Esperanza Rising is a thrilling book by Pam Munoz Ryan. The story is about a girl who immigrates to the United States from Mexico. She, her mother, and their “ex-servants” all leave because of her father’s sudden death, which led to big probelms with Esperanza’s uncle. Leaving her injured grandmother behind, they relunctantly left for the US. Esperanza delt with giant changes in her life. She went from being rich, clean, and served, to poor, dirty and hard working. When everything seems hopeless in her small camp, Esperanza gets a wonderful treat: her grandmother arrives. She realized that you should never be afraid to start over.
One thing that the author, Pam Munoz Ryan, did well was she was creative with her writing. The titles to her chapters were named after food that were included in the chapter. At first I thought that the reason was the there was the same food in the chapter as the title, which was true, but then I realized that the food was a certain point in time. At the camp, the workers picked and sorted foods. There were different foods every season (such as potatos in the winter). I thought this was very creative. It seemed to me like she was putting her personality into the book.
Another thing the author did well was that she based it on the life of her grandmother. What Esperanza went through was exactly the same thing that the author’s grandmother went through. She used her grandmother’s name too - Esperanza. I think she made a good choice by writing a book based on someone who went through these hardships because you can really get a good idea on what they went through. It almost would make it easier.
One thing that I think the author could have done better was to describe things better. An example is the setting.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is afraid of starting over. This book’s moral is about not being afraid of starting over, and I would encourage the reader that good can come out of it.