I'm not gonna lie here, I've suddenly tapped into a well of hope. Two books read in a matter of days, with seven more disposable days where I've only got me, myself and I for company. I'm now not only seeing a possible chance to catch up but potentially a chance to even get ahead! I think before I give myself eye strain of some kind I best bring my feet back to the ground.
Still I'm enjoying my new found enthusiasm and I can at least know that from here on out I've given it every acailable try, so no matter what the outcome, I've thrown everything at it from here on out.
I stumbled across this when I desperately raided Liverpool's online library service. I literally did a sweep of children's books searching for an author who wasn't English. Believe it our not a great many of the children's literature works at the moment are by British authors. Anyway, I checked out the author, who is American with Mexican and Spanish roots and I thought, 'that counts'. The cover looked fairly interesting and at a grand total of 262 pages it really didn't feel like much of a challenge. That was me sold.
The writing in this story is deceptively innocent, though the story is written in the omniscient third person, we are always seeing the story from the lead character's perspective, so the writing mirrors her youthful childishness. It is a complete ruse though, the complex language delicately placed in the text is like the gold thread carefully woven into a plain blanket. Of the books I've read this year it is the single biggest contributor in terms of words that can be discussed, looked up and interpreted. However, the youthful nature of the writing means that the complex words do not dominate, children as young as 7 could easily enjoy this book and get a lot out of it. So for that it already gets major kudos.
The story starts a little generically, Esperanza, our lead character suffers a horrendous tragedy when one of her closest family members is killed (spoiler there). I'm going to create a separate post about this topic actually. My last post references the subject very briefly, but I need to have a more in depth rant and analysis of the topic of death in literature very soon.
Anyway, coming back to Esperanza rising, the wonderfully different thing in this story is that, while important to her and all the characters around her, the death of her family member only serves as a footnote in the plot of the story. Her troubles start with the death but go on from there quite quickly.
It tells the story of her families escape to America at the start of the 30's with their troubles in Mexico meaning they need to leave their lives behind with all haste.
It then centres on their lives in California's San Joaquin valley, working for a camp picking and growing various fruits and vegetables throughout a calendar year. The struggles of immigration, the great depression, the loss of everything that was once considered important, the real value of family and health, these are all major themes in the story.
Esperanza and her family go from rich landowners to as poor as it gets and in the end it is their family of servants who they come to depend on as they adjust to life as Americans. One interesting historical topic that is covered here is the involuntary migration and 'repatriation' of Mexican people back to Mexico. Due to certain laws being passed at the end of the 20's officials in bordering American states were allowed to literally sweep up anyone who looked Mexican and throw them back across the border, whether they were born in Mexico or not. Many American citizens who had been born and raised in the US were suddenly sent to Mexico to live simply because of the colour of their skin.
The estimates of people sent back were between half a million and a million people. They thought it would help solve the unemployment caused by the great depression, they were dead wrong.
Funny how NINETY YEARS later, the real problem of financial disparity between the social classes is still the root of most of the world's injustices.
It's like rich and poor are on opposite sides of a river, and that river seems to be widening to the extent where we can't even see each other.
I've learned a lot from this book, I feel I really underestimated it in the first instance. I know the old adage of not judging a book by it's cover. I wonder if maybe I judged it simply because it had the big red Scholastic print on the front. Serves me right, I have definitely learnt something new or relearnt something I'd forgotten (HAHA).
Book 20 of my 52 list and my book by an author from another country. On to the next book!
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