When I first start reading this book I was not sure what to expect the title was different and the way that Stephen described it intrigued me. From the beginning the reader can tell that Estrella is the one that holds the family together. The only way for the family to survive is to live out of labor camps, which keeps their lives on the move as different crops need picking. Although she is only 13, she is wise in many ways.

She picks crops like everyone else and started at the young age of 5. She knows that there is something different about the way that she lives.  However, she learned this lesson from her teachers of all people, who asked her why her mother never bathes her. Before this point in Estrella’s life she had not realized that her life was as different due to being in poverty. The class distinctions found in the book seems unreal. At times when Estrella is in the field I think that this must be sent in the 1800’s but then she mentions watching the children play baseball. Something that she has never been able to do.

Estrella is aware that the pesticides that are being sprayed are harmful. She thinks about the problems it will cause her children, brothers and she witnesses the effects that it has on Alejo. Although it seems to being something that is noticed by the men and women in the poverty class, nothing is being changed. Since it is not effecting the middle and upper class the same way things are staying the way they have been.

The idea that someone so young has to deal with conditions like these seems unreal to me. I cannot fathom what it was like for them. dealing with the already harsh conditions in life and being poisoned on a regular basis while no one is fighting to keep them safe.