Life, After - Softcover

Littman, Sarah Darer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0545151457 ISBN 13: 9780545151450

Publisher: Scholastic Press, 2011

Synopsis

From the author of CONFESSIONS OF A CLOSET CATHOLIC and PURGE, a new book that is searing, gripping, and impossible to put down.

After a terrorist attack kills Dani's aunt and unborn cousin, life in Argentina crumbles. In order to escape a country that is sinking under their feet, Dani and her family move to the United States. It's supposed to be a fresh start, but when you're living in a cramped apartment, your father is growing more angry by the day, and you're going to high school where the classes are in another language--and not everyone is friendly--life in America is not all it's cracked up to be. Dani misses her old friends, her life, Before. How can she heal when life will never be the same again?

About this title

About the Author

Sarah Darer Littman's widely praised first novel for teens, CONFESSIONS OF A CLOSET CATHOLIC, won the 2006 Sydney Taylor Book Award. She is also the author of the YA novel PURGE. She lives in Connecticut with her family and a house which never seems to have enough bookshelves.

From School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up–In 2002 in Argentina, Dani Bensimon weathers the political and economic crisis that is dragging her middle-class Jewish family into poverty and her formerly loving father into depression. They are all still grieving over the death of her pregnant aunt and her unborn child in the 1994 terrorist bombing of the AMIA building, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Many of the teen's friends have left the country, including her novio, Roberto. Eventually, the Bensimons relocate to the New York suburbs and Dani must work hard to remain the dutiful, perfect, helpful daughter. While the plot is predictable, supporting characters are direct from after-school-special casting, and the narrator is at times a bit too wholesome, this affecting book works in its entirety. It shows a place and part of recent history left mostly unexamined in YA literature, highlighting an act of terrorism in Argentina and a Latin American immigrant. Dani's experiences give her insight and empathy into a community suffering the aftermath of 9/11. Littman's sprinkling of Spanish words and phrases throughout gives a genuine feel to her dialogue, and her references to Jewish customs also fit smoothly into the context. This immigrant story is easy to swallow, if a bit weighty in tone, very much like Christine Gonzalez's The Red Umbrella (Knopf, 2010).–Rhona Campbell, Washington, DC Public Libraryα(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0545151457
• ISBN 13: 9780545151450
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288