It is wonderful to see more young adult books about diverse
cultures and communities making it to publication and receiving the promotion
and recognition they deserve. We need well written stories that give us the opportunity
to step into new cultures and view life through someone else’s eyes. Diverse
books give us understanding and compassion and allow us see ourselves, in all
our otherness, reflected in the stories we read.
The current attention to diversity titles may be due in part
to the campaign called ‘We need diverse books’ which recognises that children’s
books don’t always reflect the diversity that can be found in every community
and classroom.
Last year, while reading the School Library Journal I came across a review for a terrific new book called An Uninterrupted View of the Sky, set in Bolivia, South America. This book grabbed my interest because it is not only about stepping into another culture, it is about a culture that I actually have stepped into!
In 2014 I travelled to Cochabamba, Bolivia and walked the
very streets this book is set in . I wandered the cancha’s (markets) and took
the high-altitude, low-oxygen climb above the streets to view the Cristo del
Concordia. While I was there I met many beautiful
young people whose lives had also been interrupted by time spent in prison due
to their parents' incarceration. These teenagers impressed us with their
resilience in such a broken and corrupt society.
* * *
And so to the story.
Francisco's Papa is a poet from the rural Andes. He loved his rural roots but moved to the
city of Cochabamba to give his children education and opportunity. When Papa is shockingly arrested on false drug trafficking charges, Francisco’s mother
gives up all hope for a better future and abandons her home and family. With
no home to go to, Francisco and his sister Pilar must stay at the jail with
their father, as is the custom in many South American cities.
Though Papa is in deep despair he hangs on to his belief
that Francisco must be the one to break through the poverty cycle. He
encourages Francisco to keep working hard on his grades so that he can attend
university and acquire the skills to challenge and the change the corrupt legal
systems of the city. As the harrowing weeks pass, where they attend school during the
day and go home to the prison at night, Francisco and Pilar realise another
of their classmates is also living in the prison. Pilar befriends Soledad, a
teenage girl who is in grave danger living in the prison cells, but who has
nowhere else to go.
Soledad’s grim situation motivates Francisco to take Pilar and
Soledad back to their father’s Andean home. Francisco is astonished to find how
beautiful and peaceful it is and he begins to understand his father’s dream for
him.
In the last few pages of the book Francisco, still living in
the village, receives a letter. He has been successful in his application to attend San Simon University.
Melanie Crowder has done a wonderful job of drawing an
accurate picture of the realities of life in this harsh country, but like the
poetry of Francisco’s father she manages to weave a message of hope and
possibility throughout the heart-wrenching imagery.
A wonderfully well-written and engaging story.
Zinga rating: 5 *****
