On the Hook

author: Francisco X. Stork

publisher: Scholastic Press, 2001

grades 6-up

(Mexican American)

Francisco X. Stork is an acclaimed author of eight novels for young readers. His most recent novel, On the Hook, is a reimagining of his debut YA novel, Behind the Eyes, which was published in 2006. We’re fortunate to have this second-chance book out in the world.

On the Hook is full of ethical dilemmas with characters about whom we deeply care. Sixteen-year-old Hector Robles is a chess enthusiast, an honor student, and devoted to his family, aware of his responsibilities ever since the death of his father from cancer several years earlier. He and his classmate Azi, an immigrant from Iran, are becoming close, and he ponders what it means to have a girlfriend and to be a good boyfriend. He wants to stay out of trouble, but in the projects of El Paso, Texas, trouble seems to follow him in the form of drug dealer Chavo—whose  one-time girlfriend is now engaged to Hector’s older brothe—and Chavo’s drug-addicted younger brother Joey. At least Hector’s older brother has turned his life around and is planning to move the family out of the projects and to safety once he fixes up a house belonging to his boss.

In one violent night, Chavo and Joey wipe out Hector and his family’s future. Hector and Joey are on their way to a military-style therapeutic boys’ school together, with Hector single-mindedly plotting revenge against Joey. Here, things become interesting. Hector had won an award for an essay about “happiness,” focusing on his father’s journey from Mexico to the United States, his hard work, and his close family, but now he sees that Joey is the one who’s happy. Freed from his brother and his drug addiction, Joey is thriving in the rigidly-structured environment of the school. Does Hector now want to snatch that promise of happiness away, the way Joey snatched his happiness away months earlier? What are the consequences if he does? And how can Hector find happiness again?

Stork’s novels for young readers are deeply thought-provoking, and this one is no exception. His third-person voice conveys a respect for teen readers without preaching, and the principal characters are multi-dimensional—the heroes of their own stories. The theme of happiness runs through the book in unexpected ways, as we see that even someone like Joey deserves a better life than the one he has had so far.

On the Hook is a great book for teen reading circles. Today, the questions it explores go beyond the personal—stories of individuals and families—to society as a whole. We are at a point in our country’s history where hatreds have turned murderous, and reconciliation needs to happen at all levels of society. We all deserve happiness.

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 5/28/2021)

(Note: Lyn reviewed On the Hook simultaneously for De Colores and her blog, lynmillerlachmann.com.)

Clap When You Land

 

author: Elizabeth Acevedo

Harper Teen, 2019

grades 9-up

(Dominican-American)

Two months after the 9/11 attacks in New York City, an American Airlines flight bound for the Dominican Republic crashed shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport. Many feared another terrorist attack, and the determination of mechanical failure as the cause did little to assuage the trauma in the neighborhood where the plane crashed, in the Dominican Republic, and in the immigrant community of Washington Heights where Elizabeth Acevedo lived. This event became the inspiration for her third YA novel.

Like her acclaimed debut The Poet X, Clap When You Land is a verse novel. It’s told in the alternating points of view of Camino Rios in Sosúa, Dominican Republic, and Yahaira Rios in Washington Heights. Camino and Yahaira are half-sisters about the same age, but at the beginning of the novel, they don’t know it. All they know is their father died in a plane crash en route from New York to Santo Domingo. Camino receives money from her father that allows her to attend private school and harbor dreams of studying in the U.S. to become a doctor. Her father’s money also pays off a local gang leader to keep her safe, which she realizes when she flees her house of mourning and the gang leader pursues her:

I want nothing to do with the crowing roosters,

or the viejos lighting candles & Tía watching the news

& people crowding the patio,

& the prayer circles, & the watchful eyes, &

the whispers about Papi being dead.

But whatever it is El Cero wants from me

I know it will be worse

than the momentary discomfort at Tía’s house.

Because El Cero will attach conditions to his condolences.

