{"id":44903,"date":"2025-02-16T20:46:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T01:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=44903"},"modified":"2025-02-16T20:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T01:46:17","slug":"review-of-across-so-many-seas-by-ruth-behar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=44903","title":{"rendered":"Review of Across So Many Seas, by Ruth Behar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Across So Many Seas<\/em><\/p>\n

by Ruth Behar
\nread by Allison Strong, Victoria Villarreal, Sol Madariaga, and Frankie Corso<\/p>\n

Listening Library, 2024. 5 hours, 53 minutes.
\nReview written February 15, 2025, from a library book.
\nStarred Review
\n2025 Newbery Honor Book
\n2025 Sidney Taylor Silver Medal
\n2025 Capitol Choices Selection<\/a><\/p>\n

Across So Many Seas<\/em> is an intergenerational family saga for kids – featuring four 12-year-old girls, each of whom crossed a sea.<\/p>\n

The book starts in 1492 with the expulsion of Jews from Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella. Their families had been there for centuries, but all Jews were told to leave, convert, or be executed. Benvenida and her family travel by foot to the port, her father carrying the Torah, and then travel across the sea to Constantinople.<\/p>\n

Even in Turkey, they remember the language and customs of Spain, but the next girl featured is Reina, 450 years later, 12 years old in 1923, a descendant of Benvenida. After Reina disobeys her father and goes out at night with a boy to a party celebrating revolution in Turkey, she is sent in disgrace to Cuba as a companion to her aunt. In three years when she is 15, she will marry another Sephardic Jew her father has chosen for her and make a home in Cuba.<\/p>\n

Next we meet her daughter Alegra, who is 12 years old in 1961, after Castro has come to power in the Cuban revolution. She joins the volunteer team of children who go out to the countryside to teach folks to read, and is proud and happy with her role – but is suddenly pulled back to Havana by her parents. They inform her that her father is not allowed to continue his business of selling shirts and they are being watched by the government. So they are sending Alegra to America, because it’s easier to get children out of the country first. They hope to follow soon.<\/p>\n

And then we meet Alegra’s daughter, born in America, now 12 years old in 2003. And things come full circle when she travels on vacation to Spain with her mother and grandmother and they visit a museum in Toledo about the Sephardic Jews who were expelled in 1492.<\/p>\n

Throughout the book, certain songs, foods, and customs link the girls together. I loved that the narrators sang the song that all the girls knew, about a girl in a tower in the sea. An interesting and lengthy historical note from the author came after the end of the book – it’s all based on her own family’s history. Even without such a family connection, it made me want to visit the museum in Toledo and think about the hundreds of years of history.<\/p>\n

ruthbehar.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/across_so_many_seas.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar read by Allison Strong, Victoria Villarreal, Sol Madariaga, and Frankie Corso Listening Library, 2024. 5 hours, 53 minutes. Review written February 15, 2025, from a library book. Starred Review 2025 Newbery Honor Book 2025 Sidney Taylor Silver Medal 2025 Capitol Choices Selection Across So Many Seas is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,66,10,32,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-award-winners","category-childrens-fiction-review","category-historical","category-starred-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44903"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44906,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44903\/revisions\/44906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}