The Monarch Effect: Surviving Poison, Predators, and People by Dana L. Church

The Monarch Effect presents the remarkable story of the monarch butterfly and how we came to learn so much about this fascinating insect.

The story begins in Chapter One Baby Monarchs and Barfing Blue Jays with the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, starting with the tiny caterpillar which hatches out of a very small egg on the underside of a milkweed plant. The complex relationship between the monarch caterpillar which requires the milkweed plant to survive and the milkweed plant which needs to protect its leaves is described. Key to this relationship are the many survival strategies the monarch caterpillar has developed. These include how to circumvent the tiny spiky hairs on the milkweed leaf and the toxic white oozing liquid of the plant which also acts as a glue. There are several types of milkweed plants and the monarch caterpillars have developed strategies to survive on each. 

Each stage of the monarch caterpillar's life from its five molts to the preparations it makes to pupate, where it forms a chrysalis and undergoes metamorphosis to a butterfly are described with many interesting details.

The research of Dr. Fred Urquhart and his wife Norah are the focus of Chapter Two. Where Do They Go? Urquhart's interest in monarchs began as a boy and carried on through the rest of his life. Dr. Fred Urquhart had plenty of questions about monarch butterflies: Where do monarchs go for the winter? Do they have somewhere safe and warm to rest or do they die off? One article Fred read suggested that monarchs overwinter in Canada and the Northern United States. But he could find no evidence of this. Dr. C.B. Williams, a scientist in England, suggested "...that monarchs fly down to the Gulf Coast in Florida to overwinter and return in the spring."  In 1935, Dr. Urquhart began to investigate this theory by tagging monarch butterflies.

Eventually the Urquharts were able to develop a successful way to tag monarchs and enlist the help of volunteers across North America. They formed the Insect Migration Association and created an annual newsletter. The tagging program showed that the monarchs' flight paths began in northeast Canada and ended along the US Gulf Coast and in Texas. 

In Chapter Three More To The Story, the hard work and determination of Kenneth Brugger and a Mexican woman, Catalina Trail would provide the answer as to where the monarchs overwinter. Their work to determine the overwintering location was crucial to Fred and Norah's research. The Urquharts did not know where the monarchs travelled after they left Texas and the Gulf area. Trail and Brugger would discover two overwintering sites: Cerro Pelon and Sierra Chincua.

What followed was controversy and rivalry after Fred Urquhart published a fourteen-page article in the August 1976 issue of National Geographic magazine. The article paid only a passing mention of the work of Brugger and Trail and failed to honor the promise to keep the overwintering sites completely secret. The reality was that the Urquharts didn't "discover" the overwintering sites as it's likely the Indigenous and local people of Cerro Pelon already knew of them. After all, they cared for the forests and lived on the land.

Urquhart's article did create intense public interest from both scientists and citizens. One person deeply interested was Dr. Lincoln Brower.  In Chapter Four Squabbling Scientists, the relationship between Brower and the Urquharts is explored. What started on friendly terms quickly became a bitter rivalry as the Urquharts refused to share the location of the overwintering sites. Brower had developed a unique method of fingerprinting monarch butterflies using the cardenolide they ingested from the milkweed plants. Milkweed contains a poison in its roots, leaves, milk, seeds and nectar called cardenolides. This fingerprint  allowed scientists to determine where the monarchs had originated based on the  type of milkweed they had ingested. 

Even after the publication of the National Geographic article, the Urquharts would not reveal the location, so Brower took matters into his own hands. He used clues from the article to help: "The overwintering colony...was located on the slope of a volcanic mountain situated in the northern part of the State of Michoacan, Mexico, at a height of slightly over 3000 m." With the help of a fellow scientist, Dr. William Culvert, and topographic maps, Brower located the Sierra Chincua site. Incredibly, Brower and Culvert encountered the Urquharts at the site and an unfortunate accident that resulted in the deaths of millions of monarchs did not improve the situation. Perhaps one of Brower's most significant contributions to monarch butterfly science was the system of cardenolide "fingerprinting" he developed, which allowing researchers to determine a monarch butterfly's location of origin.

