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Summary
Summary
"Lush, evocative." -- School Library Journal
"Raul Colón's art...has a sweetness that's sometimes tinged with anxiety, sometimes with hope. A fine addition to books about the immigrant experience." -- Booklist
"This gentle look back at an important time will also speak to contemporary children whose families are starting anew in the United States." -- Publishers Weekly
When five year old Gabriella hears talk of Castro and something called revolution in her home in Cuba, she doesn't understand. Then when her parents leave suddenly and she remains with her grandparents, life isn't the same. Soon the day comes when she goes to live with her parents in a new place called the Bronx. It isn't warm like Havana, and there is traffic not the ocean outside her window. Their life is different--it snows in the winter and the food at school is hot dogs and macaroni. What will it take for the Bronx to feel like home?
Author Notes
Edie Colón is an elementary school teacher in New York state. She emigrated from Cuba at age 5. Her book Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York! is based on her childhood.
Raúl Colón is the award-winning illustrator of many picture books, including Draw! , an ALA Notable Book and recipient of the International Latino Book Award; Imagine! , an ALA Notable Book, a New York Public Library Best Book for Kids, and a BookPage Best Book; Susanna Reich's José! Born to Dance ; Angela's Christmas by Frank McCourt; and Jill Biden's Don't Forget, God Bless Our Troops . Mr. Colón lived in Puerto Rico as a young boy and now resides in New City, New York, with his family.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-After Castro confiscates her father's restaurant, Gabriella's parents leave Cuba for New York to settle in the Bronx. Unaware of the reason for their departure or its consequences, Gabriella stays with her grandparents. Several weeks later, her father returns and takes her to her new home. "She missed her toys, the sound of the beach, and Abuelita and Abito." She cries the first day of school; "Miss Lepoor kept talking to Gabriella, but Gabriella did not understand." This picture book chronicles the year in which Gabriella learns English, makes friends, and acclimates to her new life. One year and seven months after her parents immigrate, both Cuban grandparents join the family in America. Youngsters will gain insight into the immigrant experience as well as the Cuban revolution through the simple, heartfelt narration. Lush, evocative watercolor and colored-pencil artwork captures the warmth of the child's family as well as the contrast between the tropical beauty and unrest of her homeland and the wintry New York landscape. Pair this book with Rosemary Wells and Secundino Fernandez's My Havana (Candlewick, 2010), which is a more detailed account of a six-year-old boy's exodus for similar reasons.-Barbara Auerbach, PS 217, Brooklyn, NY (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Edie Colon's autobiographical story about making a new life in the Bronx after leaving Cuba in 1960 stars a six-year-old version of herself named Gabriella; Colon describes her journey, emotions, and adjustments to America in simple language. In his signature, almost pointillist style, Raul Colon's earth-toned artwork imbues the story with a comforting texture and warmth, closely depicting the clothing, hair, and decor of the era. The dialogue is smoothly rendered in Spanish and English, and many Spanish words are defined on the final page. This gentle look back at an important time will also speak to contemporary children whose families are starting anew in the United States. Ages 4-8. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
An immigrant tale builds on the author's childhood experiences.Six-year-old Gabriella and her parents leave Havana shortly after Castro's takeover of Cuba and move to the Bronx. Adapting to life in a new country is daunting. After arriving in New York, Gabriella must adjust to vistas of city traffic instead of a beach scene outside her window, a new school, a new language and snow, something she's never seen. Eventually, she makes friends, improves in English and awaits the day when her family will reunite with her beloved grandparents, still in Cuba: When that happens, her new house and new land truly feel like home again. The story is derived from the author's own life and evokes tender memories, yet the narrator recounts her story in a flat and dispassionate voice and hurries events along. She also laces her reminiscences with Spanish words and sentences, which are translated immediately afterward in context, making for awkward pacing. The author wisely downplays politics in this picture book, but readers might enjoy learning more about Gabriella's new experiences; for example, what was it like to play in snow for the first time? Fortunately for Gabriella and the author, she seems to have settled in easily and well. The true charm here is in the artwork, lushly rendered by Coln's husband. His signature soft, muted watercolor-and-pencil style befits the nostalgic theme.While it is hardly one-of-a-kind, it's not a bad addition to immigration literature for this audience. (glossary, author's note)(Picture book. 4-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Edie Colon, wife of illustrator Raul, bases this fictional story on her own coming-to-America experience from Castro's Cuba. As a six-year-old, Gabriella isn't sure what revolution means. But soon enough, it begins to affect her family: her grandparents' restaurant is confiscated, and her parents leave to make a home in the U.S. As much as she loves her grandparents, she is relieved when her father returns for her, not really understanding how different her life in America is going to be. Everything changes for Gabriella: language, climate, sights, sounds, and smells. Slowly, though, she adjusts, and when her dearly missed grandparents arrive, her new surroundings finally feel like home. This story is a poignant reminiscence of a child who is buffeted by forces beyond her control and adjusts rather well to a reconstructed life. Raul Colon's art, rendered in his familiar style, in watercolor, colored pencil, and lithographic pencil, has a sweetness that's sometimes tinged with anxiety, sometimes with hope. A fine addition to books about the immigrant experience.