  | My Havana Author: Wells, Rosemary | |
| Price: $6.25 | ||
Summary:
The childhood of architect Secundino Fernandez, who left Havana, Cuba, with his parents.
| Added Entry - Personal Name: | Fernandez, Secundino |
| Illustrator: | Ferguson, Peter |
Download a Teacher's Guide| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: MG Reading Level: 4.20 Points: 1.0 Quiz: 138404 | Reading Counts Information: Interest Level: 3-5 Reading Level: 4.60 Points: 4.0 Quiz: 50377 | |
Common Core Standards
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 2.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 2.RL Integration & Knowledge of Ideas
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 2.RL Range of Reading & Level of Text Complexity
Grade 2 → Reading → CCR College & Career Readiness Anchor Standards fo
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → Texts Illustrating the Complexity, Quality, & Rang
Grade 3 → Reading → RL Literature → 3.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade 3 → Reading → RL Literature → Texts Illustrating the Complexity, Quality, & Rang
Grade 4 → Reading → RL Literature → 4.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade 4 → Reading → RL Literature → 4.RL Range of Reading & Level of Text Complexity
Grade 4 → Reading → RL Literature → 4.RL Craft & Structure
Grade 4 → Reading → RL Literature → 4.RL Integration & Knowledge of Ideas
Grade 4 → Reading → RL Literature → Texts Illustrating the Complexity, Quality, & Rang
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (07/01/10)
School Library Journal (09/01/10)
Booklist (08/01/10)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (10/10)
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 09/01/2010 Gr 4–6—In an author's note, Wells explains that she first heard a radio interview with the architect Secundino Fernandez in 2001 in which he spoke of leaving his homeland at the beginning of Castro's regime. Wells related to his story and tracked him down; the result is this engaging fictionalized tale. It follows Dino's idyllic childhood in Cuba to his years of living in Spain with his maternal grandparents, back to Cuba, and then describes his life as a Spanish-speaking immigrant in New York City in 1959. He laments the cold, drab winter and his difficulties with the language. He gets lost on the way home from school; his Puerto Rican classmates speak a different dialect; and his teacher is mean to him until his drawing skills win favor. By the end of the school year, Dino has made a friend, been promoted, and discovered Coney Island. "New York sunlight, shimmering with the promise of summer, settles round my shoulders like the arms of my mother. It is almost like my Havana." The story is a window into the early life of an artist; Fernandez sees his world differently, noticing colors, shapes, and textures—even temperatures—of the buildings around him. Readers are introduced to several infamous dictators and political figures including Castro, Che Guevara, Franco, Hitler, and Batista. Striking, full-color, full-page illustrations, along with black-and-white thumbnails and a few childhood photographs, capture the magical memories that inspired this tribute.—Barbara Auerbach, PS 217, Brooklyn, NY - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
Bulletin for the Center... - 10/01/2010 Secundino Fernandez was never quite in sync with his peers; when he was six years old, his gaze was generally directed to the buildings in his beloved city of Havana, and when a family emergency relocated the Fernandezes temporarily to Spain, Dino found the dustier terrain and repressive atmosphere of the Franco regime depressing. Even his mother recognized something was amiss when he lost interest in drawing buildings, an activity that had engrossed him back home. Upon their return in 1956, however, Cuba wasn’t quite the same; first the criminal underground pressured Dino’s father to change his line of business, then in 1959 the Castro regime put the family restaurant in jeopardy. The Fernandez family took the next possible flight out to the United States, with no time for goodbyes. Buffeted by the numbing cold and equally chilly reception in his New York public school, Dino took solace in constructing from drawings and memory a huge, detailed “map” of Havana, until a new friend and the discovery of the salty air at Coney Island helped him adjust to a new homeland. Like Peter Sís’ The Wall (BCCB 10/07), another biography of an artist (as an adult, Dino became an architect) growing up under communism, this illuminates not just the loving bond with native place but also the wrenching circumstances that clinch the decision to emigrate. Readers might naturally be curious to view some of the artwork Fernandez produced in his younger years, but no mention is made of whether such work is extant. However, the oil illustrations, tropical Norman Rockwell with a gently satiric edge bathed in a retrospective golden glow, ably convey Dino’s celebration of Havana and his trepidation in unfamiliar surroundings, while additional pencil spot art provides decorative vignettes. Notes on Wells’ authorial collaboration with Fernandez and several family photographs are included. EB - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
Booklist - 08/01/2010 In this fictionalized, first-person account, Wells teams up with architect Fernandez in a portrait of a child’s life under Castro’s Cuba, Franco’s Spain, and Eisenhower’s America. Small and observant, “Dino” loves to draw his colorful Havana surroundings. At age six, he visits his grandparents in Madrid, and his shock over his new surroundings changes his drawing style as he develops his unique visual perspective. A highly anticipated homecoming in Cuba is short-lived, though; after threats from Che Guevara, Dino’s family flees to “terribly black and gray” New York City. Eventually, Dino is able to draw on old memories as well as the thrill of new friends, a new language, and fresh visual inspiration to help him assimilate and grow up to become a respected and accomplished architect. Full-color and black-and-white illustrations throughout add to the strong atmospheric language to make for a literary piece that will be understandable to anyone who’s ever left one place and made a new life in another. - Copyright 2010 Booklist.
