Sequel to Black Radishes, it starts right where that one left off, with Gustave and his family on the ship arriving to America. Gustave is eagerly watching for the first sight of land with his cousin on deck. They’re disappointed that the ship docks in Baltimore and they have to take a train to New York, where relatives are going to help them get settled in their new country. It’s very exciting and confusing for Gustave. Frustrating that he can’t understand the language, yet his grasp is a bit better than his parents’, so they depend on him to translate and ask questions for them. Also frustrating and disappointing that his cousin goes to live with a (relatively) well-to-do aunt in a different part of the city, while his family has to make do in a small, shabby one-room apartment while they struggle to find work and save up for a better place. Gustave immediately starts school, while his parents attend night school to learn English, after long days working menial jobs. His father had owned a textile business back in France, so it is degrading to have to work as a janitor now, and that barely supports his family. Gustave faces the difficulties of school. Some teachers and peers are patient with his inability to understand, others not so much. There’s one teacher that continually treats him like he’s unintelligent, which isn’t the case at all. Some kids tease, or try to trip him up with words and phrases he doesn’t know yet. He’s often quick to manage a comeback though, or assess the situation through reading the faces and body language of those around him, even if the idioms and jokes are over his head. He makes friends with a black girl, and is confused when others mock or outright insult and shame them for being together. Pretty soon he realizes that America isn’t all about justice, freedom and equality like he’d hoped. Even here some people are treated unfairly or discriminated against. His family, because they are poor and immigrants. His friend, because she is colored. But amidst all this, he does find strength and new opportunities, and friendships, and ways to help his family succeed. For a long time he feels conflicted about his ties to France, loyalty to his home country, while at the same time trying to embrace being American. At the end of the novel, he finally accepts that this is going to be his new home, and more than just adjust, he has to adapt and accept it all, to forge a new future for himself. That they will probably never go back to France.
A lot of this story is based on experiences the author’s father went through, as an immigrant during WWII. She details in the back how much was drawn from that. Also from accounts by other authors, journals and biographies, who lived through that time period in New York. It has a very authentic feel, in my opinion. I liked this one better than Black Radishes, I felt I could relate a bit more to the main character’s situation and difficulties. Forgot to say earlier- he also had a lot of worry about what happened to loved ones left behind in Europe, and couldn’t ask his friend back home in France about it, because their letters were read by censors. But found a way to communicate in a kind of code they created, and had some relief at the end, learning that at least one person he missed and feared for, was deemed alive and safe.
I really picked this book up initially because it has skating in the title, but that doesn’t come into the story until the very last chapter. It was at a special event, a rally that included collections of tin cans for the war effort, patriotic songs performed by schoolchildren, and a temporary skating rink build of wood planks near the waterfront. It sounds like all the kids took to skating immediately (I laughed, but also pictured it might be so, some people just have a knack for it) and the description of the different games and skating activities the rink announcer led them through was interesting. Some kids tried to bully Gustave there, but he stood up to them and had support from his friends. Their game of crack-the-whip on skates sounded very dangerous though!
Borrowed from the public library.
