Confetti Girl

Apolonia (Lina) Flores lives in Corpus Christi, Texas with her father. She has a best friend and a would-be boyfriend. She enjoys science, playing volleyball on her middle school team and collecting socks. She’s also Mexican–American, has recently suffered the loss of her mother and grown frustrated with her widowed father who has literally, and metaphorically, buried himself in books.

Navigating the wearisome waters of change alongside Lima is her best friend Vanessa, whose recently divorced mother has developed her own coping mechanism – making confetti filled eggs called cascarones. Lima’s boyfriend isn’t immune to difficulty either. He must deal with a speech impediment and the taunting that accompanies it. Confetti Girl show more features characters who are all dealing with life’s struggles.

But hidden within the individual problems of the characters lies a positive message. A story filled with as much heartache as Confetti Girl might easily venture into the melancholy. It never does. Confetti Girl is a story of happiness. Happiness after losing a loved one. Happiness after divorce. Happiness for friendship and love. Ever so quietly, author Diana Lopez, fills the story with significant moments of authenticity.

These moments are hammered out through plot devices that meld seamlessly within the telling. Lima use the keen dichos her mother has taught her to navigate the difficult as the author uses them to highlight chapter themes. Lima ends up writing her own reflective life’s synopsis when she’s supposed to be writing a synopsis of Watership Down for the English class she’s failing. But the most significant device is the cascarones – confetti filled eggs bearing good luck wishes. The fragility of the egg mixed with the flamboyancy of the confetti makes for a superb and poignant addition.

The author’s style is light and often humorous. She writes the best sort of multicultural story: an authentic one. Confetti Girl is the tale of family that happens to be Mexican-American. It never ventures into stereotypical or seems culturally didactic. This gives added meaning for both Latino readers, who might find added elements with which to identify, and Non-Latino readers, who might learn something new or find something in common with Lima and her family.

The ending scene, where a celebration in confetti filled cascarones ensues, is priceless and provides a perfect ending to an uplifting tale of overcoming the fragile parts of life with confetti joy.

Themes include: friendship, family love and overcoming adversity

Review first published on Reading Rumpus show less

The first thing I noticed as did several of my students was the cover. I have a seventh grade student who wears socks similar to the ones on the cover. She keeps the pant legs rolled up so everyone can view her unusual socks each day. Lina could be one of my students. I have a young girl whose father is fluent in English and expects so much from her. She struggles with the English and gets frustrated. It is as if her father just doesn’t get it. Lina sees her father as hiding in the books he reads as an escape from the pain and grief of losing his wife. This is a crucial time in Lina’s life. A time when life changes, friendships change and a girl needs to know how to deal with these changes. I can think of at least five girls I will show more recommend this book to. It is very important to me to put books in their hands with characters they can identify with. show less

Confetti Girl
By Diana López
Little, Brown and Company, Books for Young Readers NY 2009
ISBN 978-0-316-02955-1
Apolonia Flores is the hero of this book. Her father says about her first name, “It’s the girl form of Apollo. He was the god of the sun. Get it? It’s my way of calling you a sunflower.” Parents! What can a teen do with them? Gratefully, everyone calls her Lina. Vanessa is her best friend, who lives across the street.

Thankfully this book is not about gangs, migrant farm workers, or crossing the border. It’s a regular book about a regular family in a regular neighborhood where the girls go to a regular school with regular problems. Do I seem a bit obsessed with regular? This is a beautiful story of a girl who has lost show more her mother and needs her father. Her father in his grief has immersed himself into books. How does she go about reaching through those books to her father, who holds them up in front of him? She thinks: “I see a body, a neck, and a book where his face should be.”

I enjoyed this book so much because the writing was good and the story was so real. Lina struggles with Vanessa’s breaking away from their best friend status to date a boy. The girls plot to help Vanessa’s mom. Lina grapples with how to approach a boy she likes and isn’t sure whether he likes her. The whole issue of losing a parent is dealt with in two ways: lost by death and lost by divorce. The plot of this story is the generational age dilemma of any teen and their parents: how do you reach each other to an understanding of what each needs. The ending is hilarious and would make any therapist proud.

I had read The secret blog of Raisin Rodriguez : a novel / by Judy Goldschmidt and was so disappointed. Because the books attempts to make Raisin, just like any other girl. Seems the author created a character with no ethnic roots. I’m not talking about being a Pocho or not knowing or hiding that she is Latina. I mean the things that she worries about are just too white. With Lina, the author, Diana López, did a sensational job of presenting Lina in her environment with everyday teen problems and yet embracing her culture background. Nothing in the story was too heavy or pushed on you about culture. Even the whole discussion about cascarones was more about the girls’ story than about the history of cascarones.

I believe that the community, any and all of us, are in dire need of more books like Confetti Girl by Diana López. Stories that portray us as people with hurts, joys and loves, just like everyone else in the world in any skin color. I encourage you to rush out and buy this book. Because buying this book would show the world how proud we are of being Latino/a, of how much we support our Latino/a authors, and of how much we need and want “real” stories about ourselves doing life. Read and enjoy!

Jo Ann Hernández
BronzeWord1@yahoo.com
BronzeWord Latino Authors
http://authorslatino.com/wordpress show less

Confetti Girl is a good, solid middle grade novel, mostly dealing with common middle grade issues. It is well written and comes to a nice conclusion, with some lessons learned, but it never reaches much depth. I appreciated the all Latino cast of characters - a rarity.

Lina lives with her father in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her mother died a year and a half before the book begins. Vanessa is her best friend, who lives across the street with her mother - recently divorced. Lina's father is lonely and distant, giving more attention to his beloved books than to his daughter. Vanessa's mother is lonely and angry, blaming all males for her husband's leaving her. Lina and Vanessa are coping with the death and loss-by-divorce of one parent, the show more issues of the other, while also dealing with first loves, and for Lina, failing grades in her English class.

It's a lot to cover in a 200 page book, which is why it's covered simply. A good light read for the YA audience. show less

Lina Flores, sock enthusiast, budding scientist, and volleyball player, is dealing with family, crushes, and surviving middle school. Her mother died two years ago and her father retreats into his books, preferring to ignore the outside world. How can Lina get his attention while dealing with everything else?

This is Latina Judy Blume (and that's definitely a compliment coming from me!). Hooray for a book with a Latina protagonist where race is not an Issue! Highly recommended.

Full review on my blog: http://abbylibrarian.blogspot.com/2009/06/48hbc-confetti-girl.html

This is a good novel for a teen/tween who is having trouble communicating with their parents. It follows a high school girl and her friend through their daily activities and crushes and gets you involved with the characters, and you learn that one girl's father is still mourning the loss of his wife while ignoring the girl and the other girl's mother is a recently divorced "man-hater". The book deals with their problems and how they unsuccessfully try to solve them before they eventually open up and learn that communicating directly is best for everyone.

Summary:
Confetti girl is a book about a middle schooler named Lina. Lina has a deceased mom and a single dad who loves book, he's an english teacher. Her dad read a lot to get over the sadness of losing his wife. Lina and her best friend Vanesa two boys in their class. Vanesa ends up dating her crush, Carlos and Vanesa's single father then gets a girlfriend. Vanessa's mother is still single and has an obsession with casconrones. At the end Lina and her crush become good friends and Lina's dad come out of reading and meets new people and falls in love with Vanesa's mom.

Review:
I though confetti girl was a great book. It was really cute and interesting. It was also very funny because of the way Vanesa's mom hated men. It was very sad at show more some points but it was overall a great book. 10/10 would read again and I probably will since I have the book. show less