Behind the Mountains

By nersum | Published: December 1, 2008

It is election time in Haiti, and bombs are going off in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. During a visit from her home in rural Haiti, Celiane Espérance and her mother are nearly killed. Looking at her country with new eyes, Celiane gains a fresh resolve to be reunited with her father in Brooklyn, New York. The harsh winter and concrete landscape of her new home are a shock to Celiane, who witnesses her parents’ struggle to earn a living, her brother’s uneasy adjustment to American society, and her own encounters with learning difficulties and school violence.

This entry was posted in Americas, Haiti, Intermediate (Gr. 4-8), Realistic Fiction and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

2 Trackbacks

  1. By WOW Currents » Windows to the World — A Quick Look at Haiti on January 25, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    [...] Behind the Mountains by Edwidge Danticat. This YA novel begins in Haiti with Celiane and her mother nearly being killed in bombings in Port au Prince during election time. The events in Haiti open her eyes to what is happening in her country. Her family then moves to Brooklyn to join her father. The reader is taken along on a journey of adjustment and acceptance as she begins her new life in a new country. Rated 2 in Horn Book Guide. [...]

  2. By WOW Currents » Living Between Two Cultures: A Digital Literature Discussion of Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez on March 1, 2010 at 12:33 am

    [...] Examples include A Step from Heaven by An Na (2001), Tangled Threads by Pegi Deitz Shea (2003) or Behind the Mountains by Edwidge Danticat [...]

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