Booklist Reviews
Acevedo returns to the novel in verse format for this story of two teenage sisters separated by a secret, an ocean, and their father. Papi kept one family in New York and another in the Dominican Republic—something New Yorker Yahaira had an inkling of, but is a complete surprise to Dominican Camino. After Papi's plane crashes on his way to spend the summer with Camino, his secret fully emerges, and the sisters struggle with their complicated grief and uncertain—but now connected—future. The girls find that for all their differences, they share features and family traits. Acevedo's free verse poems for each girl share an easy cadence and thoughtfulness, yet each girl's perspective is clear: Camino is strong but fearful of the dangers that threaten her life and hopes; Yahaira's anger is palpable, but so is her tenderness and love for her girlfriend Dre. In a later section, the perspectives blend into each other as the girls meet, bond, and become true sisters. Memorable for its treatment of grief, depiction of family ties, and lyrical strength, expect a well-deserved high demand.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Acevedo's multi-award-winning The Poet X (2018) established her as a must-read author, and her many fans and admirers will be eager to read this. Grades 8-12. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.
BookPage Reviews
Clap When You Land
Those who remember all too well the tragedy of September 11, 2001, may not recall another tragedy that occurred in its immediate aftermath. On November 12, American Airlines Flight 587, en route from New York City to the Dominican Republic, crashed in Queens, killing all 260 people on board, the vast majority of whom were of Dominican descent.
The tragic stories of the lives lost on board Flight 587 and those of the families left behind, as well as author Elizabeth Acevedo's own memories of trips to visit relatives in the Dominican Republic, inspired Clap When You Land. The book sees Acevedo return triumphantly to the novel-in-verse format of her multiple award-winning debut, The Poet X.
Sixteen-year-old Camino Rios is meeting her father at the Santo Domingo airport. He lives in the United States much of the year but spends summers in the Dominican Republic. Camino, whose mother died a decade earlier, dreams of moving to New York City for college and then medical school. She can't wait to finally be closer to her beloved father.
Thousands of miles away in New York City, Yahaira Rios has just said goodbye to her father, who supports her love of competitive chess and always encourages her to follow her dreams. Yahaira misses him when he returns to the Dominican Republic each summer, but this year, her feelings are more complicated. She's recently learned a secret about her father that she hasn't admitted to anyone.
Both Yahaira and Camino are on the cusp of a terrible loss—and of a profound discovery about their families and the surprising, sometimes uneasy connection between them.
Clap When You Land explores themes of heredity, class and privilege, as well as the complex, conflicted emotions the girls feel toward their birthplaces and homes. Acevedo handles all of these themes with a lyricism and sensitivity to language that make Camino's and Yahaira's struggles and joys, both individual and shared, all the more powerful.
Readers unaccustomed to verse narratives will quickly settle into the book's generally short stanzas and conversational tone. Passages that are more deliberately poetic in style, such as the description of a burial that uses short lines to make the text resemble a deep hole, or a scene of violence in which the verses—like the narrator's thoughts—grow increasingly fragmented, encourage readers to read slowly and even pause in order to fully experience both the characters' powerful emotions and Acevedo's tremendous skill at conveying them and transforming them into art.
Clap When You Land gets its title from the Dominican tradition of applauding when a plane touches down safely at its destination. By the story's end, readers will be ready to give Yahaira, Camino and Acevedo herself a standing ovation.
Copyright 2020 BookPage Reviews.Horn Book Guide Reviews
In this sharp and compelling verse novel (a 2020 Boston Globe-Horn Book honoree), sixteen-year-old Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic and dreams of medical school. Sixteen-year-old Yahaira Rios is a native New Yorker who plays competitive chess. Although the two girls share a last name, they are strangers. But after flight 1112 from New York City to the Dominican Republic crashes with the man they each called Papi on board, Camino and Yahaira learn of each other's existence. In two distinct voices, Acevedo (The Poet X, rev. 3/18; With the Fire on High, rev. 5/19) explores the rich inner lives of the sudden half-sisters as they grapple with their complicated feelings about their father and the secrets he kept. Yahaira narrates in stirring non-rhyming couplets; Camino in intense three-line stanzas. Moving toward their inevitable meeting, Yahaira feels like a spool of thread / that's been dropped to the ground...rolling undone / from the truth of this thing, while Camino wonders, If I find her / would I find a breathing piece / of myself I had not known / was missing? An author's note further explains the title of and inspiration for the novel, which was influenced by the tragic crash of flight AA587 out of New York that killed more than 260 people, most of them of Dominican descent, shortly after September 11, 2001. Copyright 2021 Horn Book Guide Reviews.
