The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child by Francisco Jimenez, Jimenez

From the Publisher

"'La frontera'...I heard it for the first time back in the late 1940s when Papa and Mama told me and Roberto, my older brother, that someday we would take a long trip north, cross la frontera, enter California, and leave our poverty behind." So begins this honest and powerful account of a family's journey to the fields of California — to a life of constant moving, from strawberry fields to cotton fields, from tent cities to one-room shacks, from picking grapes to topping carrots and thinning lettuce. Seen through the eyes of a boy who longs for an education and the right to call one palce home, this is a story of survival, faith, and hope. It is a journey that will open readers' hearts and minds.

Julie Landsman

The stories in this book build on each other beautifully. . . Without sentimentality or melodrama, but rather with the simple power and grace of a fine storyteller, Jimenez is able to convince us of the narrator's authenticity, his good-heartedness, and the good-heartedness of his family. . . This book challenges us as readers, whether eleven or fifty. . . In The Circuit, Jimenez has taken us inside a way of life, in all its sweetness and all its sorrow. It is a valuable book for young people, both for its artistic value and for the issues it illuminates. -- Riverbank Review

Booklist

Jiménez's exquisite autobiographical short story ‘The Circuit' is widely anthologized. . . . Like Steinbeck's classic Grapes of Wrath, Jiménez's stories combine stark social realism with heartrending personal drama.

New Mexico Magazine

There are moments of wonder . . . Francisco Jiménez is a master craftsman of words, with a simple yet crystalline style . . . The Circuit speaks intimately of migrant life in the western United States—a life that might be known by its politics or sociology but here is given a human face.

MultiCultural Review

. . . [a] moving book . . . The Circuit beautifully captures the rhythms of everyday life and the dreams and aspirations of a migrant family. Jiménez writes credibly in the voice of his young protagonist. Pancho is a compelling and memorable character, at the emotional center of a book that will appeal to both adult and teenage readers.

Children's Literature

Steinbeck told this story from the point of view of the Okies and the Great Depression. This is the next generation of laborers, and Jiménez tells his own story well through small incidents--the ever-growing family; the cotton rash from a young boy's first attempts at picking the merciless pods; and the refusal of most teachers to integrate Spanish speakers into the classroom. It was a tough life in the late forties and early fifties. The struggle stills goes on, and youngsters would do well to learn about it-and to know that Jiménez himself pulled himself out of "the circuit" to reach that American dream. Houghton Mifflin's hardback version of Jiménez's stories comes after the fact of honors already received. It's a handsome little book of memoirs describing the day to day life of a Mexican family reaching for the American good life through the only means possible to them--hard labor picking California's year-round crops.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3-Wendy Gelsanliter's pleasant album features ten original songs and four adapted traditional songs. The traditional songs include "The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night," "Head and Shoulders," "Missy Mind Your Manners," and "Lazy Bones" (adapted from the spiritual, "Dem Dry Bones"). Among the original tunes are: a song about an "Itty Bitty Kitty in New York City" who clears the streets of rats; "Ants Wear Underpants," about dancing ants; "Lost and Found," about a child lost in a store; an ode to insects called "Butterfly Fly;" and the kidnapping of the alphabet by the outlaw letters "LMNOP." A gentle folk song style is used for most of the songs, with guitars and percussion as the primary background instrumentation. "The Morning Song" has a taste of calypso; "Pajamason" is an upbeat jazz song; and "LMNOP" has a minor country-western tune. Children will enjoy Gelsanliter's pleasant alto voice and singing along with these child-friendly tunes.-Beverly Bixler, San Antonio Public Library, TX Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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