My thoughts on BECOMING NAOMI LEONE

I really enjoyed reading this book. After reading "Esperanza Rising" in TE348, I really took a liking to the author Ryan. She really does a great job visualizing the setting and making it so easy to relate with the main characters. This was definitely a different young adult novel. A lot of problems were presented in this book: family, biracialism, self-identity. It was great seeing Naomi grow stronger as a person as she began to understand more of her Mexicans roots; it's almost as if the trip to Mexico completed the puzzle piece for Naomi to just be her true self. The many issues that were apparent of the book at sometimes seemed a little overwhelming. We have read a few multicultural books thus far and so far, each book has so much going on in each. Are we trying to read an entertaining novel or are we doing our best help children find relatable characters who they can mirror or window. While there was some Mexican culture in the book, I don't know if I would have it on my shelvese completely representing the Latino/a Americans. I don't know if there is enough culture to help the readers visual and relate. While the book did present Spanish words within the context of the book, in some ways I felt it was just thrown in at time sand not really clearly identified. As stated in Barrera on page 247, "Historically in English-based text, Spanish words and phrases often have been added only for cultural flavor, or worse yet, to stereotype and disparage Latinos peoples and culture." I do not feel the author did this purposely, but sometimes I felt like Spanish words were incorporated simply because Naomi was Latina. I didn't get that feeling all the time, but sometimes the Spanish felt forced and not natural.

Overall, I felt the book was really interesting and while there were some concerns I had regarding the book, they were minor compared to how much I felt connected to Naomi. Again, if I were to use this book in my classroom, a more culturally aware book of Latino/a Americans is available to help students learn about the actual concepts within a text and to help the students see differences in portrayals.