BookList:

Books for Youth, Older Readers: /*STARRED REVIEW*/ Gr. 9-12. Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind (1989), with its wholly realized characters and its glimpses into another culture, had a presence not easily found in young adult books. It is often difficult for a sequel to generate the same excitement evoked by a first novel from a talented, fresh voice, but that is not the case here. Haveli will hold readers with the same rapt attention as its predecessors, and their involvement with the young Pakistani woman, Shabanu, her friends, and family will linger. The story picks up five years later. Shabanu, given in marriage to an elderly, powerful man, has now presented him a daughter, Mumtaz, who means everything to her mother. Though her husband adores Shabanu, he has neither the time nor the inclination to protect her from the various cruelties and intrigues that occur in a household where there are three cultured senior wives who look down on Shabanu as a desert interloper. To protect her daughter, Shabanu is constantly making plans for their safety should her husband die, but when Shabanu becomes involved in a plan to save her only friend from a disastrous marriage and begins having feelings for her husband’s nephew, her situation becomes increasingly perilous. Staples brews a potent mix here: the issue of a woman’s role in a traditional society, page-turning intrigue, tough women characters, and a fluidity of writing that blends it all together. Staples has some very strong things to say about the lack of power some women have over their own lives, but the reader never hears preaching. Rather, as in the best stories, the message comes through the characters, their anguish and their triumphs. ((Reviewed June 1993)) — Ilene Cooper