She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully) soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. It's a worthy idea, accompanied by Pedersen's chapter-heading black-and-white portraits, providing advance information about the participants' races and, here and there, ages. Readers won't gain any great appreciation for the art and science of gardening from this, but they may come away understanding that people can work side by side despite vastly different motives, attitudes, skills, and cultural backgrounds. ![]() Still, the garden becomes a place where wounds heal, friendships form, and seeds of change are sown. It's not an easy victory: Toughened by the experience of putting her children through public school, Leona spends several days relentlessly bulling her way into government offices to get the lot's trash hauled away others address the lack of readily available water, as well as problems with vandals and midnight dumpers and though decades of waging peace on a small scale have made Sam an expert diplomat, he's unable to prevent racial and ethnic borders from forming. Using the multiple voices that made Bull Run (1995) so absorbing, Fleischman takes readers to a modern inner-city neighborhood and a different sort of battle, as bit by bit the handful of lima beans an immigrant child plants in an empty lot blossoms into a community garden, tended by a notably diverse group of local residents. Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. ![]() When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. ![]() Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |