Scholastic Mañanaland

Bought this for my 13 year old son, who loved Echo by Pam Munoz. He found this too easy and light a read, without the depth of idea and character that Echo had.

Pam Muñoz Ryan is a wonderful storyteller. All of her books feel a little magical. This one is a coming of age story about Max who has always wanted to know more about his mother and why she disappeared when he was a baby. While not quite as moving as Esperanza Rising or Echo, Mañanaland is still a beautiful story about family and bravery.

Love this!

I always read the book I plan to give my grandchildren (twins 8) just to be sure it’s something appropriate for them. It seems like almost every book I read wants to teach a lesson. The lesson here is complicated - a missing mother, folks leaving violence for safe harbor and more. I decided to put this on the shelf until they are a bit older. There is no doubt that the book is beautifully written and there is even an opportunity to learn some Spanish words - which I applaud. I know they’ll enjoy it a couple years from now.

“Mananaland” is a beautifully crafted story, with every detail becoming important as the tale unfolds: the dog, the swimming hole, the story telling, the bridges. The author takes her time in creating the world where Max, age 12ish, lives with his father and grandfather in a peaceful village in a time and a place that are deliberately obscured. There are cars but no phones. There are tropical environs, but clear line of sight up and down a meandering river. There are Spanish churches and Middle Ages European ruins. There are legends and there are living truths. All these are in a harmonious whole that draws the reader in to the “today” of Max’s life. He is surrounded by the love of his family, the joy of his friends, and the lure of the coming summer break to hone his soccer skills in order to qualify for the local soccer team. However, always in the back of his mind is the “yesterday” of his life, and the question of where is his mother who has been missing since he was small, with adults keeping secrets from him, saying he is not old enough to know the truth. As this mystery continues to gnaw at him, things fall apart, with friends seeming to leave him and soccer opportunities fading from his grasp. When the unexpected chance comes for Max to reach for answers in “tomorrow”, he pretends to be one of the mythical Guardians of the Hidden Ones in order to take a young girl fleeing an abusive situation to “Mananaland”. There he hopes to find his missing mother. It takes the author almost 150 pages to reach this point, and she has done a beautiful job of creating a believable world out of a somewhat mythical place. Anyone who remembers being 12 years old and faced with disappointment can relate to Max’s feelings. He is a good kid, pushed to despair, and in an effort to find answers about his mother for himself, he impulsively leaves the village to escort Isadora along the underground escape route.The image of the need to flee to escape violence brings to mind the underground resistance movement of Europeans in WW II and the underground railway of the US Civil War. Humans are on the move worldwide in the hundreds of millions, to escape violence, to seek a better life, to escape environmental disasters. Surely young readers are aware of these issues, and the author of Mananaland does a brilliant job of gently introducing the concept of human trafficking and the need to flee in wartime situations. This is done without graphically spelling out the details, and without politicizing any particular event in the story. The “bad” city is Abismo, which means Abyss. The unknown paradise is “Mananaland”, which stands for hope.The overriding theme of the book is love. Love of family, expanding to love of friends, expanding to love of the stranger who needs our help. Max ultimately finds his answers and sees who he really is as he risks his life to save another.From an educational standpoint, this book is a great introduction to the Spanish language and to the science of building bridges. The author uses a Spanish word and then within a few sentences, the English word will be repeated. This is done seamlessly, I might add. Max’s family are stone masons and build bridges (another metaphor used in the book). As there are extensive bridge building terms used, this is a great opportunity to expand a curriculum to include a unit on the engineering aspect.