The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico.

McCoy, Sarah. The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico.
Random House/Knopf/Anchor/Three Rivers 2009 215p 19.99
978-0-3074-6007-3 ms/hs
Verdita is on the point of becoming a young woman but still feels like a child and just doesn’t seem to understand the adult world. Life in Puerto Rico is different from the United States. For her it is always hot and sultry and her home is in the mountains where she is able to run through the fields and splash in the river water but she has learned English and when her cousin comes to visit from Washington DC, he tells her many tales about his home. They are best friends as well as cousins and she misses him every time he leaves. Then one sultry night she is not able to sleep and goes in search of her mom and dad only to find them in a compromising embrace. Her mom yells at her to go away and Verdita jumps and runs from the room. This is the beginning of her misunderstanding with her mother and when her cousin arrives for his annual visit she finds that he has changed. He is now taller and has facial hair and talks differently. Verdita feels like she has just lost a friend and she begins to fell confused as to why everyone is changing and she is angry at all those changes. To all of this she begins to make wrong choices and instead of making everyone pay for changing and ignoring her, she ends up paying the price of all her actions much to her mortification. All of her anger and frustration comes to head when her mother ends up in the hospital fighting for her life. Verdita discover that she is going to have give up her anger and deal with the changes. The books is very well written and you can almost feel the island breeze. The story takes place in the 1960’s setting when women in Puerto Rico were still home bound and not as liberated. The author portrays life as it was then and paints a picture that you can almost visualize. Excellent! Diaz, Magna