A review by bgg616
I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosin

4.0

This book about life in Valparaiso, Chile before, during and after the military coup is written for 10-14 year olds. This is tricky ground. How can an author portray violent events in a measured way. The author fictionalizes events to an extent that the book is not historical fiction. The president of Chile who dies at the beginning of the coup is renamed, and the General behind the coup is referred to as the Dictator. The main character, Celeste, is 11 years old, and live on top of one of Valparaiso's many hills with her parents, who are doctors, her grandmother, an Austrian Jewish World War II refugee, and her nanny housekeeper, a Mapuche Indian. As the coup progresses, Celeste is sent to Maine to live with her aunt and her parents go into hiding. In this novel, the timeline of historical events is greatly shortened and altered. There is a bit of magical realism thrown in at the end, but perhaps even Celeste's escape to Maine is magical realism. How does an 11-year-old girl fly to the United States during a coup, gain entrance to the country and attend school with an aunt her supports herself as a tarot card reader? Her stay in Maine does provide readers an opportunity to consider the lives of refugee children. Celeste befriends a brother and sister from Korea in her school, also refugees, it seems (though unexplained).
What I appreciated the most were the details of life in Valparaiso, Chilean culture, and constant references to one of my favorite poets Pablo Neruda. Agosín and her family moved to the US just before the Chilean coup. Like Celeste, her family is Jewish. I imagine she chose Valparaiso as a setting because the port was the staging ground for Naval battleships, and because Valparaiso is a beautiful city, and a Unesco World Heritage site.