El Lector
Grade 5-8–Bella Lorente, 13, dreams of becomingel lectorlike her grandfather, reading literature and poetry to the Spanish-speaking cigar-factory workers of Ybor City, FL. However, the Depression, the conflict between workers and owners, and racial tensions alter her plans when her Aunt Lola is arrested for participating in a union meeting. Bellas extended family struggle to free the woman and to seek community in a divided city. Durbin succeeds admirably in creating an accessible world rich in detail. While most children will not know much aboutlectores, cigar rolling, and Depression-era Spanish Floridian culture, Durbin explains each one clearly, providing tidy translations for all of the Spanish used. In one particularly evocative passage, the wind brings smells from fresh-baked bread, guava, or damp tobacco, depending on its orientation. However, this richly envisioned world sometimes eclipses the rising action of the labor struggles and slows the books pacing, weighing it down with numerous subsidiary plot threads. At certain points, there is an overload of information as the author jumps from labor troubles to Depression-era unemployment to Babe Ruth to 1930s fashions and films. That said,El Lectoris better-than-average historical fiction with a strong female protagonist. Give it to fans of Pam Muñoz RyansBecoming Naomi León(Scholastic, 2004) as a read-alike.–Caitlin Augusta, The Darien Library, CTCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.