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A review by piburnjones
Josefina Saves the Day: A Summer Story by Valerie Tripp
4.0
The great AG marathon continues. Reading this as an adult, here's what stands out: While the last third of the book is exciting, it requires everyone to twist themselves in knots in order to get us to a point where Josefina does, in fact, save the day.
What's extra weird: Josefina DID save the day in the last book by being able to treat Mariana's snake bite wound. Did no one think, Hey, let's make that the Save the Day plot and take the Santa Fe trip over Josefina's birthday?
As is, here's Problem #1: O'Toole leaves the violin in the church and the note on the hill so as not to wake the household. But given that he also had a deal with Senor Montoya in progress, perhaps it would have been better to wake someone and explain the situation? Or send his friend with a message that day, even if he didn't have all of the money ready yet? The message could even be "oh and tell the girls I left their thing in the church" if he wanted to keep the surprise. This is not rocket science, and in fact is a lot simpler than a note on a hillside with a piece of turquoise and hoping Josefina (a) finds it first and (b) puts the clues together.
Problem #2 is that Josefina and her sisters decide that Papá wouldn't possibly believe their story without the hard proof of the violin. Give him a chance, maybe? Tell him the story before he rides out, and if he's iffy about it, have him come with you to check the church. We never see anything from Papá to suggest that he lashes out at the girls, or can't abide any ideas but his own, but this is not the first time the girls are hesitant to just go talk to him. It's clear that this is a society with strict gender divides (exhibit A: we're five books in and as readers, we have never met Ana's husband. We've barely seen her sons. Yet other than this book, she's around all the time), and it's clear that children are trained strictly in how they relate to adults. Yet in the last several books, we repeatedly see Josefina and Papá together. JUST TALK TO HIM.
So that's where Tripp's editor fell short, frankly. A few other thoughts about the book as it is:
- It’s nice to get a new setting! And Santa Fe, of course, is a real place where one could go and visit the real San Miguel Chapel (which, a quick Google tells me, boasts of being the oldest church in North America)
- Josefina’s reaction to a toy farm that looks like a typical Eastern farm is a great reminder that Anglo-American archetypes are not universal defaults.
- The excitement of meeting the americanos is fun, the excitement of the marketplace is fun. The nighttime escapade is, as above, manufactured drama, but it is exciting and centers Josefina, which puts it in the top half of her series, after Surprise and Birthday, even despite some dumb plotting.
What's extra weird: Josefina DID save the day in the last book by being able to treat Mariana's snake bite wound. Did no one think, Hey, let's make that the Save the Day plot and take the Santa Fe trip over Josefina's birthday?
As is, here's Problem #1: O'Toole leaves the violin in the church and the note on the hill so as not to wake the household. But given that he also had a deal with Senor Montoya in progress, perhaps it would have been better to wake someone and explain the situation? Or send his friend with a message that day, even if he didn't have all of the money ready yet? The message could even be "oh and tell the girls I left their thing in the church" if he wanted to keep the surprise. This is not rocket science, and in fact is a lot simpler than a note on a hillside with a piece of turquoise and hoping Josefina (a) finds it first and (b) puts the clues together.
Problem #2 is that Josefina and her sisters decide that Papá wouldn't possibly believe their story without the hard proof of the violin. Give him a chance, maybe? Tell him the story before he rides out, and if he's iffy about it, have him come with you to check the church. We never see anything from Papá to suggest that he lashes out at the girls, or can't abide any ideas but his own, but this is not the first time the girls are hesitant to just go talk to him. It's clear that this is a society with strict gender divides (exhibit A: we're five books in and as readers, we have never met Ana's husband. We've barely seen her sons. Yet other than this book, she's around all the time), and it's clear that children are trained strictly in how they relate to adults. Yet in the last several books, we repeatedly see Josefina and Papá together. JUST TALK TO HIM.
So that's where Tripp's editor fell short, frankly. A few other thoughts about the book as it is:
- It’s nice to get a new setting! And Santa Fe, of course, is a real place where one could go and visit the real San Miguel Chapel (which, a quick Google tells me, boasts of being the oldest church in North America)
- Josefina’s reaction to a toy farm that looks like a typical Eastern farm is a great reminder that Anglo-American archetypes are not universal defaults.
- The excitement of meeting the americanos is fun, the excitement of the marketplace is fun. The nighttime escapade is, as above, manufactured drama, but it is exciting and centers Josefina, which puts it in the top half of her series, after Surprise and Birthday, even despite some dumb plotting.