Yahaira and her father share a love of chess and the bonds of family and friends…until she discovers a marriage license that belongs to him and another woman. The discovery drives a wedge between them, so that when he dies, Yahaira doesn’t get the chance to hear his side of the story or to say goodbye:

This other woman,

the reason my father left me,

left us broke trust ignored

the family he left behind.

& when he returned last summer,

I didn’t know how to look

him in the face & pretend.

So it was easier not to look at him at all.

When the only words I owned

were full of venom, it seemed better

to stop speaking to this man

since the only option was to poison us all.

For Camino, her father’s death has more practical consequences—the loss of her dream and the fear of violence and sexual exploitation without his protection. When Yahaira tracks down Camino on social media and then travels to the Dominican Republic with her father’s remains, she and Camino discover what they have in common and what they must do to salvage the best of their father’s legacy while accepting his flaws.

Acevedo’s novel is a moving account of disillusionment, grief, and reconciliation. Camino and Yahaira narrate in distinct voices—Camino in three-line stanzas that capture the slower cadence of life in Sosúa, and Yahaira in staccato two-line stanzas that depict her life in New York City. The novel shines brightest when the two sisters come together, their voices sometimes crashing against each other, sometimes intertwined, as they navigate their suddenly ripped-apart and reconstituted family. Secondary characters—Camino’s curandera aunt, Yahaira’s frazzled mother who discovers a newfound take-charge attitude, and Yahaira’s girlfriend and her family—add texture to the relationships and the story. Well-thought-out details of book design contribute to the reader’s understanding of Camino and Yahaira’s different worlds. 

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 4/12/2021)

Ana María Reyes Does NOT Live in a Castle

author: Hilda Eunice Burgos

Tu Books, 2018

 grades 4-7 

Dominican

Eleven-year-old Ana María (Anamay) Reyes’s surname means “kings,” but she, her parents, and her three sisters live in a too-small apartment in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, home to many immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Because Mami is pregnant again, the apartment is about to get even more crowded. And a baby will cost money, something the family doesn’t have much of, so budding classical musician Anamay is hoping that her performance in a piano recital will lead to a full scholarship at the posh Eleanor school, which her best friend, Claudia, attends. To Anamay and her sisters, the school “looks like a castle.”

My parents laughed. “Maybe we should live here then. We are the Reyes, after all!” Mami said.

Enter Tía Nona, visiting from the Dominican Republic with her fiancé, Juan Miguel. Tía Nona and Juan Miguel are fabulously rich, and they’ve invited Anamay and her family to the island for their wedding – all expenses paid. Though excited to go and spend time with her cousins, whom she hasn’t seen in years, Anamay worries about not being able to practice her piece for the big recital. At her aunt’s home, she notices glaring class differences. While everyone in Washington Heights seems to live at the same lower middle-class level, Tía Nona has servants, whom she doesn’t treat very well. Anamay quickly becomes disillusioned with her once favorite aunt:

I stood there and looked at the closed door. Tía Nona seemed different from the person I always thought I knew—a person who cared about other people and treated them fairly. How could I have been so wrong about her? And now that I knew the real Tía Nona, could things ever be the same again?

Ignoring her aunt’s warnings, the good-hearted Anamay befriends Clarisa, whom her aunt disparagingly calls “Cosita,” or “little thing.” Clarisa works day and night and cannot go to school, and when she gets a day off, she returns to her family’s makeshift home in a grim shantytown. Anamay unwittingly contributes to Clarisa’s firing, and she doesn’t know how to apologize or help. But she doesn’t forget Clarisa, even when she returns to New York City.

Anamay’s year is full of ups and downs, friendships and misunderstandings, dreams attained and crushed. Like most preteens, she comes to see the fallibility of the adults in her world—not only Tía Nona but her unreliable alcoholic Tío Lalo, and even her parents as well. At the same time, she learns the importance of forgiveness, or cutting others—and herself—some slack. In the hands of debut novelist Hilda Eunice Burgos, Anamay’s story is endearing and real. Music is threaded throughout as she struggles with the emotion of her recital piece even after she masters its technical intricacies. Readers will cry along with Anamay, cheer her successes, and appreciate the warmth of family and friends who help her along the way. 

