Title: Under the Mesquite
Author: Guadalupe Garcia McCall
# Of Pages: 224
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Publication Date: September 9, 2011
Level: Young Adult
Rating: 3 Hearts
Synopsis
(From Amazon.com)
Lupita, a budding actor and poet in a close-knit Mexican
American immigrant family, comes of age as she struggles with adult
responsibilities during her mother's battle with cancer in this young adult
novel in verse.
When Lupita learns Mami has cancer, she is terrified by the
possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of her close-knit family.
Suddenly, being a high school student, starring in a play, and dealing with
friends who don't always understand, become less important than doing whatever
she can to save Mami's life.
While her father cares for Mami at an out-of-town clinic,
Lupita takes charge of her seven younger siblings. As Lupita struggles to keep
the family afloat, she takes refuge in the shade of a mesquite tree, where she
escapes the chaos at home to write. Forced to face her limitations in the midst
of overwhelming changes and losses, Lupita rediscovers her voice and finds
healing in the power of words.
My Verdict
Under the Mesquite was broken into six main sections, each
section breaking down into smaller chapters. I started it right before bed one
night and as I was reading kept telling myself just one more section and I’ll
go to bed, just one more, until I had read the whole book!
One of my favorite things about this book was the time span.
Very rarely do you get to see a character grow up throughout their entire teen
years. This book starts when the main character, Lupita, is a fourteen year-old
freshman and we get to see her grow up all the way through high school
graduation and a little beyond.
Lupita was a very strong, personable, main character. Being
the oldest of eight siblings a lot of responsibility rests on her shoulders
once her mother gets sick, forcing her to grow up fast.
The one thing that was confusing at times were the names of
Lupitas’ younger siblings. With the exception of her sister, Victoria, most of
them are only mentioned a handful of times so it’s hard to keep them all
straight.
Another thing I really enjoyed was the author’s use of both
Spanish and English; a lot of the chapter headings as well as everyday
household words like mother, father, house, dinner, etc. were in Spanish.
Having taken a year of Spanish in school, I thought it was cool to try and
remember the words and see if I was right. Just to let you know, there’s a
Spanish glossary in the back of the book, which would have helped a lot if I
had found it before I finished, HAha!
I’ve decided to end with one of my favorite quotes from the
book.
“
The mesquite listens quietly
as if the poems budding in my
heart,
then blossoming in my notebook,
are scripture-
and never tells a soul
the things I write.”
