Why are young people leaving their country to walk to the United States to seek a new, safe home? Over 100,000 such children have left Central America. This book of poetry helps us to understand why and what it is like to be them.
This powerful book by award-winning Salvadoran poet Jorge Argueta describes the terrible process that leads young people to undertake the extreme hardships and risks involved in the journey to what they hope will be a new life of safety and opportunity. A refugee from El Salvador’s war in the eighties, Argueta was born to explain the tragic choice confronting young Central Americans today who are saying goodbye to everything they know because they fear for their lives. This book brings home their situation and will help young people who are living in safety to understand those who are not.
Compelling, timely and eloquent, this book is beautifully illustrated by master artist Alfonso Ruano who also illustratedThe Composition, considered one of the 100 Greatest Books for Kids by Scholastic’sParent and Child Magazine.
Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award
USBBY's Outstanding International Books List
ALA Notable Children's Books
Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices
Am?ricas Award Commended Title
A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year/strong>
Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Childrens Literature Honor Book
With tenderness and humanity, this bilingual book describes the hopes, fears, and uncertainties of the thousands of displaced children that arrive every year at the southern border of the United States . . . Poignant, heartbreaking, and sadly, timely. Kirkus, starred review
Argueta and Ruano present a unique and much-needed perspective on the reasons driving young people to immigrate to the U.S.
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