A heartfelt and intriguing story that offers readers a window into the Cuban diaspora.
A slim debut memoir paints a portrait of one family’s escape from their Cuban home after Fidel Castro’s overthrow of the Batista government.
From the moment Castro “came down from the hills” in 1959 and took over Havana, middle-class Cubans began talking about fleeing. The brutality of the military’s systematic execution of anyone suspected of being a capitalist enemy of the new government created a climate of constant fear. In 1961, at the age of 7, Isidro was aware of some of the changes—“school had become less about learning and more about political indoctrination. There were no more songs and stories and childlike drawings filled with bright colors.” But beautiful, tropical Cuba was still her home. In September of that year, she and her parents stepped aboard a plane whisking them to Jamaica and a boardinghouse that would serve as a waystation before their trip to Miami. It was exciting and terrifying for the little girl, who would become a full-fledged American living in Stamford, Connecticut, never forgetting her Cuban roots. Her maternal grandparents would follow several months later and lived with them for the rest of their lives, re-creating a Cuban home in the cold North that brought the author comfort and some conflicts. The book opens in 2016, with Isidro looking back at her childhood, as she is about to visit Cuba for the first time in more than half a century. Through evocative prose, she captures the general immigrant experience of navigating a new country and culture as well as the tightrope she walked between acclimating to American life and trying to adhere to the traditions maintained at home. Most of all, she communicates in this tender, vibrant account the enduring love for her parents and grandparents and her appreciation of the hardships they endured to provide her with a safer life. Thinking of warm family celebrations, she writes: “I play some of them over in my mind, like vintage films, and watch the faces and smiles of those now long departed fade softly, like still frames in an aging reel.”
A heartfelt and intriguing story that offers readers a window into the Cuban diaspora.Pub Date: June 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4834-6971-3
Page Count: 84
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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