The Smell of Old Lady Perfume

I came across this book when looking at lists of award winning books for young adults. The title immediately caught my attention, and its several Texas awards made me put it at the top of my "to read" pile. Claudia Guadalupe Martinez does a wonderful job of leading the reader into the life of Chela Gonzalez, who is just starting 6th grade in El Paso, Texas. She speaks fluent Spanish and English, mostly likes school and wonders what happened with her best friend Nora, who now seems completely captivated by the popular girls and is all about boys, clothes and fitting in. She is sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful, and always spot-on as a realistic middle schooler in a Texas border town. Like many 6th graders, Nora worries about her developing body, a topic the author handles with insight and sensitivity. She also faces her father's sudden and serious health problems, which bring big changes to her family. I liked this book a lot. It deserves all the awards it has won, and I hope we'll see more writing from Ms. Martinez.

The original title gives a glimpse of the poetic lines peppered throughout this poignant debut. I publish The Latinidad List, an annual round-up of the best books by and/or for Latinos, and The Smell of Old Lady Perfume by Claudia Guadalupe Martinez is a standout among 2008's middle grade novels. [...]

Death is a really difficult topic to talk about, especially from the perspective of a kid. The author does it beautifully, and this book may very well make you cry. The father is strong, loving, and rightly adored by Chela. When the worst happens, Chela doesn't know quite how to approach other kids about the seriousness of life, but she approaches the reader with a sincerity that is consummate. While many current titles out there play to stereotypes about Latino families, this book paints a very distinct picture, without sacrificing that certain something that will help those that grew up within the culture to still say, "That's so true!" Non-latinos who have only been exposed to main-stream mass market fiction, will hopefully get a new insight and perspective. It is admirable that Cinco Puntos Press puts out books that are truly good without relying on misguided ideas of "spice" and "color". Rather, they focus on really well written stories.

Great books, like great works of visual art, lie in the context of their creation and setting. We all bring in our preconceptions and bias, either consciously or subconsciously, and weigh in. The Smell of Old Lady Perfume asks us to check our prejudices at the door, and reaches for the common denominator within us, provoking empathetic laughter and dark sadness with each turn of the page. Indeed, by the time the book is complete, the reader has left behind childhood notions of the unpleasantness of old lady perfume. Claudia G. Martinez' debut novel forces us to grapple with no less than three universal themes: death, coming of age, and family. She does this in intelligent language that weaves together a series of chapters, each like individual petals pieced together to compose a flower. They illustrate complete panoramas of the complex and ever-changing life of sixth grader Chela Gonzalez, the book's protagonist, as she struggles to discover strength after the death of her father. And, whether male or female, young or old, from the northeast or the southwest, the story draws you in with unexpected humor, sympathy, anticipation and delight. This is a phenomenal accomplishment for an unusually young author, the likes of which had not drawn this male reader to young adult since Judy Blume's Tales of Fourth Grade Nothing, Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby, or Thomas Rockwell's How to Eat Fried Worms.