Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

A couple of years ago, Elizabeth Acevedo won ALL the awards for her incredible novel The Poet X.  Clap When You Land is the third book we get from her, and it is another beautiful story.  It won't surprise me one bit to see this one take home a bunch of awards as well.  Like The Poet X this one is also told in verse.  Acevedo's words are beautiful and poignant as she tells the story of two sisters, worlds apart, who never knew the other existed until their father tragically passes away.  This is a story about grief and pain, but also one of forgiveness and understanding.  It is a novel about family and the sometimes unseen bonds that hold them together.

Clap When You Land is the story of Camino and Yahaira, two sisters who don't even know the other exists.  But when their father dies in an airplane crash, they soon discover their common link.  As both mourn the passing of their father, and the things he left with them, they have to face the reality that he may not have been the man they always thought he was.  And when Yahaira comes to the Dominican Republic to bury her dad, she meets her sister for the first time.  While both often want to be angry with each other, they realize that they are not the real target of their own anger and grief.  They are able to see their father reflected in each other and find the bond that ties them together may be much stronger than they ever could have imagined.  Through her beautiful words, Elizabeth Acevedo is able to give the reader a story of two sisters who are able to build a bridge that spans so much more than the ocean that has always separated them.  

From Amazon:

In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…

In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.

Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.