A Voice for Independent Authors
― E.A. Bucchianeri
REVIEWING TODAY: MISSIONARY KID: BORN IN INDIA, BOUND FOR AMERICA BY MARGARET H. ESSEBAGGERS DOPIRAK
The laconic style of writing in Margaret H. Essebaggers Dopirak’s book, Missionary Kid: Born in India Bound for America, belies both the exotic nature of her childhood home in India and the historic time period of her life spent in USA, America. The reportage nature of her writing also lends a similar laconic feel to her personality, as if neither locale registered any dramatically meaningful impressions. However, a much larger story lies behind the sparse words of an apparently normal girl living an apparently normal life; a story told as if it were merely background to the mundane events of a young girl’s life. From her often casual observations of deeply-cultural images presented from Indian life – the low-level din of train-station beggars, un-appreciated encounters with the identifiably foreign threats posed by cobras, malaria, and local swimming holes, along with an easily accepted existence living at a leprosarium – to the oblivious youthful non-regard she holds for her war-time passage across the enemy-infested Atlantic Ocean, “Margie” relates her story sounding much like a privileged child.
Margaret H. Essebaggers Dopirak is indeed privileged to have lived the life she tells about in Missionary Kid. Her book is filled with memorable, documentary photographs showing confirmation of her words and perhaps telling more than she about the often-times hidden drama surrounding those historic years. Like any child absorbed by the wonder of her youth, Dopirak’s tale remains consistently self-centered and self-concerned as she pens a memoir intended to be personal and one-pointed, only inadvertently disclosing what it means to grow up like any other child, but in an environment and locale completely different from that of her cultural peers. And this, perhaps, is the genuine interest of this book: how, in the end, one child’s life so exotically lived may seem just so very normal.
Joel R. Dennstedt – Reviewer Author-Journalist-World Traveler
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In concert with the sentiment above, I share my professional reviews of books by Indie Authors. I am an official top reviewer for Readers’ Favorite, a highly-regarded and award-winning online review site. Adhering to their standards of professionalism, ethics, and formatting, I offer my life-affirming voice to a greatly deserving field: Indie Authors.