Horn Book Magazine Reviews
In this sharp and compelling verse novel (a 2020 Boston Globe-Horn Book honoree), sixteen-year-old Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic and dreams of medical school. Sixteen-year-old Yahaira Rios is a native New Yorker who plays competitive chess. Although the two girls share a last name, they are strangers. But after flight 1112 from New York City to the Dominican Republic crashes with the man they each called Papi on board, Camino and Yahaira learn of each other's existence. In two distinct voices, Acevedo (The Poet X, rev. 3/18; With the Fire on High, rev. 5/19) explores the rich inner lives of the sudden half-sisters as they grapple with their complicated feelings about their father and the secrets he kept. Yahaira narrates in stirring non-rhyming couplets; Camino in intense three-line stanzas. Moving toward their inevitable meeting, Yahaira feels like "a spool of thread / that's been dropped to the ground...rolling undone / from the truth of this thing," while Camino wonders, "If I find her / would I find a breathing piece / of myself I had not known / was missing?" An author's note further explains the title of and inspiration for the novel, which was influenced by the tragic crash of flight AA587 out of New York that killed more than 260 people, most of them of Dominican descent, shortly after September 11, 2001. Jennifer Hubert Swan July/August 2020 p.130 Copyright 2020 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews
Tackles family secrets, toxic masculinity, and socio-economic differences with incisive clarity and candor. Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic and yearns to go to Columbia University in New York City, where her father works most of the year. Yahaira Rios, who lives in Morningside Heights, hasn't spoken to her dad since the previous summer, when she found out he has another wife in the Dominican Republic. Their lives collide when this man, their dad, dies in an airplane crash with hundreds of other passengers heading to the island. Each protagonist grieves the tragic death of their larger-than-life father and tries to unravel the tangled web of lies he kept secret for almost 20 years. The author pays reverent tribute to the lives lost in a similar crash in 2001. The half sisters are vastly different—Yahaira is dark skinned, a chess champion who has a girlfriend; Camino is lighter skinned, a talented swimmer who helps her curandera aunt deliver neighborhood babies. Despite their differences, they slowly forge a tenuous bond. The book is told in alternating chapters wit h headings counting how many days have passed since the fateful event. Acevedo balances the two perspectives with ease, contrasting the girls' environments and upbringings. Camino's verses read like poetic prose, flowing and straightforward. Yahaira's sections have more breaks and urgent, staccato beats. Every line is laced with betrayal and longing as the teens struggle with loving someone despite his imperfections. A standing ovation. (Verse novel. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus 2020 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
At nearly 17, Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic with her aunt, where she dreams of attending medical school at Columbia University, near her father, whom she only sees for a few months each year. Skilled chess player Yahaira Rios, 16, lives with her Dominican parents in New York City, next door to her girlfriend, Dre. When Yahaira's father leaves for his annual summer trip to the D.R., the plane crashes, leaving no survivors and upending the lives of Yahaira and his other daughter, Camino. In the months following the crash, the girls, previously unknown to each other, discover their sisterhood—and their father's double life—and must come to terms with difficult truths about their parents. Returning to verse, Acevedo subtly, skillfully uses language and rhythm to give voice to the sisters' grief, anger, and uncertainty; Camino's introspective openness; and Yahaira's tendency toward order and leadership. Raw and emotional, Acevedo's exploration of loss packs an effective double punch, unraveling the aftermath of losing a parent alongside the realities of familial inheritance. Ages 14–up.