There is economy and beauty in the language, demonstrated in an immersive narrative artfully told through verse. The book received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, [2] School Library Journal, [3] and Kirkus, [1] as well as positive reviews from Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, [4] and Booklist. I was so immersed in this story of these two sisters and all the lies their dad kept and their personal issues. Overall, another stunning entry from Acevedo, hands down one of the best authors writing currently, and deserving of every bit of praise she receives. Clap When You Land is a Today show pick for “25 children’s books your kids and teens won’t be able to put down this summer!

Their relationship was beautiful, and I know this story was not about them, so I was really glad that Elizabeth provided just enough scenes from them. We are okay, but that's a celebration, that almost communal exhalation on the plane, releasing the breath that you didn't know you had been holding. When, at the end, she is the one who saves Camino (alongside with her mother being a baddy and Tía wielding a fucking MACHETE being readyyy to kill El Cero), thinking "We must protect Camino at all cost", I sobbed, because it was so believable.

But at the end: all those suffering and emotional stress you endured are truly worth it because this is unique and beautiful sisterhood story brighten your mood and it is one of the best young adult fiction novels of the year. She's angry that she's able to freely and easily travel to DR without any issues; angry that she has more open options for her future; angry that she still has a parent; angry that her father spent more time with her.

Especially Camino’s new life conditions will be more challenging because she lives in a dangerous territory, chasing by a man named El Cero who is a local pimp. Not only are her writing and characters outstanding and utterly remarkable but the way she grapples with the various layers Latinx identity is something that I’ve never experienced before. So, I stand corrected, I love me some Poetry and these two authors have inspired me to go and find out more about a genre it would seem I held a prejudice against. But on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people.For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. The entire book is written like the quote above and I was worried this would dampen my enjoyment of the book. Elizabeth Acevedo’s poetry combines with the heartwarming story based on true events: on November 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 flight was regularly scheduled to fly from JFK International Airport to Las Americas Airport in Santa Domingo but it crashed into Belle Harbor/on the Rockaway Peninsula of Queens, took 260 people’s lives and nearly %90 was Dominican and of Dominican descent. Here, we chat about our favorite (and sometimes least favorite) books, share recommendations on everything from what wine pairs best with that work of fiction to facemasks that make your non-fiction read even better, and live our best basic bookworm lives. ELIZABETH ACEVEDO is a New York Times bestselling author of The Poet X, With the Fire on High, and Clap When You Land.

I wish more time had been devoted to the relationship between the two protagonists rather than spending 2/3 of the book reading a repetition of their same reactions. In November 2001, flight AA587 crashed to the ground on its way to Santo Domingo, killing 265 people on a flight where 90% of the passengers were Dominican or of Dominican descent. And then I’d get distracted trying to imagine it written as a prose, without the line breaks that suggest the rhythm of reading — and still loved it.Yahaira Rios, a Dominican American New York girl, a former star chess player who carries the secret that knocked her father off the pedestal she had built for him, also loses a father on that flight. Separated by distance – and Papi’s secrets – the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. I noticed that I read it differently that I usually do, actually sounding out each line in the mental voice instead of reading in chunks like I usually do — I guess like you *would* read poetry — and I loved it. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Through Carline, Acevedo doesn't just address the topic of teen pregnancy but also the discrimination that Haitian people face in the DR.

They are incredibly different young women, both living through an utterly bizarre situation, and as readers, we go through the immediate year following the plane accident with them. And Acevedo invites us into Camino's thoughts and innermost wishes: to move to the US to attend medical school. Bought so the offspring could complete a school English task, perhaps it’s fitting that they should be the one to give the final rating.

She is also the winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, The Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Fiction, the Boston Globe-Hornbook Award Prize for Best Children's Fiction and the Pura Belpré Award for a work that best affirms the Latinx cultural experience. The audiobook, produced by Harper Audio and narrated by Melania-Luisa Marte and Elizabeth Acevedo, was released on the same date. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). Overflowing with truths of the heart, and truths about inequalities that need to be broken, while also addressing the complexities of what it means to be of a place, I can't praise this highly enough. Candle lights are lit up in the areas, the girls are seen with sad and weary looks, and the anger the builds in them is painfully real.