By Rosemary Wells
With Secundino Fernandez
With Secundino Fernandez
Illustrated by Peter Ferguson
Candlewick Press, 2010
$17.99, ages 9-12, 72 pages
A Cuban boy aches to return to the Havana he once knew, but comes to realize that even though he can't go back, he can still keep his beloved city with him by sculpting his memories of it out of cardboard.
In this captivating true story by award-winning Wells, 10-year-old Secundino "Dino" Fernandez creates a miniature version of Havana on the floor of his New York City bedroom to ease his sadness at having to flee Cuba after dictator Fidel Castro comes to power.
Wells (Max and Ruby) was inspired to tell Dino's story after hearing him recount in a 2001 radio interview the intense homesickness he suffered 50 years ago when he emigrated to the United States with his parents, and the grit he showed by taking control of his situation.
Born with a passion for sketching buildings, "Dino" was so mesmerized as a young boy by the architectural splendor of Havana that he sketched every facade he passed, and with the help of his cousin, cut out the sketches and strung them with tape into a circle on the floor.
Together they'd sit inside the paper city and marvel at the beauty of the stone archways and the entrance to El Palace, the president's house, with its marble column.
"Until I am six years old, in 1954, my world is sweet," Wells writes on behalf of Fernandez, now an architect in New York City. "'We live in a city built by angels,' Papa says."
