Sunday reading: All Thirteen
(buy it from your local indie bookstore!)
Bea and I are reading a fantastic nonfiction book that we’d like to recommend—All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat. Lately, Bea reads most books by herself, but this is one we’re enjoying together, and we’ve agreed that we won’t read ahead, even though it’s so exciting that we’re each tempted when the other isn’t around.
You might remember the 17-day rescue operation that began on June 23, 2018 after twelve boys and their soccer coach became trapped by flooding in the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand. The world watched and waited as the Thai Navy SEALs, local officials, American special forces, amateur cave divers, farmers, and experts from all over the world (as well as pushy billionaires) tried to help rescue the boys.
One of the things we admire about Soontornvat’s book is the way she centers the Thai experience and culture. She begins the book by describing the teamwork and togetherness of the boys, who are all members of the Wild Boars soccer team. Soccer, Soontornvat writes, is “a total obsession.” You learn about the boys’ school and home lives, their love of adventure and the outdoors, and what they did once they realized rising water had trapped them. You also learn a lot about their coach, Ekkapol Chantawong, who was born in Myanmar and came to Thailand after his parents died. Coach Ek’s beginnings as a novice Buddhist monk, or nain, also led him to teaching and service in Mae Sai. His care for the boys, including leading them in meditation so they could conserve their energy, helped keep them alive throughout their ordeal.
Sidebars and short sections of text teach you about Buddhism, how karst caves are formed, and how “stateless” immigrants, like Coach Ek and three members of the Wild Boars team, live in and contribute to Thai communities without the benefits of citizenship, like the right to go to college, buy land, or travel outside of the country. I was impressed that, even though these sidebars don’t advance the story’s gripping plot, Bea has wanted to stop and read each of them as we go. The book is also full of color photographs and maps.
Because you begin the book knowing that the boys were rescued—it’s right there in the title—the book is less about danger and the suspense of survival (though that’s in there too, along with the tragic death of one of the SEALs), and more about how, working together, a diverse group of people managed to do something important that also seemed impossible. It’s clear from Soontornvat’s patient, clear storytelling that the boys’ successful rescue had as much to do with the principles of good leadership and teamwork as it does with bravery and clever engineering.
Most things these days remind me of Covid, maybe because there are Covid signs everywhere: literal signs about free testing and vaccines, but also discarded masks, masks in the laundry and on the passenger seat of my car, bottles of hand sanitizer near every doorway, and near-constant emails about transmission and vaccination rates in my community. It also seems like we need to get through this pandemic before we can effectively work on our other huge, looming problems, like climate change and climate justice. I’m worried about the dangers of the new variant, because despite the incredible bravery of our front-line and essential workers, and despite the development of amazingly effective vaccines that are free and safe, North Carolina’s vaccination rate is still only at 63% among people 12 and older (nationally, we’re at 69%). Also, despite CDC recommendations, many people have stopped wearing masks in public places.
Soontornvat describes the helpless feeling of the boys’ families, who camped outside of the cave for many nights, praying and waiting for news of their sons. It’s what we’d all do, if we had a loved one trapped inside a cave, with no way to reach them or communicate with them. We’d be devastated and terrified and willing to try anything.
But it’s hard to remember, when we’re not in that space, that we’re all at risk, even more so when we don’t work together. Beyond bravery and smarts, we really need teamwork right now—everyone pulling together and encouraging others to get vaccinated, wearing masks in public, and staying away from high-risk settings.
The other book I’m savoring, which I mentioned last week, is Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence—a book about so many things, including ghosts, booksellers as “essential workers”, how a community pulls together, and also (extremely vividly) the terror and unknowns of the early pandemic. We don’t want to go back to those days! Or the worst of the Delta surge!
One more thing: when I was last at McIntyre’s, Johanna recommended two more books by Christina Soontornvat, which I’m planning to give Bea and Harriet at Christmas: A Wish in the Dark, her Newbery Honor book that is a Thai-inspired retelling of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, and The Ramble Shamble Children, a picture book I know Harriet will love.
What are you reading and recommending these days?
(top photo taken on yesterday’s Haw River hike by our friend Kristin)