Maybe by Morris Gleitzman

Morris Gleitzman's Holocaust series for younger readers has already attracted much praise and many accolades. His stories carefully balance the reality of what actually happened with modern day sensibilities. Sad, bad things happen to his characters, but he doesn't describe them in gory detail. There is bleakness and injustice and cruelty, but there is also hope, love and mercy. And we all know that Felix survives the war, thanks to book number 3, Now.

Once is 10 yr old Felix's story about trying to find his parents. He is befriended by the spunky, Zelda and sheltered by a dentist called Barney, who is modelled on the real life Polish Jewish doctor who took in and cared for war orphans. Felix uses stories to make sense of the crazy things going on around him and to protect the traumatised Zelda. But, ultimately, Once is the story of lost innocence as Felix finally realises and accepts what is really happening.

Then is the heart-breaker.
The reality of the war and the horror of the Holocaust are really brought to bear in book 2. Gleitzman doesn't shy away from tough details or sadness, but then, how could you write a meaningful story about the Holocaust without them? The magic ingredient in all these books is hope. Felix is always optimistic and despite what awful things might happen, he always finds his way back to a position of hope.

I read the first three books of this series in a huge binge session one rainy, cold weekend. After wiping away my tears at the end of Then, I picked up Now straight away, desperate to find out what happened next. I cannot begin to tell you the huge relief I felt, as I realised that Felix not only survived the war and all the terrible things that happened to him, but fathered at least one child!

Now jumps forward 70 years and we meet an 80 yr old Felix living in Melbourne. He is spending time with his granddaughter, Zelda. But bushfires threaten to disturb the peaceful life that Felix has made for himself as a doctor in Australia. Now is a story about closure, memory and forgiveness.

And Felix's story could have finished there. That was the plan.

But Felix had other ideas.

After takes us back to the war. Felix is now 12 yrs old and has been hiding out in Gabriek's barn for 2 years. When things go bad, he finds himself in the forest with the partisans learning to fight. They also teach Felix some basic doctoring techniques and he quickly realises that he has a knack for it - more so than for fighting and killing. This is a story about the choices we make.

Soon is the tragic tale of what happens when the war finally ends. The horror, the cruelty and the hunger do not disappear just because the war is over. New threats and new fears throw out any ideas that Felix may have had that he only needed the war to end to feel safe and secure again. Instead his post-war life is filled with worry and despair. How can he stay hopeful when everything seems absolutely hopeless? Soon is a story about dreams and imagination.

Maybe is the refugee story that I thought Felix would want to tell us about. He is now 14 yrs of age and in the process of emigrating to Australia. This is his chance to live a in safe, modern world, where he can put his past behind him. But not all Australians welcome the idea of accepting an influx of war orphans and sadly, orphanages can be good - or bad - in any country.

Felix has had to grow up fast and the only thing that bugged me about this book was his voice. At times I wondered if Gleitzman was going to suddenly tell us that Felix was on the autism spectrum. The naive, childish voice didn't match Felix's life experience at all. It jarred. It was like he'd been allowed to grow up physically and intellectually, but not emotionally. The trauma of war, can do that to a person for sure, and maybe that's what Gleitzman was trying to get at. But it felt like a flaw in the story that Felix did not sound like a 14 yr old.

The simple storytelling style of 10 yr old Felix has not been allowed to mature and evolve into a teen story. Yet....

This reader, for one, is always hopeful and optimistic.

Gleitzman's webpage is a treasure trove of information about his books - for dedicated readers, teachers and parents. He also has lists of books that inspired or helped him with his research for this series.

Gleitzman's list of books about bushfires
Gleitzman's list of books about the Holocaust
Book 7 Always (to be published)
Book 6 Maybe
Book 5 Soon
Book 4 After
Book 3, 2 & 1 Now, Then & Once

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid has divided many readers and reviewers. (For an interesting cross section of responses try My Booking Great Read, Michael @Knowledge Lost, Rachel @Pace Amore, Libri, and Kate @Books are my Favourite and Best).

