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DeFelice,
Cynthia C.
UNDER THE SAME SKY
New York : Farrar, Straus,
Giroux, 2003.
IL 5-8, RL 6.6
ISBN 0374380325
3 booktalks
|
| Booktalk
#1
Joe Pederson wants one thing
for his birthday -- a big, expensive motorbike. His parents decide
he needs a lesson on the value of money and tell him he will earn the money
himself. Living on a ranch in New York, Joe's family employs migrant
workers from Mexico. The summer will find Joe working alongside the
Mexicans and sharing their life. As Joe gets to know the workers,
he realizes that his attitude toward them is changing. And he begins
to see his own friends in a different light.
Booktalk #2
Joe’s 14th birthday is rapidly
approaching and there’s no question what he wants—the $1000 motor bike
from the X-treme Sports catalog. Already he can envision the freedom he’ll
enjoy all summer long. He’s ready with the catalog when his parents bring
up the topic of a gift, but their response is ALL WRONG! The Pedersons
tell Joe if he wants the bike he’ll have to earn the money for it, working
in the fields along with the migrant workers hired from Mexico. While the
workers have been a part of the Pedersons’ farm forever, living under the
same sky, he never paid much attention to them. The work crew this year
includes Manuel, the sixteen year old crew boss, and Luisa, another teen
supporting her family in Mexico, as well as other workers. As he labors
alongside the workers, Joe comes to appreciate how difficult the work is,
how good they are at it, and the challenges and dangers they face as migrant
workers. When Federal agents come to check the legal status of the workers,
everything changes. Joe’s parents are out of town, and he has to make some
difficult decisions. This book has no easy answers but one that certainly
addresses the illegal immigrant situation in the United States from a compassionate
and practical standpoint. (Jean B. Bellavance for Pennsylvania
Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2005-2006)
Booktalk #3
All I wanted for my fourteenth
birthday was a motorbike. When I asked my mother and father for it and
that it would only cost seven hundred and seventy nine dollars my parents
said a big fat no. Then my father said if I really wanted it I could earn
the money by working on the farm with the Mexican laborers. So that’s what
I’m doing with my summer, Joe Pederson worker instead of Joe Pederson man
of leisure. Joe had it all figured out, how much he would make each week
and how long it would take to earn the bike. Of course things never go
the way we plan and Joe will learn that very quickly. At first Joe is very
jealous of the crew boss Manuel, but as Joe starts to get to know Manuel
and the other crewmembers he learns how hard they have it. Joe begins to
realize that there are more important things in life than a motorbike when
the locals as well as immigration harass the laborers. When Joe discovers
that some of the workers are in the country illegally, he will have to
make a decision on whether to help them escape from immigration or turn
them in. Will Joe help his new friends escape? Read Under the Same Sky
by Cynthia DeFelice to find out. Oklahoma
Sequoyah Young Adult Book Award nominee, 2005-2006 |
