Paterson, Katherine. My Brigadista Year.

Paterson, Katherine. My Brigadista Year. Candlewick Press  2017    198p $15.99  ISBN 978-0-7636-9508-8  ms  Historical Fiction  E-BN      

In this excellent novel, Paterson follows a year in the life of Lora, a young Cuban girl who joins a literacy brigade shortly after the Cuban Revolution in 1960 and experiences the Bay of Pigs invasion and its subsequent defeat by the Cubans. It is exciting and insightful, exposing American youngsters to a point of view and story they are unlikely to encounter elsewhere.

Shortly after the Cuban Revolution in 1960, brigades of young, literate students from Havana were enlisted to go out into the countryside and teach the rural population how to read and write. Lora is excited by this opportunity, but she has to butt heads with her parents, who are fearful for her safety, and it is only when her grandmother intervenes that she is allowed to go. The year that follows is one of adventure, excitement and learning for Lora, and when she looks back on it from the vantage point of adulthood, she realizes that it changed her life in many important ways.

A chronology and end notes by Katherine Paterson are invaluable in teaching American kids what happened historically in this tiny nation 90 miles from our shores.   

Recommended for grades 6-8 and beyond.  

Summary: In this excellent novel, Paterson follows a year in the life of a young Cuban girl who joins a literacy brigade shortly after the Cuban Revolution in 1960 and experiences the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Cuba-Fiction                                       --Carol Kennedy