Reread 11/17/2020

I finally got to read this book with a class of mine! They absolutely loved it and I was able to fall in love either the story all over again :)
——-

I read this book for my children’s literature class. I was super excited to pick it ups because I’ve been wanting to take a children’s literature class for practically my whole life. I would have read anything that I was handed enthusiastically. However, I was not expecting this book to be the best book that I’ve read this year thus far.

I’m not even quite sure to start with this book. Where do you start when something is so amazing? I suppose I’ll start with the beginning. The first chapter of this book had me captivated. I wanted to read as much as I could in that sitting. (Unfortunately, I did not do that because we were assigned certain chapters at certain times. I did not follow this assignment of chapters for very long.) There was something about the main character Sal and the way she described things that just made me want more.

Sal. Miss Salamanca Tree Hiddle. Where do I even start with amazingly beautiful she was? I have not read a character that has felt this real in so long. Honestly, all the characters in this book felt so very raw and real in the most gorgeous way. Sal’s grandparents made me smile so often because I could see them. They were cute and sweet and wonderful all at the same time. However, out of all the characters, Sal felt especially real. Her emotions few off the pages and pieced daggers into my soul. When she was sad, I was sad, when she was happy, I was happy. I felt so very connected to her, and it was painful and amazing in the same way.

Also, there was a beautiful sense of questioning of culture in this book that would really make for great conversation with middle grade aged people. (Or anyone really.) Sal questioned her own culture in a way that I think others would with their own culture’s or others’. I’m all about talks.

The narrative of this book was very interesting because there were lots of flashbacks. I FREAKING LOVE FLASHBACKS! One of my pet peeves with books is when they throw you into a story where someone important is no longer there, and don’t let the reader fall in love with that person as well. This book navigated that wonderfully. There was a sense of mystery in this book and I loved it. I spent my time reading this book just wanting to know what was going to happen.

In the end, this book left me sobbing. Like LEGIT SOBBING. I hadn’t had a good cry with a book in a while. It felt really wonderful. I was left in a sense of wonderment and I couldn’t have asked for more. This is a beautiful book, it's one that I will be recommending for a while.