AMELIA'S ROAD

Amelia Martinez hates all roads; every time her father gets out the map, it means leaving new friends and a teacher who hasn't even learned her name. But for this young Latino migrant, one brief stay offers a modicum of hope: a sympathetic teacher asks for a picture of ``something that's really special to you'' (Amelia draws a home); and she discovers a winding, ``accidental'' path to a ``wondrous tree...the sturdiest, most permanent thing Amelia had ever seen.'' When it's time to move on to the next crop, Amelia collects her drawing, the name tag the teacher gave her, and a family photo and buries them under the tree—``a place she could come back to.'' And this time she doesn't weep when her father gets out the road map. A spare, unsentimental, empathetic picture of a quietly courageous child making the best of difficult necessity. Sanchez (Abuela's Weave, p. 297) provides handsome acrylic paintings in a monumental, fresco-like style that emphasizes these characters' dignity and humanity. (Picture book. 4-8)