I want to disclose that I know the author, but only slightly, and I lived for many years in both Middlebury and Bridport, Vermont. (Bridport is often called Bridgeport by out-of-staters passing through.) So when I see an acknowledgment to Jerry and Cheryl Connor, who own a large and beautiful farm in Bridport, I know I am in once familiar territory. But those were years ago. Today I live in Miami Beach where Spanish dominates...
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Julia Alvarez knows how to characterize the blur in the line between right and wrong. She knows how to make it clear that reality and morality are continuums and not dichotomies of this or that, up or down, or yes or no. There are no absolutes. (Now, there's an oxymoron.) We have a long way to go. Alvarez begins with a young man, her protagonist, Tyler, the younger eleven-year-old son in a family who has survived and thrived...
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Julia Alvarez takes on America's uneasy immigration policies in her latest young adult offering. RETURN TO SENDER begins with a foreboding incident: 11-year-old Tyler's father is injured in a tractor accident, and their rural Vermont dairy farm needs immediate help. Hiring an unauthorized immigrant family from Mexico brings a solution to their problems, but young Tyler thinks that saving the farm may not be worth the higher...
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To the parents of eleven-year-old Tyler Paquette, the family of Mexican workers who have come to live in the trailer on their Vermont dairy farm are angels. Tyler had actually seen the tractor roll over, trapping his father underneath. He's had horrible nightmares about it ever since. If Tyler had not been there to call 9-1-1, his father wouldn't be alive today. Nevertheless, his father may never recover the full use...
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Julia Alvarez's new book, RETURN TO SENDER, explores the issue of illegal immigration. Two twelve-year-olds share their connected stories involving this politically sensitive subject. Tyler's family runs a dairy farm. Up until the sudden death of his grandfather and then his father's farming accident, things had been going well. Now that his older brother is leaving for college, there isn't enough help around to do all...
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