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Collection
Publication
Description
One day Isabel finds a box in her mother's closet and, inside, a photograph of a girl dressed in old-fashioned clothes. Ten-year-old Bel is enchanted to discover that the girl is her great-grandmother Beatrice, her Bisa Bea, and that she and her great-grandmother look very much alike. Bel convinces her mother to let her borrow the treasured photo promising to look after it carefully. To her dismay, by the time she returns home from school, the picture is missing. But something unusual has happened. Suddenly it is as if Bisa Bea is alive inside her, telling Bel what life was like when she was a girl. Bel loves hearing the stories about the old days -- until Bisa Bea starts to tell her how to behave. Bel learns that her great-grandmother lived in a very different time, when girls were expected to be proper young ladies.… (more)
Local notes
Gr 4-6-Bel, not yet 13, is entranced by a photo of her great-grandmother as a girl, whom she resembles. She carries the picture close to her heart and experiences Bisa Bea as living inside her, telling about life at the turn of the 20th century in Brazil. Trouble starts when the woman begins to offer her opinion about how girls should act-they should dress well and be quiet and coy around boys. When great-grandmother actually manipulates a situation to test the chivalry of Bel's boyfriend, the girl loses patience. Now the voice of her future great-granddaughter begins to advise her as well, but Bel decides to control her own life. The final chapter features a new character, a classmate recently returned to Brazil from political exile with his family in various countries. He tells stories his grandfather told about the days when slavery was accepted in the country. The writing is mainly light and breezy, and is interspersed with black-and-white illustrations. The ideas of recognizing the past, caring about the future, and being yourself in the present are skillfully integrated into a familiar picture of a present-day child's home and school life. The ending is a bit preachy and forced, but balanced out by Bel's spunkiness and the light humor throughout.-Jean Gaffney, Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library, Miamisburg, OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.