An important and authentic look at the Cuban refugee experience.
A mostly wordless middle-grade graphic novel follows the journey of a Pedro Pan child, one of thousands evacuated from Cuba to the United States during the Cuban revolution.
Marisol’s story opens with black-and-white photographs of her parents’ early lives and then bursts into color. In tidily arranged panels, we see bright homes, delicious food, and beautiful tropical wildlife. Then Fidel Castro seizes power. Food grows scarce, and voices become hushed. When a bomb nearly blows apart Marisol’s bedroom window in the middle of the night, her parents make the difficult choice to send her to New York City. While the White couple who take her in are kind, she cannot understand the speech bubbles falling from people’s mouths, and her classmates are cruel. Everything is dark, gray, and cold—so unlike her vibrant isla—until she discovers the neighborhood library. She starts learning English, and her foster parents take her to the botanical gardens. The trio cook Cuban dishes and dance in the living room. Slowly, color seeps back into Marisol’s world. This beautiful and heartbreaking book bears witness to the experiences of children of the Pedro Pan generation, although not all experienced Marisol’s happy ending. Her story will resonate with Cuban children growing up on their abuelos’ stories and anyone who has had to leave their home and start over. The wordless narrative is incredibly impactful, underscoring Marisol’s alienation and the language barrier she faces.
An important and authentic look at the Cuban refugee experience. (author's note, recipe, further reading) (Historical graphic novel. 10-18)Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6923-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
PROFILES
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