book reviews

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende

One measure of a civilization is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens, often its children. Isabel Allende’s The Wind Knows My Name explores what has happened and continues to happen when parents, forced by the bureaucracies in which they live, tragically are separated from their children. 

Samuel, a young Jewish boy who lives in Nazi Germany, is put on a train to England by his parents who have been persecuted by the Nazis and want to save Samuel’s life. Their plan is to reunite with him once WWII is over.

The novel later jumps to modern day times, and the reader meets Anita, blind from an early childhood accident, who flees from El Salvador with her mother in fear of their lives. 

The storyline eventually brings Samuel and Anita together in a satisfying way for the reader, but Allende wants the reader to recognize that whether it is Nazi Germany or modern-day America, the damage is the same.

In an afterword, Allende expresses that separating children from their parents has long been a part of American history. Children of slaves were separated from their parents when one or the other was sold. As well, beginning in the early 19 th century, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were sent to boarding schools across the nation due to federal assimilation policies. The solution, Allende indicates, is to protect the vulnerable by not tearing families apart in the first place. Review by Linda.