Review Praise for Esperanza Rising:*”Told in a lyrical, fairy tale-like style . . . Readers will be swept up.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review”Ryan writes a moving story in clear, poetic language that children will sink into, and the books offers excellent opportunities for discussion and curriculum support.” –Booklist Product Description Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl could want: fancy dresses; a beautiful home filled with servants in the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico; and the promise of one day rising to Mama’s position and presiding over all of El Rancho de las Rosas. But a sudden tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. There they confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. When Mama falls ill from Valley Fever and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must relinquish her hold on the past and learn to embrace a future ripe with the riches of family and community. From Publishers Weekly Told in a lyrical, fairy tale – like style, Ryan’s (riding Freedom) robust novel set in 1930 captures a Mexican girl’s fall from riches, her immigration to California and her growing awareness of class and ethnic tensions. Thirteen-year-old Esperanza Ortega and her family are part of Mexico’s wealthy, land-owning class in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Her father is a generous and well-loved man who gives his servants land and housing. Early in the novel, bandits kill Esperanza’s father, and her corrupt uncles threaten to usurp their home. Their servants help her and her mother flee to the United States, but they must leave Esperanza’s beloved Abuelita (grandmother) behind until they can send for her. Ryan poetically conveys Esperanza’s ties to the land by crafting her story to the rhythms of the seasons. Each chapter’s title takes its name from the fruits Esperanza and her countrymen harvest, firs in Aguascalientes, then in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Ryan fluidly juxtaposes world events (Mexico’s post-revolution tensions, the arrival of Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl victims and the struggles between the U.S. government and Mexican workers trying to organize) with one family’s will to survive – while introducing readers to Spanish words and Mexican customs. Readers will be swept up by vivid descriptions of California dust storms or by the police crackdown on a labor strike (“The picket signs lay on the ground, discarded, and like a mass of marbles that had already been hit, the strikers scattered?”). Ryan delivers subtle metaphors via Abuelita’s pearl’s of wisdom, and not until story’s end will readers recognize how carefully they have been strung. Ages 9-14. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Pam Munoz Ryan grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California and now lives with her family near San Diego. She based this story on the experiences of her maternal grandmother whose privileged life in Mexico was altered dramatically when she immigrated to the United States and went to work in a company-owned farm labor camp. She is the author of the acclaimed Riding Freedom and Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride, an ALA Notable Children’s Book. From School Library Journal Grade 6-9-Ryan uses the experiences of her own Mexican grandmother as the basis for this compelling story of immigration and assimilation, not only to a new country but also into a different social class. Esperanza’s expectation that her 13th birthday will be celebrated with all the material pleasures and folk elements of her previous years is shattered when her father is murdered by bandits. His powerful stepbrothers then hold her mother as a social and economic hostage, wanting to force her remarriage to one of them, and go so far as to burn down the family