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Vincent Ventura and the Mystery of the Chupacabras / Vincent Ventura y el misterio del chupacabras

author: Xavier Garza

Piñata Books / Arte Público Press, 2018 

grades 3-6 

Mexican American

Lots of kids like scary stories, and the first volume in Xavier Garza’s bilingual series published by Texas-based Arte Público/Piñata Books, Vincent Ventura and the Mystery of the Chupacabras / Vincent Ventura y el misterio del chupacabras is sure to delight and satisfy middle grade fans of the horror genre. Vincent and his two best friends, Michelle and Bobby, notice strange things happening next door at 666 Duende Street after Mr. Calaveras moves in. For one thing, dogs are disappearing. Inside a foul-smelling drainage tunnel, Vincent finds Chato, a neighbor’s celebrity chihuahua, dead and its blood drained. This is not the work of a vampire but a chupacabras, a beast that sucks blood, known to inhabit both Mexico and Puerto Rico. Could Mr. Calaveras be transforming into the notorious chupacabras?

Against the advice of his friends, Vincent disguises himself and goes to Mr. Calaveras’s house to spy on him. The gruff neighbor sniffs out the ruse, and now Vincent is in danger. And so is his adorable beagle Kenny, who disappears soon after. Although the chupacabras is only supposed to kill non-human animals, there’s evidence that Mr. Calaveras, who was himself bitten on a university research trip to Puerto Rico, has killed humans in the past and will do it again.

Garza, who has authored middle grade tales of contemporary humor and horror, strikes a good balance of safe and scary for readers ages eight to 12. Yes, a dog dies, but not one to which the readers are attached. In fact, Chato the chihuahua’s celebrity status makes it a source of humor as much as horror. Garza’s vivid descriptions capture the sensory experience of entering the chupacabras’s lair. The author’s cartoon-like illustrations, one per chapter, juxtapose the ordinary-looking protagonist and his friends with the exaggeratedly fearsome beast of lore. Readers will learn basic facts about chupacabras without those facts slowing down a well-paced story. And all’s well that ends well, except that Mr. Calaveras has disappeared without a trace and 666 Duende Street has been fixed up to await its new tenant. Who will bring the next disaster to the neighborhood?

This bilingual flip book contains a smooth Spanish translation by Gabriela Baeza Ventura that hews closely to the English original. Along with the short chapters and illustrations, the English and Spanish versions in the same book make this an especially good choice for young readers who are learning the other language.

An interesting bit of trivia is that Garza’s own son is named Vincent, and he wrote the series as a gift to his son. And now to all of us. *Highly recommended for all home, library and classroom collections, and to fans of light horror and those dipping into the genre for the first time.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 3/20/19)

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

An earlier version of this review first appeared in The Pirate Tree (thepiratetree.com). We thank The Pirate Tree for permission.

The Poet X

author: Elizabeth Acevedo

HarperTeen, 2018

grades 8-up

Dominican American

Written by an acclaimed slam poet, The Poet X is the verse novel of 2018—winner of the National Book Award and the ALA/YALSA Printz Award. Acevedo’s young adult debut is the story of a girl who finds her voice through poetry. Xiomara is the big, unattractive, less academically gifted, less obedient, female twin in a conservative Catholic Dominican immigrant family:

I am unhide-able.

Taller than even my father, / with what Mami has always said / was “a little too much body for such a young girl.” / I am the baby fat that settled into D-cups and swinging hips / so that the boys who called me a whale in middle school / now ask me to send them pictures of me in a thong.

Her parents forbid her to interact with boys even though the boys whistle at her and try to talk to her on the street, and one boy in particular, the kind, music-loving Aman is paired with her in biology class. And her mother makes her attend confirmation class every Tuesday afternoon, which conflicts with the poetry club her favorite teacher, Ms. Galiano, has started.

Xiomara struggles with Catholic teachings and with the characterization of women, via Eve, as weak and vulnerable to temptation, thereby justifying the harsh restriction of women and girls. Set in New York City, where teenagers have freedom and temptations are everywhere, Xiomara struggles against her mother’s strict rules bordering on fanaticism. Her mother grounds her, beats her, and attempts to destroy everything that Xiomara values. Xiomara is already late in getting her confirmation, to her mother a sign of her sinfulness and failure and to her, a big part of her growing self-doubt and questioning of everything she has been taught:

“Mami, what if I don’t

Do confirmation?

What if I waited a bit for—”

But she cuts me off,

her index finger a hard exclamation point

in front of my face.

“Mira, muchacha,”

she starts, “I will

feed and clothe no heathens.”

While many verse novels use visual images as their point of reference, Acevedo’s novel uses music—the songs of Nicki Minaj, Drake, and other R&B stars. This works well with Xiomara’s decision to perform slam poetry, and her verse captures the musicality of the R&B genre as well as the code switching among English, Spanish, and Dominican slang—as, for instance when she shows the Dominican men “finishing their dominoes tournament with hard slaps / and yells of “Capicu!”

Running throughout this story of coming of age, first romance, and discovering a beloved brother’s deepest secret, is the central theme of a young woman coming of age, coming to terms with her sexuality, and finding her voice. For Xiomara, who chooses to perform her slam poetry under the name “The Poet X,” free verse is the freedom to be herself, to say what she wants, to make her choices, and to come to terms with her own version of faith.

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 1/28/19)

All the Stars Denied

author: Guadalupe García McCall

Tu Books / Lee & Low, 2018 

grades 7-up

Mexican

Beginning in 1930, in the throes of the Great Depression, the U.S. government “repatriated” more than one million Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Sixty percent of them were U.S. citizens—children born in the United States to one or both parents who were Mexican nationals, spouses of Mexican nationals, and people whose papers were not available at the time they were detained and dropped on the other side of the border. For these people—and others who, like today’s Dreamers, had come to the United States as young children—Mexico was an unknown country. Many did not speak Spanish or have family members in Mexico who could take them in. The arrival of a million refugees strained Mexico’s capacity to take care of them, as that country suffered as well from the Depression and churches were quickly overwhelmed.

Guadalupe García McCall’s sequel to her award-winning Shame the Stars (Tu Books / Lee & Low, 2016) takes place one generation later, when Joaquin and Dulceña are parents of 15-year-old Estrella and toddler Luis, known as Wicho. Their large ranch, Las Moras, has been in the family for generations, but Estrella’s less privileged schoolmates are disappearing one by one. After she and her remaining friends in the town’s segregated school are arrested for demonstrating against discrimination and deportation—and she and her father speak up at a town council meeting—unknown persons set her family’s house on fire and kidnap them. Estrella, her mother, and Wicho are driven across Texas to the border crossing in El Paso; they have no idea where Joaquin has been taken. They spend a week in a crowded corral in the rain and cold, deprived of food and medicine, before shipped by train to Mexico City, where they must begin a new life, find Joaquin and other missing family members (including Dulceña’s parents, the publishers of a newspaper), and try to make their way back home as Wicho’s health deteriorates.

All the Stars Denied is a gripping adventure story of a family confronting catastrophe and ruin. At the beginning, Estrella is the spoiled daughter of a wealthy family, complaining about having to help take care of her equally overindulged brother. Like her parents, she believes her wealth—the extended family owns a large amount of land, as well as a newspaper and a bookstore, and employs a dozen farm workers and domestic servants—will insulate her from the spreading racism and violence. Yet the family’s wealth only means there’s more for those in power to take from them. McCall shows that at the root of racism lies the effort by those in power to take what others have, whether it be jobs, money, or property. Estrella and her family are helpless before the power of the white-controlled State; all they can do is survive in conditions in which they thought they would never have to live.

As the current administration separates families at the border and threatens to strip permanent residencies and birthright citizenships at will—confiscating homes and property in the process—it’s important for readers to understand that the United States has committed similar atrocities in the past. By choosing a seemingly privileged protagonist, McCall shows that no one is safe, and an attack on one group is an attack on all of us.

For more information about this little-known chapter of history, read Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s by Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez. Rodríguez, who died in 2013 at the age of 87, lost his father in the repatriation.

