Luna’s California Poppies
By Alma Luz Villanueva

Bilingual Press, Tempe AZ ISBN: 0-927534-98-3


Remember in the days were marriages were arranged and after many years of being married, one or both of the partners realized they were in love with the other because of the strength of their character. Reading Luna’s California Poppies is that kind of book. The story, the language and the intensity grows on you.


At first, I was dismayed by the writing, yet when I finished the book for days afterwards a revelation would occur to me. Oh, that’s what that meant.


A young girl, Luna, survives the kind of life we hope only happens in movies and books. Her tactics are wrought from the information she has at the moment. She dresses like a boy in order to keep the “perv” from being interested in her. She develops the “La Loca Stare” to keep menance at bay. She stays out all night because those “Mean Streets” are safer than her home.


The story is presented in diary form. The first page of each chapter appears to be copied out of a spiral notebook. The author writes from the child’s point of view and uses a candid and profound language to best illustrate the happenings in the child’s life. Luna misspells words, capitalized and underlined words to stress what is important in her life and addresses the “Virgen” to hold her secret hopes and pains. The events in her life unfold in that blunt directness that is used when speaking to someone you knows you’ll never really ever have to meet.


The “language” created for this story may seem simplified, and it is more difficult to write badly than it is to write well. Luna’s voice is strong, determine and consistent throughout the book.


Luna moves forward, prepares for the worst and accepts with no judgment what is delivered by the uncaring adults around her. She never questions why things happen to her; she dwells on how to survive each event. When Luna moves in with Darling, Luna is as open to the peace and abundance that Darling has to offer as she was accepting of the abuse beforehand.


One of the major points in this story is about words, finding your voice and the changes that come about when you learn. There is a strong message to young people about reading and writing for your own sanity and even a stronger message to adults about encouraging and ingraining the advantages of learning about words to the children around you. Each word Darling has Luna look up and discuss is transported to redefine Luna’s life in her poetry. Luna writes bad poetry yet each line is filled with all the youth denied this young mind. It is this writing that saves Luna’s life.


Be prepared however. At first I was bewildered by the use of the abundant use of swear words by Luna, capitalized in her diary, then I was turned off and had to force myself to finish the book. I wondered why the author felt the need to emphasize the swearing. I wondered if it was my own upbringing that didn’t allow me to see the elegance in the use of those words. I hoped I wasn’t that much of a snob. Yet it was not until almost the end of the book when Luna explains: “You have a mouth like a sailor”—if I didn’t I’d be locked up somewhere talking to myself,… then I understood.


Three quarters of the book is told by the young girl, Luna. The last is from the grown up, Luna, 20 years later. She has moved to the country and has three children. She has been able to translate what was lacking in her life as a child and give her children an abundance of trust, support and encouragement to enrich their lives. In this segment, Luna’s young girl’s survival and the wiser older woman’s thinking combine to release the scar tissue grown over Luna’s heart to allow beauty and love into her life. She discovers this tremendous gift through words.


This book isn’t brain candy for it forces you to feel and to think about what can be changed in your own life. Nothing higher can come from a writer’s finished product then to have readers talking about the book for days later. Villanueva has certainly given each reader their money’s worth in Luna’s Califronia Poppies.

Tags: Alma Luz Villanueva, Bilingual Press, Luna's California Poppies