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lauren_md 's review for:
I read the young adult version as a possible classroom text for my 9th and 10th grade students. I do think it makes the conversation surrounding immigration at the southern border more accessible to middle and high school students, but I didn’t enjoy reading it as much as I had hoped.
The biggest problem for me was the writing style, which is basically a long news article. It was written in mostly simple sentences, with basic vocabulary that was often repetitive. There wasn’t much in the way of literary analysis opportunities, but you could do some work with rhetorical devices and techniques. There was a lot of “telling and not showing” overall.
I think that following a small group of characters could help some students look at the issue of immigration from a more personal, human perspective, but the 3rd-person narration made it hard to feel really connected to the characters, which could mean some students aren’t as invested in the reading. Because the author mostly told you directly how people felt, the emotional impact was not as strong as I think it could have been. While this may have been a tactical choice while writing, I think a lot of students would struggle to stay engaged.
I do think the discussion of immigration trends and policy in the “Afterword” was clear, unbiased, and would be a good jumping off point for class discussion or further research. I don’t see myself using this whole book in my classroom, but possibly using excerpts would work.
The biggest problem for me was the writing style, which is basically a long news article. It was written in mostly simple sentences, with basic vocabulary that was often repetitive. There wasn’t much in the way of literary analysis opportunities, but you could do some work with rhetorical devices and techniques. There was a lot of “telling and not showing” overall.
I think that following a small group of characters could help some students look at the issue of immigration from a more personal, human perspective, but the 3rd-person narration made it hard to feel really connected to the characters, which could mean some students aren’t as invested in the reading. Because the author mostly told you directly how people felt, the emotional impact was not as strong as I think it could have been. While this may have been a tactical choice while writing, I think a lot of students would struggle to stay engaged.
I do think the discussion of immigration trends and policy in the “Afterword” was clear, unbiased, and would be a good jumping off point for class discussion or further research. I don’t see myself using this whole book in my classroom, but possibly using excerpts would work.