Return to Sender

Julia Alvarez’s Return to Sender is a 2009 realistic middle-grade novel set in Vermont between summer 2005 and summer 2006. Tyler Paquette and Mari Cruz, both 11 at the novel’s outset, narrate the story in alternating perspectives. Tyler is a white American boy who enjoys living on the family farm. After an accident curtails Tyler’s father’s ability for physical work, Tyler’s parents hire three Mexican men as farm workers. Mari, born in Mexico, is the oldest daughter of one of the hired men. As Tyler and Mari become friends, others’ unaccepting attitudes create conflict for Mari’s family—as does the law, which does not permit undocumented immigrants like Mari and her parents to live and work in the United States. The book won both the Pura Belpré Award and the Américas Award. Poet and novelist Alvarez is known for her essays, nonfiction works, children’s books, and other novels, including How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) and In the Name of Salomé (2000).

This guide follows the 2009 Random House edition.

Plot Summary

Eleven-year-old Tyler Paquette returns to his family’s farm in Vermont after a summertime stay with his aunt and uncle in Boston.