A Sea of Lemon Trees, by Maria Dolores Aguila

     This book started out as a picture book, but according to author Aguila's notes, someone convinced her to make it a chapter book instead. Written in verse, A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez is the story of Roberto Alvarez, who, as a young person, helped to end an injustice in his San Diego town in 1931. As the nation experienced economic depression, people looked for someone to blame, as they will do in times of crisis, and Mexicans and Mexican-Americans living in San Diego at that time became targets of anger. Some people in the community decided that "brown" kids should not be going to school with White kids, so a barn was turned into a school and the Mexican students were told to start attending the other school. Not everyone agreed with this direction, and the story behind A Sea of Lemon Trees was born!

    I'll say again that I generally love books written in verse. I think that writing a book would be challenging on its own, but to tell a good story using fewer words on a page would make it that much harder. Some of my favorite authors over the years - Kwame Alexander, Karen Hesse, Sharon Creech - have written one or more books in verse, and I find them wonderful! So I liked that Aguila's first chapter book is written in that style, and until I finished the book I didn't know that it had started as a picture book. This book was also awarded a Newbery Honor and a Pura Belpre Honor - both very high praise! I liked the book and enjoyed learning about this part of our nation's history that I didn't know before. But I wasn't sure, while reading, why the author chose to write this book in verse...it just seemed to be because she didn't have enough words, as odd as that sounds. It made more sense learning that it began as a picture book, because it seemed like it might have been a better picture book, in a way.

    All that said, the last 30 or 40 pages of the book makes the entire story, so if you start this book, please finish it! The reward comes at the end! It's an important story as well, one we should all know, and isn't a lot different than what is happening in our nation today. So what can we learn from this, and how can we live differently moving forward? All told, I give this 4 paws, which is high praise, especially for the first chapter book by an author. The ending really made the whole story, and the writing style was promising, just not quite hitting the mark entirely.