Author :
Nancy Osa
Preschool - 2nd Grade
Cuba 15
Cuba 15, Softcover, English, Book, Nancy Osa , 5th Grade and up, 9780385732338, $8.99
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Pura Belpre Award
Honor Book in 2004 for Narrative
An ALA Notable Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A Booklist Top Ten Youth First Novels
Violet Paz has just turned 15, a pivotal birthday in the eyes of her Cuban grandmother. Fifteen is the age when a girl enters womanhood, traditionally celebrating the occasion with a quinceañero. But while Violet is half Cuban, she’s also half Polish, and more importantly, she feels 100% American. Except for her zany family’s passion for playing dominoes, smoking cigars, and dancing to Latin music, Violet knows little about Cuban culture, nada about quinces, and only tidbits about the history of Cuba. So when Violet begrudgingly accepts Abuela’s plans for a quinceañero–and as she begins to ask questions about her Cuban roots–cultures and feelings collide. The mere mention of Cuba and Fidel Castro elicits her grandparents’sadness and her father’s anger. Only Violet’s aunt Luz remains open-minded. With so many divergent views, it’s not easy to know what to believe. All Violet knows is that she’s got to form her own opinions, even if this jolts her family into unwanted confrontations. After all, a quince girl is supposed to embrace responsibility–and to Violet that includes understanding the Cuban heritage that binds her to a homeland she’s never seen. This is Nancy Osa’s first novel.
School Library Journal : Grade 6-10-Violet Paz, a 10th grader in suburban Chicago, spends the better part of a year preparing for her quincea-ero, the celebration of her womanhood, that her Cuban grandmother longs for her to experience. While her attention to the plans and her understanding of what the event means wax and wane in her consciousness, she turns her family's personal foibles and social extravagances into fodder for her speech team's Original Comedy competition. She wittily points up the bizarreness of her father's sartorial choices, her little brother's peskiness, her mother's quest to open her own restaurant, and the family's devotion to dominoes. She also struggles to make sense of traditions-including formal gown and waltzing-that are foreign to her life. Violet's father, born in Cuba and brought to the U.S. as a baby, refuses to discuss his native culture with his children, and Violet becomes increasingly anxious to learn more about her roots. Her two best friends are more than simply foils; they provide texture, humor, and tension to the story. In addition to speech team and family affairs, Violet's year includes a first crush and first date, each of which resolves pleasantly. Among the many strengths of this book are its likable and very real protagonist and her introduction to the nexus of politics and family. Too much goes on in this first novel, but the characters are so charming that while readers are in their company, the experience is interesting and engaging rather than frustrating.
Booklist :
*Starred Review* Gr. 6-10. Violet Paz, growing up in suburban Chicago, barely
knows Spanish, and her dad refuses to talk about his Cuban roots, so it's a
real surprise when Abuela insists that Violet have a grand quinceanero, the
traditional Latina fifteenth-year coming-of-age ceremony. But Violet insists
that she is an American. After all, she looks a lot like her Polish American
mother. What's more, she wouldn't be caught dead in any onstage ceremony
wearing a ruffled pink dress and a tiara. As wonderfully specific as this
first novel is to one immigrant family, many teens will recognize the
cross-generational conflict between assimilation and the search for roots.
Violet's hilarious, cool first-person narrative veers between slapstick and
tenderness, denial and truth, as she shops for her party dress, attends a
Cuban peace rally, despairs of her dad's values and his taste in clothes, sees
that her American friends are also locked in crazy families, and finds the
subject for her school comedy monologue in her own wild home, where she is
"sentenced to life." There's no message, unless it's in the
acceptance that resolution doesn't happen and that Dad is still worth
loving--even if he comes to the elegant quinceanero in his favorite
sunshine-yellow shirt with multicolored monkeys printed on it. Hazel
Rochman
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