Red Palms [Library Binding]

Cara Haycak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2004

WHEN 14-YEAR-OLD BENITA'S Papa is wiped out by the Depression, he moves the family from Guayaquil, Ecuador, to the primitive island of Paita with a wild scheme to start a coconut plantation. Benita moves from a grand house to a shack on the beach, from going to school to working in the fields. But Papa’s no farmer, and he makes trouble with the islanders. The only good thing about Paita is the handsome Raul. When he asks her to leave her family to live in the wilderness, Benita runs off with him. The jungle is beautiful, dangerous, and full of secrets, and they must struggle for their survival as they try to build a relationship with each other.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–A coming-of-age novel with an unusual and exotic setting. Benita, 14, lives in Ecuador. Her father, whose business has been ruined by the Great Depression, decides to move the family to a small, primitive tropical island where he plans to raise coconut palms. Once there, he systematically alienates everyone with his superior attitude and bumbling farming practices. Benita becomes enamored of Raúl, a handsome young islander. He initially shows no interest in her, but then decides that they should go away together to live on the far side of the island as a precursor to getting married. They make a home for themselves that is at first idyllic, but Raúl is not the person Benita thought him to be and their life together soon becomes monotonous. Further, a mysterious old woman who may or may not be able to shape-change into a dangerous wild cat lives nearby. Benita ventures into the jungle to investigate and learns a great deal about herself along the way. Ultimately she must help a badly injured Raúl back to the village to save his life. This story has overtones of magical realism as native women's rituals, the mystical cat, visions, and local superstitions create haunting notes. Benita's first-person voice is strong and sure. Both she and Raúl are well-drawn characters. The narrative's leisurely pace may not appeal to all readers, but this is an absorbing tale.–Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 9-12. In 1930s Ecuador, 14-year-old Benita's wealthy family, ruined by the depression, moves from a cosmopolitan city to a primitive island, where Benita's father hopes to raise coconuts. Wildly unprepared for the job, the family must depend on the indigenous islanders, including handsome Raul, with whom Benita instantly falls in love. Tension between Benita's stubborn, bigoted father and the islanders escalates just as Raul asks Benita to flee with him into the jungle and live there for several months--a premarital test observed by his culture. Benita agrees, but life in the wild brings overwhelming challenges, which ultimately help Benita discover her own strength as well as the island's mystical powers. Haycak's debut is fascinating though unevenly paced. Extensive details of grueling daily life, esoteric vision quests, and terrifying survival rescues are somewhat chaotically integrated into the story, which shifts with almost jarring abruptness from Benita's girlish concerns to mature struggles with intimacy (including some explicitly described sex). Still, Haycak writes a captivating, insightful story, and the vividly evoked setting, cultural specifics, and strong characterizations distinguish this inventive, ambitious effort from a talented new author. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Library Binding: 336 pages
• Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books (November 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385908830
• ISBN-13: 978-0385908832
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,370,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cara Haycak has been writing fiction for teens since 1995, when she earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia University.

"When I decided to become a writer, I didn't think I'd write for teenagers. But what happened was that all my stories were about them, and after a while I realized it was because I still felt like a teenager myself.

I think a life on the edge is what teenagers seek. I write about young characters that push at the world that surrounds them, trying to move past or around boundaries, any which way they can.

Often my characters are surprised to discover their true selves in the most foreign of circumstances, and where the unwritten laws of the natural world change their way of thinking....Whether it's a young shoplifter who discovers life has meaning while working in a lab breeding flies, as in my new novel Living on Impulse, or a bookworm of a girl who is opened to mystical possibilities on a remote and primitive island, in my first book Red Palms."

Thanks for reading!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful New Voice, February 23, 2005

By 

Bill's Best Books "www.alan-ya.org" (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Palms (Hardcover)

After the Depression forces the Benita's family to fall from a high social and economic place in Guayaquil, Edcuador, Benita and her family are forced to sell all they own and relocate to a remote island, where her father dreams of creating a coconut oil plantation. Life on the island is harsh, both because Benita's family is ill-prepared for farm labor, and because Benita's Papa alternately cheats and insults the islands native people. When Benita falls in love with--and subsequently runs away with--a handsome islander, Raúl, she leaves her father's control behind, only to learn that the idyllic life she imagines is an illusion. Benita must learn to take control of her own life in order to survive. (H) Of the first novels released in 2004, RED PALMS may be the most ambitious--Haycak successfully weaves together a structurally-sound plot, exquisite writing, and a powerful narrative voice. The novel's exotic setting, historical timeframe, and unique cultural back drop make for a rich reading experience, and the character of Benita is one of the most memorable in several years.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book, June 23, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Red Palms (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this book, and would suggest it to anyone who is looking for a very good historical book. The book is about a girl named Benita, who is forced to move with her family to an island just off the coast of Ecuador, because of the great depression. The natives that come to see who these strange new people are strike Benita as a bit crazy in the head. However, she comes to like a native named Raul, and they venture off together into the island's beautiful tropics. In the rainforest, she encounters a woman named Yanasa, who which doesn't speak the same language, finds her own way to communicate with Benita. Benita befriends Yanasa, and Yanasa helps Benita grow as an individual, and helps shape who Benita becomes in the end of the book. This book contains a powerful message within its pages, begging for readers to enrich themselves with the book's rich words.

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read!, March 21, 2006

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Palms (Hardcover)

The Great Depression of the 1930s has forced Benita and her family to abandon their comfortable life in Guayaquil, Ecuador for the lonely island of Paita that is uninhabited except for some fishermen and the mysterious, primitive natives. With her father coming up with one mad get-rich-quick scheme after another, her mother falling into a downward spiral of bitter regret, and no friends on the island to share her troubles with, Benita doesn't know what to do with herself.

However, when Raul, the handsome young islander, starts showing interest in her, Benita is given the opportunity to flee her troubled home for an adventurous life in the wild jungle of Paita. But is this what she really wants? And what mysteries and life lessons await her deep in the heart of the jungle?

Red Palms is an interesting and unique book. In fact, it is the uniqueness of the setting and the characters that make it stand out from other adolescent coming-of-age stories. The exotic culture the characters are immersed in and the wild tropical setting give the novel a unique feel to it; a kind of mango-flavored "punch" that is both welcome and refreshing.

There are a few moral problems with the book, however. Throughout the middle and second half of the novel, the main character and her boyfriend are living together outside of marriage. This section of the book also contains a few short but rather graphic "intimate" scenes that the story could have done without.

Also, in the latter half of the book, Benita gets mixed up in the pagan religion of the Paita natives due to a few very odd spiritual encounters with island spirits. Depending upon the religious background of the reader, they may or may not be uncomfortable with this.

Armchair Interviews says: All in all, Red Palms is an interesting read, its strengths lying in vivid imagery and pure originality. If all the reader wants is a fresh summer read, this may be just what they are looking for.