ALA Booklist (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Amelia Luisa Martinez hates roads. The roads she knows as the child of migrant farmworkers lead to sunstruck fields and grim, gray shanties. She cries every time her father takes out the map. This picture book doesn't have the poetic intensity of Sherley Anne Williams' Working Cotton (1992), which focuses on one child's long day of work in the fields with her family. Altman's story is somewhat contrived, more convincing as metaphor than fact: Amelia finds a road of her own and a big old tree that she can remember as a place to come back to. What will stay with kids is the physical sense of what it's like to work and move all the time. Sanchez's full-paged acrylic illustrations show one small child's experience against the harsh background of field labor and temporary camps. The yearning in the story is palpable: the dream of what many long for and others take for granted--a settled home, white and tidy, with a fine old shade tree growing in the yard. Security. (Reviewed Sept. 15, 1993)

Kirkus Reviews (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

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)"

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

This story about the daughter of migrant farm workers is, in PW's words, ``an affecting and ultimately hopeful look at a transient way of living.'' Ages 3-10. (Sept.)

School Library Journal (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

K-Gr 3-A poignant yet gentle portrayal of the lives of migrant children. Constantly on the move, Amelia's family records events by crops not dates, carries with them only what will fit in the car, and are never anywhere long enough to feel at home. The girl longs for a place to stay, a place where she belongs. Teachers rarely bother to learn her name, so when Mrs. Ramos does so, it is special. The child's picture of a white house with a big shade tree earns a beautiful red star. On the way home, she discovers a road leading to a tree just like the one she drew. She visits this place often, and buries a small metal box filled with her treasures there when she must leave. For the first time in her life, Amelia has a home place. The acrylic-on-canvas illustrations have a folk-art quality that works well with this story. The canvas texture shows through the paint to add an almost tactile roughness of hard labor while rich colors capture the harvest crops at their succulent best. An important title for any library serving migrant populations, Amelia's Road should be a welcome addition almost anywhere. Useful in a variety of educational units, it works equally well as a read-aloud or read-alone.-Jody McCoy, Casady School, Oklahoma City