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Book recommendations this issue...
Solito, A Memoir, Javier Zamora
Review by Laura J Mannen, Forest Grove School District, Forest Grove, OR
Solito: A Memoir is one of the most haunting and impactful books I have ever read. It chronicles the journey nine year old Javier Zamora takes from his hometown in El Salvador to join his parents in the United States. A trip that is supposed to take two weeks turns into two months of peril as a series of “coyotes” usher Javier and his fellow migrants over the ocean, across deserts, and ultimately over the heavily fortressed United States border. At the beginning, Javier knows none of the others who join him in this journey; however, by the time he is successfully reunited with his parents, some of these strangers have risked their lives to protect him as if he were their own family.
The memoir is riveting as it tells the story of the obstacles this group of human “cargo” is forced to face in an effort to escape poverty, war, and the ravages of capitalist and colonial greed. It is also devastatingly real. I had to remind myself repeatedly that this was not an “adventure tale” invented by someone’s imagination, but the reality faced by Javier and thousands of others every year as they are forced by economic and political situations not of their making to abandon their homelands in search of survival in foreign lands. It brought home to me the reality faced by the nameless numbers of migrants that I hear about in the news and reminded me of our shared humanity, which ultimately, is the best gift literature can provide us.