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A review by melirose1998
Land of the Cranes by Aida Salazar
emotional
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This book brought me to tears on multiple occasions. I felt like I was right there with our main character Betita, through all of her journey--the good, the bad, the ugly. Aida Salazar wrote a devastatingly realistic and heartbreaking novel in verse about a young girl who gets caged, both literally and figuratively. The metaphor used throughout the book is that Betita, and her family, and those from Mexico, are cranes. They have flown to find their homeland and will keep flying to make a home wherever they land. The metaphor illustrates the struggles that undocumented folks experience in a variety of settings. I am so thankful for Salazar's words, and glad I read this novel. Although this is a middle-grade novel, more mature or older readers will be able to read between the lines, so to speak, and understand how the language Salazar uses communicates much more than what the words themselves mean.
TW's include: deportation, confinement, violence, racism, xenophobia, sexual assault, child abuse, torture.
Part of the synopsis: "Nine-year-old Betita knows she is a crane. Papi has told her the story, even before her family fled to Los Angeles to seek refuge from cartel wars in Mexico. The Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan, what is now the Southwest US, called the land of the cranes. They left Aztlan to establish their great city in the center of the universe-Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. It was prophesized that their people would one day return to live among the cranes in their promised land. Papi tells Betita that they are cranes that have come home.
Then one day, Betita's beloved father is arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Mexico. Betita and her pregnant mother are left behind on their own, but soon they too are detained and must learn to survive in a family detention camp outside of Los Angeles. Even in cruel and inhumane conditions, Betita finds heart in her own poetry and in the community she and her mother find in the camp. The voices of her fellow asylum seekers fly above the hatred keeping them caged, but each day threatens to tear them down lower than they ever thought they could be."
TW's include: deportation, confinement, violence, racism, xenophobia, sexual assault, child abuse, torture.
Part of the synopsis: "Nine-year-old Betita knows she is a crane. Papi has told her the story, even before her family fled to Los Angeles to seek refuge from cartel wars in Mexico. The Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan, what is now the Southwest US, called the land of the cranes. They left Aztlan to establish their great city in the center of the universe-Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. It was prophesized that their people would one day return to live among the cranes in their promised land. Papi tells Betita that they are cranes that have come home.
Then one day, Betita's beloved father is arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Mexico. Betita and her pregnant mother are left behind on their own, but soon they too are detained and must learn to survive in a family detention camp outside of Los Angeles. Even in cruel and inhumane conditions, Betita finds heart in her own poetry and in the community she and her mother find in the camp. The voices of her fellow asylum seekers fly above the hatred keeping them caged, but each day threatens to tear them down lower than they ever thought they could be."