Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I finished my second of this year’s Newberys this month, from an author I’ve heard of but never read before. After finishing Ruth Behar’s Across So Many Seas, however, I will definitely reading more by her, because it was gorgeous. Behar’s story, inspired by her father’s side of her family, begins in Spain in 1492. There’s nothing of Columbus here; for Spanish Jews, the Inquisition defined that year. Bienvenida’s father refuses to become a converso, and so their family must leave Spain or face execution.

That is a monstrous thing.

From there, Behar picks up the story of Bienvenida’s descendants in Turkey, in 1923; the large gap of time was my biggest complaint about the novel as I was listening to it, but the author’s note explains that gap: “Skipping from 1492 to 1923…might seem strange. Surely I could have created a few more characters between the fifteenth century and the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? I did think of it, but I chose not to. For many people who have a Sephardic heritage, there is this vast gap of time; only a few of us have been able to trace our lineage that far back. But all of us who claim a Sephardic identity have no doubt that our origins are in Spain.”

Clearly, I’m not going to argue with that. And so, in Turkey, we have Reina, whose angry father sends her away to Cuba to be married (she’s sent at 12, but her bridegroom agrees to wait until she’s 15). Reina’s daughter, Alegra, is excited to be a brigadista in Castro’s revolution, teaching people in rural areas to read and write. Unfortunately for her family, not all (or, of course, even most) of Castro’s policies are so wholly positive, and so Alegra is sent to the US as part of ‘Operation Pedro Pan’. (Just google it–it’ll be easier than me explaining.) Her daughter Paloma is born in Miami, and is thrilled to be able to travel, together with her family, ‘back’ to Spain. The threads that Behar weaves together during that trip will enthrall her readers, and the echoes of history feel as real as our present day.

Gorgeous, right? I loved this book–each girl feels so wholly real. I’m not entirely sure if its intended audience will fully appreciate it, but (to misquote Marty McFly) their parents are going to love it.

And, just maybe, they will too.