Skip to main content

Isla to Island

By

 

Isla to Island
By Alexis Castellanos
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2022. Graphic Novel.

In this mostly wordless picture book based on true events, a young girl named Marisol lives with her parents in Cuba during the early 60s.  Marisol's life is colorful, happy, and filled with the books she so loves.  Sadly, Marisol's family's happiness is threatened when Fidel Castro comes into power and Cuba is in unrest.  Marisol's parents, fearing for Marisol's safety, send her to New York to live and hopefully be safe until they can be reunited.  New York is so different from Cuba--here everything seems lonely, drab, and grey, and although the older couple who take Marisol in are kind, Marisol can't understand them.  School is even worse.  There she's bullied, lonely, and confused.  Only when she discovered the library at school does color start to come back into her life.  

This book proves that you don't need dialogue and lots of verbal imagery or background to learn to love characters and become fully invested in their story.  Marisol was so loveable and relatable.  The stark contrast between the colorful images of her life in Cuba with her parents and the colorless imagery once she makes it to New York really portray how alone and sad Marisol feels being away from home and family.  I loved Marisol's connection to books and how discovering them in New York made her feel more at home there.  A wonderful story that builds empathy towards the immigrant experience and helps the reader walk in someone else's shoes. Highly recommend.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Finding Lost

By
Finding Lost By Holly Goldberg Sloan New York: Rocky Pond Books, 2025. Fiction. 208 pages. Middle schooler Cordy, along with her mom and little brother, Geno, are still learning how to adjust to their life after “The Accident,” a tragic boating accident that cost their father’s life. When Cordy is walking home from school one day, she finds a little stray dog who the family nicknames Lost, and as he joins their family, he helps them rediscover all of the beauty that life has to offer. Holly Goldberg Sloane delivers a heart-warming and poignant novel about loss, family, and perseverance. This was a well-written novel that could appeal to a wide range of readers. Any middle schooler will be able to relate to Cordy’s experience of dealing with change, and those who have experienced a similar loss will be sure to find solace in this beautiful story.
Post a Comment
Read more