Jiménez’s memoir of his childhood and adolescence is presented as a collection of 12 hauntingly spare short stories that can either stand alone or be read as a continuous narrative. A poignant, childlike voice is consistently maintained throughout, even as he writes of the subhuman living conditions and constant fear that were realities for his migrant family. This collection, which won the Américas Award, Boston Globe- Horn Book Fiction Award, and a Jane Addams Honor, was first published as a paperback original by University of New Mexico Press in 1997. (Age 12 and older)

Told by a teenaged son in a series of semi-autobiographical connected short stories, this chronicle of a family of migrant workers in California is heartbreaking in its realistic detail. The "circuit" moves them from one crop to the next, one town to the next. As more children are born, they struggle to keep up with their responsibilities, look for "real" jobs, and, despite their legal status, avoid la migra, the unrelenting border patrol.