Thank you Junot Diaz for this treasure! Want the book? Get it here! Islandborn, by Junot Diaz. HEE received a review copy from the publisher, but all opinions expressed herein are entirely our own! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Looking to help your child develop their social and emotional skills?
Download our 8 Week Guide that pairs magical picture book stories with thoughtful discussion and engaging activities. Thank you for subscribing! To ask other readers questions about Islandborn , please sign up. What is the monster? In this article, Junot Diaz discusses the monster from Island Born. See all 6 questions about Islandborn…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4.
Rating details. Sort order. Start your review of Islandborn. Mar 15, Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing Shelves: picturebooks. This is book 18 of 20 of , and this is one of our clear favorites of the year, maybe the collective favorite.
Lola was born on an island which we suspect may be the Dominican Republic, see below but not raised there. For a school assignment asking her to draw pictures of where she was born, she needs help from relatives and neighbors to make the place come alive for her. Terrific novelist Diaz who was born in the Dominican Republic and illustrator Leo Espinoza from Colombia put together a sweet book. As it turns out, Lola has many classmates in her school that are from places not in the U.
Hank 12 : 4. She got to find herself, yay! Harry 13 : 5 stars. I love how she got to connect with her neighborhood and find herself. Tara: 5 stars. Loved this! Loved her talking to al the adults about the island. Dave: 5 stars. Mir tells them about it, is glad he left there. Lola gets most of her help from her abuela, who tells her stories of the old country that help her fill her sketchbook.
View all 5 comments. So, here's a children's librarian secret: sometimes, when we're supposed to be shelf-reading during our down time, we see a book on the shelf and go, "Oh, this looked so cute when I ordered it, but I forgot to actually read it! Or sometimes, such as with me and Islandborn earlier today, we end up scurrying off to the bathroom to hide until we can contain ourselve So, here's a children's librarian secret: sometimes, when we're supposed to be shelf-reading during our down time, we see a book on the shelf and go, "Oh, this looked so cute when I ordered it, but I forgot to actually read it!
Or sometimes, such as with me and Islandborn earlier today, we end up scurrying off to the bathroom to hide until we can contain ourselves because wow, who knew a children's book was going to trigger the waterworks today?
Anyways, seriously, this book is so beautiful and literally had me crying in the stacks today. My heart absolutely breaks for anyone experiencing diasporia, anyone missing their home or wishing they remembered more of it, and anyone whose home has ever been taken from them by a monster like the Monster from the Island. I absolutely cannot recommend Islandborn highly enough. Apr 17, Lisa Vegan rated it it was amazing Shelves: reviewed , zz-5star , childrens , fiction , readbooks-male-author-or-illust , picture-books , 1-also-at-librarything , art , social-culture , z This is a lovely book.
I particularly liked the humor throughout, in both the words and the pictures. I loved the many Spanish words, most with English translations. The art is spectacular, full of color and vibrancy. Great book for my part of the world, where so many children are immigrants or have parents who are immigrants.
Every school and public library should have at least one copy of this book. I want to reread it just to view the art again. View all 9 comments. Jan 27, Manybooks rated it really liked it Shelves: picture-books , school-story , childrens-literature , book-reviews , immigration-moving. And yes, what I absolutely and totally do appreciate the most about Islandborn is that Lola when she asks around in her neighbourhood for a school project about one's place of origin is not simply told the positives of the Island, such as beaches, music, fresh fruit of amazing sizes with the Island most likely being the Dominican Republic but also some of the negatives such as for example the reign of the "Monster" which most probably refers to Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo who ruled with an iron fist from until his assassination in , although his name is actually NEVER mentioned in Islandborn.
For in my humble opinion, it is ALWAYS important to not only tell children the truth as much as possible but also with regard to immigrants' nostalgia for their homelands for us to also be both willing and able to depict and describe and yes to also accept both positive and negative aspects and points of the latter such as in Lola's case, such as in Islandborn the monstrous reign of Rafael Trujillo or in my case, with regard to Germany, the Third Reich and the Holocaust, the horrors Nazism.
