The Circuit: Graphic Novel
by Francisco Jiménez; adapted by Andrew J. Rostan; illus. by Celia Jacobs
Intermediate, Middle School    Clarion/HarperCollins    240 pp.
3/24    9780358348214    $24.99
Paper ed.  9780358348221    $15.99
e-book ed.  9780358439349    $10.99

Jiménez’s iconic, award-winning memoir—an episodic collection of short stories published in 1997—receives a handsome graphic novel adaptation. Francisco’s family leaves their small town on the outskirts of Guadalajara for the promise of a better life in California. Making their way to Mexicali, they dig under the wire fence to cross the border, finding employment in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley as migrant farm workers. An early memory has a five-year-old Francisco watching his infant brother while his parents and older brother pick cotton. It’s a hard life: constantly moving and uprooting themselves to find work; substandard housing, education, and medical care; and the entire family making sacrifices, both physical and emotional. Here, as in the original source material, Jiménez’s plainspoken narration resonates with dignity, humility, and timelessness. The mixed-media illustrations convey both the time period and the mood of the piece with a limited color palette of olive green, lavender, and vermillion on a sepia background. (Francisco is drawn here with black hair and brown skin, rather than the fair skin and blond hair described in the original source and in the family picture that accompanies the author’s note.) A glossary is also appended.

Pubissue-From the March/April 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.