Review: "Journey of the Sparrows" by Fran Leeper Buss and Daisy Cubias

Journey of the Sparrows by Fran Leeper Buss and Daisy Cubias
First read circa 1998
★★★★

Maria is a teenager when she flees El Salvador, where—due to civil war—it is no longer safe for her family to live. But nothing, from the perilous journey over the border to finding work to ensuring that her younger brother doesn't starve like other siblings have, is easy.

I read this in grade six, and I retained only three bits of it then: a scene in which the narrator is nailed in a crate in the back of a truck and another child wets himself in fright; a vague impression of a crowded room with the Virgin Mary on the wall; and the fact that it was assigned reading for school, and we had to get permission slips signed—probably because there are references to sexual violence. I lost my permission slip, so my father wrote me a note saying that I had permission to read whatever I liked.

Those details have flitted in and out of my memory for years, so I'm glad to have finally found it again to make the rest of it more concrete. The things that stand out now are 1) the importance of the Virgin Mary in the book, and in Maria's life, and 2) how little things have changed for so many refugees. This translates incredibly well to the present day, even accounting for things like changes in technology—if Maria were a fifteen-year-old in 2023 trying to, say, escape poverty and starvation in Venezuela, she might have a cell phone, but she'd still likely face racism and violence and a struggle to survive in the brittle cold of Chicago.

Some things—not all—are looking up for Maria by the end of the book, and I appreciate the refusal to make this a rosy story with an unrealistically happy ending for all. Instead there's hope for better things in the future, but still a long way to go. I hope this is still being taught in middle school classrooms.