Dr. Brower and his team's research is explored in detail in Chapter Five Secrets of the Forest. Brower's research considerably expanded our knowledge "...about monarch butterflies, their predators, and the special climate of the Mexican overwintering sites." They demonstrated that importance of the oyamel forests in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt to monarch butterfly survival. His research uncovered how the monarch migration northward to Canada works. They revealed that  ",,,successive generations of monarchs lay eggs farther and farther north until they reach southern Canada." 

Chapter Six Tracking Migration, explores scientists efforts to better understand monarch migration focusing on the pace of migration and the factors that might be affecting migration. This chapter also explores research into two models, the milkweed limitation hypothesis and the migration mortality hypothesis as reasons for the decline in monarch population.

As research into monarchs expanded, scientists realized they needed to be studying more than just monarch migration, In Chapter Seven, Tracking More Than Migration, the work of several scientists including Dr. Kelsey Fisher and Dr. Karen Oberhauser is featured. Oberhauser initiated studies on monarch egg counts while Fisher, who studied movement ecology, wanted to understand how monarchs find milkweed plants, how they locate the Mexican overwintering sites for the first time and how monarchs know it's spring and time to head north again.

Chapter Eight, Monarch "Smarts" explores in greater detail the science behind monarch migration. Scientists wanted to discover how an insect with a such a tiny brain knows to fly three thousand miles south to an area approximately seventy-three miles wide. In order to understand this, researchers needed to understand monarch biology: researchers studied how their antennae functioned, the chemoreceptors and mechanoreceptors that monarchs relied on, how their eyes work and much more.

Chapter Nine Monarchs Around The World, asks the question "Where did monarch butterflies come from?" To answer this question, the fossil record is considered and genomics, the study of genes has been used to try to answer this question. This chapter also explores where other populations of monarchs are found in the world. 

The significant decline of the western monarch population which is located west of the Rocky Mountains is explored in Chapter Ten Monarch Emergencies. This population spends spring and summer in Nevada, Idaho and Oregon and overwinters along the coast of California. The chapter also considers the decline in the eastern monarch migration. 

In Chapter Eleven Living Near The Monarchy, the efforts to protect the habitat of overwintering monarchs is discussed. The work of Dr. Columba Gonzalez-Duarte has focused on evaluating the Monarch Biosphere conservation model and found it wanting. This model has led to the unintended loss of the traditional way of life for local Mexicans living on the lands and have also led to the proliferation of organized crime. This chapter outlines the many problems of the model both for the butterfly and forest conservation and for the people living in the ecosystem. Instead, Gonzalez-Duarte proposes focusing on the entire habitat instead of just one species might be more successful to saving both monarchs and Indigenous culture and way of life. 

Discussion

The Monarch Effect offers readers a deep dive into the world of the monarch butterfly and the research being done to understand this remarkable and beautiful insect. 

Dana Church provides her readers with fascinating information on almost every aspect of the monarch butterfly. The Monarch Effect opens with a detailed introduction of the life cycle of the butterfly that includes many interesting facts readers will likely not know. For example, many readers will know that the milkweed plant contains a poison, called cardenolide which is found in every part of the plant. But did you know it is also toxic to monarch larvae? Church writes, "Less than half of all monarch caterpillars survive the milkweed's latex...If the amount of latex a caterpillar ends up accidentally eating doesn't kill the, they can recover in five to ten minutes. Otherwise, they end up in a nonresponsive, coma-like state and die." The author describes the various survival strategies monarch caterpillars employ to survive on different species of milkweed and then goes on to describe the rest of the life cycle.

From this point on, the focus of The Monarch Effect is to present the incredible amount of research that has been done in the last eighty years on monarchs beginning with the initial monarch research in the early 20th century by Canadians, Fred and Nora Urquhart into where exactly monarchs overwintered. Like many other scientific endeavours, such research was not without controversy and to that end Church presents a balanced account of the rivalry between the Urquharts and Dr. Lincoln Brower, an American researcher who contributed significantly to our understanding of monarch butterflies. She also highlights the bias of this early research in believing it "discovered" the monarchs overwintering sites, which were already known to the Indigenous peoples of Mexico.

Throughout the book, Church highlights the many questions that arose as scientists learned more about monarchs. "...How do monarchs know when to start migrating? As they migrate, do they fly at a steady speed along the entire journey, or do they speed up or slow down at certain points?" How does weather impact monarch migration? Does the angle of the sun affect the migration? Other researchers wanted to know which US states monarchs arrived at first in the spring. When does the spring migration begin? Why does the timing and duration vary each spring? When the monarchs arrive in Mexico how do they choose where to roost? Do the same butterflies always roost together? How do monarchs locate milkweed plants? How do they decide on which plant to lay their eggs? As Church demonstrates, each piece of information led to more and more questions and required researchers to devise unique ways to find the answers. 