I was therefore prepared for the pared back, deceptively simple writing style that has kept many reviewers at an emotional distance.

Curiously I embraced it - I never felt distanced or detached at all. Every word and phrase popped with restrained emotion and hidden depths.

I am not an effusive, flowery kind of person.
I consider myself to be discreet and reticent in person. But I'm often a seething, swirling mess of contradictory feelings underneath.

Nadia and Saeed felt like versions of me. Cautious, quiet, thoughtful, understated, but with a lot going on inside.

Hamid's writing style suited my temperament to a tee.

Exit West also came into my life at the right time.

I began reading Exit West immediately after I finished the wonderful award winning The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose and straight after seeing the ABC's Book Club episode that featured the book.

Generally speaking, if Marieke Hardy likes a book, I do too (one obvious exception being her love affair with Amis which I simply do not share). It felt like the book gods (or at least Marieke) were telling me that this book had to be next. I was ready and receptive and the book was on hand.

The Museum of Modern Love contained themes of silence, connection, time, loss and love.
So did Exit West.

As I began reading, it felt in a weird way that is hard to adequately explain, that the love and connection I had for the language, art & ideas in Rose's book flowed straight into what I was experiencing in Exit West.
So much so that Hamid's startling (but sparing) use of magic realism ended up being an added bonus for me, not a distraction or in the least off-putting.

From the rather terrifying appearance of the very first door, I was intrigued...and hooked.

In an interview with Cressida Leyshon in The New Yorker last year, Hamid discussed the use of the magical doors that transported refugees from a place of danger to a place of greater safety in an instant.

I don’t entirely believe in the reality of realism. Lived human experience is too weird. Neuroscientists tell us that our brains are constantly constructing a representation of the world that is useful but is also inaccurate, invented. Mystics tell us much the same. I’ve always had an element of the unreal in my books. A little bit of the unreal can heighten our sense of reality by allowing us to experience something that knows it is a fiction but feels at the same time true. In the past, the strand of unreality I’ve explored has mostly been a formal strand, one rooted in the form a novel takes, the way it sets up the story it is telling. This time, the strand of unreality is in the plot, in the physics of the world, with the existence of these doors. The doors felt quite real to me when I was writing them. I could imagine them existing. And they allowed me to compress the next century or two of human migration on our planet into the space of a single year, and to explore what might happen after. 

Once I got over the unexpected shock of the first door, I liked this device a lot. It took the journey out of the story and made it instead, a story about the gradual disintegration into chaos and war of a once civilised society. And a story about adjusting to a new place - a new place that may not be exactly welcoming.

The new refuges also became Hamid's point of hope for the reader.
In some near distant future these purpose built cities could give us all a way out of our current world-wide refugee crisis (Hamid discusses this further in The New Yorker article linked above).

A colleague felt that the end left too many things unsaid or unexplored in Nadia and Saeed's relationship, the two young lovers at the heart of this story. I've been trying to work out why this didn't concern me and I think it was simply because the ending felt real to me. It wasn't resolved or tied up in a neat bow. I appreciated the layers, the nuance and the messiness of their love. None of the changes or choices that Saeed or Nadia made surprised me - they felt consistent with my perception of them.

Another link between Exit West and The Museum of Modern Love was the occasional reference to art and artists. In this instant, Saeed and Nadia are discussing and sharing images by the photographer, Thierry Cohen.

Nadia thought about this. They were achingly beautiful, these ghostly cities - New York, Rio, Shanghai, Paris - under their stains of stars, images as though from an epoch before electricity, but with the buildings of today. Whether they looked like the past, or the present, or the future, she couldn't decide.

French photographer, Thierry Cohen, Darkened Cities series - Shanghai

The past, the present and the future all played their part in this beautiful story which has become one of my favourite reads for 2017 (and a potential reread as soon as possible).

N.B. One of the other panellist's on The Book Club, Omar Musa, also thought very highly of the book, but his praise was qualified as he felt that Hamid's previous works were stronger and better. Needless to say, I'm now on the lookout for a copy of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Moth Smoke.

Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru by Madeline Gleeson

I have no idea how to adequately review Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru.

Refugees, asylum seekers and offshore processing has polarised politics and opinion in Australia for several years now. A book like this, that attempts to provide an 'uncompromising' overview that 'gets behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known' will probably only be read by those already convinced that there has to be a better way to manage the perceived crisis in asylum seekers.

Gleeson has put together a thoughtful, cohesive and detailed document. Her anger and frustration at the living conditions on Manus and Nauru and the uncertainty around processing individual claims is palpable. Yet Offshore still offers the reader opposing ideas, contradictory evidence and controversial opinions in an attempt to provide a balanced argument.

However it was impossible for me to get to the end of this book without being appalled by the conditions that the asylum seekers are currently living in on Manus and Nauru. The only justification for this treatment appears to be the idea that it will act as a strong deterrent for anyone considering arriving in Australia by boat.

Given that so many of the world's governments seem to be in a race to head to the right, I'm not sure how or when this situation will ease. After reading about the amount of money our government has spent and continues to spend on maintaining Manus and Nauru, the problem is not the money.

The problem seems to be how we actually perceive asylum seekers and refugees. Currently our ability to perceive, know or understand all the reasons why this situation has occurred are shrouded in double speak and political obfuscation. This ignorance creates fear and distrust.

Morally and ethically we know what should be done, so why aren't we doing it? What is the political expediency that is driving our current course of action? Why are we deliberately creating more damage for people already damaged? What will the long term cost for this psychological damage be? For them and for us? How can we possibly think that it will end well for any of us to create this level of trauma in human beings?

My only problem with Gleeson's book is that none of these questions could be answered.

Future history students will one day be studying this period of time and citing these events as one of the causes for what happens next. They will shake their heads in wonder that we couldn't see and didn't do anything to change the course of history.

It would seem, that history does indeed, repeat itself.

James Kane from Goodreads has posted the review for Offshore that I wish I could have written.

Offshore was longlisted for this year's Stella Prize, shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-fiction award 2016 and winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Writing for Non-fiction 2017.

Reflection by Rebecka Sharpe Shelberg

Reflection: Remembering Those Who Serve in War by Rebecka Sharpe Shelberg & Robin Cowcher has been made a CBCA Notable book for 2017.

A rather big part of me sighed when I saw this book, as I'm feeling overwhelmed and inundated by war books at the moment. The trouble is, all these lovely picture books have been put together so thoughtfully, they all approach the war story from a slightly different angle and they all have something worthwhile and relevant to say about war and peace.

Reflections is a war story very simply told. Each double page has a one sentence story that relates to what is happening across both pages - one page reflects a scene from war; it's facing page reflects a modern image of memorial.

The book begins with the Boer War and moves through WWI, WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and IraqII.

The final double page spread includes a brief information box about each of the wars that Australians have fought in overseas.

Robin Cowcher's illustrations in Reflections augment the style that I loved so much in Little Dog and the Christmas Wish. Her wistful mix of water colour and line drawings creates a nostalgic feel that allows the past and the contemporary to blend together visually.

I created this list of children's war books a couple of years ago. I've updated it with all the new titles. Please let me know if I've missed something obvious (especially any Australian titles or classics).

WW1 Books for Children & Teens:

(A) 1914 by Sophie Masson
(A) 1915 by Sally Murphy
(A) 1916 by Alan Tucker
(A) A Day To Remember by Jackie French and Mark Wilson

(A) And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda by Eric Bogle & Bruce Whatley
(A) ANZAC Biscuits by Phil Cummings & Owen Swan
(A) ANZAC Sons by Allison Marlow Paterson
(A) An ANZAC Tale by Ruth Starke & Mark Holfeld
(A) ANZAC Ted by Belinda Landsberry
(A) The ANZAC Tree by Christina Booth
(A) The Beach They Called Gallipoli by Jackie French
Biggles series by Cpt WE Johns
(A) The Bombing of Darwin by Alan Tucker
(A) Boys of Blood and Bone by David Metzenthen

