One of my friends is building a little free library on the front lawn of our beloved nursery school. She’s filling it with picture books and early chapter books to engage the hearts and minds of our youngest readers in town. The movement is near and dear to my heart as it encapsulates so much in just a few square feet: community participation, the cultivation of our places, LIBRARIES, books, ideas. I look forward to perusing our new collection and adding titles for years to come.
Which brings me to… our family’s very first book donation to this important Little Free Library (for the Littles). We chose Islandborn by Junot Diaz. I have been meaning to pick up a copy and this was a great excuse.
It’s the story of a girl named Lola who goes to a school in New York City where most children are originally from someplace else. Her teacher asks the students to write a report on the country where they’re from, but Lola’s feeling stuck because she has no memory of her island, the Dominican Republic. She was just a baby when she arrived in New York.
So she goes on this investigative journey, capturing the memories and slices of life of her island through the eyes of her elders. It’s sunshine and beaches, mangoes and rainbows. One bit in particular was our favorite of the entire book: a two-page spread filled with glorious colors of ocean life and island architecture. (My older kid brought this back to her desk and copied it straight away after our read-aloud.)
Islandborn delights in the beauty of the DR, and cuts to other truths about Lola’s home country. Her mom talks about the hurricanes they endured. Mr. Mir, a neighbor, tells her the darkest part of her island’s history: the story of the monster himself. The monster is a metaphor for Trujillo's dictatorship and the reason for her family members’ move to the States in the first place. And the heroes of the book are the women and men who rose up against the constant terror and torture they faced.
In the end, Lola understands her island in a way she didn’t or couldn’t before. She even has a thing or two put in her school report. But most of all, a young girl begins to know herself through a place, even if the place is far, far away from Lola’s snowy New York City winter. It’s right there in the beating hearts of the people she loves and the people who love her.
