I was excited to read Esperanza Rising because Pam Munoz Ryan wrote perhaps my all-time favorite Y.A. novel, Echo. It did not disappoint. Munoz Ryan excels at crafting thought-provoking historical fiction for the fourth/fifth grade crowd…though I personally enjoy her work myself and think other adults would feel the same. In Esperanza Rising, she takes the reader to 1920s Mexico, still reeling from the Revolution. When tragedy strikes thirteen-year-old Esperanza’s wealthy, land-owning family, she is forced to depart from her beloved ranch to the fields […]