That Night's Train (review)

A motherless child befriends a teacher on the train, and the teacher promises to call upon the girl at the week's end. The teacher, however, never does visit, and the little girl, Banafsheh, is disappointed and angry. The teacher relays the events of their meeting to her class as a story that she is writing, and her students eagerly suggest various conclusions to the tale, including the death of both the little girl and the teacher. The teacher considers these options, but it takes a letter from the inspiration of her previous book to spur her towards a more emotionally satisfying ending. With quiet, steady prose and without condescension, Iranian author Akbarpour successfully introduces readers to the complicated dynamics that exist among the author, the text, the reader, and the creative process. The youngest readers will want to mimic the teacher's students, trying to guess and perhaps even writing their very own ending to the story. Older readers, however, will likely enjoy their first experience with "meta" thinking here, and they will wonder both at the teacher's and Akbarpour's motivation while considering the blurred line between truth and storytelling. The story holds little action but provides plenty to think about, and it would serve as a useful readaloud in the classroom, particularly as a springboard for journal writing.