A Review of Latina in Wonderland from Italy

Reader Review:

From the child of Italian friends from New York City, who is now very much grown up.

Dear Jennifer,

I'm sorry if I'm writing so late to you, but I find free time with difficulty.

I really enjoyed your story and found it very fluent!

I must say that I would not have minded if the trip in Wonderland was longer, more adventurous. It seemed to me that Honey and John had just got in the hole when the had already found the magical tree. I was expecting the voyage to be a bit longer and I think it would make the story more complete.

I also find that the story was divided into: grown-ups and children. The fact that Honey is 12 makes the story more adapt for girls of her age. Then there is the grown-up part which I liked better because I felt it closer to me. I liked the evil character of Rigby and felt really sad when Victoria was losing her beautiful long hair.

I think that to read Latina in Wonderland you need a great imagination and knowing the people of my generation (14-18 years old) they don't have a lot of this. So I think that the true people who could really apreciate the book with innocent and wonderous eyes are children from 10 to 14, in particular girls. I say this, knowing that when I was 12, I would have loved the story much more because I could have imagined myself being Honey.

I hope you will write a lot of other books because I think you have many wonderful ideas. It was you who gave me 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' to read when I was little, telling me that when you were a little girl, you always pretended to be Lucy.

Many adults lose the marvelous fantasy that they had when they were children, but I always saw you as the only adult I knew who was still ready to believe in magic, fight against pirates or go on the search for hidden treasure.

The fact that at a certain point, starting at 13 more or less, people begin to forget knights, princesses and fairies makes me think that the rightful people who should read your books are children; and that you could give them this adventure and let them believe and not forget the magic that is in each of us when we are little.

A big hug and thanks again for having reminded me of fantasy,

Alexis
Age 16
Rome, Italy

Excerpt

Until she was almost twelve, Honey had a peaceful and happy life with her parents on a farm that cultivated vast orchards of passion fruit. There were always open fields in which to run and trees to climb, and the healthy food and fresh air gave her skin a luminous glow that caused the country folks to murmur about her in awe.

“The Passion-fruit Princess,” they called her.

However, Honey was an only child and her parents home-schooled her, so by the time she was nearly a teen, she felt the ache of loneliness for the first time. Her stomach and heart throbbed with a pain she could not explain. She walked down the stairs of her solitary white house that was surrounded by a vast field of yellow and green grasses. She paused to listen for a few minutes to a noise coming from her living room. It sounded like the drone of a small engine. Honey nervously hesitated before facing the creature that had invaded her home, as typically an uninvited visitor from the fields and woods could be a bat, a ground owl, a lost armadillo, or a deadly coral snake.

“Who’s there?”

Honey had been raised on the country’s local folk legends about the creatures that lived in Wonderland: worms the size of snakes, and snakes longer than laundry lines. Her mother, Victoria, repeated stories of local sightings of flying saucers and giant glowing phosphorescent dogs: as big as houses. It was said that these dogs roamed the fields at night and drank out of the lakes until they ran dry. Honey accepted all of these stories as fact, but then again, she knew no other life but this.

“Beware of the child-eater,” her mother had whispered. “She looks at first like a gypsy woman, but it’s only a disguise. Underneath, she’s a ravenous beast who gulps down children and stores them whole and undigested in her crowded belly.”

“Are you harmless?” Honey cautiously directed her voice at the strange noise in the next room.

Honey took a deep breath and walked towards the window. However, to her relief, this creature was not an invader, but a lost guest. It was a turquoise and green hummingbird who had approached the house to refresh himself at the feeder, but instead had flown in through a small open window and could not understand why the glass of the large bay window was not yielding for him. He drilled against it frantically, buzzing like a toy plane. As Honey approached him, his heart beat so rapidly from fear and exertion that it caused the green feathers on his chest to ripple.

Honey spoke to the hummingbird to calm him down.

“Don’t worry, pretty thing. I want to help.”

He opened his needle-like mouth, and to Honey’s surprise, an iridescent soap bubble escaped his tiny beak. The bubble expanded, swelled, and rose in the air. When it popped, his words tumbled to the ground. They expressed themselves in disarray.

“How… To help…Me?”

“Jump into my hand, and I’ll take you outside.”

