Eliana: The Burden of An Eldest Daughter - Nia M Wardani | A Logbook of Life Discoveries

Last week I forced myself to pick a book from our collection bookshelf. It's been quite long time I touched a novel. After I graduated from high school, I really like nonfiction. Everything that seems real and close to my life. But this time, I picked an old book "Eliana" by Tere Liye, an Indonesian writer.


This book is republished several times, with different cover pictures. My version is the oldest one, 2011. And actually this book is not mine, but my little brother-in-law. He just left the book in the shelf and didn't take it back for four years.

2011 Edition

It is actually the last book of a series "Anak-Anak Mamak" (Children of Mother) consists of four books : (Amelia, Burlian, Pukat, and Eliana; they are the names of the children). But I read it the second. Firstly I read Burlian, because we don't have Amelia in the collection.

Yes, it is a children book. Most suitable for upper elementary to junior high school students grade 3 - 9. But reading it reminds me the joy of reading in school library when I was in elementary school. And the moral values gives an itchy feeling to your heart because we adult are too much exposed to "big" problems that we often forget about simple things like being honest, caring the nature, and defending the right.

This book impressed me a lot because similar to Eliana, I am the oldest child of four siblings. The book tells about expectation put on eldest girl by a mother, who wish her eldest to be responsible for her little siblings. Especially, I cried from chapter 24 to chapter 26 because I feel the same way Eliana feel, but then it also reminds me that being the eldest child is very special, that's way mother treat us special. I cannot put down the book at this four chapters.

It also tells us about how we should care about the nature we live in, a blessing from God, and tells about how greedy people will destruct nature and in the end they will have to accept the consequences.

And there are even more interesting stories.

The stories are so precious, in can be read by all age all generation. In Indonesia, they republished it with different cover and different title, Si Anak Pemberani ("The Brave Kid").

I do hope the book to be translated in English so that every children in the world can read the story. There are universal moral values that we should keep alive in children's heart.