Esperanza renace (Esperanza Rising)

by Pam Muñoz Ryan, Nuria Molinero (Translator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

De niña, Esperanza ha de madurar a pasos agigantados para encarar la adversidad que afecta a su familia y que les obliga a huir hacia Estados Unidos. Se admira el renacimiento de su protagonista, quien emerge de la crisis como resultado de su reevaluación de la condición humana en momentos difíciles. 

As a child, Esperanza has to mature by leaps and bounds to face the adversity that affects her family and that forces them to flee to the United States. The rebirth of the protagonist, who emerges from the crisis as result of re-evaluating the human condition in difficult times, is admired.

Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl could want: fancy dresses; a beautiful home filled with servants in Aguascalientes, Mexico; and the promise of one day rising to Mama's position and presiding over all of 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, Esperanza must relinquish her hold on the past as she confronts the challenges of hard labor, acceptance by her own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression, and ultitmately discovers the riches of family and community.

Pam Munoz Ryan eloquently portrays the Mexican workers' plight in this abundant and passionate novel that gives voice to those who have historically been denied one.

"When I was a child, I always assumed my grandmother grew up in poverty because the stories she told were primarily about raising her children in farm labor camps in California in the 1930s. It wasn't until I was a young woman that she told me about her childhood in Mexico. I was so moved by her riches-to-rags fairytale that I felt compelled to share her story." — Pam Munoz Ryan.

Esperanza Ortega tiene todos los tesoros que una chica pueda desear: hermosos vestidos, una linda casa llena de sirvientes en Aguascalientes, Mexico, y la promesa de que un dia llegara a presidir el Rancho de las Rosas como su mama. Pero una tragedia inesperada destruye ese sueno, obligando a Esperanza y a su madre a escapar a California donde tendran que trabajar en una finca junto a otros mexicanos. Alli, Esperanza tendra que olvidar su pasado y enfrentarse a las nuevas realidades de su vida: trabajo duro, aceptacion y dificultades economicas. Esperanza descubrira que la verdadera riqueza esta en la familia y la comunidad. Pam Munoz Ryan nos presenta un retrato elocuente sobre la vida de los mexicanos en California en esta apasionada novela que le da voz a aquellos qu

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780439398855
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	08/01/2002
Edition description:	Spanish Language Edition
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	10,942
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.63(h) x (d)
Language:	Spanish
Lexile:	740L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Pam Munoz Ryan is the recipient the NEA's Human and Civil Rights Award, the PEN Center USA Award, and the 2024 Children’s Literature Legacy Award for her body of work. She was the 2018 US nominee for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award. She received a Newbery Honor Medal and the Kirkus Prize for her New York Times bestselling novel, Echo. Her other celebrated novels, Esperanza Rising, The Dreamer, Riding Freedom, Becoming Naomi Leon, Paint the Wind, and Mananaland, have received countless accolades, among them the Pura Belpre Award, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, and the Americas Award. Her acclaimed picture books include Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride and the Sibert Honor book When Marian Sang, both illustrated by Brian Selznick, Mice and Beans illustrated by Joe Cepeda, and Tony Baloney illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham, as well as a beginning reader series featuring Tony Baloney. Ryan lives near San Diego, California, with her family.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6-9-Inspired by her grandmother's immigration stories, Pamela Mu-oz Ryan (Scholastic 2000) offers valuable glimpses of the lives of Mexican-American farm workers during the Depression. When her father dies, 13-year-old Esperanza and her mother are forced to abandon their privileged lives and move to California. At first the proud girl is appalled that they must share a cramped row house and work at menial jobs, but when her mother becomes gravely ill, she learns the value of generous friends and her own inner resources. This coming-of-age story also looks at the economic and social issues of that era, and the author's note adds valuable factual information. Trini Alvarado's narration is adroit and melodic as she handles text that skillfully intersperses Spanish phrases and songs. Pairing this story with Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Cat Running (Delacorte, 1994) will give listeners broader insights into the difficulties of the 1930's. This recording is a solid choice for all elementary and middle school audiobook collections, and a necessity for libraries serving Spanish-speaking populations.-Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library, Rocky Hill, CT Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

The author of Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride (1999) and Riding Freedom (1997) again approaches historical fiction, this time using her own grandmother as source material. In 1930, Esperanza lives a privileged life on a ranch in Aguascalientes, Mexico. But when her father dies, the post-Revolutionary culture and politics force her to leave with her mother for California. Now they are indebted to the family who previously worked for them, for securing them work on a farm in the San Joaquin valley. Esperanza balks at her new situation, but eventually becomes as accustomed to it as she was in her previous home, and comes to realize that she is still relatively privileged to be on a year-round farm with a strong community. She sees migrant workers forced from their jobs by families arriving from the Dust Bowl, and camps of strikers—many of them US citizens—deported in the "voluntary repatriation" that sent at least 450,000 Mexicans and Mexican-Americans back to Mexico in the early 1930s. Ryan's narrative has an epic tone, characters that develop little and predictably, and a romantic patina that often undercuts the harshness of her story. But her style is engaging, her characters appealing, and her story is one that—though a deep-rooted part of the history of California, the Depression, and thus the nation—is little heard in children's fiction. It bears telling to a wider audience. (author's note) (Fiction. 9-15)Sills, Leslie IN REAL LIFE: Six Women Photographers Holiday House (80 pp.) Oct. 15, 2000

Kirkus Reviews