--Cooper, Ilen. Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THREE new biographical picture books portray children living through challenging circumstances; growing up in East Texas during the Depression, building a new life in the Bronx in the 1960s after escaping from Castro's Cuba, and hiding from the Nazis in the Italian countryside during World War II. Perhaps they'll teach children today that even the greatest difficulties can be overcome through determination, optimism and familial love. At the very least, they'll provide an excellent moral lesson: If your biggest problem is not having the latest Webkinz, things could be a lot worse. "Born and Bred in the Great Depression," Jonah Winter's love letter to his father, is the most poetic of the three. Kimberly Bulcken Root's first spread sets the tone: a train steams through a nighttime landscape, rendered in a wash of indigo, slate and midnight blue. There's a rundown shack, an outhouse, a vast skyful of stars. Winter addresses his father: Where you grew up, on the edge of town, next to the tracks, you could hear the trains going by at night. The book manages to be melancholy without being sad. Despite the family's lack of money, Dad, the youngest of eight, is never hungry - not with the chickens and the vegetable plot and the canning skills of Granny Winter, who offers mashed-bean sandwiches to hobos with even less than her family has. Grandpa Winter keeps his dignity as he competes for the right to spread tar on railroad ties in the hot sun for 10 cents an hour. Years later, Winter writes: When I think of the Great Depression, I picture a whole country of people tough as Grandpa and Granny Winter, not giving up, even when it seemed like there was nothing left to lose - waiting out a storm that seemed like it would never end and then finally waking to the blue skies of better days. Winter is a prolific author of children's nonfiction - he's written picture books about Gertrude Stein, Gilbert and Sullivan, and the renegade Long Island garbage barge. But "Born and Bred in the Great Depression" is the first of his books I've found deeply engaging on an emotional level. Root's old-fashioned pencil, ink and watercolor illustrations - sometimes a bit stilted and awkward-looking - work well with the text. The endpapers feature vintage photos of Winter's family. Where Winter's tone is lyrical, Edie Colón's, in "Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York!" is matter-of-fact: As Fidel Castro gains power in Cuba, 6-year-old Gabriella, a fictionalized character based on Colón's own experiences, learns that the government has closed her grandparents' restaurant. She overhears her grandfather, Abito, saying that Castro has the power to take away people's freedom. So Mami and Papi and Gabriella move to the Bronx, hoping Abito and Abuelita will be able to join them. Colón teaches English as a second language; it shows in the way she structures the dialogue. As if to emphasize Gabriella's dislocation, early conversations in the book are rendered first in Spanish, then in English: "Gabriella, hay muchos problemas en Cuba. Gabriella, there are many problems in Cuba." But it tends to feel a little forced. The art, however, is a grand slam. Raúl Colón, the author's husband, has done everything from New Yorker covers to murals in the New York City subway system to children's books (including a biography of Roberto Clemente written by Jonah Winter). He uses layers of paint and lithograph pencil on textured watercolor paper to create lush, soft, almost pointillist pictures, then creates still more texture by etching in wavy lines. Gabriella has a lovely, sincere face - I could feel Raúl Colón's love for his wife coming through the pages. "I Will Come Back for You," by Marisabina Russo ("A Very Big Bunny"), is the most exciting of the three books but also the scariest. Our narrator's grandmother, Nonna, decides the time has come to tell her granddaughter the story of her charm bracelet; the donkey, the piano, the bicycle, the piglet, the barn, the spinning wheel and the ship. Charm by charm, Nonna tells of her girlhood in an upper-class Jewish family in Italy. As the Nazis gain power, the family's fortunes change. Luckily, righteous gentiles help them again and again: the Silvestri brothers help Mamma escape from a policeman (on a bicycle - hence the bicycle charm), and Signor Brunelli hides Nonna and her brother in market baskets with piglets on their heads (the piglet charm). After the war, Mamma learns that Papà has been killed. Strangers now occupy their apartment in Rome. They set out for America (hence the ocean liner). The pleasingly flat, bright, folk-arty paintings should appeal to young readers, and again, the endpapers show real family photos. An informative afterword clarifies Russo's family story and gives a bit more historical background without delving into too terrifying detail. Indeed, each of these books makes frightening times informative yet manageable for a young audience. And they'll please parents who want to teach children that life isn't all Skittles and PlayStations. Marjorie Ingall is the parenting columnist for Tablet magazine.