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A review by kmcneil
The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child by Francisco Jiménez
3.0
From Booklist 12/1/97
Gr. 5 and up. Jimenez's exquisite autobiographical short story "The Circuit" is widely anthologized. Now he has connected it with 11 more stories that are based on his experience as a child in a migrant farmworker family, from the time they leave Mexico to enter the U.S. "under the wire" through the years of moving from place to place, picking cotton, picking grapes, picking strawberries, thinning lettuce, topping carrots, always moving. Panchito's dream is elemental: to stay in one place, to go to school without months of interruption. His joy is to return to a place that he recognizes. Each of these short stories builds quietly to a surprise that reveals the truth, and together the stories lead to the tearing climax. The characters aren't idealized: though the family is warm, their bitter struggle creates anger and jealousy as well as love. They meet a migrant worker who had to leave his family behind in Mexico, but Panchito and his parents and his brothers and sisters are "all living at home," together, even though they are "moving still." Some teachers are kind; some classrooms and playgrounds are ugly. The simple words are both fact and poetry: the physicalness of the backbreaking work ("When you get tired from squatting, you can pick on your knees"); the yearning for education, for place. Almost nothing has been written for young readers about this Chicano experience, except for Pat Mora's picture book about Rivera, Tomas and the Library Lady (1997), Ada Flor Ada's Gathering the Sun (1997), and photo-essays, such as Beth Atkin's Voices from the Fields (1993). Like Steinbeck's classic Grapes of Wrath, Jimenez's stories combine stark social realism with heartrending personal drama. --Hazel Rochman
Reading level: 5.3
Interest level: 6-10
Gr. 5 and up. Jimenez's exquisite autobiographical short story "The Circuit" is widely anthologized. Now he has connected it with 11 more stories that are based on his experience as a child in a migrant farmworker family, from the time they leave Mexico to enter the U.S. "under the wire" through the years of moving from place to place, picking cotton, picking grapes, picking strawberries, thinning lettuce, topping carrots, always moving. Panchito's dream is elemental: to stay in one place, to go to school without months of interruption. His joy is to return to a place that he recognizes. Each of these short stories builds quietly to a surprise that reveals the truth, and together the stories lead to the tearing climax. The characters aren't idealized: though the family is warm, their bitter struggle creates anger and jealousy as well as love. They meet a migrant worker who had to leave his family behind in Mexico, but Panchito and his parents and his brothers and sisters are "all living at home," together, even though they are "moving still." Some teachers are kind; some classrooms and playgrounds are ugly. The simple words are both fact and poetry: the physicalness of the backbreaking work ("When you get tired from squatting, you can pick on your knees"); the yearning for education, for place. Almost nothing has been written for young readers about this Chicano experience, except for Pat Mora's picture book about Rivera, Tomas and the Library Lady (1997), Ada Flor Ada's Gathering the Sun (1997), and photo-essays, such as Beth Atkin's Voices from the Fields (1993). Like Steinbeck's classic Grapes of Wrath, Jimenez's stories combine stark social realism with heartrending personal drama. --Hazel Rochman
Reading level: 5.3
Interest level: 6-10