Petra Luna’s character was inspired by both my grandmother and great-grandmother. The harsh poverty and prejudice they both faced were the same before, during, and even after the Mexican Revolution. Like Petra, my grandmother, Josefa Díaz, was a strong, bold girl who climbed trees and chopped wood to help feed her family. She too dreamed of one day learning to read and write, and once, her younger brother became so ill she had to beg for alms to help pay for his medicine, just like Petra does in the story. She found the experience so humiliating she swore that as long as she lived, her own children would never have to beg for alms. My great-grandmother, Juanita Martínez, inspired the novel at its core. Like Petra, she and her family escaped their burning village in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution. But unlike Petra, she was only nine years old when this happened, and it was she, her father, two siblings and two cousins who crossed the scorching desert by foot before reaching the border town of Piedras Negras, Coahuila.