A review by bibliobrandie
I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosín

2.0

I think the writing and the characters in this book are great. The problem I have with this book is that the author changed the names and time frame of Chilean's dictatorship. I don't understand why she did this and it makes me question whether or not it can be considered historical fiction if the real life characters are made up. This is unfortunate because most middle school students don't know much about Chile or the dictator Pinochet and might assume they learned some history from reading this, which would be false. I think if she had made this an unnamed country, it would have been better. Or if she would have just stuck with the actual historical events.

For true accounts of Chile read Allende (Long Petal to the Sea and Paula are my two faves) and the poetry of Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. For middle grade, there is a great book of poetry that just came out called Niños: Poems for the Lost Children of Chile by María José Ferrada.