Breaking Through

by Francisco Jimenez Narrated by Robert Ramirez

Overview

As he prepares to recite the Declaration of Independence before his eighth grade social studies class in California, the thing Francisco has feared for ten years finally happens. La migra, the immigration police, come to his classroom and pick him up for deportation to Mexico. Soon back in the United States with a "green card," Francisco struggles through adolescence, working two or three jobs a day and striving to excel at school. But he also finds time to be a typical teenager in the 1950s, an era of cool cars, dances, and Elvis.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"The images are powerful . . . this is a book for many readers, who may discover an America they didn't know was here." Booklist, ALA, Starred Review

null The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

null Horn Book

null School Library Journal —

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170560141
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	02/27/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

Jiménez' autobiographical story The Circuit (1997) broke new ground with its drama of a Mexican American migrant child in southern California. It won many prizes and was a Booklist Editors' Choice. This moving sequel is a fictionalized memoir of Jimenez's teenage years in the late 1950s, when the family finally stayed in one place and Francisco and his brothers worked long hours before and after school to put food on the table. First they picked strawberries in the fields. Later the jobs got better: cleaning offices, washing windows and walls, waxing floors. The prose here is not as taut as in the first book, but Jimenez writes with simplicity about a harsh world seldom seen in children's books. He also writes about a scary, sad, furious, and broken father--like the father in Na's A Step from Heaven [BKL Je 1 & 15 01]. He stays true to the viewpoint of a teenager growing up poor: the yearning (What would it be like to live in a house, rather than the crowded barracks?); the ignorance (College?); the hurt of prejudice. Yet he celebrates his Mexican roots even as he learns to be an American. The images are powerful, especially the one of the boy cleaning offices before dawn, with notes of English words to memorize in his shirt pocket. An excellent choice for ESL classes, this is a book for many readers, who may discover an America they didn't know was here.

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