My Brigadista Year by Katherine Paterson

It's 1961, just a few years after the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries, when a call went out to young Cubans age 10-19 to become part of a volunteer literacy brigade. The idea was for these young people to go into the rural parts of their country where illiteracy was high and teach the campesinos there to read and write.

Living in Havana with her parents, her brothers, and her abuela, Lora Diaz Llero, 13, also hears the call for volunteers and decides she want to join. At first, her parents are totally against it, after all, Lora lives in Havana, and in the country, there is no electricity, no running water, no indoor toilet. It is her abuela who finally persuades her parents to sign the necessary papers. Soon, Lora is off to Varadero Training Camp, and then to the Escambray Mountains where Lora and the other Conrado Benítez Brigadistas (named after a martyred literacy teacher, murdered by the CIA) are divided into squads and given more orientation.

Finally, Lora is taken to the small farm of Luis and Veronica Santana and their three children. There, Lora's job is to teach the family, along with four neighbors, how to read and write, and in return, she will help the family tending crops, washing clothes on rocks in the river, fetching the day's water supply, and even learn to ride a horse.

Most of the time, things go well. Lora makes friends with the other brigadistas and it takes no time at all for her to bond with the Santanas. Still, the first brigadista year is not without danger. There is mention of the failed Bay of Pigs military invasion by the CIA, shortly after Lora arrives in Varadero and there are still counterrevolutionaries hiding in the mountains, who are specifically targeting the brigadistas. And though Lora has promised her parents that if things got too hard, she would leave the brigadistas and return home, and even though she was tempted to do that at one point, she never gives up.

My Brigadista Year is a coming of age story in which readers can really see how much Lora matures between April and December 1961. As Lora confronts various problems and difficulties, she learns to figure out the best way to solve them. The story is told from Lora's perspective, in the first person, and although I feel like she is a very flat character, she does a good job of narrating what she is going through. In fact, none of the characters really stood out for me, nor did I feel they were very memorable. What probably will stick with me the most is the information Paterson included about the literacy program.

Interestingly, Paterson really seems to have taken pains to keep My Brigadista Year relatively free of partisan politics. She neither promotes Castro's Cuba, only mentioning communism once throughout the novel, nor does she presents the United States as a better alternative. Paterson also touches on social attitudes based on skin color. Lora says her mother kept her out of the sun so her skin doesn't get a dark tan, something that Lora resents. Yet, she is quite taken with Marissa, one of her roommates at Varadero, thinking what a beautiful girl she is with her light tan skin, clearly indicating that light skin is more valued than darker skin. Later, in the country, this is reinforced when her friend Maria falls for a very dark skinned boy, but is devastated when her family forbids her to have anything to do with him. None of this is followed through, however, just there for readers to draw their own conclusions.

My Brigadista Year is a very interesting though rather at times a didactic work of historical fiction based in real events. And although Cuba's past is not a history most young Americans are familiar with, this book will only give them cursory information about Cuba in the early 1960s. It is up to the reader to explore Cuba's history further. By the way, the literacy program was one of Cuba's most successful campaigns after Castro took over, bringing the literacy rate there down from approximately 23% to 4%.

Be sure to read the Author's Note for background information on the brigadista program and Paterson's reasons for writing this novel. There is a helpful map at the front of the novel, and a very useful timeline of Cuban history at the back of it.

The publisher has provided an extensive teacher's discussion guide for My Brigadista Year HERE

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was an ARC provided by the publisher, Candlewick Press

Here is a short (8 minute) film about Cuba's literacy program, along with interviews of some of the people who participated in it back in 1961: