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Esperanza Rising

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
Read by Trini Alvarado
Approx. 4.5 hours
3 cassettes
When Esperanza and Mama are forced to flee to the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico, to a Mexican farm labor camp in California, they must adjust to a life without fancy dresses adn servants they were accustomed to on Rancho de las Rosas. Now they must confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. When Mama falls ill and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must relinquish her hold on the past learn to embrace a future ripe with the riches of family and community.
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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Esperanza Ortega adores her family's beautiful El Rancho de las Rosas. Like her father, she loves the land, the grapes, the bird songs, even the servants, all part of her privileged life. But her contentment dissolves with her father's brutal murder. Forced to flee, 14-year-old Esperanza and her mother escape Mexico to a migrant camp in California with nothing more than the goodwill of their former servants. Trini Alvarado gives the lyrical text a sensitive reading, faithfully portraying Esperanza's transformation from a pampered, self-important rich girl to a generous and self-aware young woman. The richness of Alvarado's Spanish infuses the reading, and the text affords her an opportunity to display her beautiful singing voice, as well. Rich in history and culture, this novel is all the more successful in the audio format. T.B. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 11, 2000
      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.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:750
  • Text Difficulty:3-4

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