Pedro Pan: One Boy's Journey to America

by Michelle McNiff, Kurt Huggins (Illustrator)

Overview

Now available in paperback with illustrations by Kurt Huggins, a New York Times Bestselling Comic Artist.

Pedro Pan, One Boy's Journey to America, is a tale of a 12-year-old boy's journey from Cuba to the United States. He takes part in a secret operation of more than 14,000 unaccompanied children, who take freedom flights to escape oppression and tyranny.

Ringing in the New Year in 1959, Pedro Infante observes history unfolding as change slowly sweeps through Havana. In 1961, at the noble sacrifice of his parents, Pedro and Pepe, his pet lizard, board an airplane to America. Leaving his family behind, he travels from Havana to a rural farm in Iowa. The vivid imagination of one boy, flying away like Peter Pan with the loving care of a farmer and his wife, he learns English and takes on new chores, meeting a dairy cow, Bella Lou, Tucker, the prized pig, the old barn owl, and the farmer's scarecrow. The group welcomes and encourages him to be most helpful on the Kelley Farm, as everyone has a job on the farm. Will he return to Cuba one day? Will he ever reunite with his family again?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798218082451
Publisher:	Michelle Marie McNiff
Publication date:	10/06/2022
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.13(d)
Age Range:	10 - 12 Years

Editorial Reviews

2022-02-08
In this middle-grade novel, a Cuban boy’s flight to America after Fidel Castro’s rise takes on fairy-tale qualities as his imagination aids him in adjusting to his new life.

Pedro Infante is a happy 12-year-old boy in late 1950s Havana. His attentive family is loving, prosperous, and part of the elite. He spends his time wishing to play baseball with the New York Yankees and exploring his neighborhood. The books he’s read come alive in the Old World architecture of the Havana waterfront, which he imagines is filled with pirates as he flies above it like a carefree Peter Pan, a pleasant fantasy for all ages. The stories begin to take root when Pedro recalls The Wizard of Oz and frets a storm could take his house away. He is brought down to earth when neighborhood bullies deride him. His skin is brownish (the color of flan), and they taunt him with the pejorative “cinnamon boy.” Pedro’s grandmother comforts him and sees the ignorance of his tormentors. “Those boys have a drop of Africa in them” and don’t know it, she explains. Pedro saves a little green lizard from the gang, allowing him to ponder hate and cruelty. As the boy’s only friend, the lizard demonstrates Pedro’s sensitivity (perhaps oversensitivity). Pedro’s move from the fantasy of books to living creatures in McNiff’s enjoyable tale is a reminder to pay attention; almost every word, action, and situation carries meaning—or so it appears. The audience should perhaps be wary of reading too much into the work, although the hunt for meaning in this simple story is addictive. Pedro has no friends his own age; it’s surprising a boy with such creativity and intelligence hasn’t found other book lovers or baseball fans. Unfortunately, the diversity and unity that “held the Cuban people together like bookends on a bookshelf” come to an end when Castro takes over the island. Life in Cuba becomes dire, and Pedro (and many others in this stirring story based on real events) undertakes a dramatic odyssey to America, where his lively imagination, faith in God, and some literary assistance help him process the world around him.

An engaging, delicate tale of a boy and the trials of life that help him mature.

Kirkus Reviews