Voices from the Fields: Children of Migrant Farmworkers Tell Their Stories

Voices that few Americans have heard speak out in this collection of respectfully edited interviews, poems and photographs. Nine migrant Mexican-American children from California's Salinas Valley share their experiences of living within two cultures, building the reader a picture detail by detail: they tell of working in the fields, the importance of family, such problems as gangs and prejudice, and their efforts to become educated so that the next generation will not work in the fields. Unusually wide trim (812) gives the book the feel of a photo album, the perfect format for Atkin's black-and-white shots of her subjects and their families. Poems presented both in Spanish and in English illuminate the themes of the interviews, although it's disappointing that Atkins provides no background information about the represented poets. She does, however, supply helpful, succinct introductions to each of the nine first-person narratives. This is a well-rounded, moving look at a small, struggling group. Ages 10-up. (May)