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A farm working girl with big dreams meets activist Dolores Huerta and joins the 1965 protest for migrant workers' rights in this tender-hearted middle grade novel in verse, perfect for fans of Rita Williams-Garcia and Pam Muñoz Ryan.
Reticent Lula Viramontes aches to one day become someone whom no one can ignore: a daring ringleader in a Mexican traveling carpa. But between working the grape harvest in Delano, California, with her older siblings under dangerous conditions; taking care of her younger siblings and Mamá, who has mysteriously fallen ill; and doing everything she can to avoid Papá's volatile temper; it's hard to hold on to those dreams.
Then she meets activist Dolores Huerta and el Teatro Campesino (the official theater company of the United Farm Workers) and realizes she may need to raise her voice sooner rather than later. Because farm workers are striking for better treatment and wages, and whether Lula's family joins them or not will determine their future--for better or worse.
Salazar seamlessly combines historical events of the farmworkers' rights movement and the 1965 Delano grape strike with a sensitive portrayal of a girl trying to make sense of the world. It's a powerful coming-of-age story filled with evocative language, memorable characters, and apt nature imagery
Compelling and atmospheric.
Led by a memorable protagonist, this novel mixes themes of growth and change with historical details and powerful observations on the abuses that sparked the Farmworkers' Movement and the strength of those demanding justice.