The Red Umbrella
By: Christina Diaz Gonzalez
Lucia Alvarez and her family are being watched. It is two years since Fidel Castro’s Revolution and more and more freedoms are being stripped away. Churches and factories are closed, friends are suspicious of one another and her father is arrested. After she witnesses violence in a park her parents decide to send her and her brother to the United States through Operation Pedro Pan – an underground organization that helped thousands of children and teens leave Cuba.
The last thing Lucia and her brother see as the plane takes off is her mother’s red umbrella among hundreds of waving parents sending their children to foreign places such as Nebraska. Their foster family is well-meaning, but do they really understand the struggle to adapt to a new country, a new language? Will they ever see their parents or Cuba again? A powerful novel about home, family and growing up.
Review By: Debra Wietecha