Content: Language: PG (8 swears, 0 'F'); Mature Content: PG (racism, racial slurs); Violence: PG (off-page beating, forced/illegal deportations)
BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS - ESSENTIAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Teenage Estrella and her family live in rural Texas at the height of the Great Depression. The white community has begun to turn on the Mexican Americans and Mexicanos who live in the area, and one night Estrella's family is abruptly dragged from their home and forcefully "repatriated" (deported) across the Mexican border--despite being American citizens. Now Estrella faces a truly daunting challenge of caring for her mother and little brother in a country not her own, reuniting with her missing father, and finding a way home to the actual land of her birth.
This is a fantastic piece of historical fiction that I hated reading for the horror of its true story. Estrella and her family are great characters and the story is hard to put down once you get into it. I appreciated the Spanish words that are sprinkled throughout the novel without any translation--it made Estrella and her experiences seem even more real. This would be an especially good pick for communities that have a large Latinx population but is a book that should be read and appreciated by everyone who seeks to better understand the long history of race discrimination in America's history.
Reviewer: TC
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