Katherine Paterson’s My Brigadista Year is a story for 10 year olds about a thirteen-year-old girl from Havana who volunteers to spend a year in the mountains of Cuba.<\/p>\n
Lora has hardly ever left the city. She’s never spent a single night away from home. But a poster at her school is asking for young volunteers to go and live with farming families in the countryside and teach them to read, and she wants to go more than anything.<\/p>\n
Her mama cries. Her papi screws the permission slip into a ball and throws it in the bin. It’s Abuela who asks Lora to explain quietly, and then asks her for one promise. Lora must come home if it gets too hard.<\/p>\n
Lora is the one telling the story, and she’s very easy to like. She’s honest about being jealous of her little brothers (she wasn’t bossy, she was the BOSS). She’s thrilled by her new uniform and terrified she won’t know how to teach anyone. And she’s properly torn about letting her dad down.<\/p>\n
The story is set just after the revolution, and you see it all through Lora’s family. The old dictator has fled, the family celebrates, and her best friend at school disappears overnight because her dad worked for the other side. Lora trains at a beach hotel that used to be for rich tourists. Then she heads off in the back of an open truck into the mountains with a hammock and a big lantern.<\/p>\n
There’s real danger in the background, which is worth knowing about. Before Lora signs up, a young volunteer teacher is tortured and killed by armed men in those same mountains, and her uncle died in the fighting years before. While she’s training, the country is invaded and parents turn up to take their children home. It’s told plainly rather than in a graphic way, but it’s there.<\/p>\n
It’s also very much Lora’s side of the story, and her family are on the revolution’s side. It could make a great chat about how the same events look from different families.<\/p>\n
If your reader loves stories about a girl brave enough to go her own way (and still a bit homesick about it), this is a gem.<\/p>\n
If they’re after another girl who won’t be told what to do, try The Great Gilly Hopkins, also by Katherine Paterson. Gilly is eleven, off to her third foster home, and determined to stay in charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Katherine Paterson’s My Brigadista Year is a story for 10 year olds about a thirteen-year-old girl from Havana who volunteers to spend a year in the mountains of Cuba. Lora has hardly ever left the city. She’s never spent a single night away from home. But a poster at her school is asking for young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12327,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9099,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Great Gilly Hopkins","lr_seo_hook":"A 13-year-old leaves Havana for a year teaching in the mountains of Cuba."},"book_tag":[20],"age_group":[29],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[551],"class_list":["post-8171","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-real-life-books","age_group-books-for-10-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-katherine-paterson"],"yoast_title":"My Brigadista Year by Katherine Paterson | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A 13-year-old leaves Havana for a year teaching in the mountains of Cuba. For ages 10+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n