LETTERS FROM CUBA

Narrator Rebecca Soler effectively voices the diverse characters in Behar's story of Jewish immigrants in Cuba on the cusp of WWII. Soler deftly manages Yiddish and Spanish words and phrases as 11-year-old Esther joins her father in a village outside Havana, where they work to earn money to send for the rest of their family in Poland. As Esther recounts in letters to her sister, she makes friends with villagers whose backgrounds range from Spanish settlers to formerly enslaved Santería practitioners and Chinese shop owners. Soler's gentle, emotionally connected performance showcases Esther's joy in discovering new sights and sounds, as well the tension of dealing with those espousing Nazism, even in Cuba. A quiet, thoughtful production of little-known history for young listeners. S.G. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2020]