Esperanza Rising by: Pam Munoz Ryan

Esperanza Rising is one of this books that makes you want to not put the book down. I really enjoyed this book and can see myself using this book in my own classroom someday. I think this book has a lot of strengths in that it shows the ability to overcome hardships and changes. The main character, Esperanza, really needed to make a lot of changes and acceptances in her life. After loosing her father, Esperanza and her family had to adapt to a completely different lifestyle. At first, Esperanza was very immature about the situation but learned that she had to grow up and understand her new life. Throughout the book, we the readers really got to see her grow up so much and understand people that were less fortunate than she was. The overall moral of the story is money cannot buy everything and especially happiness. The strong symbolism in the book really stood out to me. I very much enjoyed the importance of the crouched blanket, mama's hair, fiestas, and the roses. Each one really stood out to me and made the story even more enjoyable. I recommend this book!