January 2015

THE SAME SKY by Amanda Eyre Ward has a two-threaded storyline. One is about Carla, a young girl living in Honduras who is caretaking her six-year-old brother after her mother moves to Texas. The goal is that she will make enough money to bring the children north. She sends them money as she can and talks to them weekly. The children live in abject poverty, scouring garbage dumpsters for food; the brother starts sniffing glue. Carla decides they will head north through Mexico as they are starving and fearful for their lives.

Their journey is harrowing and fraught with turmoil, but it is hope-filled as they know only the trials they are leaving behind. THE SAME SKY gives readers an inside look at abject poverty and despair, as well as the hope that lives in Carla’s soul and that of the real-life children like her. It also gives a sharp look at the world they actually find once they arrive in the States.

The other storyline features Alice and Jake, a young couple with a thriving barbecue business whose lives are missing the one thing they both want --- a baby. So many people desire to become parents, and making that dream a reality often takes diverse courses. Yes, I saw the ending coming here, but it did not make it less special.

Amanda researched her work by visiting a shelter in Brownsville, Texas, where these children are housed as they wait to be reunited with their parents. Through countless hours of stories from these children, she constructed her setting and her characters. This is a hotbed topic that is looked at here without politics, but rather through the eyes of a child. It’s a very interesting perspective. THE SAME SKY gives readers an inside look at abject poverty and despair, as well as the hope that lives in Carla’s soul and that of the real-life children like her.

It raises so many questions; it would be a great book group discussion title.

One more thing: the title here is very apt. The sky is the same on both sides of the border; however, lives are not.