Skip to main content

Mañanaland

Image
By
Mañanaland
By Pam Muñoz Ryan
New York: Scholastic Press, 2020. Fiction.

12-year-old Max is excited to spend his summer vacation playing futbol with his friends and preparing to try out for his city's junior league in the fall. Then he finds out that the league is going to be extra-strict at tryouts this year, requiring a birth certificate from each player. For Max, this is a problem because his birth certificate disappeared with his mother when she left him as a baby. Desperate to reconnect with his mother, Max uncovers a long-held family secret and embarks on a dangerous mission to lead a young refugee to Mañanaland -- hoping that he'll find his mother there.

This beautiful and incredibly layered story reads like a fairy tale - imbued with magic, mystery and adventure. The repeating motif of the La Reina Gigante, a hideout used as shelter by generations of refugees fleeing dictators and war-torn countries, provides beautiful and hopeful imagery (as shown on the cover). But, despite its fable-like tone, this book is grounded in a mythical sort of reality, the fictional country of Santa Maria is said to be "somewhere in the Americas" and Max's ordinary 12-year-old desires will feel familiar to young readers. As she did with the incomparable Esperanza Rising, Pam Muñoz Ryan shares a story of hope and compassion perfect for readers of all ages.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

By
If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.
Post a Comment
Read more

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

By loo
Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more