El Camino de Amelia

Editor’s Choice, Booklist
Choices, Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC)

A girl from a migrant worker family overcomes the hardship of moving by creating a special place for herself in this Spanish picture book.

Amelia Luisa Martinez hates roads. Los caminos, the roads, take her migrant worker family to fields where they labor all day, to schools where no one knows Amelia’s name, and to bleak cabins that are not home. Amelia longs for a beautiful white house with a fine shade tree in the yard, where she can live without worrying about los caminos again. Then one day, Amelia discovers an accidental road. At its end she finds an amazing old tree reminiscent of the one in her dreams. Its stately sense of permanence inspires her to put her own roots down in a very special way. The richly colored illustrations bring to life the landscape of California’s Central Valley farmland. Translated from Amelia’s Road, El camino de Amelia is an inspirational tale about the importance of home.