The books Blue by Joyce Moyer Hostetter and My Brigadista Year by Katherine Paterson are historical fiction stories set in North Carolina 1944 and Cuba 1961, respectively. The first mentioned book talks about the life of thirteen-year-old girl called Ann Fay, who, in January of 1944, took the function to be the men of the house while her father was fighting against Hittler on Second World War. And the book My Brigadista Year tells the story of Lora, a teenage girl, who, in 1961, entered a group of brigadistas, a group where she was traveling around her country to teach the citizens who don’t know how to read and write, do it. This group started because after the Cuban revolution there was low literacy in Cuba. Blue and My Brigadista Year demonstrate similarities and differences simultaneously, for example they portray two girls taking different important responsibilities during war time, the girls have similar perspectives over their tough situations. However, the books convey different themes.
In both, Blue and My Brigadista Year, Ann Fay and Lora (the main characters), need to to deal with new important responsibilities in their lives. Ann Fay’s father goes to fight in the Second World War, and expects her to be the man of the house while he is gone. But Ann was just thirteen, she didn’t know how was to help her mother in all she wanted, take care of her two sisters and one brother, and she knew even less that the Polio Epidemic (a highly infectious disease and mainly affects children under five years of age) will affect her life and her family’s life. Around June 1944, Ann’s school was canceled because of Polio, and from that moment Ann’s Momma was sanding her to Hinkles sisters’ house to borrow newspapers, to keep up on the polio news. And days after her brother was sick, but they thought that was just a normal sickness. Two days later, he was better, playing, having fun. Thinking that he was better, Ann asked her sisters and Bobby (her brother) to help her in the garden, but Bobby said he was still sick, but since Ann saw him playing outside, she thought that he was lying to don’t work. But he wasn’t. When he started to work a harsh sickness flew over him all over again. And they called the ambulance. Yes. Bobby was with Polio. Ann was feeling guilt for all of this. But it was even the hardest part. Momma and Bobby were in the hospital, so Ann was taking care of her sisters alone. She also had to clean the house, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, cook and obviously try to have fun, but it was so difficult she can just think that what she did was wrong, and how Bobby was. Days passed and they continued on the hospital, and a police officer came to Ann’s house and said that she needed to burn all her brother’s toys if she wanted her sisters to be safe. On this day, Ann went to sleep thinking about it, but she knew that was a difficult challenge but if she wanted her sisters to be safe she needed to do it. And on the other day she started to burn the toys, until her sisters saw and started to cry and scream with her, and she also started crying. And a tragedy happened, her brother died because of Polio. It was so difficult to Ann deal with all that responsibility and this pressure that she was thinking was her fault. In the book My Brigadista Year, the own main character (Lora) wanted to take an important responsibility, to help her country turn into a literacy country. In 1960, Lora saw a poster in her school of the government calling the students who can read and write to teach citizens who don’t know how. Lora asked her parents and with a lot of insistence they agreed. She went to the training camp to learn how she will teach others and receive the necessary materials. When it finished, she was guided to the house of her students. Lora was nervous because she was too young and didn’t know how to speak as a person much less as a teacher. Lora didn’t give up even when bandidos who opposed the communist revolutionary were trying to kill the brigadistas. Similarly, these two young girls went through difficult times, and instead of experiencing their childhoods, they gave up this period to help her family and country.
Lora and Ann present similarities in the way of thinking and acting when they faced difficulties in the journey to achieve their goals. No matter how hard was the situation, they didn’t give up. One point that can relate the perspective of both characters is that they always want to help the people around them and be emphatic many times. In addition, both characters learn to deal with their challenges even being to young for all that situation. In Blue, the hardest situation for Ann was continuum believing in herself and believing that she can heal Polio since after it was the disease that caused the death of her brother and she could be a little blamed for it, and obviously was difficult to deal with the enormous responsibility to the man of the house role. But she persisted, and tried to find a way to overcome it. And she got it because of an inspiration that she had on a friend. And she also helped her mom, who was destructed because of the death of her son, and beyond helping her mother she takes care of her sisters and her house while her parents were gone. In My Brigadista Year, Lora faced the difficulties that were the war in her country while she was in a training for a voluntary work – a group of brigadistas that helped around 707,000 Cubans become literate in one year in Cuba – and the threats of the bandidos saying that they will kill the brigadistas, but she also overcame it, believing in herself an remembering that all that work was for a better situation.
However, My Brigadista Year and Blue reveals two different themes. In the book My Brigadista Year we can learn that we can’t give up, and we need to persist in our goals because all of us can do what we want, just need to run backwards. And Lora is the living soul of it because the situation was very hard for her, she was living in a new place with those who didn’t know and in the middle of the training camp a war started on Cuba, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, when the United States’s goal was the overthrow of Fideal Castro and the establishment of a non-communist government friendly to the U.S.A. Obviously knowing the news that happened during the war Lora’s papi went to the camp to take her home, because it could be unsafe as the country was fighting a war. But Lora said that would not go, because her country needs her. She convinced him but it was the first time Lora disobeyed her father, so she was feeling a little sad inside. But with her head held high, she was still there for a better reason. However, on the book Blue the lesson is that you can overcome anything when you believe in yourself and accept the others, we can see this on the book because Ann also had Polio so she is rushed to the emergency hospital where she begins her long struggle back to health, and from that moment she started to believe more in herself because of an inspiration that she have on a friend she meet on the hospital that besides have Polio was black. With this inspiration and believing in herself, Ann didn’t give up to heal Polio. And she got it.
Ultimately, both Blue and My Brigadista Year, tells how it was difficult for two teenage girls to deal with important responsibilities in their lives, during war time, one being the men of the house, dealing with the death of her brother from Polio, and also getting Polio so she need to overcome this and heal. And the other turned a brigadista to help her country turn literacy and she also needed to deal with the war in her country during the voluntary work and with the threats of bandidos saying that will kill the brigadistas. However, the books portray different themes. The characters are brave and they get it and overcome and realize her dreams for more difficult that was. Blue and My Brigadista Year are inspirational stories that we all should read because if more people were like Ann Fay and Lora on the world, it would be so much better.
