The Circuit Theme of Time

Here's the deal: when you make your living by picking crops, time is seriously important. Certain plants grow and need to be harvested at super specific times, and that means farm workers—like Francisco's family in The Circuit—end up working different jobs during different seasons. This means lots of moving around, and it also means that when nothing's in season, there's also no work. Needless to say, this makes the passage of time—and seasons—pretty scary sometimes.

1. How do the characters mark the passage of time? Do different characters understand time in distinct ways? 
2. What do you think of the way the changing seasons are represented? Do the changes sound good or bad? How so?
3. In the novel, is there anything that stays the same over time?

Time passing means progress in this book, and important shifts happen as the years go by that are good news for Francisco.

Time might pass, but everything stays the same. Not much changes over time in this book, which is a real bummer.