Mexique: A Refugee Story from the Spanish Civil War

by María José Ferrada, Ana Penyas (Illustrator)

Overview

On May 27, 1937, over four hundred children sailed for Morelia, Mexico, fleeing the violence of the Spanish Civil War. Home was no longer safe, and Mexico was welcoming refugees by the thousands. Each child packed a suitcase and boarded the Mexique, expecting to return home in a few months. This was just a short trip, an extra-long summer vacation, they thought. But the war did not end in a few months, and the children stayed, waiting and wondering, in Mexico. When the war finally ended, a dictator—the Fascist Francisco Franco—ruled Spain. Home was even more dangerous than before. 

This moving book invites readers onto the Mexique with the “children of Morelia,” many of whom never returned to Spain during Franco’s almost forty-year regime. Poignant and poetically told, Mexique opens important conversations about hope, resilience, and the lives of displaced people in the past and today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802855459
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	10/27/2020
Series:	Stories from Latin America (SLA)
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	632,694
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	500L (what's this?)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

María José Ferrada is a Chilean journalist and writer. She is a recipient of the Municipal Prize of Literature of Santiago, as well as the Academy Award from the Chilean Academy of Language. In 2018 she received the Hispanic-American Prize for poetry for children. She currently works as the children's editor of Chilean Memory, a digital resource center of the National Library of Chile.

Ana Penyas has a degree in fine arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. In 2018, she was the first woman to win Spain's National Comic Award. She has also received the Josep Toutain Prize for Best New Talent at the International Comic Fair of Barcelona.

Raised in Valencia, she now lives in Madrid. Visit Ana's website at anapenyas.es or follow her on Instagram @ana_penyas.

Editorial Reviews

09/28/2020

“Three or four months./ Like summer vacation, only longer.” That is what the narrator’s parents say when a child is placed on the Mexique, a ship bound for the Mexican city of Morelia during the Spanish Civil War. Working in a somber palette of black and white with accents of faded red, illustrator Penyas draws in childlike art, sometimes over photographed images of the 456 children aboard, “all children of Spanish Republicans,” with expressive strokes and smudges. On board, older children minister to younger (“sisters/ we didn’t have before”). Ferrada (Tweet!) creates powerful metaphors (“War is a huge hand that shakes you/ and throws you onto a ship”) and expresses the children’s realization when they arrive in Mexico: “We think that the war stayed behind. But it’s not true—we bring the war in our suitcases.” The story ends there, but journalist Ferrada’s detailed afterword tells the grim truth: safer in Mexico throughout the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, many of the children never went home. It’s a sobering contribution to the history of Spanish-speaking people in North America, and a memorial to a little-known group of refugees. Ages 7–10. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2020-08-18
On May 27, 1937, 456 children were evacuated from Spain during the Spanish Civil War. This book depicts their trans-Atlantic voyage to Mexico.

Text and illustrations work hand in hand to tell their story. Adults carrying bundles and escorting children arrive at the port where the children are to embark. As the children board, the adults hug them tight. Through the voice of one of the children, readers learn of their fears and expectations. They see the older ones reassuring the younger ones, especially at night. They observe their songs and games, sad re-creations of the war scenes they have witnessed. They experience the voyage, which never seems to end. And finally the children arrive: “We move forward. We think that the war stayed behind. But it’s not true—we bring the war in our suitcases.” By focusing on the children (all depicted as White) and their feelings, the story of their journey becomes the sad, universal one of so many refugee children past and present. Sepia-toned images with the occasional touch of muted reds convey the grimness of the experience. The afterword informs readers the children arrived in Mexico with the expectation their stay would be short and they would soon reunite with their families back home. Little did they know this would be a permanent exile, and most of them would never see their families again.

Specific yet universal in its narration, this makes the refugee experience accessible to young readers. (Picture book. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews