Behind the Mountains by Edwidge Danticat

From the Publisher

It is election time in Haiti, and bombs are going off in the capital city of Port-Au-Prince. During a visit from her home in rural Haiti, Celiane Espérance and her Mother are nearly killed. Looking at her country with new eyes, Celiane Gains a fresh resolve to be reunited with her Father in Brooklyn, New York. The harsh winter and concrete landscape of her new home are a shock to Celiane, who witnesses her parents' struggle to earn a living, her brother's uneasy adjustment to American society, and her own encounters with learning difficulties and school violence.

School Library Journal

Grade 5 Up-As the best student in the class, Celiane is given a "sweet little book" in which she decides to keep a journal. Her entries date from October 2000 to March 2001, and chronicle the family's departure from their homeland of Haiti to join her father, who had immigrated to New York City five years earlier. In graceful prose, Danticat seamlessly weaves together all that such a decision involves: the difficulties of rural life on the island and a longing for an absent parent combined with a fondness for her tiny mountain village with "the rainbows during sun showers- the smell of pinewood burning, the golden-brown sap dripping into the fire"; and the excitement and violence of Port-au-Prince where Celiane and her mother are injured in bombings before the elections. When Celiane, her mother, and her 19-year-old brother are finally approved to enter the U.S., the teen knows everything will be all right as soon as she sees her father, but there are the unavoidable frictions among family members, fueled not only by the separation and adjustment to a new country, but also by the natural maturing process that the children undergo. In this gem of a book, Danticat explores the modern immigrant experience through the eyes of one teen.

Publishers Weekly

In this novel, part of the First Person Fiction series, 13-year-old Celiane recounts her journey from her mountain village in Haiti to join her father in Brooklyn in a "charming, innocent voice," according to PW. Ages 11-15. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Marya Jansen-Gruber - Children's Literature

Celiane, her brother Moy, and her mother Aline live in the beautiful mountains on the island of Haiti. Though they are poor and have a simple existence, they are on the whole a happy family, except for one thing. Celiane's father Victor is not with them. He is in New York City trying to raise enough money to bring his family to America to join him. Having the family broken up is hard for everyone, and at the same time, the thought of leaving Haiti is also hard. As with so many young people, Celiane feels torn between the love of her homeland and those who live there, and the love of her father who has left to try to build a better life for his family elsewhere. It is an old story that has been told many times before, yet Edwidge Dandicat has succeeded in telling Celiane's story in such a way that it is fresh and poignant, bittersweet and heartwarming. The pain that political strife can bring to the innocent is especially sharp and clear in this story, as Celiane's family is personally touched by the violence that rocks Port-au-Prince during the Presidential elections in 2000. Reading about such a state of affairs is a grim reminder of how many people in other parts of the world must live their lives day after day. Drawing on her personal memories and from material that she gathered on her more recent trips back to Haiti, Edwidge Dandicat has created a memorable book which will give anyone who reads it a picture of a culture that is vibrant, warm and colorful. It shows us the world of a people who struggle to find peace and stability in their daily lives. At the back of the book the reader will find an interesting description of the author's own journey from Haiti. This is one of the new"First Person Fiction" books. 2003, Orchard Books,

Lynne Hawkins - VOYA

"Behind the mountains are more mountains." Danticat has used the Haitian proverb more than once in her autobiographical novels of living in Haiti and New York. This book purports to be the diary of thirteen-year-old Celiane Espérance as she describes her life in a village in the mountains of Haiti and then her adjustment to New York City. Celiane, her brother, and mother live in the house that her father built. When a visit to an aunt in Port-au-Prince ends in politically motivated violence, they realize that they must leave, and if they can, go to New York to join their father and husband. Leaving home is never easy, however, even with plane tickets and visas. Life in New York is not quite the stuff of dreams. Behind the mountains are always more mountains. Overcome one obstacle and another moves right in. Celiane's story is close to Danticat's own, as the reader learns from the author's six-page postscript titled "My Personal Journey." If the diary device seems overused, know that this book employs a unique approach. The Dear America series and its offspring are based on historical research with the skillful authors leading the reader back in time. This series, First Person Fiction, asks its contributors to write from their own experiences, bringing authentic voices to books about immigration. Danticat's contribution offers an impressive start and might lead older readers to ask for more from this author. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2002, Orchard, 153p,

Kimberly Sandberg - Alan Review

Young Celiane is presented with the best gift of all, a blank notebook, in which she decides to write down all of her feelings. Living in Haiti, Celiane, her brother Moy, and her mother, Manman, are threatened by bombs going off in Port-au-Prince during election time. Celiane writes of her mixed emotions of the uncertainty of their arrival in New York, where their father has been working to support them. As they begin their new life in New York as a family reunited, things are not as picture perfect as Celiane had imagined. Celiane encounters many things that confuse her emotions, including moving to a brand new country, riding in a bus that has been bombed, having a brother that moves out of the house. Celiane is able to record and sort out this spectrum of feelings by writing them in her little notebook. The first person narration by the author of Krik? Krak! will likely capture reader's hearts and emotions as Celiane's pain, sadness and triumph are shared in this interesting story. 2002, Orchard Books, 176 pp.,

School Library Journal

Gr 5 Up-As the best student in the class, Celiane is given a "sweet little book" in which she decides to keep a journal. Her entries date from October 2000 to March 2001, and chronicle the family's departure from their homeland of Haiti to join her father, who had immigrated to New York City five years earlier. In graceful prose, Danticat seamlessly weaves together all that such a decision involves: the difficulties of rural life on the island and a longing for an absent parent combined with a fondness for her tiny mountain village with "the rainbows during sun showers- the smell of pinewood burning, the golden-brown sap dripping into the fire"; and the excitement and violence of Port-au-Prince where Celiane and her mother are injured in bombings before the elections. When Celiane, her mother, and her 19-year-old brother are finally approved to enter the U.S., the teen knows everything will be all right as soon as she sees her father, but there are the unavoidable frictions among family members, fueled not only by the separation and adjustment to a new country, but also by the natural maturing process that the children undergo. In this gem of a book, Danticat explores the modern immigrant experience through the eyes of one teen.-Diane S. Marton, Arlington County Library, VA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A 13-year-old Haitian girl describes, over the course of five months, her life in Haiti and then in New York as she, her mother, and her brother join her father, who left Haiti years before. Celiane loves her life in the mountain village of Beau Jour; she is near her grandparents, the mountains agree with her, and she is the recent recipient of a journal from her teacher—because she is such a good writer. The only hole in her life is that left by her father, who sends a cassette tape addressing each family member in turn, but from whom she feels increasingly estranged by time and distance. When the bus she and her mother are riding in gets blown up in pre-election violence—the year is 2000, and Jean-Bertrand Aristide is running for re-election—the effort to reunite with her father moves into high gear. Her Tante Rose, a nurse, pulls some diplomatic strings, and suddenly they are all together in New York. This is Danticat’s (After the Dance, p. 782, etc.) first novel for children, and it shares with others that have gone before it a tendency to write down to the audience. The diary entries are by and large flat; Celiane writes of the violence in curiously disengaged tones, considering that she and her mother are victims. Likewise, when the narrative moves to New York, the upheaval this creates for the family is related from a distance, despite the supposed current nature of the diary: "It wasn’t anything [Papa] said, just the way his face looked, tightly drawn and strained. Perhaps we, especially me, were going to be more of a burden to him than he had first thought." It is unfortunate that there are so few children’s novels of Haiti that this offering naturally begscomparison to Frances Temple’s electrifying A Taste of Salt (1992). This, alas, is a pale successor. (Fiction. 9-14)

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