The Maps of Memory: Return to Butterfly Hill

by Marjorie Agosin, Lee White (Illustrator)

Overview

In this “captivating and exquisite” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) sequel to the Pura Belpré Award–winning I Lived on Butterfly Hill, thirteen-year-old Celeste Marconi returns home to Chile and after the dictator is removed, and makes it her mission to rebuild her community and find those who are still missing.

During Celeste Marconi’s time in Maine, thoughts of the brightly colored cafes and salty air of Valparaíso, Chile, carried her through difficult, homesick days. Now, she’s finally returned home to find the horrible years of the dictatorship has left its mark on her once beautiful and vibrant community.

Determined to help her beloved Butterfly Hill, she encourages and joins her neighbors in fighting to regain what they’ve lost. But more than anything, Celeste wishes she could find her best friend, Lucilla, who was one of thousands of people who “disappeared” during the dictatorship, who hasn’t been heard from in over a year. She joins protests for information, but the trail seems cold—until she receives a letter that changes everything.

This sets Celeste off on her biggest adventure yet, where she’ll uncover more heartbreaking truths of what her country has endured. But every small victory makes a difference, and even if Butterfly Hill can never be what it was, moving forward and healing can make it something even better.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481469029
Publisher:	Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Publication date:	09/21/2021
Series:	The Butterfly Hill Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	605,485
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.62(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Marjorie Agosín is the Pura Belpré Award–winning author of I Lived on Butterfly Hill and The Maps of Memory. Raised in Chile, her family moved to the United States to escape the horrors of the Pinochet takeover of their country. She has received the Letras de Oro Prize for her poetry, and her writings about—and humanitarian work for—women in Chile have been the focus of feature articles in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Ms. magazine. She has also won the Latino Literature Prize for her poetry. She is a Spanish professor at Wellesley College.

Lee White lives with his wife and their three crazy cats in Portland, Oregon, and you can visit him online at LeeWhiteIllustration.com.

Read an Excerpt

An Unexpected Visitor

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2020

Gr 5 Up—Six years after the release of the Pura Belpré Award–winning novel, I Lived on Butterfly Hill, Agosín takes readers back to Valparaíso, Chile, in a sequel that attempts to shed further light on life during and after a dictatorship. Set months after the last book ends, readers are transported back to the world of 14-year-old Celeste Marconi, an adventurous though somewhat naive heroine determined to promote literacy, and to find her family and friends who were abducted by the government. Celeste was in exile in Maine for much of the dictator's rule. Now that she has returned to Chile, readers see a country rebuilding through Celeste's first-person narration. Though the series is a historical fiction account of the Pinochet regime, names and dates are not mentioned in either book, and the style feels more contemporary in the sequel. Agosín has taken the liberty of compressing the time line, so readers may benefit from a nonfiction pairing to add depth and details that would anchor this story in time. As a sequel, this title relies heavily on its predecessor for character development; minor inconsistencies make the two books feel disjointed. While White's cartoon style, pen-and-ink drawings feel quite young, the descriptions of torture and allusions to sexual violence are better suited for older readers. VERDICT Unfortunately, this sequel does little to advance the story line Agosín created, and it misses an opportunity to teach young readers about Chilean history.—Monisha Blair, Rutgers Univ., NJ

School Library Journal

★ 2020-07-14
Following the events in Pura Belpré Award–winning I Lived on Butterfly Hill (2014), 14-year-old Celeste Marconi reckons with the repercussions of a regime of terror.

Life in Valparaíso, Chile, is both familiar and disorienting. After sheltering for three years in Maine with her Tía Graciela while her country suffered at the hands of a dictator reminiscent of Augusto Pinochet, Celeste is eager to return to normal. But how can life be normal when her best friend, Lucila, is among the disappeared? As Celeste learns of the torture her mother and others endured as well as the deprivation many residents of her jewellike city beside the sea live in, she sheds her innocence, expressing anger, grief, survivor’s guilt, and, ultimately, determination to act. With old friends Cristóbal and Marisol and new arrival from France Genevieve, Celeste organizes a literacy program for the city’s poorest residents. A school assignment to interview loved ones of disappeared classmates becomes the inspiration for creating memory maps—physical reminders to keep their spirits alive. But Celeste hopes for more: She and Cristóbal found Papá, after all—perhaps Lucila is alive and maybe even Natalia, the little girl she’s been assigned to research? Charming prose and cheerful pen-and-ink illustrations soften details of a painful and divisive history. Celeste—loving, impetuous, and fiercely loyal—and her family and community are quirky and appealing. Richly textured elements creating a deep and magical sense of place are woven unobtrusively throughout.

Captivating and exquisite. (Fiction. 11-15)

Kirkus Reviews