Panama [Hardcover]

Shelby Hiatt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2009

At fifteen, a girl moves from a small town in Ohio to Panama while her father takes part in building the Panama Canal. This trip comes just at the right time for her. She yearns to see more of the world than her small mid-western town has to offer. She wants to meet new people. Visit exciting places. Panama with its lush rainforests and myriad of people is the perfect place for her desires to be fulfilled. Then she meets Frederico, a Spanish aristocrat who is working as a digger, one of the masses who toils daily in the heat and the dust and the danger of the canal. He embodies everything she's looking for: he's exotic, exciting, intelligent and pushes her beyond the limits her sequestered life has set for her. They begin a romance and he awakens her body as well as her soul.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Despite its promising setting—Panama at the dawn of the 20th century, during the construction and opening of the historic canal—this first novel is unexceptional. The teenage protagonist (who, inexplicably, remains nameless) moves with her straight-laced parents from Dayton, OH, to the Zone, where they live with the families of other workers in a tropical replica of American society. The lush, sultry atmosphere, coupled with her desire for excitement, leads the girl into uncharted territory: lust, intimacy, and sex with a Spanish canal laborer. Federico represents everything her family is not: passionate, rebellious, socialist. Their secret affair takes up most of the book, until it fizzles out somewhat anticlimactically with the completion of the project and the girl's subsequent move back to the U.S. Discussions of social inequity, in the context of the canal's impact on the indigenous people of Panama and treatment of the international laborers, push the protagonist toward a less-sheltered worldview in something resembling character development and give readers something to think about. However, these moments are ultimately eclipsed by the doomed and somewhat drawn-out romance. The first-person narrative provides glimpses into the girl's feelings and frustrations, but not enough to make teens feel truly invested.—Emma Burkhart, Springside School, Philadelphia, PA
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Review

"Hiatt’s impressive debut offers a new take on teen obsession, tempered in the exotic Panamanian jungle . . . The building of the Panama Canal, Federico’s background and even the Wright brothers form a wonderfully detailed backdrop that never overpowers the human story. Lovely."--Kirkus Reviews

". . . the political and technological facts add layers to the exciting drama . . . Both the romance and questions of social justice will grab teens."--Booklist

"Teens who have experienced their own bittersweet breakups and suspect they’ll never quite recover from them will appreciate Hiatt’s respectful and empathetic portrayal."--Bulletin

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; 1 edition (September 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547196008
• ISBN-13: 978-0547196008
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,575,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Inappropriate for Children & Poorly Researched, September 13, 2009

By 

paisleymonsoon (Tulsa, Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Panama (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

This "Houghton Mifflin Book for Children" is absolutely NOT a book for children. While I the subject matter is interesting, the subject matter is absolutely not appropriate for the intended audience and the lack of research for this book is just ... sad. These things bring down my rating for this book dramatically.

In the novel, A 16-year-old girl from Ohio moves to Panama with her family where her father is overseeing work on the creation of the Panama Canal. The girl is hoping for adventure and an authentic cultural experience, but, unfortunately, the area they live in is extremely Americanized. Since the girl had grown up next door to the Wright brothers and even helped them with their flying machines, she longs for sophisticated company like she's known back home. Her parents agree to allow her tag along with a census taker so that she can see the real lives of the canal workers. It's during her treks with the census taker that she meets Francisco whom she instantly falls in love with because he has a bookshelf full of sophisticated books and seems "aristocratic". Eventually, the girl instigates a relationship with Francisco (who's in his mid-20s) by bringing him more books to read.

I can relate to traveling to other countries with Americans who want only to mingle with Americans and eat American food and do American things rather than get to immerse themselves in another culture. I certainly can understand falling in love with a man who likes sophisticated books and wooing him with great books.

However, I want to know when underage sex with older men became an appropriate subject for a book labeled as a children's book? At the very least, it should be labeled as a young adult book. Frankly, there is more sex here in this book than in any adult book I've read all year.

Also, the book wasn't well researched. The very little Spanish the author attempts is rather bad. For example, she assumes that the infinitive form of the irregular verb "voy" is "vayer". The author also has the characters listening to a radio broadcast in Ohio 18 years before radio came to Ohio. Characters also receive telephoned news between Ohio and Panama in 1913, 2 years before the first transcontinental telephone call between New York and San Francisco was even made. This historic call (placed by Alexander Graham Bell himself) was actually made to mark the completion of the Panama Canal, but there certainly were no lines between the US and Panama yet and certainly not 2 years earlier. I'm not going to even bother looking up other historical inaccuracies.

Even without the historical inaccuracies and the age inappropriateness, I'd really only be able to give the book 3 stars. Luckily, I was able to read the book in an afternoon and didn't waste a whole week with it. So much for thinking I was going to learn a bit of history and culture within its pages.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars PG 13 rated "Childrens Book", September 15, 2009

By 

HHK "Fantasy/History Fan" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Panama (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I ordered this on the Vine program and I felt obliged to finish the book. It was more of a Harlequin Romance rather than a historical fiction piece, which is what I was expecting. The young protagonits in this book spends "erotic afternoons" with her older lover. She goes to a Brothel to get birth control!

The plot and writing were mediocre. I am glad I did not waste my money on this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars formulaic short excerpt in a life, September 2, 2009

By 

Suzanne MN Fisher - See all my reviews

This review is from: Panama (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

It's been a long time since I've read something so derivative and formulaic. Throwing the girl-meets-man-gets sexually entangled...(you could provide the rest if you've watched movies or read a few books) into the historic period of the making of the Panama Canal doesn't make it any newer.

This is a short book from a children's publisher about an obsessed girl who isn't as interesting as she could be, although through heavy-handed and last-minute character development, she does somehow show she's progressed from the annoying, sexually-obsessed brat of the earlier pages into an amorphous wife of two in the future.

The flashback was typical; show something at the beginning from an "interesting" part of the book to hook the reader, then hastily bring the reader forward at the end to show a character progression. However, we're left to wonder if the character really grew at all, due to her segueing back into the role she would have taken if she'd never had her Panama experiences.

The history of the canal and the introduction of the Wright brothers as early neighbors are the best parts of this novel. That description is excellent. The author has a talent for the setting and description, but her storyline drags down the novel.

I kept wanting something new to happen, but I was never surprised by a thing in this novel. What's more, I wouldn't have been surprised as a teen, the market for this novel. I would have been just as irritated by the predictability. However, the history is good and the sex is good, which will probably keep people reading until the end.