Strong pacing and McCall’s thoughtful, brave, and necessary portrayal of the repatriation.

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 12/5/18)

An earlier version of this review first appeared in The Pirate Tree (thepiratetree.com). We thank The Pirate Tree for permission.

Shame the Stars

author: Guadalupe Garcia McCall 

Tu Books, 2016

grades 7-up 

Mexican

As the Mexican Revolution rages across the border, Joaquín del Toro, the son of a wealthy Tejano rancher, dreams of taking over his father’s land and raising his family with his beloved Dulceña Villa, the daughter of a newspaper publisher. But a satiric poem in the newspaper—condemning the racism, violence, and general lawlessness of the notorious Texas Rangers—drives a wedge between the two families. The del Toros and the Villas agree that the Rangers are threatening their community, which has lived on this land before it was violently snatched from Mexico in the 1830s, but Joaquín’s father wants to negotiate with and appease the Anglos in power (hoping that local authorities will restrain the paramilitary Rangers) while, by means of the newspaper and the enigmatic opinion writer La Estrella, Dulceña’s father urges the Tejano residents to rise up and defend themselves.

Shame the Stars takes its inspiration from Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet, and like the original, this dispute between families is essentially a political one. In the first chapter, Joaquín’s father bans the entire Villa family from the ranch because of the newspaper’s incendiary articles and editorials. Joaquín must resort to sneaking out to masquerade balls and nighttime meetings in the woods—where coming into contact with Rangers is a constant peril. Ultimately, though, the families come together as Joaquín’s father realizes that the Rangers don’t want to negotiate but kill Tejanos, take their land, and drive the shattered survivors over the border to Mexico—and the elected and appointed authorities cannot or will not stop the vigilantes. While Joaquín and Dulceña’s families now face a common enemy, they don’t want their only children in the middle.

McCall’s powerful, well-researched work of historical fiction is told from Joaquín’s first person point of view, though she uses Joaquín’s poems, his and Dulceña’s letters, and actual newspaper articles from 1913-15 to offer additional perspectives. Joaquín’s poems capture what it was like for Tejanos threatened with ethnic cleansing: 

Lawmen have

been given free will

--orders to shoot

mejicanos on sight

In South Texas.

My blond hair

and freckled face

afford me a few seconds

to save myself.

A moment of hesitation

from a Ranger

buys me enough

time to speak out,

to clarify who I am,

establish that I belong 

on this side of the border. 

Readers come to understand the necessity of self-defense and the dilemmas Tejanos faced when confronted with a far more powerful and violent opponent, dilemmas that have become relevant again today on the border and elsewhere in the United States. McCall captures a history of cruelty and vigilantism that has been hidden from most young people (including those growing up in Texas). Her multi-dimensional teenage characters and the love between them will draw readers in and personalize the history. The family saga continues, one generation later, in McCall’s 2018 novel, All the Stars Denied is *highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann
(published 9/24/18)

Merci Suárez Changes Gears

author: Meg Medina

Candlewick Press, 2018 

grades 4-7 

Cuban American

It’s the beginning of Mercedes (Merci) Suarez’s sixth grade year, and right away she notices big changes. There’s a new boy in class, just moved to South Florida from Minnesota, and Merci has been assigned to be his Welcome Buddy, but wealthy, popular classmate Edna Santos has set her sights on him. Merci’s older brother Roli has his driver’s license and will soon be leaving for college. Most ominous of all, though, are the changes in Merci’s beloved grandfather, Lolo, who forgets more and more, and now has begun to act strangely—fighting with loved ones and wandering off into traffic. All the older people in Merci’s extended family—all of whom live in three small adjacent houses they call Las Casitas—seem to know what’s going on but won’t tell her.

