Ludelphia Bennett is a strong-willed ten-year-old, and boy, do you want her on your side. You especially want her on your quilting team. She likes to tell stories with her bits of fabric, and while she tries to save her pneumonia-struck mother on what might be her deathbed, Ludelphia stuffs her fabric scraps and her precious needle into the pocket of her burlap-sack dress so she can cross the river on the barge that’s linked to a cable to the other side of the river. Her goal is to get to the town of Camden, Alabama, just across the river from Gee’s Bend, and fetch the doctor who might save Ludelphia’s mother’s life. Unfortunately, the amount of rain Gee’s Bend has just gotten makes the river so high and so fast it snaps the cable and sends Ludelphia rushing downriver and knocking her overboard. Along her way to the town, the girl runs across the mean old woman, Mrs. Cobb, who is convinced that the people in Gee’s Bend are responsible for her niece’s and her husband’s deaths. And since her husband was the owner of the land the people of Gee’s Bend farm, she feels she has the right to take all the land and everything the people own as payback. She’s convinced that Ludelphia and her neighbor, Etta Mae Phillpot, are witches who killed her niece and husband. The story is well written, historically accurate, and spellbinding. Quilt makers, in particular, will relate to Ludelphia’s deep love of telling stories with fabric and with the calmness quilting brings to her soul.
BIBLIO:2010, New South Books, Ages 10 and Up, $11.95.
If you ever want to see a tiny human dynamo, meet Anechy Padron who immigrated from Cuba. (She and her illustrator are pictured above.) She immigrated with the help of her mother and brother, who were living in Tampa at the time.
While in Cuba, Anechy wrote a children’s book about a Chihuahua, Patti, who meets a feral cat, Barci, that lives in the “City of Cat.” But now that Anechy lives in the U.S.A., she thought it would be nice to write the story in English as well.
The story is charming and well-written. Children will relate to the animals and cheer them on. And the children will learn how to be better people and how to care about all creatures. And they will also learn a bit about life in Cuba.
Interview Questions
Please tell us how to pronounce your name. I believe you told me that Anechy is a nickname. What is your full name?
My full name is Adianez Padrón Ramirez, but my brother gave me the nickname of Anechy, and it stuck forever. A friend created a little game to pronounce my nickname, you say Aww(yawning), point at your knee, and finally you sneeze. Aw-knee-chis!
Did you grow up in Havana? Or in another part of the island?
I was born in Santiago de Cuba, on the east end of the island. Then, my parents moved to Holguin for a year and a half. But at age four and a half we moved to Havana, where I lived for 25 years, until I came to the States. My parents were in the military. They moved a lot.
Where did you go to college? In Cuba or America?
I studied accounting for five years at the University of Havana. That wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted journalism, language, anything that had to do with writing and arts. But my mom wasn’t supportive then about my being an artist. While in college, I went to every literary event or class I could find. Often times people would find it odd that I was there while studying accounting.
How did you get to the United States of America?
Long story. We would need a whole new interview. In sum, I followed my family. My brother rafted out of Cuba in 2000. In 2008, he became a U.S. Citizen and applied for family reunion. My mom was granted a visa in 2009, but I had stay in Cuba for one year before I got my visa in 2010. It was a long process to get out of Cuba. Having a U.S. Permanent Visa wasn’t enough for the regime. In 2010, there was a law in Cuba that I had to give all my properties back to the Cuban government, and I had to pay 550 dollars for a “white card,” which I called the freedom card.
Have you always been a storyteller?
I was always an avid reader. As a small child, I couldn’t go to bed without a story. But I wouldn’t fall asleep until the end. My dad always fell asleep before. Then, I’d walk out of the bedroom with the book and tell Mom: “Mami, papi se durmió” Mom, daddy fell asleep. At age 10, I was reading Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant. I started writing poetry and short stories in 6th grade when I was a member of a book club with five other girls. I couldn’t stop writing after that.
What compelled you to write this book?
When I lived in Havana, I was babysitting a 3-year-old boy named Richy. (He just turned 18 years old.) I was also performing for children as a clown and a puppeteer. I was always writing rhymes and little stories for my live shows. One day, Richy and I were walking Isabella a.k.a. Patti in the story, and a little cat came to us. She was very friendly for a street cat. And even more surprising, my chihuahua liked her. I named the cat Barcina. Richy and I started dreaming and making up stories about this cat. I brought Barcina home but she did not like it. So, I started writing about her and imagining what my chihuahua and Barcina would be saying about me, and the neighbors. Then, I added my friends and their dog to the story. Richy and I loved this fantasy. Richy got me into this book, and I love it.
What are the names of the dog & cat?
The heroes of my book are Patti and Barci, a spoiled Chihuahua and a street cat.
How did you come up with the names?
My chihuahua had many nicknames or terms of endearment, one of them was “puti” actually not a very nice word in Spanish, but it is endearing to a dog in Cuba. For the book I changed it to Pati. When I started editing the book, I added another T to honor my friend Patti, who helped me get my new dog Maya. Barci is short for Barcina, which means mutt for cats (Moggy).
In the story, the cat lives in a place called the City of Cats. Is there such a place in Cuba? In Havana? Do other Cuban cities and towns have such gathering places for the feral cats? Are they monitored by humans?
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I lived in a 12-story Russian building in the newest part of Havana. We had a huge basement where the feral cats slept at night. I called the basement The City of Cats, it was a damp, dirty, and flea-infested place. I felt bad for those cats. There are places like that all over Havana. Very sad. On the other hand, they kept the mice population under control. In the process of re-writing the story I changed the setting from an ugly looking neighborhood to beautiful Old Havana, a city which beauty always makes me cry. I put the City under the Cathedral, and the rest is history.
There was a group of ladies in my neighborhood who collected school cafeteria leftovers to feed the cats. They captured injured cats, vetted them, and then found homes for them. But this was just done by good-hearted ladies, there is no organization in Cuba that helps. There is a non-profit from Canada called The Spanky Project. https://spankyproject.org/. They help street animals in Cuba by spaying/neutering/deworming them, and then either release or get them adopted. I learned a little bit more about them on my last trip to Cuba this past January.
I love that you are giving children the chance to learn a new language. It will bring the peoples of our world closer together, don’t you think?
I agree with you. I started learning English at age 11 and French in my early twenties. That opened the world to me. It has made it possible for me to travel, meet people, learn from others, read books that are not available in Spanish, and, mainly, understand that far from different, we humans have more in common than we think.
I know you write short stories as well as books. What is your next short story? Or have you adapted part of this novel into a short story for the upcoming Next Chapter Literary Magazine which has the theme of friends?
Sarah, you gave me a great idea. I was trying to come up with something to write for the magazine. The latest thing I’ve written is the sixteen-character descriptions for books one and two. Yes, I forgot to mention I already have a second part for “The Adventures of Patti and Barci: The City of Cats.” The next book is “The Havana Forest.” I plan to write several books for this series, I just love these characters and I have so much fun with them.
Thanks for visiting my blog, Anechy. I look forward to reading the next saga of Patti and Barci.
Feel free to contact Anechy at anechy7@gmail.com for more information about her book and when it will be ready for you to read.
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