The Head of the Saint by Socorro Acioli
2016; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 69; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2016.0121
ISSN1558-6766
Autores ResumoReviewed by: The Head of the Saint by Socorro Acioli Karen Coats Acioli, Socorro The Head of the Saint; tr. from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn. Delacorte, 2016 [192p] Library ed. ISBN 978-0-553-53794-9 $19.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-553-53792-5 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-553-53793-2 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 8-12 When Samuel turns fourteen, his dying mother requests that after her death he travel from his home in Juazeiro, Brazil, to the town of Candeia to find his estranged father and grandmother. He faithfully complies, embarking on a grueling sixteen-day walk to Candeia, but his grandmother shoos him away into the forest; there he stumbles into the enormous, abandoned, hollow concrete head of a poorly engineered statue of St. Anthony, the failure of which has brought a curse upon the slowly dying town. From inside the head, the skeptical Samuel hears the prayers of several women to the saint. He teams up with Francisco, a boy who sneaks into the head to read porn, to hatch a plan to make money off the knowledge Samuel gleans from the women’s prayers. Their plan works spectacularly, and soon the town experiences a social and economic resurrection due to the local miracles. Samuel and Francisco are charming opportunists, bilking the faithful with pragmatic, amiable cheer. Acioli handles her subject with a light hand, playing out her themes of the mysteries of faith, the harm of betrayal, the follies of hubris, and the simple goodness of friendship with gentle wit and lyrical description. Indeed, all of humanity and no small measure of godliness are on display in this translated Brazilian import that evokes a sense of wonder and treats readers to a fascinating glimpse of a setting and worldview seldom seen in Anglophone youth literature. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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