Reviews

Un Punado de Semillas = A Handful of Seeds by Monica Hughes

eirenophile's review against another edition

5.0

I liked this book a LOT. It doesn't explain the things it shouldn't (e.g., why her parents aren't around, words like "sharecropping" and "homeless"), and it makes her situation come alive instead of seeming like a lesson.

The illustrations have a style that I have come to associate with Mexican and Central American childrens books, and that makes sense for this book, but I just didn't connect to them.

In retrospect, given how much I want this as part of my library, I am changing my rating.

veganemelda's review against another edition

5.0

This kid's book introduces a lot of issues (poverty, police brutality, gardening, etc.) subtlety and you can talk about them in depth more as your child grows. A young girl and her grandmother are sharecroppers and when the grandmother dies, the granddaughter runs away to the city and joins a gang of abandoned children in a tent city. She convinces them to grow a garden so they don't have to steal food but the cops come, trample the garden and beat the children. In the end, the children end up re-building the garden and making peace with the rival gang of neglected children. It's a sweet story.