(A) Digger the Dog Who Went to War by Mark Wilson
(A) Dont Forget Australia by Sally Murphy
(A) Evan's Gallipoli by Kerry Greenwood
(A) Eventual Poppy Day by Libby Hathorn
Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick

(A) Flambards (series) by K M Peyton
(A) Fromelles by Carole Wilkinson
(A) Gallipoli by Kerry Greenwood
(A) Gallipoli by Alan Tucker
(A) The Horse Soldier by Mark Wilson
(A) In Flanders Field by Norman Jorgensen
(A) Jack's Bugle by Krista Bell
(A) The Last ANZAC by Gordon Winch
(A) Light Horse Boy by Dianne Wolfer
(A) Light House Girl by Dianne Wolfer

(A) Loyal Creatures by Morris Gleitzman
(A) Memorial by Gary Crew
(A) My Father's War by Sophie Masson
(A) My Gallipoli by Ruth Stark
(A) My Mother's Eyes by Mark Wilson
(A) One Minute's Silence by David Metzenthen & Michael Camilleri
(A) Our Enemy My Friend by Jenny Blackman
(A) The Poppy by Andrew Plant
Private Peaceful by Micheal Morpurgo
(A) The Red Poppy by David Hill & Fifi Colston
Rilla of Ingleside by L M Montgomery
(A) Roly, the ANZAC Donkey by Glyn Harper
(A) A Rose For the ANZAC Boys by Jackie French
(A) The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett
(A) Simpson and His Donkey by Mark Greenwood & Frané Lessac
(A) Soldier Boy The True Story of Jim Martin the Youngest ANZAC by Anthony Hill
(A) The Soldier's Gift by Jane Tanner
(A) Tank Boys by Stephen Dando-Collins
War Games by James Riordan
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
(A) When We Were Two by Robert Newton

WWII Books:

(A) After by Morris Gleitzman
(A) Angel of Kokoda by Mark Wilson

(A) Angels of Kokoda by David Mulligan
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
(A) The Blue Cat by Ursula Dubosarsky
(A) The Bombing of Darwin by Alan Tucker
(A) The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
(A) The Boy and the Spy by Felice Arena
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
Carrie's War by Nina Bawden
(A) Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
(A) Forgotten Pearl by Belinda Murrell
Front Lines (series) by Michael Grant
Going Solo by Roald Dahl
Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
Henderson's Boys (series) by Robert Muchamore
Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes
(A) Heroes of Tobruk by David Mulligan
(A) Hitler's Daughter by Jackie French
I Am David by Ann Holm
(A) Kokoda by Alan Tucker
(A) Little Paradise by Gabrielle Wang
(A) The Little Refugee by Ahn Do
Maus by Art Spielgelman
Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
(A) Now, Then and Once by Morris Gleitzman
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
(A) Pennies for Hitler by Jackie French
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr
The Silver Sword by Ian Serralier

(A) Soon by Morris Gleitzman
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
The Wave by Rhue Morton
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
(A) The Wrong Boy by Suzy Zail

(A) Yoko's Diary by Paul Ham

Other Wars (Refugees & Peace):

(A) The Afghanistan Pup by Mark Wilson

(A) Amina by J L Powers
(A) The Arrival by Shaun Tan
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepytys
(A) The Bone Sparrow by Zana Frallion
(A) Bread and Honey by Ivan Southall
(A) Caesar The War Dog by Stephen Dando-Collins
The Conquerors by David McKee
(A) Emilio by Sophie Masson

(A) Flight by Nadia Wheatley
(A) I Was Only Nineteen by John Schumann
The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland
(A) The Midnight Zoo by Sonya Hartnett
(A) My Grandad Marches on ANZAC Day by Catriona Hoy
(A) Naveed by John Heffernan
Never Fall Down by Patrica McCormick