Four shining stars and actually and indeed, the only reason why I have not considered five stars for Islandborn is that personally, I would want and yes even require, need an author's note at the back, with non fiction information on the Dominican Republic and especially regarding Rafael Trujillo and his reign of dictaorial terror. Nov 03, Calista rated it really liked it Shelves: genre-beginner , award-various , bage-children , , award-goodreads-choice , genre-fantasy , diversity , want-to-own , sub-sea , women.
Lola has a school project due - to draw a picture of the land they were from as children before they came to the states. Through all the different people she got a pretty good picture of what the Island was like for many people and she learned about her past. I love this device. Each person remembers something different about the Island, good and bad. The colors are bright and we see the stories being told.
This is a longer story. He did like the monster that came at the end. He thought it was not a very exciting story really. People just talking about memories. He gave this 2 stars; the monster kept it from being 1 star. View 2 comments. Jan 19, Autumn rated it really liked it Shelves: families , picture-book , diverse-reading , cultural-history , debut , books-about-writing , magical-realism. Lovely illustrations of a Dominican NYC girls' world -- no white people in her class, including the teacher.
Loving family and community. Lots of good memories of home and one really bad one. The text is a little bit adult-focused, but it's not a bad start for an amazing adult writer! She knows what it's like to be with Nelson all day, y'all. View 1 comment. Apr 24, Sara rated it it was amazing Shelves: children-s-picture-book , current-events , home , uplifting. I feel like I've been hearing the phrase "may you live in interesting times" quite a bit lately.
Its supposedly a Chinese curse that's meant to refer to a life lived in a constant state of conflict and crisis. Its often said to me in reference to the neon orange Nazi in the White House but its equally applicable to the ever growing refugee and immigration crisis here as well.
We are a nation of immigrants and it kills me how often we seem to need reminding of that fact. We are a nation built with I feel like I've been hearing the phrase "may you live in interesting times" quite a bit lately.
We are a nation built with the blood, sweat, and tears of the countless men, women and children who came and continue to come to this country seeking a better life. Their songs, their stories, their music, their poetry and their lives are the vital essence that keeps us growing as a nation. We have always been a safe harbor for the politically, socially, and religiously persecuted, at least according to the beautiful lady who still stands watch from Liberty Island. That is the America I live in anyway.
Junot Diaz wants us all to live in that America. In this fanciful, beautiful, and emotional work of art he spins a fable about a young girl named Lola from an unnamed country simply referred to as "the Island. The problem is Lola doesn't remember the Island. She was only a baby when she, her mother, and her Abuela and many others came north in search of better lives.
Try as she might she cannot remember a single thing about her old home. Encouraged by her mother to hear the stories of what life was like on the island for herself she travels through her neighborhood and apartment building talking with the men and women and other children who do remember. She hears about the music, the food and the beauty of the island's beach. Only the superintendent of her building, Mr.
Mir, brushes her off saying no one needs to hear those stories. So what is Mr. Mir hiding and why did Lola and her family and friends leave the island in the first place? The answer forms the heart of Mr. Diaz's story and is the reason I was a quivering mess of so many feelings after I read this to my kids the other day. If you're like me you're always looking for ways to talk about the bullshit that goes on this world with your kids in a way that won't hurt them but will still show them that its not all unicorns farting rainbows and marshmallows.
There is evil in the world and sometimes good people die or get sick with a horrible illness that has no cure and sometimes monsters come to places like the island and wreck havoc for years leaving death and destruction wherever they go. Junot Diaz makes having a conversation like that, a hard conversation, a little easier. He celebrates the beauty and joy of the immigrant experience in America, the richness and vitality they bring to our country and its people, the sweetness and sadness that are both part of remembering where you come from, and the harder reality of never being able to go home again.
And to give you an idea of how good Leo Espinosa's illustrations are I'll just say they better be on the Caldecott shortlist this year. They are rich and bright and bursting with energy and youthful delight. As Nora hears stories of the island and begins to work on her pictures we get to see what her friends and family remember in a wonderful juxtaposition of past and present. A man getting his hair cut can actually see the mangoes he loved to eat on the island while sitting in the barber's chair and Abuela shares the gorgeous island beach with Lola with its dolphins and bright sun all from their living room sofa!
