If I Could Fly: With Characters from an Island Like You

If I Could Fly is a standalone novel based on characters introduced in Judith Ortiz Cofer's bestselling short story collection, An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio, which won the inaugural Pura Belpré Award.

Fifteen-year-old Doris is used to taking care of herself. Her musician parents have always spent more time singing in nightclubs than watching after her. But when her ailing mother goes home to Puerto Rico to get well and pursue a singing career there, and her father finds a new girlfriend, Doris is more alone than she's ever been.

Disconnected from her family and her best friends, who are intertwined in terrifying relationships with a violent classmate, Doris finds refuge in taking care of homing pigeons on her apartment building's roof. As Doris tries to make sense of it all, she learns that, just like the pigeons, she might have to fly far distances before she finds out where she belongs.

Author: Judith Ortiz Cofer
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
Published: 05/24/2011
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.66h x 6.26w x 0.79d
ISBN: 9780374335175

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.3
Point Value: 7
Interest Level: Middle Grade Plus
Quiz #/Name: 144264 / If I Could Fly


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2011
Horn Book Magazine 05/01/2011 pg. 84
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 06/01/2011
Booklist 05/15/2011 pg. 46
Voice of Youth Advocates 06/01/2011 - Recommended - Better Than Most
School Library Journal 06/01/2011 pg. 112
Kirkus Best Young-Adult Books 12/01/2011 pg. 2223

About the Author

Judith Ortiz Cofer is a native of Puerto Rico. She is a poet, essayist, and novelist whose most recent book for young readers is Call Me Maria: A Novel in Letters, Poems, and Prose. She is the Regents and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.

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