author: Rigoberto González
translator: Jorge
Tetl Argueta
illustrator: Rosa Ibarra
Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2003
grades 1-up
Puerto Rican
Soledad is lonely; she
comes home from school to an empty house, does her homework alone, and puts
herself to bed. Her parents and aunt all work late, and, though a next-door
neighbor checks in on her, she is mostly on her own. Envious of her friend
Nedelsey, who has a younger sister to keep her company, Soledad invents a
little sister of her own. She and “Felicidad” play together at the park until
Nedelsey and Jahniza come along and ask her whom she’s talking to. Embarrassed,
she tells them, and they decide to come home with her to brighten her
afternoon. The girls find a lot of things to do together—they read, they draw,
they watch the clouds—and Nedelsey confides that she wishes she could have
a quiet space for herself the way that Soledad does. They agree that when it’s
too crazy at Nedelsey’s house, she will come over to play and they will be
“alone together.”
Soledad Sigh-Sighs draws on experiences shared by many
children—coming home alone, creating imaginary friends, and the benefits and
disadvantages of being an only child. The rich Puerto Rican backdrop—the food,
the decorations in Soledad’s home, the Spanish terms that the girls sprinkle
into their English, their joy in drawing the Puerto Rican flag—add depth to a
story that all children can relate to. As an elementary school teacher, I also
like reading books about children from diverse cultural and linguistic
backgrounds that don’t dwell exclusively on language and culture—Soledad is a
little girl struggling with a common childhood problem, and she just happens to
be Puerto Rican. It’s also refreshing that Soledad’s family—despite their
absence from this story—is portrayed as deeply caring. So many children grapple
with having parents whose work means they can’t always be there. Stories like
this give kids a reassuring and relatable parallel.
Ibarra’s pastel and colored
pencil illustrations, on a palette of mostly oranges and blues, are both bright
and warm. The dominance of primary colors—from the children’s clothing to the
buildings—subtly reflect a warmth that evinces both Soledad’s loneliness when
she’s by herself and her joys when she’s with her friends.
In English, the use of
onomatopoeias—Soledad’s sigh-sighs, the broom’s sweep-sweep, the swing’s
screech-screech—gives the story a simple and compelling rhythm. Unfortunately,
while the Spanish translation generally reads well, this pattern is lost.
Soledad’s sigh-sighs become alternately “Soledad suspira que te suspira” or
“Soledad suspiros,” and similar things happen with some of the other
onomatopoeias. The girls’ dialogue in the English version reads realistically
as mostly English with some code switching into Spanish, which helps flesh out
the girls’ characters as Puerto Ricans living in New York and validates the
ways that many Latinos in the US mix languages at home. However, in the Spanish
version, this is also lost.
I like that the poetry in
the play on words of Soledad (“loneliness”) and her imaginary sister Felicidad
(“happiness”) works in both languages. There are some odd copyediting problems,
though (hecha una carrera instead of echa una carrera).
Soledad Sigh-sighs / Soledad suspiros is fertile ground for classroom discussions. There’s plenty to talk about—great dialogue, multiple characters with subtle distinguishing traits, realistic feelings, longings, and confusions. For kids facing some of the same issues as Soledad, this book could offer a comforting connection, and, for all students, it’s a window into the life of a young girl who just might remind them of someone they know. Highly recommended.
—Grace Cornell Gonzales
(published 2/28/14)
(published 2/28/14)