(A) One Step at a Time by Jane Jolly

(A) One Thousand Hills by James Roy & Noel Zihabamwe
(A) Parvana by Deborah Ellis
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
(A) Refugee: The Diary of Ali Ismail by Alan Sunderland
(A) Refugees by David M Miller
Shadow by Michael Morpurgo
(A) Shahana by Roseanne Hawke
(A) Treasure Box by Margaret Wild
The Twelth Day of July (Sadie & Kevin series) by Joan Lingard
(A) Vietnam Diary by Mark Wilson

(A) We're All Australian Now by A B Paterson & Mark Wilson
When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
Z for Zachariah by Robert O'Brien
(A) Ziba Came on a Boat by Liz Lofthouse

Read (pre-blogging days)

The lovely Louise at A Strong Belief in Wicker has also played around with a list of war books for children. Between the two of us, we've covered a lot of ground!

One Thousand Hills by James Roy and Noel Zihabamwe

In 1998 I read Philip Gourevitch's harrowing, detailed account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi population called We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.

For some reason which I couldn't fathom back then, there seemed to be some doubt in some people's minds that this event was somehow not our problem or not really a genocide. That somehow this was just a local dispute that was none of our business.

I made myself read this book to try and understand what really happened. Gourevitch's writing was compassionate but brutally honest.

As I read the book, I regularly felt sick with horror and disgust and often had to put the book down to regroup, all the while painfully aware that none of the Tutsi in this book had that privilege or recourse available to them.
They had to live through this. The survivors would never be able to put the things they saw and heard out of their minds. How do you regroup and move on from something like that? Especially when 'moving on' means becoming a refugee in a world that struggles to deal humanely with those who can never return home.

Noel Zihabamwe and James Roy in their new YA book called One Thousand Hills give us hope that it is possible to move on from such tragic events.

Zihabamwe is a survivor. He was ten years old when his parents were killed in the Rwandan genocide. He has been in Australia for eight years. He learnt English, went to TAFE and eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Community Welfare and International Social Development from the University of Western Sydney in 2012. He now works to improve the lives of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph last year, Zihabamwe said that his personal philosophy was "We can't be held back by the past to change the future."

Writing One Thousand Hills with Roy must surely count as another action to further the cause of future change.

Telling the story of young Pascal and his family in the week leading up to the massacre meant reliving his own past, but

we wanted to tell this story because we believe it's only by understanding the terrible and tragic events of the past that we can prevent similar events happening again in the future. (Authors' Notes)

Zihabamwe and Roy have crafted a well-paced, easy to read story. The emphasis is on family life with the build up of tensions being told through the child's eyes. They also use a flash-forward interview device between chapters, that show Pascal chatting with a counsellor in Belgium in 1999. These sections give us a glimpse of the lingering after effects on Pascal.

A worthy read and a very worthwhile one too.
Highly recommended for mature 12+ readers.

Man by Kim Thuy

Earlier on in the year I attended an author event with Thuy and read Ru. I adored it. It was beautiful, heart-felt and poetic.

Last week I was in need of some beauty and picked up Thuy's latest book, Man in anticipation.

Once again, Thuy explores the immigrants story. The search for self, family and belonging is teased out thoughtfully via our narrator, Man.

Language and its many vagaries are played with, although sadly, I suspect that reading this book in English means that we miss many of the subtleties between Vietnamese and French.

Thuy/Man also talks about this issue of language,

To grasp the nuances between two related words, to distinguish melancholy from grief, for example, I weigh each one. When I hold them in my hands, one seems to hang like grey smoke while the other is compressed into a ball of steel. I guess and I grope and the answer is often the right one as the wrong one. I constantly make mistakes.

I confess that Man's story failed to engage me in the same way as Ru. It was an interesting, enjoyable tale, but it lacked the vibrancy and beauty that I experienced with Ru.

Perhaps the autobiographical nature of Ru added that personal touch that gave its story an extra edge or immediacy. Maybe the love story at the centre of Man felt unbelievable. I also wanted more food stories.

