The barefoot dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P. Dobbs

 Petra has always dreamed of more, especially of learning to read, in her small rural village in Mexico. But it is 1913, her mother died in childbirth, her father has been conscripted by the Federales in Mexico's revolution, and she has to focus on survival. That precarious survival is threatened when the soldiers come back to her village - and this time they take everything, killing many of the people and burning the village to the ground. Twelve-year-old Petra, her abuelita, her six-year-old sister Amelia, and her baby brother Luis flee into the desert.

In the desert, Petra is amazed by her grandmother's knowledge of nature, allowing them to survive in the harshest of conditions. She makes a brief friend when they take refuge in a church and learns to write her name. They temporarily join a band of rebel soldiers and she has an opportunity to break out of the mold of expectations - that she will remain illiterate, impoverished, and follow her grandmother's rules of what a woman "should" be and do. She experiences prejudice, cruelty, and kindness, but never loses her hope and determination to keep her promise to her father; that she will protect the remnants of their small family and one day follow her own dreams and be free.

The story builds to a tense and bittersweet conclusion as Petra, her family, and thousands of other refugees desperately try to make it over the border before the government soldiers arrive. In the end, Petra has survived and she has a chance to make a new life. Like her "baby diamond" a piece of coal from her father, she is scraped, shaped, and changed by all she has gone through, but she is still determined to shine.

The author explains in an afterword that Petra's story is based on her own great-grandmother's experiences in the Mexican Revolution and gives a timeline of those events.

This is an intense story, but not overly gruesome or gory; the traumatic events are presented simply and honestly, with the focus on Petra's determination to survive and her struggles to follow her own dreams while still keeping her promises and protecting her small family. She reflects on the contrasts between her grandmother's abilities to survive in the desert and the new strengths and abilities she shows, while at the same time her abuelita is indecisive, frightened, and insistent that Petra must stay in her "place" even if it means abuse or death.

There are a number of threads for discussion and reflection woven through the story; the beauty and dangers of the desert, the prejudice faced by Petra's family and her own troubled thoughts about whether she should fight with the rebels or try to start over in a new land. Above all, it's the story of a girl with great strength facing seemingly insurmountable odds with determination and courage.

Verdict: This is a powerful debut novel and one which I am eager to recommend to my 4th and 5th grade classes. I hope some readers will be inspired to learn more about Mesoamerican historical context for the story, as well as the events and politics which continue to affect people today, but mostly it's a story that will resonate with young readers who face similar challenges in their lives and will hopefully cause readers who come from privilege to develop more empathy and respect for all those who, like Petra, are looking not just for survival but for a chance to dream and thrive.

ISBN: 9781728234656; Published September 2021 by Sourcebooks; ARC provided by publisher; Purchased for the library