Path to the Stars by Sylvia Acevedo

Author:Sylvia Acevedo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Chapter 11

Our Family’s Love of the Library

While Mami was making friends in our new neighborhood and volunteering with my Girl Scout troop, Papá was doing what he had always done. He visited his family, his mother and sister near us in Las Cruces and his own Papá in El Paso. He made sure Mario and I were doing well in school and hugged my little sister each night when he came home from work.

He got up at five thirty every weekday morning to go to work. Then, on Saturdays, he’d sleep late. Mami didn’t like it when he did that, especially when she had chores for him to do.

Papá knew everything. He loved facts and knowledge, and he loved to explain things, especially to his children. Mario and I spoke two languages, but Papá spoke three: Spanish, English, and German. He’d learned German in college and used it in his advanced chemistry courses, and he kept up his reading skills all his life.

Sometimes my father would goad Mario by pitting the two of us in a contest, usually over a history or a geography question. “Mario and Sylvia,” he’d say, “let’s see who can name the most state capitals.” Even though my brother was older, occasionally I knew the right answer before he did.

When that happened, my father would chide my brother. “Beaten by a girl, Mario?” he’d say, and Mario would be angry. I’d feel a little sorry for him, but that didn’t keep me from trying my hardest to beat him every single time.

Because he was a boy, Mario got the lion’s share of Papá’s attention. Even when I won a contest, Papá seemed to pay more attention to Mario’s loss than to my win. Laura always knew how to get Papá to notice her with a hug and a kiss, but between Mario and my father’s books, newspapers, and chemical journals, Papá didn’t have much time for me.

Besides, no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t win Papá’s competitions too often. Mario was really smart, and because he was two years older than I was, he had covered more subjects in school. He and my father both loved history, especially military history, and Mario liked to read about famous battles. Because they were so interested in World War II, I grew up knowing a lot about D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and other battles from that war.

Papá knew so much about history because he loved to read. Not a day passed when he didn’t have his nose in a book, at least some of the time. Whenever a new best-selling thriller would come out in paperback, he’d buy a copy and spend the weekend devouring it. Back then, it seemed every store had racks filled with paperbacks—even the convenience store offered racks of books. Papá liked the library, too. Every other Sunday he would go to the university library, and on Saturdays, if he wasn’t visiting his father in El Paso, he’d often go to our local library.

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