Several chapters are devoted to answering questions about the decline of monarchs and how we can best help the species recover. As with many environmental issues, the problems are complex and multi-faceted. Scientists are now advocating for a combined approach that utilizes both Indigenous and Western traditional science knowledge. It is an approach that considers not just monarchs, but the entire ecosystem and habitat, one that better integrates humans with the natural world they are a part of. This will require removing bias and require international cooperation to succeed.

The Monarch Effect is engaging and informative, written in an easy style, with understandable explanations about the complex problems facing monarch butterflies and the communities they are a part of.  The eastern monarch spans three countries, vastly different ecosystems, and different cultures. The author encourages her readers to become involved in the monarch butterfly recovery efforts by sending monarch sightings to Journey North, helping with tagging monarchs at monarchwatch.org and even counting monarch eggs and larvae through Monarch Joint Venture. The book offers websites that citizen scientists can access to become a part of this important work.

The Monarch Effect is perfect for the budding entomologist and those interested in the natural world. Church includes a detailed Glossary and an extensive References list at the back to help with further research and reading. 

Book Details:

The Monarch Effect: Surviving Poison, Predators, and People by Dana L. Church
New York: Focus Scholastics     2024
309 pp.

The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned To Read by Rita Lorraine Hubbard & Oge Mora

The Oldest Student tells the story of Mary Walker, born a slave in 1848 and her remarkable feat of learning to read when she was 116 years old.

When Mary was a young girl, working in the fields, she often gazed at the birds flying above and wondered what it was like to be free. At age eight, she knew there was no time for daydreaming on the Union Springs, Alabama where she was a child slave. Mary also knew that slaves were forbidden from learning to read or write. Mary decided that one day when she was free, she would learn to read.

Mary, her mother and her siblings eventually became free with the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. While many freed slaves left the  South, Mary's family stayed. she and her mother, brothers and sister shared a one-room cabin. Mary worked at many different jobs to help her mother support their family. 

One day Mary was given a Bible by a group of evangelists as she traveled along a road. She couldn't read the words inside, but owning the Bible became her inspiration for learning to read. It would take Mary many decades before her wish came true.

Discussion

The story of Mary Walker is a lesson in determination, resiliency and the importance of life-long learning. Although not much is known about Mary's life between the ages of fifteen and one-hundred-sixteen, author Rita Lorraine Hubbard has creatively fleshed out her life story in an engaging way. Once Mary learned to read, her life took on a more public aspect. Her accomplishment was honoured by Chattanooga's mayor, the press and even the US Department of Education.

Inside the front and back covers of The Oldest Student, Hubbard has included photographs of Mary Walker and also included is an Author's Note about Mary's life, featuring a few more interesting details. A Selected Bibliography can be found in the front matter of the picture book. The illustrations accompanying the text were rendered in acrylic paint, china marker, coloured pencil, patterned paper, and book clippings by artist Oge Mora. 

Book Details:

The Oldest Student. How Mary Walker Learned To Read by Rita Lorrain Hubbard
New York: Schwartz & Wade Books           2020

The Girl From The Tar Paper School by Teri Kanefield

In 1951, fifteen-year-old Barbara Rose Johns and her sister Joan attended Robert R. Moton High School - a high school for black students - in Farmville, Virginia. In the 1950's, segregation which kept black and white Americans separate in schools, restaurants, theatres, and in most public areas, was legal in the United States. The high school, for students from the black community, consisted of a main brick building surrounded by temporary classrooms constructed of wood and covered with tar paper. In rainy weather, these wooden "chicken coops" as the students called them, leaked. In cold weather they were heated unevenly by the pot-bellied stoves, meaning those students near the stove were warm while those further away shivered from the cold. In contrast, the school for white students, Farmville High School, "had modern heating, an industrial-arts shop, locker rooms, an infirmary, a cafeteria, and a real auditorium complete with sound equipment."

