WAITING FOR SNOW IN HAVANA: CONFESSIONS OF A CUBAN BOY (2003)

As a boy in Cuba, Eire visited a mansion, stood at the edge of its kidney-shaped pool...and saw it was teeming with sharks. Castro's compatriots had appropriated the house and turned it into the Aquarium of the Revolution. Such freaky, sun-dazzled images crowd this memoir by Eire, who was packed off to Florida in 1961 at age 11. But getting to such stories of terror and marvel requires slogging through pages of mundane childhood memories--arguing with Mom, harboring a crush, engaging in horseplay. It's like eating porridge when we know glowing green avocados are in the icebox.