Swimming to America [Hardcover]

Alice Mead (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

The quandary of the illegal immigrant

Linda Berati, an eighth grader in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, knows that her parents are Albanian and her little sister American. But what is she? And how did she get to New York? Her parents evade her questions, fueling Linda's uneasiness about her identity. Only Ramón, a Cuban immigrant her age, seems to understand. Together, they escape to the hideout she and Ramón built. Then a strange, foreign man appears at the hideout, and right away Linda feels connected to him. She soon discovers that Ramón's wayward brother knows the man, and learns that immigrants - even illegal ones - come to the United States for many reasons. She determines to confront her mother and find out the truth about herself at last.

The author, known for her empathic portrayals of children, shows what it's like to live the American dream in dread of losing it.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-9–With characteristic sensitivity and optimism, Mead presents the struggles of Linda Berati, who seeks to uncover a past that her parents refuse to share. A family-history project at her Brooklyn school emboldens her to confront her hardworking, domineering mother with a demand for answers: why did she flee Albania; how was her face scarred; and why does Linda have recurring nightmares of drowning and suffocation? In addition, her compatibility with her old friends wanes as Donna and Crissy focus on boys, clothes, and social conformity. Linda identifies more with eighth-grade classmate Ramón, a Cuban refugee. After a stranger arrives on the scene, Linda discovers a criminal connection between him and Ramón's older brother, Miguel. Anxious to help her friend with his family crisis, Linda contacts the police and, at last, shares her worries with her parents. With newfound trust and respect, they finally embrace her desire to enroll in the advanced educational program at a nearby academy. Linda and Ramón's immigrant families share a determination to survive, to fit in, and to avoid conflict with authorities that might jeopardize their future in America. Through the two main characters, this struggle is personalized and enriched with universal adolescent issues of independence, responsibility, and self-confidence. Realistic dialogue, an engaging plot, and Linda's roller-coaster emotions effectively counter the unlikely protracted reluctance of the girl's parents to share their past and Linda's surprisingly fearless berating of Miguel and his drug-dealing companions. Nonetheless, readers will find this title an informative, empathetic, contemporary portrait of the immigrant experience.–Gerry Larson, Durham School of the Arts, NC

From Booklist

Gr. 5-8. "Just tell me how you got that stupid scar," rages eighth-grader Linda Berati to her mother. "Stop lying." She wants to be done with secrets; the ones she has to keep to protect her family (she admits that she's "foreign" but "isn't supposed to talk about it") and the one about the strange man she is sure is dealing drugs with her friend's brother. Somehow this is bound up with the scraps of memory that come to her about being gagged and almost drowned. Her new intensity puts her at odds with the girls who used to be her friends. When one of her teachers assigns a family history, Linda knows the time has come for answers. At the heart of the story are the experiences of individuals who immigrate to America through unofficial channels and what they stand to lose if they are exposed. Mead is a capable storyteller, and her characters and situations ring true, as do the voices of the children caught up in difficult circumstances. Cindy Welch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (February 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374380473
• ISBN-13: 978-0374380472
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,765,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I had an unusually healthy childhood-sailing across the ocean on a steamship at age 7, visiting England,Scotland, and Norway, and playing endlessly with my dollhouse, which perhaps eventually lead to writing many books for children. Because I live in a refugee resettlement city Portland, ME, I wrote about displaced kids from war areas, Sudan, Kurdistan, and Kosovo. I was also an art teacher. The book, Soldier Mom, now 20 years old, was written during the first Gulf War, when we suddenly used a "reserve" army instead of an enlisted one. I had two active sons, dogs, rabbit, chameleon, hamster and later assisted 40 Kosova high school students. I loved gardening, painting, reading. But suddenly began to hurt everywhere, falling, weak. Nothing helped.I had to leave my job as an art teacher but was still able to write.
Nearly twenty years (plus a bout with severe cancer) into feeling weak, I now know I have Myasthenia Gravis, a neuromuscular disease that affects your eyes, breathing, endurance and speech.
I still write, paint, sing, practice my standup comedy, and take photographs. Really nothing inside me has changed at all. I fight to improve, laugh over the silliness of ordinary life, and am curious about all sorts of things.