First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht – the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertrasport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother have boarded another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Duran, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother.

Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers – and never stop dreaming.

Happy Friday everyone! Another workweek is in the books. Thankfully, I haven’t encountered many challenges at the office this week although I had things on my plate. I am just happy closing the workweek without much to worry about, at least where my work is concerned. I hope you had the same and that you are ending the workweek on a high note. I hope you were able to accomplish all your tasks for the week. Otherwise, I hope you will be able to find the time to rest and relax during the weekend. Still, my prayer goes to those who are caught in the crossfire in Israel and Palestine. It is my fervent wish that the two states will find a peaceful resolution to their decades-old conflict.

Oh. Today is the twentieth day of October, which means we are nearly a third over the month. This also means that we are inching closer to the inevitable end of 2023. In a couple of weeks, we will be welcoming a new year. How time flies. How has the year been, so far? I hope it has been kind and that it will even be kinder as it closes out. I hope that your hard work will get repaid before the year ends. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit. Before diving into the weekend, let me cap the workweek with a fresh First Impression Friday. My literary journey across Latin America is about to come to a close. It has been two years since I last hosted one. It has been a magical journey, as expected. I am a little sad that it will be a short stay as I will be focusing on books in my reading challenges for the rest of the year.

My foray into Latin American literature has brought me to a very familiar name. Chilean writer Isabel Allende has certainly earned a fan in me, starting with her first work I read, The House of the Spirits which I read back in 2018; it also happens to be her debut novel. Nearly five years later, I am reading my fourth novel by the highly esteemed Chilean wordsmith, her latest novel, The Winds Knows My Name. I didn’t even realize that she was releasing a new work until I checked the highly anticipated book releases for the year. I was actually conflicted on whether I should read this book or Of Love and Shadows. In the end, I decided to read The Wind Knows My Name as it is her more recent novel.

The Wind Knows My Name commenced in Vienna. The year was 1938. Adolf Hitler commenced a plan that would inevitably lead to war. He annexed Austria, thus, extending his policies to the country of his birth. With the Nazis slowly wreaking havoc, Austrian Jews were scrambling to flee Austria. The first chapter of the novel captured how the Nazis were instilling fear amongst the denizens of Vienna. Among the Austrian Jews who were being zeroed in by the Nazis were the Adlers. With the situation becoming dire with each passing day, Rachel, the matriarch, enlisted the help of family friends to assist her in smuggling her son, Samuel, from Vienna. Rudolph, her husband, was a violinist. He disappeared following the 1938 pogrom known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.

I have so far covered the parts laying out the landscape of one half of the story. I realize that Samuel will be successfully transported from Nazi-occupied states to the relative safety of the United Kingdom. It is thanks to the novel’s synopsis that I know this. I want to find out how he will make it through the ordeal and how he will grow in a world bereft of his parents. I also know that the novel has a second half, with this half dealing with the story of Anita Diaz, another child. The year was 2019. The Trump administration has implemented the highly controversial family separation policy for those who have crossed the border between Mexico and the United States. Anita was among the children forcefully separated from their parents.

The story of Anita, I foresee, will be laden with political discourses. I am curious about how Allende will explore this subject, especially since I just finished Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive, yet another highly esteemed book that grappled with the same seminal and sensitive subject. I hope that Allende, with her storytelling skillset, will also be able to provide a glimpse into how the family separation policy has impacted the children and families. It is, certainly, a position that is unenviable. Nevertheless, it would be great to hear from the voices that history tends to mute, or worse, forget.

The novel’s time device is very much Allende. All of her books I read cover a significant period of time, with the story crawling through the decades. Anyway, the book is rather slim, and with Allende’s accessible writing, finishing the book over the weekend is within the realm of possibility. How about you fellow reader? What book or books are you taking with you for the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy them. Again, happy weekend everyone!