Cartas del Cielo (Letters from Heaven)

by L. M. Gil

Overview

Celeste is heartbroken when her grandmother dies, and nothing can make her feel better. But everything changes when a letter mysteriously comes in the mail—from Grandma! “I know you miss me as much as I miss you. Don't be sad. Where there is love, there is no sadness.” As letters continue to arrive from the beyond, each with a recipe of a favorite food she used to prepare, Celeste follows her grandmother's advice and consoles herself by learning how to cook the dishes.

With Grandma gone, so is her social security check. Celeste's mom needs to get a second job to make ends meet, and Celeste has to quit her favorite activity, dance lessons. At school, Amanda the bully gloats over the fact that Celeste won't participate in the upcoming recital. And her friends think that she's gone crazy; dead people can't send letters!

When a final letter arrives, Celeste realizes that all the recipes combined make an entire meal: café con leche, guava and cheese croissants, congrí, plantain chips, ropa vieja and flan. Can she really make a Cuban feast to celebrate her cherished grandmother's life?

A tender story of family and friendship, Letters from Heaven / Cartas del cielo celebrates Latino traditions, especially those of the Spanish Caribbean. This entertaining novel is written in ten brief chapters for children ages 8-12 and includes six traditional Cuban recipes with easy-to-follow instructions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558857988
Publisher:	Arte Publico Press
Publication date:	12/10/2014
Edition description:	Spanish-language Edition
Pages:	58
Sales rank:	661,413
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.40(h) x 0.30(d)
Language:	Spanish
Lexile:	680L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

Editorial Reviews

11/01/2014
Gr 4–7—This slim book incorporates many Latino themes in a first-person realistic tale, recounted in English and then in Spanish. Similar to Alma Flor Ada's Love, Amalia (S. & S., 2012), the protagonist, Celeste, moves through a grieving process following the death of her beloved grandmother. She also misses dance lessons and time with her mother, who must now work two jobs to cover their economic situation. Healing begins when the girl receives posthumous letters from Grandma filled with love, advice, and special memories. In spite of quarrels with school friends and a bully who makes her life difficult, Celeste finds solace with the family's network of adult female friends who help her with recipes. Later, she prepares all six dishes for a full-course meal in honor of her Cuban grandmother. This narrative shares ways that U.S. Latino children may experience racism, as well as how they use bilingualism to code switch between languages to share private or public information. The inference about Latin Americans' inherent ability for dance does not seem to fit with the other cultural themes in the book, although Celeste's love for dance and her grandmother's advice propel her to find a creative solution to a problem on her own. Some accent errors are evident in the Spanish text, but do not impede meaning in a significant way.—Ruth Quiroa, National Louis University, IL

School Library Journal

2014-08-27
Celeste struggles to process her feelings of sadness following her grandmother's death. A week after her grandmother's death, Celeste receives a package with a letter and a recipe for her special cangrejitos, a type of Cuban croissant. Making them helps her to feel less sad, but how can she explain that she received this package from beyond the grave? Over the days and weeks, the letters keep arriving, each with its own recipe for a traditional Cuban dish, eventually making a complete meal from appetizer to dessert. At the end of each letter, Grandma Rosa asks Celeste to remember her "with love…and flavor!" The letters help Celeste to process her feelings about the loss and to learn to ask for support from her friends and the adults in her life. Eventually, the enigma of the letters is revealed in a way that brings Celeste together with her family and friends in remembrance of her grandmother. This bilingual book presents the entire English narrative first, followed by the Spanish. It is a quick read that balances the pain of loss with mystery and humor. Each recipe that is mentioned in the book is included at the end of the chapter. A tender depiction of a child's acceptance of the death of a beloved grandmother and the cultural importance of traditional foods. (Fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews