As, you know, an adult, I read mainly adult or YA fiction, but that doesn’t mean a great middle grade book can’t capture my attention. There are the masterpieces I’ve carried with me since childhood, like Madeleine L’Engle’s works, along with those I picked up sometime later, like A Series of Unfortunate Events. I was very fortunate to happen upon this book, a fresh new offering that has a lot of spiritual resonance with books I loved as I was growing up.
When her dad loses his job, 11-year-old Carolina and her family leave their home in Puerto Rico to stay with family in California while they get back on her feet. Imaginative, artistic Carolina feels homesick and out of place at Tía Cuca and Uncle Porter’s house, and her cousin Gabriela doesn’t exactly make her feel welcome. At summer camp together, Carolina knows Gabriela views her as a popularity liability, and her cousin entreats her not to be weird, but as Carolina tries to find her place in her new home, she needs space to be herself.
There’s so much to love about this book. I like that Carolina is interested in drawing but that she also likes more whimsical handcrafts that are tied to her imagination, like making fairy bridges. It’s relatable for me as a girl who still played with dolls at 11 (I often workshopped my stories through play,) when a lot of my classmates were “maturing” beyond that. I know what’s it’s like to feel behind in that way, and to struggle to own that what makes you weird is also what makes you special. Carolina’s creative and introverted nature makes me feel for her, and her preoccupation with dreams and touches of magic remind me of great books like Belle Prater’s Boy or Bridge to Terabithia.
As Puerto Ricans, Carolina and her family aren’t immigrants, but moving to California is still a huge upheaval/adjustment for them. Carolina misses her home dearly and feels overly protective of their traditions, afraid that her aunt and cousin are forcing her to be drawn into their thoroughly assimilated lives. There’s also a fascinating dynamic between Carolina and Gabriela beyond their different social circles. Gabriela views the more “foreign” Carolina as dragging down her status, while she herself is just a “regular” tween. In turn, Carolina looks at her cousin and sees someone who’s an “acceptable” level of Puerto Rican in comparison to the out-of-place Carolina. But even though Gabriela was born and raised in California and doesn’t even know much Spanish, there are those in her neighborhood who still don’t think she belongs in the right way.
Seriously, what doesn’t this book have? We’ve got folktales and traditions, the power of art and stories to make you feel like part of something bigger than yourself, the confusion and heartache of uprooting your life, the joy and triumph of finding a friend whose weirdness complements yours, family struggles from people who could show each other a lot of love if they could just see where the other is coming from, and secret hideaways for arty girls. What more could I want?
Warnings
Some “don’t try this at home” and thematic elements (including racism and sexism.)
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