Barbara questioned her music teacher, Miss Inez Davenport whom she had come to trust, about the unfair conditions of their school. Miss Davenport challenged Barbara to act. Barbara, who lived in Darlington Heights with her parents, considered the problem of the tar paper shacks. Eventually, Barbara came up with the idea of leading her fellow students on a strike to protest the terrible conditions and the lack of action by both the school board and the town officials. The next day Barbara called together students she felt were important leaders in the student community including John and Carrie Stokes (vice president and president of the 1951 graduating class respectively) and John Watson (school newspaper editor-in-chief and member of the school business club). The students decided to strike in the spring in an attempt to force the school board and city to act.

On April 23, 1951 the students of Robert Russa Moton High walked out of class, led by Barbara Johns. The students kept their plans secret knowing that if parents or teachers were aware of the possible strike they might lose their jobs or face other repercussions. Principal Boyd Jones was lured into town by a telephone call informing him that black students were causing trouble in the town. Once Principal Jones had left the school, notes written by Barbara informing the teachers in each class that there was an assembly in the school auditorium distributed. Once the teachers and their classes assembled in the auditorium, Barbara took the stage and asked the teachers to leave. Barbara's speech focused on the terrible conditions at the school, the inability of the parents and the city to deal with this problem and how they had to the right to the same facilities that the Farmville white students enjoyed.

Principal Boyd returned to the school and urged Barbara and the students to quit their strike, telling them that a new school was being worked on. But Barbara asked him to leave and she then led the students on a picket in front of the school. After meeting with Reverend L. Francis Griffin, the pastor at the First Baptist Church in Farmville, Barbara called the NAACP in an attempt to get them involved but they were reluctant, telling her to write a letter.

Some of the Moton High School students who attended the strike.

The (white) superintendent of Prince Edward County Schools, T. J. McIlwaine refused to meet with Barbara and the students, so she along with several other students walked to his office and met with him in the county courthouse. He refused Barbara's demands for black students to join their white counterparts at Farmville High and insisted that a new school was in the works. He also stated there was no difference in quality between the two high schools.

Three days into the strike, on April 25, 1951, two NAACP lawyers, Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill arrived to speak with Barbara and the striking students. They encouraged the students to go back to class because their strategy had changed. Instead of seeking schools of equal quality for black students, they were now working towards desegregation. Barbara's goal for the strike was a new building. Instead, the student strike at Robert R. Moton High would become part of a much larger push to achieve desegregation. Barbara Johns' initiative to improve schools for black students had suddenly blossomed into a much larger effort, the beginning of the struggle to end segregation of black students in America.

Discussion

The Girl From The Tar Paper School, which was written for children and teens, does an excellent job of recounting this important event which marked the beginning of efforts to desegregate schools in the United States.

Kanefield begins by describing the school that Barbara Johns and other black Americans in Farmville, Virginia must attend, and her decision to do something about the inequality experienced by black students in the county.

To help readers understand the factors that may have molded Barbara Rose Johns and motivated her to act, Kanefield delves into her family history. Readers get the sense of a close-knit family helping one another, with deep roots in Prince Edward County. Barbara, through the efforts of her Uncle Vernon Johns, a Baptist minister, learned about black history and was most definitely exposed to his volatile preaching which called out both blacks and whites. Like many black Americans, Barbara experienced racial prejudice, some of which is recounted.

Like her Uncle Vernon, Barbara "...put into words what needed to be said..." at the very beginning of the strike. Barbara's actions stunned her fellow students "...who saw her as reserved and something of a loner..." Her leadership qualities were very much in evidence during the initial stages of the strike. She boldly confronted the white superintendent, Mr. McIlwaine,

Accompanying Kanefield's narrative are a few family photographs - most were lost when the family home burned down in 1955 - as well as photographs of important lanmarks and areas that were important to Barbara and her story.

Social change is always difficult and often not without resistance. In the chapter titled, The Lost Generation, Kanefield recounts one of the unintended consequences of the fight to desegregate schools. Many readers will be shocked to learn that when desegregation was determined to be unconstitutional through the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Prince Edward County school board refused to desegregate even though they were ordered to in 1959 by the Federal District Court. They closed all the Prince Edward County schools meaning that black children had no means of education while white students were able to attend a private school. This mean spirited action meant no schooling for black students until 1964, a situation that affected these families for years to come. Amazingly it took a Supreme Court decision to force the schools to reopen and "it was not until the 1980s that Prince Edward County schools were fully integrated and funded adequately enough so all children in the county could be educated."