Another bubble rose from his mouth. Honey followed it with her eyes as it grazed the ceiling. This time, the words rained down on pieces of cardboard. Honey chased after them and reassembled them like giant playing cards.

“What… If….I…Want Something Else?”

Honey blinked and read the cards again. “What do you want from me?” Honey asked the hummingbird. He flew around her twice and then landed on her arm. She walked out the door. “Don’t you want to fly?”

This time, he gave up on words and sent her a direct thought.

“You smell sweet and good. I could be your friend forever.”

“How?”

The hummingbird flipped from her arm like a diver and soared into the air. Then he changed direction and flew into her ear.

Honey’s entire body shook and her ear itched madly as the tiny creature burrowed its way deeper into her ear canal. She let out a scream and fell to the grass. Then instead of pain, she felt an overwhelming sense of warmth and calm. She inhaled deeply and smiled at the sky.

“If you let me stay, I will never, ever leave you,” he whispered. His twittery voice echoed inside her head. “I’ll be the one in whom you can trust and confide. I’ll be your guide through all that is good and bad in life. You’ll never be lonely again. Do you want that?”

“I want a friend like you,” Honey said. She blew an air kiss that made a smacking noise, and the air filled with the vaporous smell of hot cotton candy. The ache she had felt earlier in her stomach had mysteriously subsided.

Princeton Day School: Workshop and Critique

Visiting High School Students at Princeton Day School, April 28, 2006

Author's Goal: Feedback for final revision before submitting to editors



The guy in the Ramones shirt doesn't know that I used to hang out at CBGB.
OMFUG

PDS
Class - Psychological Literature and Writing Workshop
The Teacher's Assignment:

Tuesday, April 25 -
1) Revision of Like Water for Chocolate essay.
2) Read Chapters 1 - 4 of Latina in Wonderland
2) Turn your attention to the magical realism (MR) tale that you will write. Draw on your own family story--get its details and see if you can learn more about its cultural, historical and social context--and, of course, use your own rich imagination. Have a conversation with relatives who might remember more of the story (and take some notes!) Now write an "outline" of the story (be sure to include a list of characters--some description, as well as, names would be helpful, setting, basic plot elements, how and where magical realist elements will play a role etc. Your "outline" may be in paragraph, note or list form--the key is to get down the main components of plot and character.)

In class: we'll hand in the essay rewrite, present our MR story ideas and outlines and continue reading Latina

Due Wednesday, April 26 -
1) Read Latina - aim to be through Chapter 6
2) Begin writing your own magical realism tale. Aim for 1-2 pages. EMAIL this to yourself and to me.
(The final version will probably be somewhere between 3-6 pages in length. Don't feel you need to begin at the beginning, it may flow more readily if you start writing a scene, event, encounter, that you visualize.)

Due Thursday, April 27
1) Read Latina - aim to be through Chapter 8
2) Continue working on your own MR tale (one more page) EMAIL this to yourself and me.

Due Friday, April 28 - author Jennifer Prado coming to class.
1) Complete Latina and look over the questions that Jennifer Prado has been asked to address by her agent. Choose two questions to answer and write a short paragraph response to each.
2)Continue working on your own MR tale (aim for another page) EMAIL this to yourself and me.

Due Tuesday, May 2
Bring to class a completed rough draft of your magical realism tale.

Questions regarding Latina in Wonderland
Remember pick two to answer.

1) Can readers follow the story? It cuts back and forth between a journey and what is happening back at the farm. Is this confusing?

2) Even though the story takes place in a foreign setting, "can you see it?"

3) How do you feel about the use of words in Spanish and Portuguese?

4) Are the magical realism elements "too much" and make for difficult reading.

5) Is this a story that interests teens?

6) My agent thinks the story should be faster-paced and with more suspense. Do you agree?

7) My agent thinks there should be more teen themes. What do students think is missing? What would you want to read more about?

8) Did any part of the story not make sense or confuse you?

9) How do you describe the story? An adventure or like a cartoon? Does it have a message?

10) Which characters do you like? Why?

Answers from students posted in the Comments Buttons.

Note from Author: I grew up in Princeton, NJ, but didn't attend PDS. Back in the day, either of these films could have been shot in my school's hallways:







I think I got, what we used to call "thrashed," by the students' critiques, but I also learned a great deal.