The Circuit

“Thinking we were all asleep, Mamá quietly slipped out of bed and lit the kerosene lamp. I covered my head with the blanket and through the hole in it I watched her, trying to see what gifts she was going to wrap, but she sat behind some wooden crates that served as the table and blocked my view. I could see only her weatherworn face. The shadow cast by the dim light made the circles under her eyes look even darker. As she began to wrap the gifts, silent tears ran down her cheeks. I did not know why” (55).

This poignant passage about how Francisco Jiménez’s mother had nothing but bags of candy to wrap for Christmas presents left me with heartache. The simple imagery that Jiménez skillfully creates in his description of his mother shows readers how much she sacrificed for her family, and how she never complained about her hardships, simply because she loved them. Her family was all she needed, which is an idea that anyone can understand, no matter what kind of lifestyle one has.

Along with Mamá, I found myself sympathizing with Roberto the most. I’ve always felt that the oldest children in families had some sort of advantage (they’re older and therefore have power over their younger siblings, they wear new clothes that get handed down, they are the first to graduate from high school [in theory], etc.). However, I saw that Roberto was at a disadvantage because of his age: he couldn’t go to school as often because Papá needed him to work in the fields. “I sat at the table across from Roberto, but I kept my head down. I did not want to look up and face him. I knew he was sad. He was not going to school today. He was not going tomorrow, or next week, or next month. He would not go until the cotton season was over, and that was sometime in February” (80). For Roberto, the responsibility of being the oldest meant that he had to sacrifice education for the survival of his family. That was a tough realization for me to swallow.

I did enjoy Jiménez’s memories of school. I waited in anticipation with him as his class watched the butterfly emerge from its cocoon; I felt excitement for him when his teacher promised to teach him to play the trumpet; I was proud when he worked so hard to memorize the Declaration of Independence. Not that I am surprised by it, but becoming literate was clearly an important part of Jiménez’s childhood. I thought that, in Fictionland, he would be friends with Mattie Gokey, the protagonist in Jennifer Donnelly’s historical fiction novel, A Northern Light. Both characters share a love of words, each learning a word a day and committing it to memory. They would also be drawn to each other’s thirst for education, as I read how each anticipated their time in school above all else. How I wish more students felt that way!

To help my own students advance their literacy, I want to use the “Learning the Game” chapter (84-95) to teach metaphor. Students struggle to understand this literary device, and I think that Jiménez does a wonderful job juxtaposing his standing up to Carlos’ control of Kick-the-Can to Gabriel’s defiance of Díaz, the boss, when ordered to pull a plow as oxen. The language is simple enough that students should easily understand the story for its several levels of meaning, which will be a great add-on to my current metaphor lessons!