Dear Reader:
Every now and then, we come across a novel that moves us like no other, that seems like a miracle of the imagination, and that haunts us long after the book is closed. James Levine’s The Blue Notebook is that kind of book. It is the story of Batuk, an Indian girl who is taken to Mumbai from the countryside and sold into prostitution by her father; the blue notebook is her diary, in which she recalls her early childhood, records her life on the Common Street, and makes up beautiful and fantastic tales about a silver-eyed leopard and a poor boy who fells a giant with a single gold coin.
How did Levine, a British-born doctor at the Mayo Clinic, manage to conjure the voice of a fifteen-year-old female Indian prostitute? It all began, he told me, when, as part of his medical research, he was interviewing homeless children on a street in Mumbai known as the Street of Cages, where child prostitutes work. A young woman writing in a notebook outside her cage caught Levine’s attention. The powerful image of a young prostitute engaged in the act of writing haunted him, and he himself began to write.
The Blue Notebook brings us into the life of a young woman for whom stories are not just entertainment but a means of survival. Even as the novel humanizes and addresses the devastating global issue of child prostitution, it also delivers an inspiring message about the uplifting power of words and reading–a message that is so important to hold on to, especially in difficult times. Dr. Levine is donating all his U.S. proceeds from this book to help exploited children. Batuk’s story can make a difference.
Sincerely,
Celina Spiegel
Publisher
Heartbreaking reality There are withered damaged humans in the world that rape children, the utter horror is that it is accepted and common place in some societies. This book is a wake up call for those who whine about their lives in the Western world. Read it, weep, but know that only by being aware can any changes come.
A story to melt your heart This book is painful to read. We know about human trafficking and the prostitution of children, but rarely are we held responsible for facing the violence they entail. The Blue Notebook is a first person narrative of a courageous and intelligent girl surviving as best she can the lethal trade that is conducted on her body and life. An imaginative storyteller, her own story is woven with fairy tales and philosophy as she makes meaning out of her afflictions and finds empathy even for some of the…
This book reads as if it were two books in sequence First of all, I found this disturbing book to be a very real and very graphic, but also very personal in the way it affected me. The first 2/3 of the book was one of the best descriptions of a person separating their being from their physical self in order to protect themselves from unimaginable pain that I have read. The feeling for these children very quickly became personal through the horror of the situation and lives lost. As Batuk seems to float from one time in her life to the next…