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laurenleigh's review
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
One of the prompts in The Storygraph’s 2021 Genre Challenge is a middle-grade novel by a Latinx author. For such a short book, it covered a lot of ground! There were some classic middle-grade novel themes like how to navigate conflicts with friends as you are both rapidly changing and growing. But at the heart of this novel is how families with undocumented parents and US citizen children are in a precarious situation. Cisneros did an excellent job of exploring this extremely important issue in such a way that doesn’t unnecessarily scare kids with too much detail, but doesn’t shy away from the problem or talk down to them. One of the more striking scenes was where a classmate of Efrén’s points out that we’re all so concerned about getting free range cage free eggs, and yet we’re literally locking children up in cages at detention centers. Reading this as an adult reminds me that there are so many children in this country holding a lot of weight and fear in their hearts everyday. It’s so important for their teachers and the adults in their life to give them safe spaces to talk if the kids so choose.
Content Warnings
Minor: Forced institutionalization
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