Reading Changed My Life - Townsend Press

Reading Changed My Life! Three True StoriesMigrant workers can’t afford much of a childhood.Within a short time, little Maria was workingin the fields. Her days were filled with backbreakinglabor, hunger, bug bites, sickness, drunken mencursing and fighting, hands stained with tomatooils, scary snakes hiding among the crops, and constanttravel. She picked citrus fruit and cucumbersin Florida, potatoes in Tennessee, peppers in NorthCarolina, and tomatoes in Ohio and Indiana. Thefamily moved wherever the crops were ready.Their home was a room in whatever migrantcamp they were staying in. The word “home” isusually a warm, comforting one. But these roomsweren’t warm or comforting. They were very bare,just four walls, furnished with a two-burner gasstove that flared up in scary, unexpected ways. If thefamily was lucky, there were mattresses on the floor.Everything else was outside. The workerswashed their dishes outside, under a hose. Toiletswere holes in the ground, surrounded by flimsy4