In this eventful year, Merci encounters bullying, feeling out of place because her private-school classmates can buy things her lower middle class family cannot, family responsibilities that keep her from trying out for sports teams (despite her athletic ability), and facing Lolo’s decline. More than anything else, Merci wants a new bicycle, but all her efforts to make money (or win a contest with a cash prize) end in failure. Nonetheless, the family that takes away is also the family that gives her more than she can imagine as they come together to understand and address a sad situation with no solution. In this novel for middle grade readers, veteran author Medina portrays a close-knit Cuban American family and the diversity of South Florida’s Cuban American community. Her use of humor leavens the serious subject matter while foreshadowing perils to come. For instance, in describing Roli’s attempts to drive, she writes,

Roli has only had his license for a few weeks and already we’ve lost a mailbox and two recycling bins to his skills behind the wheel. Even our cat, Tuerto, has learned to hide when he hears the jingle of car keys.

A determined, engaging protagonist and likeable, true-to-life secondary characters—not only Merci’s lovable family but also her classmates who sometimes hurt her yet have their redeeming qualities—make Merci Suarez Changes Gears a solid and satisfying read. 

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 8/22/18)

This review first appeared in The Pirate Tree (thepiratetree.com). We thank The Pirate Tree for permission.

Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora

author: Pablo Cartaya

Penguin / Random House, 2017 

grades 5-up 

Cuban American

At the beginning of the summer, 13-year-old Arturo Zamora is not looking forward to his “promotion” to the position of Junior Lunchtime Dishwasher at his family’s Cuban restaurant in a suburb of Miami, Florida. Not only will he miss his two best friends, away on a family vacation and at summer camp, but dishwasher is also the worst job at La Cocina de la Isla. Still, Arturo is happy to spend the summer with his large family and his beloved Abuela, the restaurant’s co-founder and cook who can no longer work there because of health problems. 

Two things make this summer especially challenging for Arturo. One is Carmen, the “cousin who isn’t a cousin” but the 13-year-old daughter of his mother’s best friend, who recently died of cancer. Carmen and her father live in Spain but are spending the summer with the Zamora family, and Arturo is immediately captivated by her beauty, spunk, and love of poetry. More ominous is the arrival of the developer Wilfrido Pipo, who has planned a luxury condominium with all the amenities—to be built on the site of La Cocina de la Isla and its parking lot. Wilfrido plans dinners, festivals, and other activities to gain the support of the Zamoras’ neighbors and the town council that will ultimately grant or deny a zoning permit for Pipo Place. Instantly, the Zamoras and their beloved restaurant are all alone, for the developer has turned the entire town against them. But this large family, residents of the town for three generations, will not go down without a fight.

The author of several picture books, Pablo Cartaya debuts as a middle grade author with The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora, and what a delightful and endearing debut it is! Arturo’s first-person, present-tense narrative voice is authentic and believable, as is his awkwardness around Carmen, the first girl he has truly noticed: (“'Um, are you hot?” I asked. “I mean not hot like hot, but like sweating hotness…from the heat, and, um, you’re in Miami.”). Readers will also enjoy the the smooth use of code-switching in dialogue between English and Spanish as Arturo interacts with his family members and other “cousins.” For example, this exchange between Arturo’s mother and his firebrand aunt:

“Cari, did you read the paper today?” she asked my mom. “I can’t believe there’s another bid for the lot next door! Did you tell Mami?”

“Yes, I read it. And, no, I don’t want to worry her.”

I watched Aunt Tuti pace nervously around the dining room at the restaurant while making a face like she was about to swallow an entire apple.

“Every day this week!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “He’s stopped by the restaurant every day. He even invited me to lunch. Can you believe it? He. Invited me. To lunch. Engreído. Mentiroso. Ah no, no way. No way!”

“Tuti, cálmate. You’re getting hysterical.”

The characters’ (and author’s) Cuban heritage comes through in the food, the family relationships, and the writings of José Martí, the nineteenth-century poet and patriot who inspires Arturo to stand up for his family against the powerful developer. 

That poem was the result of an extreme emotional situation. It was a one-time thing! I had no desire to ever read in public again. Carmen stared at me and smiled. I wasn’t José Martí—I didn’t have his mojo—but if I could make Carmen smile like that, then I could totally recite my poem again.