If anything, The Girl From The Tar Paper School, helps young readers understand how racial prejudice can be so harmful both to those who hold these beliefs and to those who are victims of such prejudice. Kanefield portrays the extraordinary efforts black Americans had to go to simply to achieve the right to attend schools like other Americans and how these efforts were often peaceful and required great determination and courage.

The back matter contains an extensive Author's Note, A Select Civil Rights Timeline, Endnotes detailing the sources of quotes, a Sources page listing resources used, Image Credits and an Index. Well-written, enlightening and very moving.

image credit: http://www.newseum.org/2015/02/26/unsung-heroes-farmville-student-strike/

Book Details:

The Girl From The Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement  by Teri Kanefield
New York: Abrams Books For Young Readers    2014
56 pp.

Safekeeping by Karen Hesse

Sixteen year old Radley Parker-Hughes was in Haiti volunteering at an orphanage when America was plunged into chaos and marital law. The American People's Party came to power and the new president has been assassinated. Against the advice of Monsieur Bellamy who runs the Paradis des Enfants orphanage Radley decides to fly home to the United States. But when she arrives in Philadelphia, her plane to Manchester, New Hampshire is delayed. When Radley finally arrives in Manchester, her parents are not at the airport to meet her. Without a working cell phone, no food and little money and uncertain as to what to do, Radley manages to get a ride to the bus station only to discover that she needs authorized travel papers to cross state borders.

When she tries to contact her parents, she finds their phone number not working. Not having any other options, Radley decides to walk from Manchester, New Hampshire to her home in Brattleboro, Vermont. She finds food in dumpsters along the way, and sleeps out in the woods along the highway. Unfortunately when Radley arrives home, her parents are not there. Fearing that they have been arrested and imprisoned, especially when the police continue to come to the house, Radley decides to leave and head north towards Canada. Canada, it appears, is largely unaffected by what is happening south of its borders and offers both safety and stability. Radley hopes that her parents have also traveled to safety in Canada and that she will meet them there.

Radley packs her backpack, takes whatever money she can find and sets out north walking along Route 5 towards the Quebec-Vermont border. It is during this journey that Radley sights another young woman and her dog, walking north. One rainy day Radley finds herself led by the dog to an abandoned silo where this same girl has hidden herself. The girl whose name is Celia is very ill and Radley takes the last of her money to buy medicine to help her. Celia and Radley continue there journey, largely uneventful into the small town of Sutton, Quebec. Because both are in the country illegally, they decide to hide in an abandoned farmhouse. Celia is not well and eventually Radley learns what is wrong with her. Surviving in the house is a day to day struggle but the girls are helped by an elderly woman they dub Our Lady of the Barn. Will Radley ever be able to go home? And if she does will she find her parents? Will life ever be the same again?

Discussion

Safekeeping has an interesting format in that the story, narrated by Radley, is illustrated with over ninety black and white photographs taken by author Karen Hesse. These photographs serve to enhance the first person narrative, helping to establish both mood and setting. The sepia cover photo sets the initial atmosphere of the novel with it's rainy, rural location and a lone girl.

Safekeeping is a realistic survival story that centers on the themes of friendship, trust, and identity. It's not a particularly exciting read and gets bogged down in the middle when the two girls reach Canada. We learn a bit more about Celia but what we learn is not especially surprising and there isn't a great deal of suspense or action in the novel. In fact there's really not much to hold the reader's interest at this point and many will probably put the book down. However, those who are interested in a novel driven more by character rather than plot will enjoy Safekeeping. 

Radley not only makes a physical journey from America to Canada, but she also experiences a personal journey from that of a dependent teen whose parents have always made mistakes right to one who is self-reliant, mature and concerned for others. "My parents never scold me about the frequency with which I lose things. They always just fix it for me, no matter how I screw up. I'm used to them just fixing it for me."

Hesse provides little backstory as to how the situation developed in the United States nor who exactly the American People's Party is. Everything happens at a distance mainly because the characters are the focal point of the story. Overall, this is probably a book that younger teens might enjoy, with an element of dystopia, some mild adventure and lots of interesting themes to explore.

Book Details:
Safekeeping by Karen Hesse
Harrisonburg, Virginia: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company 2012
294 pp.

