Wings to Soar

Praise

A displaced girl’s hope takes wing in this verse novel.
The year is 1972: Ten-year-old Viva opens the story by asserting that her name is not “refugee.” Expelled from their Kampala, Uganda, home by President Idi Amin, Viva’s family, who are of Goan Indian origin, end up in a resettlement camp in England. As Viva, Mummy, and her sister, Anna, try to understand their new lives, they wait impatiently for news of Daddy, who’s the family’s “hope holder” and meant to be joining them soon. They also dream of their eventual departure for Canada. The family’s story is underscored by racism, alienation, and upheaval, even as Viva sometimes discovers “little cups of happiness.” The refugee crisis of the Ugandan Asians is a tragic episode from history that’s rarely explored in children’s fiction. Athaide’s book starts with a lot of promise and has an interesting format that includes photographs, correspondence, and definitions of vocabulary interspersed among the poems (Viva is a logophile; she also has a fondness for Diana Ross). The book is at its strongest when the text describes Viva’s yearning for her family to be reunited and the hatred the refugees faced in a Britain where anti-immigrant feelings were on the rise; these segments are searing and honest. Unfortunately, the execution falters as the book progresses, and the writing in the later portions is not as strong.
Friendship, family, and identity form the core of this heartfelt but uneven story.
—Kirkus Reviews

In 1972, 10-year-old Viva, her mom, and her sister (ethnically Indian and expelled from Uganda)
arrive at a refugee camp in England, awaiting her father and emigration to Canada. But Dad is
forcibly detained, so the family relocates to Southall in London, where anti-Asian sentiment
prevails. Schoolyard taunts, bricks through their window, and racist flyers from the National Front
(eerily, “Make Britain Great Again!”) make this placement intolerable. Throughout the family’s
travails, Viva is kept afloat by her spunky attitude, her fascination with new words, and her love
of Diana Ross’ music. Athaide’s semiautobiographical novel-in-verse is told with understanding
and grace, and even readers unfamiliar with Idi Amin’s politics will come away with an
appreciation for the difficulties faced by those he displaced. Lighter moments and a few good
friends help to mitigate Viva’s trauma, but Britain’s rampant xenophobia comes through
unmistakably. The mostly free-verse poems help to move the story along quickly, and sections
arranged by month are illustrated with period photos. Heartfelt and deeply satisfying, this should
open minds to our shared humanity.

—Booklist