Julia Alvarez
Pura Belpre Award Book
This book tackles the issue of immigration in the United States by creating a story of an American family of farmers who hire an immigrant family from Mexico to help them work their farm. The families become interdependent on each other but unfortunately some members of the Mexican family are not in the U.S. legally and that situation causes the primary conflict in the plot.
The book is written in the present tense and much of it is written in letter format. I thought the characters could have had more depth and the plot felt a little contrived and predictable.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but it takes an obvious political tone that I had a hard time with. The book’s message was very in-your-face and the author squanders an opportunity to allow the reader to draw conclusions on the issues addressed in the story. The resolutions were too simple, too neat and that is not at all the way the immigration issue plays out in real life, at least, not from what I have seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment