Madeleine L’Engle, author of the Wrinkle in Time series, drew on her own childhood experiences of Swiss boarding school and a nomadic lifestyle to write this boarding school romance novel.
When Philippa (nicknamed Flip) is sent from Connecticut to Switzerland she struggles to adjust. Out of place and teased by the other girls, she must learn to overcome her self-pity and shyness. Flip finds a true friend in Paul, a war orphan with a past full of questions, and together they grow in confidence (on and off their skis), overcoming great losses in their pasts. The slow transformation Flip undergoes is wonderful to watch: from the awkward serious girl who sees school as imprisonment to a brave friend.
And Both Were Young doesn’t cover the normal TCK themes seen in other young adult fiction (cultural identity, reentry, etc.) but has a matter-of-fact approach to making friends and readjusting to life after the loss of loved ones. It’s the kind of book you can enjoy as a young girl (or boy) and reread throughout your whole life, going back to the Swiss Alps and châteaus with Flip and Paul again and again.
TCKs are often asked awkward questions about their lives far away from their parents’ culture. Some are broad and difficult to answer and others are just weird. These TCKs share some of what they have been asked and also how they want people to get to know them. This video would be great to show to a church group or anyone who is about to meet TCKs and wants to know how to be their friends. The interviewees were asked:
TCKs say many goodbyes in their growing up years as most of them move back and forth between several places. Even if they stay in one place, the expat community around them is constantly moving and they say goodbye to friends all the time. In these interviews, TCKs reflect on what they miss most about the places they have left and how all the goodbyes have affected them. They were asked:
How do you handle goodbyes?
Where are your best friends and when did you last see them?
Besides people, what do you miss most?
Have goodbyes affected your ability to make commitments?
TCKs –MKs in particular– can have mixed experiences in US American churches, both in visiting when their families are fundraising in churches, and when they try to find a church home when they’re older. In these interviews TCKs are asked:
Ministry hazards can take their toll on children of missionaries and pastors. Sanford, both an MK (missionary kid) and PK (preacher’s kid) speaks with candor and honesty about the faulty conclusions kids raised by parents in full-time ministry may have internalized about themselves, God, or their world. This book has been embraced by many adult MKs, who find themselves described in its pages. Sanford doesn’t address cultural issues in this book, so it isn’t applicable to all TCKs, only those whose parents were involved in ministry.
You may need a box or two of tissues while you work through this book, and maybe a journal to record the lies that you believed growing up that still affect your life. I was amazed by the insightfulness of this book and felt like Sanford had looked into my head to understand me so well!
Written for young and not-as-young people who grew up overseas, this journal is a place to capture and reflect on the stories of an exceptional childhood. Divided into sections including My Places, My Family, My Schools, and My Home Country, the author describes her own memories and invites readers to follow suit. The journal includes targeted questions to get the creative juices flowing and allows ample space for personalized responses.
The author’s note on Amazon describes her vision for her book: “My aim in creating this journal for mobile young and not-so-young people has been to provide people raised as I was, in several countries, with an opportunity to gather together into one place the many aspects of themselves. I want to offer them a chance to assemble the places they have lived, the many odd life experiences they have had, and the personal tastes and perspectives they have developed and to see them united as a whole.
“At best, my hope is that the journal will help a person raised on the wing to put together his or her personal story, to record, in written form, perhaps in fragments, who he or she is. I envision the journal as a learning and self-exploration tool that validates both the particulars of each individual’s experience. It can be difficult, as I know first hand, for the country-hopping child to place or even assemble all the stray elements of an exciting but challenging lifestyle. My goal in preparing this journal has been to aid these people ‘of many lands’ in the long process of putting together the stories of their lives. Even if they never write a sentence in the book, they may, just by reading through the journal, glean a helpful memory or thought. A reader may regard the journal as an invitation: an invitation to set down the story of his or her own unique life.”
This book is sadly out-of-print and very expensive on Amazon right now, but a great find for those who can get their hands on it.