But there is no denying Thuy's ability to create unique word pictures in both books:

I had learned how to fall asleep very quickly, on command, so that my eyelids would serve as curtains over landscapes or scenes from which I preferred to be absent. I was able to move from consciousness to unconsciousness with a snap of the fingers, between two sentences, or before the remark that would offend me was spoken.

Teacup by Rebecca Young and Matt Ottley

It's no secret that I have a bit of a thing for Matt Ottley's illustrations. In particular, I love Sailing Home, Parachute and Tree....and now I can add Teacup to that list.

The soft, dreamy palette of the early pages grows stronger and more vibrant as we head out to sea.

At this point, Ottley's oil paintings remind me not only of those he used in Sailing Home, but also, at times of some of the more iconic scenes in the movie of the Life of Pi.

I could spend hours pouring over Ottley's illustrations - he effectively uses reflections and transparency to draw your eyes to all the details.

This is one of those magic picture books, though, where the collaboration between author and illustrator is close to perfect.

The story flows seamlessly between the text and the pictures and back again. Young uses finely pared language & concepts to create a refugee and self-discovery story that is perfectly suited to preschoolers.

Infused with hope, courage and the possibility of new beginnings, Teacup is a poignant, tender story worthy of a 2016 CBCA nomination.

Treasure Box by Margaret Wild & Freya Blackwood

I read Treasure Box months ago but I had forgotten just how moving and tender the story is.

This is a tale, at first glance, about war, persecution and refugees. But hope, dignity and courage are at its heart.

A library is destroyed by bombs and all the books burnt...except for the one that the narrator's father had borrowed out before for the blast.

When they are forced to flee, they carry the book (that describes their history) in their treasure box.

Later, as the father lays dying he entrusts the book to his son.

Time passes, peace arrives and the boy, now a man, is able to return to the area where he buried the treasure box for safe keeping.

Treasure Box is a homage to words, the importance of history, memories and belonging. In fact, I suspect this book will be used by primary schools and high schools to develop topics of belonging & peace.

Blackwood's layered collage pictures are subdued & sombre at times. Fragments of paper and words float around her pages and find their ways into objects & people.

I've included several examples of Blackwood's pages - they grow on me the more I see them.

Treasure Box has been shortlisted for this years CBCA picture book award.

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

I've been wanting to read Olive Kitteridge for some time now.

It's still sitting in my TBR pile, but it's moved up to the top now that I've finished The Burgess Boys.

A tale of two brothers, a sister, a small country town in Maine and a pig's head. Relationships explored, exposed and analysed in the style of Anne Tyler or Alice Munro.

Issues of belonging, responsibility, truth and lies wrapped up in such a personal, compassionate package that you find yourself connecting to characters that initially repelled you.

Strout highlights how prejudice, love and duty affects individual, families and communities.

I really enjoyed the relationship between the three siblings in the end. Naturally, I had a favourite, but the other two were drawn with such empathy that I eventually came around to seeing their perspectives.

I think what appealed to me most though, was Strout's ability to see the good side of people and situations. She didn't ignore or gloss over the bad stuff, she simply chose to see everything and everyone with kindness and goodwill. It was a heartening experience.

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

I loved both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns so my hopes were high for Hosseini's latest book.

I wasn't disappointed.

And the Mountains Echoed is a story of loss and abandonment.
Loss of family, country, face, life, health, identity, home and memory are experienced by different characters at different times.

This loss informs relationships, choices and patterns of behaviour.

Each character is sympathetically drawn.

The language flows beautifully and elegantly, joining time periods, countries and characters lives seamlessly.

My only fault is that I was enjoying some of the individual stories so much, I didn't want them to stop. Towards the end, a few of these stories felt a little rushed and some of the poignancy of the ending was lost in the haste (another loss perhaps?)

Both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns had a particularly strong, confronting, disturbing scene to contend with. I was waiting on tenterhooks for a similar moment in this book. It wasn't until the end that I realised what 'the moment' was for this book. Because I was waiting for something else, I initially missed seeing it for what it was.

And the Mountains Echoed is storytelling with heart.

 It is due for May release in Australia.