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Different: A Story of the Spanish Civil War by Monica Montanes

Title: Different: A Story of the Spanish Civil War

Author: Monica Montanes

Translator: Lawrence Schimel

Illustrator: Eva Sanchez Gomez

Publisher: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers (USA)

Date Published: 2022

Format: Hardback

Genre:

Book Category: Fiction

Age Range: 6-8

Original Title: First published in Spanish as Los distintos, Ediciones Ekare, Spain, 2020

Country of Origin: Spain

Different: A Story of the Spanish Civil War

by Monica Montanes
Age Range: 6-8

Different: A Story of the Spanish Civil War “Life can change suddenly and without warning. I know because it happened to me” says nine-year-old Paco one of the narrators in the opening line of this book. From 1936 to 1939 the Spanish Civil War raged across Spain between the Nationalists led by Francisco Franco and the Republicans. When fascist dictator Franco and his Falange party declared victory, the persecution began. Anyone who had once opposed him was in danger.

This dark chapter in Spain’s history is seen through the eyes of Paco and his seven-year-old sister Socorro who shares the narration. Their father, a Republican or “Rojo” has had to flee Spain because of his political beliefs and this has forced his family into a secretive existence. Paco must leave his childhood behind and become the “man of the house”. As a result, life becomes very hard for the siblings and their mother as they must find ingenious ways to survive the constant surveillance and scarcity of food. Paco is always hungry and fantasizes about stealing a classmate's sandwich as his mother is unable to have a ration book because she is the wife of a Rojo while Socorro doesn’t like eating and never has an appetite. When Socorro wants to leave the school she detests, she sings the propaganda songs of the Falange party that the nuns have taught her at the top of her voice to persuade her mother to allow her to change schools. And when Paco is asked by his French teacher what his father’s occupation is he is forced to lie.

Over eight long years and with only five letters from their father, Paco’s hopes of change fade. But a final letter from Venezuela brings good news when his father announces he has a job and has obtained emigration papers for the family. Now teenagers, the two narrators and their mother embark on a long journey to start a new life.

Different won a Bachelder Award Honor for 2023 and it’s easy to see why. Spanish author Mónica Montañés’s well-structured story, eloquently translated by Lawrence Schimel, captures the perspective of the two siblings as they alternate their first-person narrative. She cleverly shows the passage of time through Paco as he laments the lack of correspondence from an absent father and his optimism turns to pessimism when he realises that nothing is going to change once WWII has ended with Franco’s rule more entrenched than before having wiped out any opposition. Montañés also shows the sibling wonder, once settled in Venezuela, of having plenty of food, sweet multicoloured drinks and constant electricity.

The final paragraph encapsulates the title of the book – “Little by little, we adapted to living in Venezuela and being foreigners. We were still different from everyone else, and that was noticeable in our accents. But at least being different had stopped being something dangerous for us.”

The soft-palette lined and watercolour illustrations by Eva Sánchez Gómez are beautifully executed and full of expression ranging from sombre for the earlier images depicting the hardship during the civil war to the use of more vibrant colour as the family departs Spain for their new life. Gomez also manages to incorporate some humour too with an exaggerated image of Paco’s imagined sandwich theft or the larger-than-life French teacher towering over the children.

This is an important era in Spain’s history and Different provides a lot of background information from a publisher’s note at the beginning of the book which explains the context of the story to further detail provided in the end notes together with a timeline of the Spanish Civil War, a glossary and further reading.

An exceptionally powerful and moving book.