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A review by jecoats
Efrén Divided by Ernesto Cisneros
4.0
While searching Goodreads for winners of the Pura Belpré Award - which is presented to a Latinx writer whose work best celebrates the authentic Latinx cultural experience - I found Efrén Divided, which won the award in 2021. I checked out a hardcover copy from my local branch of the Chicago Public Library.
The narrative follows the story of middle school student Efrén Nava and his family - his parents, whom Efrén affectionately calls Amá and Apá, and his younger twin siblings, Max and Mía. Efrén comes across as a lighthearted and carefree young man, even though it is clear early on that his Amá and Apá are just scraping by to provide for their children. He seems more concerned with helping his best friend, David, run for school president. But as we learn more about Efrén and his family, we discover that his parents are undocumented immigrants, and that the fear of ICE constantly weighs on Efrén’s mind. His fears become reality when one day his Amá fails to return home and ends up being deported. Efrén then has to take on the responsibilities of raising his siblings while his father does everything he can to secure Amá’s return. Efrén's journey is one of heartache and loss, but it is also one of growth and learning as he discovers the value of family and friendship. He also learns a bit about himself, developing a desire to help those that cannot easily help themselves and spread awareness about the plight many immigrants face.
This book would be perfect for both middle school students and high school students. The language used is not so simple as to bore high school readers, but not so difficult as to be too cognitively challenging for middle school readers. The book also acts as a great mirror for Latinx students as the culture is reflected in a way that felt genuine and authentic to me. And while I will admit that not all of our Latinx students will have experience or firsthand knowledge of immigration, I think the book’s other themes, such as loss and the importance of family, will help them - and non-Latinx readers - connect to the events and characters within. The book might also act as a sliding door as many readers will be absorbed by the narrative and the characters, feeling like they have gotten to know a bit more about immigrants and the threat they face from paramilitary entities like ICE.
This book also contains many round characters. Even characters we think are static at first become much more dynamic as the book moves along. Author Ernesto Cisneros does an excellent job of giving each character - even the twins, who are in kindergarten - a lot more depth than one might expect. To be sure, this is Efrén’s story, and he certainly grows the most throughout the novel. But Cisneros allows other characters to transform on the page, which helps increase the emotional impact of the overall narrative.
The aspect I enjoyed most about this title was that Cisneros has his characters use Spanish quite often, but he does not have a character translate the words or phrases back to the reader. As Dr. Quiroa pointed out in her videos for Module 3, this repetition is unnatural as it would mean a Spanish speaking person would literally be saying the same phrase twice (Dr. Quiora’s example of “hello papi, hola” comes to mind). Cisneros’s use of Spanish in the book is done in such a way as to enable non-Spanish speakers to infer what is being said. He also includes an index at the end of the book that has translations of all the Spanish used in the story.
The only qualm I have with the book is that occasionally the dialogue shared between Efrén and his friends doesn’t seem as genuine to me as the dialogue Efrén has with other characters. When Efrén and David talk, they often come across as wise beyond their years. However, when Efrén speaks to his parents or interacts with his siblings, he sounds much more like an adolescent boy. This could be a stylistic choice to show the reader that Efrén is still a child and should not be shouldering the responsibilities of an adult, but the inconsistency of the dialogue took me out of the story at times. However, this is a minor complaint in an otherwise excellent book.
The narrative follows the story of middle school student Efrén Nava and his family - his parents, whom Efrén affectionately calls Amá and Apá, and his younger twin siblings, Max and Mía. Efrén comes across as a lighthearted and carefree young man, even though it is clear early on that his Amá and Apá are just scraping by to provide for their children. He seems more concerned with helping his best friend, David, run for school president. But as we learn more about Efrén and his family, we discover that his parents are undocumented immigrants, and that the fear of ICE constantly weighs on Efrén’s mind. His fears become reality when one day his Amá fails to return home and ends up being deported. Efrén then has to take on the responsibilities of raising his siblings while his father does everything he can to secure Amá’s return. Efrén's journey is one of heartache and loss, but it is also one of growth and learning as he discovers the value of family and friendship. He also learns a bit about himself, developing a desire to help those that cannot easily help themselves and spread awareness about the plight many immigrants face.
This book would be perfect for both middle school students and high school students. The language used is not so simple as to bore high school readers, but not so difficult as to be too cognitively challenging for middle school readers. The book also acts as a great mirror for Latinx students as the culture is reflected in a way that felt genuine and authentic to me. And while I will admit that not all of our Latinx students will have experience or firsthand knowledge of immigration, I think the book’s other themes, such as loss and the importance of family, will help them - and non-Latinx readers - connect to the events and characters within. The book might also act as a sliding door as many readers will be absorbed by the narrative and the characters, feeling like they have gotten to know a bit more about immigrants and the threat they face from paramilitary entities like ICE.
This book also contains many round characters. Even characters we think are static at first become much more dynamic as the book moves along. Author Ernesto Cisneros does an excellent job of giving each character - even the twins, who are in kindergarten - a lot more depth than one might expect. To be sure, this is Efrén’s story, and he certainly grows the most throughout the novel. But Cisneros allows other characters to transform on the page, which helps increase the emotional impact of the overall narrative.
The aspect I enjoyed most about this title was that Cisneros has his characters use Spanish quite often, but he does not have a character translate the words or phrases back to the reader. As Dr. Quiroa pointed out in her videos for Module 3, this repetition is unnatural as it would mean a Spanish speaking person would literally be saying the same phrase twice (Dr. Quiora’s example of “hello papi, hola” comes to mind). Cisneros’s use of Spanish in the book is done in such a way as to enable non-Spanish speakers to infer what is being said. He also includes an index at the end of the book that has translations of all the Spanish used in the story.
The only qualm I have with the book is that occasionally the dialogue shared between Efrén and his friends doesn’t seem as genuine to me as the dialogue Efrén has with other characters. When Efrén and David talk, they often come across as wise beyond their years. However, when Efrén speaks to his parents or interacts with his siblings, he sounds much more like an adolescent boy. This could be a stylistic choice to show the reader that Efrén is still a child and should not be shouldering the responsibilities of an adult, but the inconsistency of the dialogue took me out of the story at times. However, this is a minor complaint in an otherwise excellent book.