After Tyler's father's accident, his family hires undocumented Mexican workers in a last-ditch effort to keep their Vermont farm. Despite his reservations, Tyler soon bonds with a worker's daughter, who is in his sixth-grade class. His problems seem small compared to Mari's: her family fears deportation, and her mother has been missing since re-entering the States months ago. While this novel is certainly issue-driven, Alvarez (Before We Were Free) focuses on her main characters, mixing in Mexican customs and the touching letters that Mari writes to her mother, grandmother and even the U.S. president. Readers get a strong sense of Tyler's growing maturity, too, as he navigates complicated moral choices. Plot developments can be intense: Mari's uncle lands in jail, and her mother turns out to have been kidnapped and enslaved during her crossing. Some characters and sentiments are over-the-top, but readers will be moved by small moments, as when Tyler sneaks Mari's letter to her imprisoned uncle, watching as the man puts his palm on the glass while Tyler holds up the letter from the other side. A tender, well-constructed book. Ages 8-12. (Jan.)

Gr 4-7

Sixth-grader Tyler Paquette lives in a dairy-farming community in Vermont. His father was injured in a tractor accident and must now turn to undocumented Mexican laborers to run the farm. Thus, a trailer on the property soon becomes home to the Cruz family-sixth-grader Mari, her two younger sisters, father, and two uncles, all needing work to survive and living with fear of la migra . They have had no word on Mari's mother, missing now for several months. Tyler and Mari share an interest in stargazing, and their extended families grow close over the course of one year with holiday celebrations and shared gatherings. Third-person chapters about Tyler alternate with Mari's lengthy, unmailed letters to her mother and diary entries. Touches of folksy humor surface in the mismatched romance of Tyler's widowed Grandma and cranky Mr. Rossetti. When "coyotes" contact Mr. Cruz and set terms for his wife's freedom, Tyler secretly loans the man his savings, then renegotiates a promised birthday trip in order to accompany Mari to North Carolina to help rescue her abused mother. When immigration agents finally raid the farm and imprison both Cruz parents, it signals an end to the "el norte" partnership, but not the human connections. This timely novel, torn right from the newspaper headlines, conveys a positive message of cooperation and understanding.-Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT

Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers. Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. 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. As Tyler and Mari's friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez's novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what's illegal and what's wrong. Mari's experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. 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. Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)

Ozzie Rodriguez narra esta historia sobre la inmigración con toda la compasión que merece. En el estado de Vermont, un niño de once años, Tyler, está preocupado porque sus padres rompen la ley por dar trabajo a obreros sin papeles. ¨Son ángeles mexicanos,¨ le dice su madre. Sin ellos la familia de Tyler perdería su granja de ganado lechero. La yuxtaposición de la narración provee Olivia Preciado con la oportunidad de actuar con mucho afecto la voz joven de Mari, la mayor de tres hermanas que trabajan en la granja. A través de cartas a casa y notas en su diario, ella expresa el conflicto que observa entre la necesidad de tener trabajo de su propia familia y la de la gente que les da trabajo ilegalmente. Rodriguez y Preciado son perfectamente emparejados con sus habilidades bilingües, y entre los dos, se trasmiten diestramente los personajes diversos y la historia fascinante de Julia Álvarez. K.P. trans. L.R.P.



[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]--Ozzie Rodriguez narrates a story about immigration with the compassion it deserves. In Vermont, 11-year-old Tyler is troubled that his parents violate the law by hiring undocumented Mexican workers. “They are Mexican angels,” his mother tells him; without them Tyler’s family would lose their dairy farm. In a juxtaposed narrative, Olivia Preciado delivers the intelligent, youthful voice of Mari, the oldest of three sisters whose family works on the farm. In letters home and in her journal she express the conflict she observes between her family’s need to work and the people who illegally hire them. Rodriguez and Preciado are perfectly paired, and with their bilingual language skills they deftly convey Julia Alvarez’s diverse characters and compelling story. K.P. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine