Armando and the Blue Tarp School
by Edith Hope Fine and Judith Pinkerton Josephson; illustrated by Hernan Sosa
Lee & Low Books
When Stephen Colbert coined truthiness, he no doubt meant more cynical manipulations than this sweet, uplifting story about an eager boy in a squalid shantytown who yearns for some schooling. But going into it, I had that ol' gut feeling that the teacher and his tarp were likely real, and I assumed the boy to also be real and not a "composite," whatever that may mean.
My disappointment was keen, and grew more so reading end notes that raised as many questions as they answered.
The composite creation called Armando lives on the edge of a Mexican trash dump, where he's expected to join his father in digging for usable cast-offs and food. It's a sad, dreary existence, but Armando steals time each day to gather with other kids on a tarp spread by an American, Senor David, who teaches them reading, math and art.
Armando, filled with youthful optimism, hopes that even this meager schooling might one day lead to a better life.
It does, but not until a fire sweeps through the shantytown. Armando's drawing of the blaze ends up in an important newspaper, and a donor is found to build a school.
As the end notes explain, the authors encountered teacher David Lynch in 1985 while freelancing for the Los Angeles Times, and his school now has four walls and no shortage of Armandos. They decided to build a fictional story around his school. But were there no true stories among those amazing and brave families to chronicle?
And if their original article led to the anonymous donor, why did they need to invent the fire and the boy's artwork of it?
Why, in fact, invent the boy? Did they feel that having a dramatic character arc overruled the readers' yearning to believe? Were they aiming for some Greater Truth?
It's impossible not to draw parallels with Mia's Story by Michael Foreman, who also met a hardscrabble family living off a landfill, albeit in Chile, that also underwent a transformation. Foreman clearly took liberties in his second-hand recounting.
Foreman insisted Mia was a real person and I had no reason to doubt it, however fanciful his re-telling. Hints of magical realism could be interpreted as superstition or wishful thinking, but no such leaps of logic seem acceptable when it's the character, and not the story, that is pieced together.
Perhaps the problem's my "gut" and not the storytelling, but a tale that plays on expectations and emotions without being up front still feels like a manipulation.
Rating: *\*\
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