Title of Book:First Crossing Author:Donald R. Gallo # of Pages: 224 Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆



The book “First Crossing” by Donald R. Gallo is a book that expands on teens' experiences being immigrants. The story starts off with a boy named Marco. Marco notices his parents struggling to get through day by day so he decides to go to America with his dad (Papa). Throughout the story you understand the problems Marco lives with, he has to cross the border but has to risk his life and everyone else’s to do it. This story has value because it shows that if you put your mind to anything you can and will do it. It also shows the reader that people go through tough times and this left me impacted because it has made me a person who cherishes moments, big or small.  This book showed the struggle between each teen and some were worse than others but they all had one thing in common. They sought America for a new life and it was hard to adjust but they made it through.

Setting :

This book has many settings but the one that stood out to me the most in the story “My Favorite Chaperone” and it was when Maya was horse-playing with 2 other boys and her father drove up to see this. Maya’s father not knowing it is socially acceptable to, freaked out. They see this as Maya shaming their family. “Mama, it was just kids joking. Guys from the wrestling team pretending some of us were weights.” “I don’t know this weights!” (Gallo 66) This quote shows that Mama or Maya's mother doesn’t understand why they were fighting. She doesn’t understand what weights are and this shows the struggle it is for Maya. I choose this setting because Maya just wants to have fun with her friends but since they aren’t natives to America they do not understand that it's okay for students to mess around.

Who this book targets:

This book can be read by anyone. I think this book is more targeted to adults because of the realism inside of it. While reading this book I couldn’t help but feel sorry for everyone that has to go through this like some of these teens. I think this book would be a great book for an english class to read because maybe people can understand the social issues we have in this world today and I think it can help a lot of people understand that other people have it hard and that they should cherish any moment they have because some people don’t get to experience the things that most of us do. 

Theme:

There are a lot of themes within this book. I think the one that fits perfectly with this book is cultural misconceptions. I chose this as a theme because in the book a girl named Maya rough houses with some of her friends leaving her dad scared because he didn’t understand that it is socially acceptable to do that. This shows the misunderstanding of what their intentions were.