By Ruth Behar
4RBooks: 6/6, grades 6-9
Amazon rating: 4.3/5, grade level 5-6
Good Reads: 4.18/5
Common Sense Media: 5/5, age 10+
226 pages
Synopsis:
Benvenida is a 12-year-old Jewish girl living in 1492 Spain. The King and Queen issue an edict declaring that all Jewish people must either convert, leave the country, or be punished. Benvenida and her family leave everything behind to start a journey to the sea and then a new life in Turkey.
Reina is a 12-year-old Jewish girl living in Turkey during the Turkish revolution of 1923. She loves to play the oud and sing Sephardic songs that have been passed down through the generations of her family. One night she disobeys her father. He disowns her and then send her away to Cuba.
Alegra is a 12-year-old girl living in Cuba and excited by Fidel Castor’s literacy program. She volunteers to teach poor people in the country, against her father’s wishes. She is trained and then starts teaching with her friend Teresita. Her father is concerned about the impact of the socialist regime and comes to the country to get her. Alegra is sent on a plane to live in Miami.
Paloma is a 12-year-old girl who lives with her family in Miami and is excited about a planned trip to Spain with her grandmother. They are returning to the cities from where their family history originated. While exploring there, they will make connections they never expected to previous generations of family.
Four girls, all the same age, all related and all connected by music, food, language, culture, and history as they traveled across the seas: Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Caribbean.
Parental Guidance: medium
The excesses of the Catholic Church toward Jews are handled honestly which could lead to questions from young readers as to why the Christians would be so mean.
The Jews in Spain are given three choices: convert, leave, or be hanged. Those that leave are bullied and taken advantage of by others.
Benvenida’s father dies on the ship sailing to Turkey.
Reina disobeys her father who feels she has brought shame to her family. He sends her by herself to Cuba to be involved in an arranged marriage. She is only 12. The future husband has agreed to wait until she is 15.
Enamored by the literacy program, Alegra briefly becomes involved with Fidel Castor’s revolution in Cuba. Her family suffers under the socialist regime and there are reports of beatings and death. Eventually her father is jailed and dies in Cuba after the family has left for Miami or Israel.
In pursuit of personal freedom, Reina and Alegra disobey their fathers and/or keep secrets from them.
Recommendation:
This was an amazing read, easily one of the best books of the year, and one of my favorite books to have read and reviewed for this blog. There are so many layers and facets to these stories and the lives of the four 12-year-old girls: world history facts, cultural details, family dynamics, great friends, and multicultural and multigenerational relationships. Mostly it’s a beautiful story of one family of Sephardic (Spanish) Jews and how stories and music connected them for many centuries.
Because of the honest portrayal of historic events and the sending of one girl to Cuba for an arranged marriage, this is a middle school read. Upper elementary school children could handle it with parent or teacher guidance. Short chapters and a fast-paced story make it an easy read. Spanish speakers will enjoy the inclusion of Spanish words and phrases throughout, Jews will appreciate the connection to their culture and heritage, and people with a Turkish or Eastern Mediterranean heritage will enjoy the lists and description of the food.
This would be an excellent group read for a classroom teacher, especially for a group of girls. There are many extension activities available for use with Gifted readers. It would be a great core novel for an 7th grade classroom, and even though it is a middle grades novel, the sections on Turkey and Cuba would fit in well with a 10th grade history class.
This is another children’s novel that I think adults would enjoy, too. It would be one of my top choices for the Newberry Award this year. It is historical fiction, but is loosely based on stories from the author’s family.
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