I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone who wants to remember how important the US is as a beacon of hope and protection for everyone in the world. Its a perfect book to read to kids from 5 to 15 though be ready for questions when you're done.
It teaches without being preachy or pandering or scaring the living daylights out of even very young children. Its tells a marvelous story and virtually dazzles the eyes with astounding pictures. Also it will make you cry so be ready for that too. Ready for more whenever you are Mr. View all 12 comments. Nov 15, Liza Fireman rated it liked it Shelves: shelf I really like the beginning of this book, actually almost until the end, when the monster came. And I did not understand the monster, or what it was or should have been, or why it is there.
Lola is a sweet kid that was born on the island. The class got an assignment to draw the place that they were born at. Every kid was from somewhere different, and the kids were excited about the drawing. Except Lola, because she did not remember anything about the island. And then, came the solution, ask other I really like the beginning of this book, actually almost until the end, when the monster came. And then, came the solution, ask others about their memories.
Surprisingly, everyone outside the school was not from different places, they were all from the island Because of the heat and because of what I felt inside my chest a lot, I often just sat in the crib with my brother and Nilda.
Rafa was tired all the time and pale: this had happened in a matter of days. I used to say, Look at you, whiteboy, and he used to say, Look at you, you black ugly nigger. See California before it slides into the ocean. California, I said. California, he said. A nigger could make a showing out there. He had closed his eyes and you could see he was in pain. We rarely talked about our father. End of conversation.
World without end. On days niggers were really out of their minds with boredom we trooped down to the pool and got in for free because Rafa was boys with one of the lifeguards. I swam, Nilda went on missions around the pool just so she could show off how tight she looked in her bikini, and Rafa sprawled under the awning and took it all in. Joe Black was always watching them. He might have seemed enamorao with Nilda but he also had mad girls in orbit. Like this one piece of white trash from Sayreville, and this morena from Nieuw Amsterdam Village who also slept over and sounded like a freight train when they did it.
The Romans used to shatter these with iron clubs, I told him while I massaged his shins. The pain would kill you instantly. Great, he said. Cheer me up some more, you fucking bastard. One day Mami took him to the hospital for a checkup and afterward I found them sitting on the couch, both of them dressed up, watching TV like nothing had happened.
They were holding hands and Mami appeared tiny next to him. Rafa shrugged. Yeah, Rafa said, laughing bitterly. God bless Medicaid. In the light of the TV, he looked terrible. In another universe I probably came out OK, ended up with mad novias and jobs and a sea of love in which to swim, but in this world I had a brother who was dying of cancer and a long dark patch of life like a mile of black ice waiting for me up ahead.
One night, a couple of weeks before school started—they must have thought I was asleep— Nilda started telling Rafa about her plans for the future. I think even she knew what was about to happen. Listening to her imagining herself was about the saddest thing you ever heard. But this one would be real cool, she said.
It would be for normal kids who just got problems. She must have loved him because she went on and on. Plenty of people talk about having a flow, but that night I really heard one, something that was unbroken, that fought itself and worked together all at once.
Maybe he had his hands in her hair or maybe he was just like, Fuck you. I wanted to kill myself with embarrassment. About a half hour later she got up and dressed.
She stepped into her pants and pulled them up in one motion, sucked in her stomach while she buttoned them. Yeah, he said. After she walked out he put on the radio and started on the speed bag. I stopped pretending I was asleep; I sat up and watched him. Did you guys have a fight or something? No, he said. He sat down on my bed. His chest was sweating. She had to go. He put his hand on my face, gently. A week later he was seeing some other girl. It was the way we all were back then.
Not for nothing. My brother was gone by then, and I was on my way to becoming a nut. A lot of the things that happened to her, though, had nothing to do with me or my brother. She fell in love a couple more times, really bad with this one moreno truck driver who took her to Manalapan and then abandoned her at the end of the summer.
Back home she fell in with more stupid niggers, relocated kids from the City, and they came at her with drama and some of their girls beat her up, a Brick City beat-down, and she lost her bottom front teeth. She was in and out of school and for a while they put her on home instruction, and that was when she finally dropped.
