Additional information
by William Durbin (Author)
Thirteen-year-old Bella wants to be a lector just like her grandfather, who sits on a special platform in the cigar factory, reading great novels, the newspaper, and union news to workers as they roll the cigars. Being a lector is an important role in their immigrant community. But the hard times of the Depression mean that Bella must go to work in the factory; her hope of getting the education a lector needs seems impossible. Meanwhile, the factory workers and owners clash. People lose jobs, innocent workers are arrested, and the Ku Klux Klan prowls the area. And then there are those amazing new radios showing up all over town. Could the radio take the place of the lector? Bella must decide her own future and help her people preserve their history. Bella's lively, warmhearted story captures the color and flavor of Ybor City as it explores an intriguing part of our American history.
Author Biography
William Durbin was born in Minneapolis and lives on Lake Vermilion at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. He and his wife, Barbara, have two grown children. A former teacher, Durbin has published biographies of Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer, as well as several books for young readers, among them The Broken Blade, Wintering, Song of Sampo Lake, and Blackwater Ben. The Broken Blade won the Great Lakes Book Award for Children's Books and the Minnesota Book Award for Young Adult Fiction.
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