Migrant

Author: Maxine Trottier

Illustrator: Isabelle Arsenault

Peach’s Picks Rating:

 

Year of publication: 2011

City of publication: Toronto, Ontario

Publisher: Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

ISBN: 978-0-88899-975-7

Author website: http://www.execulink.com/~maxitrot/index.html

Illustrator website: http://www.isabellearsenault.com/

Media used for illustrations: Mixed media using watercolor, gouache, crayons and collage

Annotation: A young girl longs to have a permanent home with roots as deep as a tree’s roots. She and her family are Mennonite migrant workers from Mexico who travel following the harvest.

Personal reaction to the book: This picturebook is a fictionalized look into the little known world of Mexican Mennonite migrant workers. The families travel north in the spring following the harvest and return south to Mexico in the fall. Anna, the main character, is a little girl who is too young to work. While she watches her mother set up housekeeping in yet another empty farmhouse and observes family members harvesting crops, she wonders “What would it be like to be a tree with roots sunk deeply into the earth…” (page 25). Anna’s longing for a permanent home is apparent when she likens her life to the migration of geese, monarch butterflies, and robins. The short story opens with the family heading north toward a harvest in the spring and ends with the family returning to Mexico in the fall. The text is beautifully constructed. The narration is full of symbolism, similes, and metaphors which are effectively used. The lovely mixed media illustrations both complement and extend the story. They also contain many similes and metaphors; for example, Anna is shown with rabbit ears as mentioned in the text on page 6, “There are moments when she feels like a rabbit.” The illustrations have a quilt-like quality, especially the endpapers at the front of the book composed of triangular pieces of fabric facing both left and right, symbolizing the family’s travels to the north and south. The palette is created with soft warm colors that are highlighted with tangerine-red. Clean white backgrounds emphasize the illustrations, crisply highlighting them on each page. The characters are drawn in a doll-like manner with rosy cheeks that makes them warm and endearing. The book reads aloud well. It can best be viewed individually or by a small group. While this is a poignant story of an obscure group of Mennonite migrant workers, its theme can be applied to all migrant workers or anyone yearning for a permanent home. It can be used effectively in discussions about the lives of agricultural workers. The author includes end notes discussing Mennonite migrant workers who visit Canada each year. I book is highly recommend this book.

General curricular connections:

• Migrant labor
• Mennonites

Recommended grade levels:

School Library Journal recommends this book for use with grades 2-5

Booklist recommends this book for use with grades preschool - 2

Peach’s Picks recommends this book for use with grades 2-6

Awards/Recognitions: None to date

Note: This book applies to the assignment criteria - books published in 2010-2011. The title was selected from the list of the Association for Service to Children/ALA Notable Children’s Books – Nominated Titles for Discussion, 2011 Annual Conference - New Orleans, Picture books

Simile: Page 2; “There are times when Anna feels like a bird.”

Simile: Page 6; “There are moments when she feels like a rabbit.”

Simile: Page 7; “…Anna feels like a jack rabbit.”

Simile: Pages 22; “…their words as spicy as the hottest chilies, or as slow and rich as dark molasses.”

Simile: Page 32; “And with them goes Anna, like a monarch, like a robin, like a feather in the wind.”

Metaphor: Page 2; “Her family is a flock of geese beating its way there and back again.”

Metaphor: Page 10; “…when her older brothers and sisters dip and rise, dip and rise over the vegetables, that is when all of them are bees.”

Symbolism: Pages 1 and 2; The geese flying in the illustrations are wearing scarves and hats symbolizing the narrator’s family as mentioned in the text on page 2, “Her family is a flock of geese beating its way there and back again.”

Symbolism: Page 6; Anna is shown with rabbit ears as mentioned in the text on page 6, “There are moments when she feels like a rabbit.”

Symbolism: Pages 7-8; Pictures of shadowy people symbolizing “…the rooms filled with the ghosts of last year’s workers…”

Symbolism: Page 8; The back half of a jack rabbit is shown emphasizing that Anna feels like a jack rabbit as mentioned in the text also on page 7, “…Anna feels like a jack rabbit.”

Book cover picture retrieved from http://www.execulink.com/~maxitrot/newbooks.htm