My junior year she started delivering papers so she could make money, and since I was spending a lot of time outside I saw her every now and then. Broke my heart. I always said Wassup and when I had cigarettes I gave them to her. I had to tell Mami on the ride home and all she could remember about her was that she was the one who smelled good. Years, I say, loading my whites.
Outside, the sky is clear of gulls, and down at the apartment my moms is waiting for me with dinner. Nilda asks, Did you move or something?
I shake my head. Just been working. She shakes her head, grinning. Your brother, she says. She points her finger at me like my brother always did. I miss him sometimes. She nods.
Me, too. He was a good guy to me. I must have disbelief on my face because she finishes shaking out her towels and then stares straight through me. He treated me the best. He used to sleep with my hair over his face. He used to say it made him feel safe. What else can we say? She finishes her stacking, I hold the door open for her. The locals watch us leave.
We walk back through the old neighborhood, slowed down by the bulk of our clothes. My heart is beating and I think, We could do anything.
We could marry. We could drive off to the West Coast. We could start over. Remember the day we met? I nod. You wanted to play baseball. It was summer, I say. You were wearing a tank top. Do you remember? I remember, I say. We never spoke again. An ass that could drag the moon out of orbit. An ass she never liked until she met you. You love how she shivers when you bite, how she fights you with those arms that are so skinny they belong on an after-school special.
Alma is a Mason Gross student, one of those Sonic Youth, comic-book-reading alternatinas without whom you might never have lost your virginity.
Grew up in Hoboken, part of the Latino community that got its heart burned out in the eighties, tenements turning to flame. Spent nearly every teenage day on the Lower East Side, thought it would always be home, but then NYU and Columbia both said nyet, and she ended up even farther from the city than before.
Her last painting was of you, slouching against the front door: only your frowning I-had-a-lousy- Third-World-childhood-and-all-I-got-was-this- attitude eyes recognizable. She did give you one huge forearm. You brag to your boys that she has more albums than any of them do, that she says terrible whitegirl things while you fuck. And at least once a week she will kneel on the mattress before you and, with one hand pulling at her dark nipples, will play with herself, not letting you touch at all, fingers whisking the soft of her and her face looking desperately, furiously happy.
Until one June day Alma discovers that you are also fucking this beautiful freshman girl named Laxmi, discovers the fucking of Laxmi because she, Alma, the girlfriend, opens your journal and reads. Oh, she had her suspicions. You take your time turning off the car. You are overwhelmed by a pelagic sadness.
Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertible knowledge that she will never forgive you. Only when she starts walking over in anger do you finally step out. When she starts shrieking, you ask her, Darling, what ever is the matter? She calls you: a cocksucker a punk motherfucker a fake-ass Dominican.
She claims: you have a little penis no penis and worst of all that you like curried pussy. You glance at the offending passages. Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel. This is how you lose her.
His clothes are stiff from the cold, and the splatter of dried paint on his pants has frozen into rivets. He smells of bread. When I ask him to stand up so I can fix the bed, he walks over to the window. So much snow, he says. I nod and wish he would be quiet. Ana Iris is trying to sleep on the other side of the room. She moves uneasily, buried beneath comforters, her head beneath a pillow. Even here in the States she drapes mosquito netting over her bed.
Mornings I find the salt and cut rock that the trucks spill onto the front lawn, little piles of treasure in the snow. Lie down, I tell him, and he comes to me, slipping under the covers. His clothes are rough and I wait until it is warm enough under the sheets before I release the buckle to his pants. We shiver together and he does not touch me until we stop.
Yasmin, he says. His mustache is against my ear, sawing at me. We had a man die today at the bread factory. Este tipo fell from the rafters. Was he a friend? This one. I recruited him at a bar. Probably does. Did you see him? Did you see him dead? I called the manager and he told me not to let anyone near.
He crosses his arms. I do that roof work all the time. Yes, but what if it had been me? What would you have done? I set my face against him; he has known the wrong women if he expects more. Bailing me out of trouble.