Life After by Sarah Darer Littman

Daniela Bensimon lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina with her mother, father and younger sister Sarita. Her father owned a clothing store and was able to support his family. Life use to be good but that was before the Argentinean Crisis of 2001. Government corruption and high debt contributed to a recession in Argentina. As a result, people lost faith in the banks and wanted to withdraw their money, changing their pesos into the safer dollar currency. The government attempted to halt this by restricting the amount of money people could withdraw from their accounts. The result was demonstrations and protests. The government of Fernando de La Rua collapsed and eventually Argentina ended up with a new president, Eduardo Duhalde. He decided to allow the peso to float against the dollar which resulted in drastic devaluation of the peso and a huge increase in inflation. Many people could no longer afford to pay for goods. Among them, was Dani's father who decided to close his clothing store. As a result, Dani's family was forced to subsist on the salary her mother earned as a nurse.

Besides the economic woes, her family has suffered terribly from a terrorist attack on the AMIA building on Monday July 18,1994. This attack, which happened on the same day as Dani's 7th birthday, killed her Tia Sara who was 8 months pregnant, as well as 84 other people. For Dani's father, the death of his sister has been a trauma he has never quite recovered from. This tragedy followed by the loss of his store has sent him into a deep depression that sees him often having violent outbursts.

For a while Dani tries to hold on to the life she once had and to cope with her family's poverty and her father's depression. She still meets her novio, Roberto (Beto) after school and they walk and kiss in the park. Beto and Dani discuss the possibility of their families leaving Argentina. Many of Dani's friends and relatives have already left including her best friend, Gabriela Tanenbaum (Gaby)who has emigrated to Israel along with many other Argentinean Jews. Eventually, Roberto also leaves, settling in Miami with his family.
Dani's mother continues to insist that they leave too but finally when another tragedy almost strikes, Dani's family decides to accept the offer of her Tio Jacobo to settle in New York.

Life in New York is very very different from life in Argentina. This new life is what Dani calls her Life After. Her family settles Twin Lakes, New York with the help of the local Jewish Family Services organization. While her sister Sarita goes to the local elementary school, Dani begins classes at the enormous Twin Lakes High School. High School is fraught with many challenges, including taking classes in English and trying to make friends in a culture so very different from what Dani is accostomed to.

On her first day she meets Brian Harrison who helps her navigate the school and tells her he is "personal GPS". Dani soon discovers that Brian is one of the good things. Their blossoming friendship holds the promise of something more if Dani can figure out where she stands with Roberto whom she hasn't seen in more than a year.

Another good thing about Twin Lakes is Jon a young student in Dani's class. Dani can relate well to Jon because like her, he is also an outsider, someone who is different from everyone else. But Dani also has to contend with Jessica, who at first is mean and who humiliates Dani on her first day at high school. It's not long though before Dani discovers that Jessica's unfriendliness is hiding a big hurt. It is this hurt that helps both Dani and Jessica connect.

I enjoyed reading this book very very much. First of all, I learned about the Argentinean crisis which most people probably have forgotten or maybe never even knew about because of the tragedy of 9/11. Littman does give us some background to the crisis at the very beginning of the book which is helpful. She also includes the AMIA (Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina)bombing of 1994, which I'm betting is unfamiliar to most North Americans. The terrorist theme is a strong one in Life After. The hurt of terrorism knows no boundaries and hurts us all whether in America or Argentina.I especially liked the way she portrayed young people as rising above the effects of terrorism to become stronger people.

Secondly, most of the characters who were central to the storyline, were well developed, realistic and interesting. Dani's struggles and worries about life in Argentina and in the United States were realistically portrayed. This was true not only about the situations Dani had to cope with at school but also her concerns over Roberto, whom she remained faithful to. Brian was an especially likeable character who was kind and respectable towards Dani.

I feel that Sarah Darer Littman did a good job of telling the story of a young immigrant, her struggles, her hopes and dreams and her successes in a positive and uplifting manner. My only complaint about this book is that it took very long to move from Life Before (Dani's life in Argentina) to Life, After. I'm sure part of this was due to the author setting up the circumstances for Dani's family leaving Argentina and also providing the reader a contrast to the two cultures and societies.

Overall a very good read!

Book Details:
Life, After by Sarah Darer Littman
New York: Scholastic Inc. 2011
281 pp.