The story concludes with pair of favorite recipes and a brief author's note about Martí's life and work. The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora is highly recommended.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 2/5/18)

An earlier version of this review first appeared in The Pirate Tree (thepiratetree.com). We thank The Pirate Tree for permission.

SanTana’s Fairy Tales / Cuentos de SanTana

author: Sarah Rafael García
translator: Julieta Corpus
Raspa Magazine, 2017 
grades 9-up 
Mexican American

Storyteller and visual artist Sarah Rafael García offers six “Fairy Tales for Trust and Justice,” all of them set in Santa Ana, a city in southern California that borders “the happiest place on Earth.” But that place is “never happy” for the brown people who live and work there, who live in fear of the landlords, the police, and ICE. In the first story, “The Carousel’s Lullaby,” we see the stakes, as teenager Saul remembers the carousel where he reunited with his parents after their separate migrations across the border, where he and his younger brother spent so many joyful weekends until Señor Billy Spurgeon, the real estate developer, tore it down to make way for shops and restaurants for rich Anglos. One night, Saul sneaks out to hear the ghost of the carousel, and never comes home—one more unarmed person of color killed by police. 

In “Zoraida and Marisol,” perhaps the most heart-wrenching of an emotionally powerful collection, transwoman Zoraida remembers her struggle for survival and to be herself while trying from the next world to save her younger friend Marisol:

I am an enchanted woman named Zoraida.

But of course you already know my name. You knew me when I was alive.

In this life, I reign from far, far above the castles and queens. I travel by whispers, wished upon the North Star and hushed weeps. Just like you called upon me in midst of bloody murmurs, wishing for death to ease the pain. Some call me death, others the Godmother of life.

In my last life I too thought it was my fate to die as a woman on a night like tonight. But death came just too soon, leaving me trapped between others’ lives and my own.

While Saul and Zoraida lose their lives to the supernatural ogres and beasts that represent forces of repression, the resourceful and resilient children of the next two stories, “Just a House” and “Hector and Graciela,” manage to outwit those who would steal their happiness and their lives—though not without great loss. Josefina’s nemesis in “Just a House” are Anglo gentrifiers turning their close-knit community into a playground for the wealthy (hers is the unhappy mother toiling in that artificially happy place). Graciela and Hector’s parents debate how to tell them that ICE threatens to destroy their family. Graciela, the older one, tries to protect her younger brother, but he is far more aware and clever than she gives him credit for. Readers will note the parallels between this story and the Grimm fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel,” including the ogre that lures the children with food.

For the last two stories, García narrates from the point of view of adult characters. The Anglo prosecutor in “When the Mural Speaks” hears the voices of Chicana/o veterans painted on a mural, and the Chicana writer of “The Wishing Well” hears the voices of her characters, most of them whose lives were cut short by the “snouted beasts.” 

García’s poetic language employs code-switching and incorporates individual words, dialogue, and songs in Spanish in an organic and believable way. For instance, in the first story, she code switches in dialogue:

“Saul! Where are you going? Don’t leave, you know what Apá says about being out after sunset.”

“Daniel don’t you want to know what happened to the carousel? Vas a ver, first the carousel and quinceañera shops, soon los fruteros, and one day it might be us!”

Rather than a word-for-word translation, Corpus’s Spanish version captures the rhythm and voice of the original, as shown by the Spanish beginning of “Zoraida y Marisol,” the English version quoted above:

Soy una mujer encantada de nombre Zoraida. Pero claro que ya sabes mi nombre. Me conocías cuando aún estaba viva. 

En esta vida, gobierno desde lejos, muy por encima de los castillos y las reinas. Viajo por medio de susurros, deseos pedidos a la Estrella Polar, y llantos silenciosos. Así como tú me invocaste enmedio de murmullos sangrientos, deseando que la muerte aliviara el dolor. Algunos me llaman Muerte, otros, la Madrina de la Vida.

While SanTana’s Fairy Tales was created for general adult readers, its focus on young people resisting oppression, coming of age, and coming into who they are makes this a compelling choice for teens. *It’s highly recommended for all home, library and classroom collections.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 10/8/17)