*Starred Review* As in Francisco Jiménez’s The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1997) and Pam Muñoz Ryan’s Esperanza Rising (2000), Resau’s novel tells a child’s migration story with simple immediacy. After her father is imprisoned in Colorado and then deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant, lonely 11-year-old Zitlally befriends her neighbor and classmate, Crystal. Together, the girls care for Star, an abandoned dog they find chained up in their trailer-park “forest,” made up of heaps of rusted car parts. Zitlally’s stressed, angry mama works many jobs and sells the family’s truck so that they can send Papá money to pay border smugglers, who will help him try to return. Then Papá is kidnapped and held for ransom, and Zitlally’s illegal family cannot go to the police. Crystal’s family is also in trouble: her father is in prison in the U.S., although she makes up wild stories about him working in Antarctica and Madagascar. Always true to Zitlally’s viewpoint, the unaffected writing makes clear the anguish of illegals. The thematic parallels with the dog, also an illegal of sorts, are redundant; it’s the family story, more than the pet plot, that will grab readers. A pronunciation guide, a glossary, and a note about immigration from Mexico to the U.S. close this unforgettable narrative of a girl’s daily struggle to find a home. Grades 4-8. --Hazel Rochman
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
About the Author
Laura Resau lived in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Mexico, for two years as an English teacher and anthropologist. She now lives with her husband, her dog, and her son, Bran, in Colorado, where she teaches cultural anthropology and English as a Second Language. She is also the author of
What the Moon Saw and
Red Glass.
From the Hardcover edition.
