Migrant (edition 2011)

Wonderful story about a young girl in a migrant worker family imagining a more settled life. Never knew about the Mennonites in Mexico. ( )

I had no idea that there was a community of Mennonites who migrated up to Canada from Mexico and back every year. I was intrigued by that. Not my favorite style of illustration. ( )

This is such a great book. It would be a good way to show students the different nationalities of everyone around us, which result of migration. It would be great to relate this book to how animals use migration. Readers get to learn about some history and can easily relate to it if they have family who are farm workers.

This book looks at the life of a migrant community. Many students in this area might identify with it.

As the youngest member of her large family, Anna has little choice but to follow along every spring when her family travels from their home in Mexico to Canada in search of farm work. As migrant workers, Anna's parents and siblings faces insecure employment and poor working conditions, and the empty farmhouses that they rent are often expensive and do not feel very inviting. Anna is too young to work and she cannot go to school, so she spends much of her time daydreaming and thinking about what it would be like to have roots sunk deeply into just one place.

Lyrical prose and creative illustrations speak to the imaginations of young children, communicating some of the hardships and disappointments that Anna and her family experience. A detailed author's note speaks to the wisdom of parents and teachers, helping them to further teach young learners about the rights of migrant workers to decent working and living conditions. Separating this work from other children's books about migration and work is the focus on Mexico's Mennonite community and the issues faced by some of its members in Canada and Mexico.