Naomi's Growth in Becoming Naomi Leon

I just finished reading the book Becoming Naomi Leon. I was intruiged to read this book since in our last children's literature course we read one of the authors other books, Esperanza Rising. I have to say that this is one of my favorite books that I have read in a long time. There is one thing that stuck out to me after I started writing my questioning the text paper, so I figured that I would write a blog about my thoughts. We are able to see Naomi's struggle throughout the book with wanting her mother back in her life. Until she finds out that Skyla is wanting her to move to Las Vegas to basically babysit her boyfriends daughter, Naomi was enthralled with her mother. I noticed that throughout the novel, Naomi was never very secure with how she looked. She always commented about how she stuck out from others. This theme became apparent to me when they actually travel to Mexico and she tells us that the clothes really make the person, and the fact that she had on an embroidered blous and other articles of clothing that she finally felt like she was Mexican. She finally felt as if she fit in. She was able to be successful at the turnip carving competition, and feel good about herself. I thought thatit was interesting that after this trip to Mexico, her self confidence goes up. We hear throughout the story that she is always soft spoken and that no one can ever hear her, but this changes. We see her thoughts of remaning silent about all of the things that Skyla has planned for her, but in the end, in court, she decides that she has to say something or no one is going to say anything. She stands up for herself, her brother owen, and her great grandmother. Because Naomi found out who she was and where she came from, she was able to say something. I thought that this was an interesting growth throughout the novel and wanted it to be brought to the forefront. I think that this is an important novel that brings up issues of different family situations, and real world contexts that happen in our lives today.