives of dignity and productivity. Money from my books about AIDS goes to UNICEF, to further girls’ education globally.

  Visit Deborah Ellis’s website, deborahellis.com, and find her on Twitter @DebEllisAuthor.

  Interview questions copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Abel Kovitz

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  Groundwood Books, established in 1978, is dedicated to the production of children's books for all ages, including fiction, picture books and non-fiction. We publish in Canada, the United States and Latin America. Our books aim to be of the highest possible quality in both language and illustration. Our primary focus has been on works by Canadians, though we sometimes also buy outstanding books from other countries.

  Many of our books tell the stories of people whose voices are not always heard in this age of global publishing by media conglomerates. Books by the First Peoples of this hemisphere have always been a special interest, as have those of others who through circumstance have been marginalized and whose contribution to our society is not always visible. Since 1998 we have been publishing works by people of Latin American origin living in the Americas both in English and in Spanish under our Libros Tigrillo imprint.

  We believe that by reflecting intensely individual experiences, our books are of universal interest. The fact that our authors are published around the world attests to this and to their quality. Even more important, our books are read and loved by children all over the globe.

 

 

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