In the course of a summer, Joe Pedersen is transformed from a self-absorbed 14-year-old to a young man willing to take risks to help others. While the implausibility of this quick transformation and some of the other plot elements present problems, DeFelice does deal successfully with contemporary issues about immigration and questions about civil disobedience at a level readers will understand. Joe’s family owns a ranch in New York State, where migrant workers do much of the farm work in order to send money back to their families in Mexico. Joe, who apparently hasn’t helped out much on the farm, makes the unlikely mistake of asking his hardworking parents for a $900 motorbike for this birthday. Instead, his father proposes Joe earn the money by laboring side-by-side with the Mexicans. As Joe gets to know Luisa, one of the workers his own age, he abandons his childish attitudes and starts to value his own lot in life. He makes a break from his racist friends and, through an act of courage, earns his father’s respect. Suspense and romance keep the story going, at the same time that DeFelice conveys the vital work of migrant workers in US agriculture and draws attention to problems with immigration policies. While not as strong as The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whitaker (1998) or Weasel (1991) this will serve those looking for an exploration of these issues and a larger role in fiction for migrant workers who are all too ignored in literature and real life. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 7, 2003
ISBN: 0-374-38032-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
Illegal immigrant sisters learn a lot about themselves when their family faces deportation in this compelling contemporary drama. Immigrants from Bangladesh, Nadira, her older sister Aisha and their parents live in New York City with expired visas. Fourteen-year-old Nadira describes herself as “the slow-wit second-born” who follows Aisha, the family star who’s on track for class valedictorian and a top-rate college. Everything changes when post-9/11 government crack-downs on Muslim immigrants push the family to seek asylum in Canada where they are turned away at the border and their father is arrested by U.S. immigration. The sisters return to New York living in constant fear of detection and trying to pretend everything is normal. As months pass, Aisha falls apart while Nadira uses her head in “a right way” to save her father and her family. Nadira’s need for acceptance by her family neatly parallels the family’s desire for acceptance in their adopted country. A perceptive peek into the lives of foreigners on the fringe. (endnote) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0351-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Ginee Seo/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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