PURELY ROSIE PEARL

Rosie Pearl and her family are migrant farm workers during the Depression. In the camp where they are staying for the strawberry harvest, she makes a new friend but is harassed by the hateful job boss and worried by her older sister's difficult pregnancy. One thing the boss says hurts more than anything else: that she and her family haven't ""got backbone enough to be nuthin' but migrants."" Rosie worries that it's true, but is determined to make more of herself one day. Cochrane's auspicious first novel has a spunky heroine in Rosie Pearl. Tough, hardworking, responsible, yet still a child, she is utterly engaging in the most difficult of situations. The lives of migrant workers remain in the background; beyond details necessary to the plot, readers won't come away with a sense of the harsh realities such work entailed. Nonetheless, Cochrane demonstrates ease and confidence that elude many more experienced authors.