In "The Jumping Tree", set in Nuevo Penitas, an actual South Texas town, 12-year-old Rey Castaneda recounts landmark events in his journey toward becoming a man. Rey's stories of his childhood escapades, adventures, and everyday experiences could be anyone's childhood stories. When readers have finished the last page, they have relived the milestone events of their own childhood experiences whether they are a 12-year-old middle schooler, a 21-year-old language arts preservice teacher, or a 40-year-old university professor. Richly colored with Tex-Mex phrases, tales of Hispanic rituals, geographically correct descriptions of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, and an engaging Mexican American narrator, "The Jumping Tree" offers a culturally imbued text. Introduced to "The Jumping Tree" by a participant in her summer graduate seminar, Beatrice Mendez Newman, a professor in the Department of English at The University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, describes activities she and her students created around this young adult novel that would introduce children to a culture apart from mainstream American culture while also demonstrating that childhood holds universal experiences across cultures. Newman, argues for the inclusion of cultural voices in middle school classrooms by demonstrating that literature is best taught through stories that resonate with students' lives, that celebrate cultural differences, and that serve as connections to traditional texts. She thinks that novels such as Saldana's are not alternatives to "difficult" or "challenging novels. Instead she suggests that they function as the bridge, and saffolding that will make literary texts real and meaningful to middle schoolers. (Contains 1 figure.)