After a while he gets up and sits by the window. The snow has started falling again. Radio WADO says this winter will be worse than the last four, maybe the worst in ten years. His wife, Virta, or maybe his child. She looks thin and sad, the dead son at her side. He keeps the pictures in a jar under his bed, very tightly sealed. We fall asleep without kissing. Later I wake up and so does he. In the cold and darkness of this room he could almost be anybody. I lift his meaty hand.
It is heavy and has flour under each nail. Sometimes at night I kiss his knuckles, crinkled as prunes. In his top jacket pocket he carries a blue disposable razor that has begun to show rust on its sharp lip. He soaps his cheeks and chin, the water cold from the pipes, and then scrapes his face clean, trading stubble for scabs.
I watch, my naked chest covered with goose bumps. As soon as he leaves, I can hear my housemates complaining about him.
From the frosted window I watch him pull up his hood and hitch the triple layer of shirt, sweater, and coat onto his shoulders. Ana Iris kicks back her covers. What are you doing? Nothing, I say. She watches me dress from under the craziness of her hair. You have to learn to trust your men, she says. I trust. She kisses my nose, heads downstairs. I comb out my hair, sweep the crumbs and pubic hairs from my covers. She understands what has to be sacrificed on a voyage.
In the bathroom I stare into my own eyes. His stubble quivers in beads of water, compass needles. I work two blocks away, at St. Never late. Never leave the laundry room. Never leave the heat. I load washers, I load dryers, peel the lint skin from the traps, measure out heaping scoops of crystal detergent. I sort through piles of sheets with gloved hands. I never see the sick; they visit me through the stains and marks they leave on the sheets, the alphabet of the sick and dying. A lot of the time the stains are too deep and I have to throw these linens in the special hamper.
Because of the sida, she whispers. Sometimes the stains are rusty and old and sometimes the blood smells sharp as rain. Just the one inside of bodies, the new girl says. My girls are not exactly reliable, but I enjoy working with them. They play music, they feud, they tell me funny stories. They show up late or miss weeks at a time; they move to Nueva York or Union City without warning. In less than an hour one of the other girls has sent a friend to me for an application. Walked onto the job after one of the other girls ran off to Delaware.
She has the scared, hunted look of the unlucky. Work is work, I tell her, but I loan her enough for her lunches, let her do personal laundry in our machines. I expect her to thank me, but instead she says that I talk like a man. Does it get any better? I hear her ask the others. Just worse, they say. Wait for the freezing rain. She looks over at me, half smiling, uncertain. Hamper, I say, and Samantha throws it open.
I ball the sheet up and toss. Slops right in, the loose ends dragged in by the center. How many get to this point? Only the ones who never swerve, who never make mistakes, who are never unlucky. Each week we go out into the world and look.
He sits down next to me. He puts his hand on my knee. How sick? Bad enough. He rubs at his stubble. What if I find the place? You want me to make the decision myself? And if it does? He scowls. He checks the clock. He leaves.
I try to keep still, but by nine I have the things he stores in my closet spread before me, the things he tells me never to touch. His books and some of his clothes, an old pair of glasses in a cardboard case, and two beaten chancletas. Hundreds of dead lottery tickets, crimped together in thick wads that fall apart at the touch. Every month I drop by his apartment with his laundry and read the new letters she has sent, the ones he stashes under his bed.
The letters have grown beautiful over the years and now the handwriting has changed as well—each letter loops down, drooping into the next line like a rudder. Please, please, mi querido husband, tell me what it is. After reading her letters I always feel better. Today I say these same things to Samantha and she looks at me with hatred. This, Ana Iris said, is not an easy country. You need to concentrate on work, I tell Samantha.
It helps. It is probably her son she misses, or the father. The other girls pretend not to notice. I check the bathroom, find a bunch of crumpled-up paper towels on the floor. I smooth them out and put them on the edge of the sink. Even after lunch I keep expecting her to walk in and say, Here I am. I just went for a stroll.
When I first reached the States I was like that, alone, living over a bar with nine other women. At night no one could go to bed because of the screams and the exploding bottles from downstairs. Most of my housemates were fighting with each other over who owed who what or who had stolen money. He had a housekeeping guiso then, mostly in Piscataway.
