Customer Reviews

By the Lake of Sleeping Children

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We, as United States citizens take for granted all that we have and this book is a solemn reminder of all that we do have to be thankful for. Urrea gives character sketches of sorts on the impoverished families and orphaned children that live unseen by the world in their own world of the Mexican garbage dumps. A very sad tale about the suffering in Mexico that goes unnoticed. Thank you Urrea for opening my eyes and my heart to these children.

I just finished By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border, and I would recommend it to anyone who has a heart and open eyes.

First, for the person who had a negative review of the book (2 stars), this is not "non-fiction" in the sense that you're used to. No where does the author state all he's writing is dry facts. He's a creative writer, and you can write creatively based on fact. It happens all the time. And why should the author be so PC by changing "gringos" to "American(o)s"? "Gringos" is to imply anglos, not Americans.

Anyway, this book is definitely not for the faint of heart because at times is can be graphic in detail. I told my husband about some on the stories, the center theme being the dump, and he said, "what? they live in a dump?" He's Mexican. He's never heard of that. And he's heard many things more than the average person. The thing you just need to take away from this book is not the brutality but the knowledge that other people do live in extremely harsh situations. Whether you want to do something about it is another thing, but the most you can do is talk about it. Mexico is not the only country with such extreme poverty, and this book shouldn't be viewed and as only Mexico's truth.

In the harshness, there is still life. The last chapter of the book demonstrates this. Also that people do try to help as much as they can.

This would be a great book to teach in High School, but I doubt it would ever make the reading list.

I was scared and upset when I finally realized what the title of the book meant. I am a mexican-american, born on the U.S. side of the border. This book reminded me just how far away America is from Mexico, even though we are neigbors, we are worlds away. This book is blunt. Although it was a harsh reality check for me, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

Luis Alberto Urrea's "By the Lake of the Sleeping Childre"n is the haunting journalistic account of the Tijuana garbage pickers and dump residents. Urrea tells of the intense poverty and unbreakable spirit of the citizens who call the dump home.

This novel is haunting. It is not fiction and is painfully blunt, but in an elegant way. Urrea makes no judgments upon his subjects, merely reports the impoverished conditions they live in and how they maintain the wherewithal to continue through each day. The narrative is so vivid that the reader will wish and hope that it is fiction, because to think of real people living in these conditions is almost unbearable.

Normally I read inscrutable fiction by James Joyce and other Ir1ish, in which meanings are hidden beneath deep overcoats and thick layers of linguistic pyrotechnics to get past the British censor, etc. And so it was like walking into bright sunlight for me to read an excellent author who so clearly, concisely, briefly, and openly reveals what he has to say.

For Urrea truly is an excellently well-trained author in the modern honest, clear and concise school. He has served at Harvard University as a professor of expository writing, and unlike most such professors, he can also himself write.

In his divided blood, as he explains in this book, run rivers of these border issues. His very being and essence is a border issue from before birth. He has devoted a good part of his life after birth to serving first hand and first-aid the border people. And he is a writer.

He does not indulge here at any length in political rhetoric and preaching, spoonfeeding us explicitly by dictating to us the conclusions he wishes us to draw, as we have learned to expect on television news opinion shows such as O'Reilly, Coulter, etc., etc., which force their opinions, most often erroneous and fallacious, down our too willing and eager unthinking throats. Urrea is too great a writer for that. He presents the facts, just the facts, in brief vignettes easily read and understood, not obscure as I am also used to.

Through unforgettable images he presents to us the reality of the border, of Baja California, of Tijuana, of Arizona, etc. This book reads easily, but unlike most easy readers, this book remains with you. The figures will continue to haunt you and to bring you to think for yourself.

Indeed, the figures are so cleaning presented we can miss them, like observing a crucifixion quickly in the distance as we rush by on a long distance bus. Urrea keeps to an appearance of clean narrative presented in a straightforward manner, but the more his simply drawn images work on you, the more you see their multilayered resonances and meanings, their mythic qualities as archetypes brilliantly implanted nearly unnoticed within the narrative. Not only do we see clear examples of the mythic journey heroes of Joseph Campbell, but we hear them within the context of our contemporary sociopolitical reality. In particular, consider the sacrificial goat so cruelly slaughtered alive by the old gringo. This and other images provide powerful portals to deeper meanings in the tales, while remaining compelling vignettes of the tangible events in force in our day.

This book will make you eager for further writing from Urrea, especially his Devil's Highway, which explores well and more in-depth these and similar issues. Both volumes make a valuable addition to any personal library. This is a great introduction; the other makes for solid further study. Please do not miss them, and, absent an ability to do the work in the field which Urrea has done so courageously and at great self-sacrifice, brings safely to your comfortable surroundings the hard reality of life on the border under our nation's imperial and arrogant international policies.

Please, do read this book, and think for yourself once again.

Incredibly written story of real life on the Mexican border, I wish more people could read this book and maybe they would understand why our Mexican population has grown so. Although a very sad tale, I couldn't put it down until I finished.

This book picks up where "Across the Wife" left off. "Across the Wire" was better, but this book still gives a dramatic description of some of the aspects of the lives of the poorest of the poor in TJ.

The saddest part is how Luis describes the people who have contacted him after having read the first book. "Very few want to send money," he laments. Money certainly isn't the answer to all the world's problems, but it would certainly help alleviate some of the suffering. It's sad that even after having read such heartbreaking stories few people wish to do the easiest act to help: write a check.

Surprisingly absent from this book is the author's suggestions for a solution to the problem. This speaks of Urrea's intelligence or perhaps how much he's learned from his experiences. THERE IS NO EASY SOLUTION! There is no remedy that can be written in a few pages in a book.

I really enjoyed this book, very eye opening. Its narrated in a very comical way however, the reality it tells is a very sad one. Definitely a good book and would recommend it to anyone.

Wow! This book dives into the dumps of the bordertowns of Mexico. A place most Americans don't even know exists, I know I didn't. I knew there were dumps but not people LIVING IN THEM! This book was disturbing but informative. People need to know what these people are going through.

This is a very disturbing book, but relevant even for those who have no connection to the border (it was read for a class on cultural diversity). The harshness of the world inhabited by the people Urrea writes about is clearly carried through the work, and IMO to populate the book with editorial PC-ness would lead to the loss of meaningfulness. It doesn't matter if it offends you. It's supposed to be offensive! You're supposed to read this and be disgusted, sad, disturbed; just affected in any way. Poverty is rife. Violence is a way of survival. People are resourceful, nevertheless.

Urrea does a good job of illustrating the cycle of dependence between the US and Mexico, or the cycle of oppressor and oppressed, if you will. I personally didn't see the author as blaming Mexico alone; there is plenty of scathing commentary on US involvement from foreign policy, NAFTA, and maquiladoras*, down to the individuals who take a day trip down to hand out food, clothes, and hygienic products.

I did not like reading this book. But I'm glad I did.

*You can find out more about maquiladoras by doing a search at About.com