KENYA

THE HOUSE OF RUST

by KHADIJA ABDALLA BAJABER

I was entirely captured by THE HOUSE OF RUST (Book 11, yay!). A charming story about Aisha, a Hadrami girl in Mombasa, whose fisherman father goes missing while out at sea. Aisha is left with her grandmother but, unconvinced that her father is lost to her for good, she embarks on a quest to find him before the end of five days, at which point he will be declared dead. And that’s when this sweet tale of courage and faith takes a magical turn. Aisha teams up with a talking scholar’s cat, and the two of them sail together on a skeleton boat that the ginger cat sings from the water, on an ocean that seems to shift between worlds. Aisha must navigate this unknown between-space, where she encounters three monsters, each of which requires something different in exchange for their part in finding her lost father.

The story is a coming of age quest into fantastical realms, but it is also a story about an impossible journey in which our young hero must contemplate faith and trust. Aisha is required to surrender herself completely to the unknown, with only her inner certainty that her father is not dead to guide her. The book explores faith in various forms, and kindness as ritual with no hope of reward.

““Should I pray?” she asked as she rowed.

“If you’ve faith enough,” the cat said. “And even if you don’t. There is no place that can be made empty of God.”

“Will it be dishonest?”

“It can become less so,” said the cat. “With an earnest enough heart, we can learn sincerity, faith. Know what you are singing to and trust that you are heard, even if your voice trembles, even if your hands shake. We go on breathing even though we do not see the air; somehow it is present. You make the prayer, do not fear the answer.””

THE HOUSE OF RUST also has a beautiful cover. One of my favorites, (along with Maaza Mengiste’s THE SHADOW KING, and Sindiwe Magona’s THE VILLAGE SLEEPS,) in the challenge so far. It got me thinking about how important a cover is to our book selection, so I did a bit of research and was interested to discover that it is a key factor in the decision process. We absolutely do judge our books by the cover. A whopping 82 percent of people admit to choosing their wine because of the label, and studies prove that the same is true for books. Up to 80% of people show initial interest in a book because of its cover, and up to 60% of people will choose whether or not to buy a book (even after they’ve read the back cover) based on the cover design. THE HOUSE OF RUST delivers on the outside and the inside.