The day we met he looked at me critically. Which pueblo are you from? Mata dictador, he said, and then a little while later he asked me which team I supported. Licey, he boomed. The only real team on the Island. That was the same voice he used to tell me to swab a toilet or scrub an oven. At least there was that. He kept his eyes and his hands mostly to himself. He had other plans, important plans, he told us, and just watching him you could believe it.
My first months were taking long walks through the city and waiting for Sunday to call my mother. Not enough ricos around here, he said without discouragement. Some friends set up the meeting and I met her at the fish market. I thought she was a boricua, but later she told me she was half boricua and half dominicana. The best of the Caribbean and the worst, she said.
She had fast, accurate hands and her fillets were not ragged as were some of the others on the bed of crushed ice.
Can you work at a hospital? I can do anything, I said. If you can do that, I can work in a hospital. She was the one who took the first pictures that I mailed home, weak fotos of me grinning, well dressed and uncertain.
Another one in a bookstore. The best picture is of me in front of a building at the university. The houses are in terrible condition; they are homes for ghosts and for cockroaches and for us, los hispanos. Even so, few people will sell to us. Today a grandfather, with red tints in his gray hair, tells us he likes us. He served in our country during the Guerra Civil. Nice people, he says. Beautiful people. He smells the air for a hint of mold.
In the bathroom I flush the toilet while he holds his hand under the full torrent of the shower. We both search the kitchen cabinets for roaches. In the next room the grandfather calls our references and laughs at something somebody has said. The blancos will call your mother a puta in the same voice they greet you with.
He trusts very little. Out in the car he starts in, certain the old man is trying to trick him. Did you see anything wrong? They make it look good. You watch, in two weeks the roof will start falling in. He says he will, but would you trust an old man like that? We say nothing more. I know he will yell if I talk. He stops at the house, the tires sliding on the snow. Do you work tonight? Of course I do. He settles back into the Buick, tired. The windshield is streaked and sooty and the margins that the wipers cannot reach have a crust of dirt on them.
Will you be coming by? Depends on how the work goes. OK, I say. My housemates trade phony smiles over the greasy tablecloth when I tell them about the house. No worries for you. None at all. You should be proud. Yes, I say. Later I lie in bed and listen to the trucks outside, their beds rattling with salt and sand.
In the middle of the night I wake up and realize that he has not returned but not until morning am I angry. I hear her gargling in the bathroom.
My hands and feet are blue from the cold and I cannot see through the window for the frost and icicles. When Ana Iris starts praying, I say, Please, just not today. She lowers her hands. I dress. I would find another man, I tell him. He smiles. Would you? Where would you find one? I could find a man the way I found you. They would be able to tell. Even the most bruto would see the death in your eyes.
Some do. He kisses me. I bet you would. I am a hard man to replace. They tell me so at work. How long did you mourn for your son? He stops kissing me. I mourned him a long time. I am still missing him. He puts his hand down at his side. You are not a clever woman. I can see that now, he says. While he sits by the window and smokes I pull the last letter his wife wrote him out of my purse and open it in front of him.
One sheet, smelling of violet water. Please, Virta has written neatly in the center of the page. This, I told her, is how I feel. I suspect if we were in the same life we would not be friends. Can we save this one with bleach? Samantha asks. Maybe because I want to give her a chance. Maybe because I want to see if she will stay or if she will go. What will this tell me? Very little, I suspect.
In the bag at my feet I have his clothes and I wash them all together with the hospital things. For a day he will smell of my job, but I know that bread is stronger than blood.
I have not stopped watching for signs that he misses her. You must not think on these things, Ana Iris tells me. Keep them out of your mind.
You do not want to go crazy from them. This is how Ana Iris survives here, how she keeps from losing her mind over her children. How in part we all survive here. I think of my mother, who kept with a married man when I was seven, a man with a handsome beard and craggy cheeks, who was so black that he was called Noche by everyone who knew him.
He worked stringing wires for Codetel out in the campo but he lived in our barrio and had two children with a woman he had married in Pedernales.
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