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Return To Sender

photo provided Julia Alvarez

Tuesday December 30, 2008

Return To Sender
By Julia Alvarez
 “A must-read.”—Kirkus Reviews
 “Young people’s voices make for a fast read; the characters, including the adults, are drawn with real complexity; and the questions raised about  the meaning of patriotism will spark debate.”—Booklist  “A tender, well-constructed book.”—Publishers Weekly

   On Jan.  13, the Vermont Folklife Center (VFC) will present critically acclaimed, award-winning novelist Julia Alvarez, reading from her new novel, RETURN TO SENDER (Alfred A. Knopf, Books for Young Readers, available Jan. 13), at Middlebury’s Town Hall Theater at 7 p.m.  Focusing on immigration, migrant workers, and a Vermont farming family, the book captures the raw emotion surrounding this timely subject matter by telling the story through the questioning innocence of children.

    The reading, which is free and open to the public, is the last in a series of events sponsored by the Vermont Folklife Center in connection with the exhibit The Golden Cage: Mexican Migrant Workers and Vermont Dairy Farmers. That exhibit, incorporating photographs, text, and audio interviews in Spanish and English at VFC’s headquarters in Middlebury, has been extended due to public demand through January 2009.

     In Return to Sender, eleven-year-old Tyler worries about losing his family’s farm after his father is severely injured in a tractor accident and his grandfather passes away. Tyler is desperate to save the land his family has farmed for generations and even volunteers to quit school to work the land himself—anything to prevent foreclosure. When Tyler comes home to find that his family has hired a Mexican family of “illegal aliens,” he wonders whether keeping the farm is worth breaking the law. Tyler soon befriends a daughter of one of the workers, Mari, who is dealing with the disappearance of her mother while also missing her home.

       Tyler worries every day about the fate of his farm, while Mari is afraid that la migra will come to get her family. Tyler struggles with how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law; Mari ponders how she can be Mexican and American. Both want to hold on to their heritage, and both wonder why it all has to be so complicated.

       Told through the alternating viewpoints of Tyler and Mari, and using letters from Mari to her mother (and even to the U.S. President), Julia Alvarez weaves a beautiful story that examines the struggles and pride of both the fraught farmer and the hardworking migrant worker. RETURN TO SENDER showcases humanity at its best and worst when dealing with the hard-pressing, hot-button issue of immigration, and is a book parents and educators will appreciate for its historical significance and compassionate narrative that unfolds as borders are crossed.

    JULIA ALVAREZ is the award-winning author of several novels for young readers, including How Tia Lola Came to (Visit) Stay, Finding Miracles, and Before We Were Free, winner of the American Library Association’s Pura Belpre Award. Her adult books include How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of Butterflies, and Once Upon a Quinceañera. She is a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College in Vermont.

   The Vermont Folklife Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and exploring Vermont culture through ethnographic research, place-based educational programming, and documentary production. VFC’s archive and multi-media exhibitions are free to the public. VFC also offers educational programs and training workshops for educators and for the general public. 

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