Same Sun as Here by House and Vaswani - ADVISABLE

House, Silas and Neela Vaswani Same Sun as Here, 296 p. Candlewick, 2012.  $16.  Content: G.  

As part of a summer school project, Meena, an immigrant girl living in New York City, and River, a boy from a coal mining town in Kentucky, have started exchanging letters.  Both if them chose letters instead of email.  In order to make ends meet, both of their fathers spend long hours away from home and both of their mothers have issues from their past that force the children to take care of themselves most of the time.  Luckily, both of them also have strong older female role models to help and guide them.  A mining company is stripping the forest around River’s home and causes an accident that spurs River to take a stand in defense of his community.  

Written in letter form, this is a sweet novel with a strong environmental message and also a piercing look at the lives of immigrants.  There is much to talk about, much to empathize with, in this book.  I don’t think it will spread like wild fire, but hand it to a teacher to look at a possible classroom book.  

EL, MS – ADVISABLE.  Cindy, Library teacher