Collins, Pat Lowery. The fattening hut.

COLLINS, Pat Lowery. The fattening hut. Houghton Mifflin, Graphia. 185p. c2005. 0618-55209-X. $799. JS

To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, September 2003: This story, told as a novel in poetry, is based on the actual customs of some cultures in various parts of the world that have rituals during puberty to fatten girls up to ready them for marriage and childbirth. In this story, Collins also writes about the ghastly ritual of female circumcision, practiced on "millions of girls annually in about thirty countries throughout the world" (from the Author's Note). Collins also says in her note that she at first thought to base this novel on an actual culture but in the end used a mythological culture and place. It could be argued that the impact would have been more powerful if she had not strayed from her original plan. The immediate thought, reading the title, is how ironic that at puberty some girls in some cultures are fattening up while many girls in cultures we know well are obsessed with thinness and suffer from terrible diseases such as anorexia and bulimia--also frequently associated with puberty. For that reason alone, this book holds a fascinating appeal.

The narrator is Helen, a girl of 14 who has been taught to read by her aunt, a rebel force in their male-dominated culture and the woman who will prove to be Helen's rescuer. Helen is an active person who has roamed her island in the company of a boy, Ashani, who also becomes part of the rescue operation. But Helen seems to have no power at first to resist the traditions of her people. She must enter the fattening hut, accompanied by her older sister who is married with a nursing baby, and eat and eat until she is given in marriage to the man her parents have chosen for her--an older man with nothing appealing about him, as far as Helen is concerned. What Helen doesn't know, but learns, is that part of the ritual of the fattening hut is that when she is fat enough, it will be time for the circumcision, a brutal cutting of her genitalia. The details of this circumcision are narrated carefully, with the meaning clear enough but events not graphically depicted--so middle school readers would be able to handle it. As with most YA novels written as poetry, fewer words are used but the impact of each word and the tempo of the narrative drive readers on. An unusual book. Claire Rosser, KLIATT

J--Recommended for junior high school students. The contents are of particular interest to young adolescents and their teachers.

S--Recommended for senior high school students.