Young Adult (ages 14-18)

Material appropriate for young adults

A Different Kind Of Heat

Luz Cordero is on fire. She’s burning up with rage. She was there the night her brother got killed. She saw the cop pull the trigger. She tried to do something positive about it by going to protests, but all her anger got her into trouble. Now Luz is living at the St. Therese Home for Boys and Girls, working to turn her life around. Sister Ellen and Luz’s three fellow residents are helping. When Sister Ellen gives Luz a journal to write everything down, Luz is finally able to face the truth about what happened that night. And she’s able to forgive her brother, the man who took him away, and—most importantly—herself. A Different Kind of Heat is a gritty, heartbreaking, and uplifting story of one girl’s struggle to forgive and remember.

Crashboomlove: A Novel In Verse

In this novel in verse, unprecedented in Chicano literature, renowned poet Juan Felipe Herrera illuminates the soul of a generation. Drawn from his own life as well as a lifetime of dedication to young people, CrashBoomLove helps readers understand what it is to be a teen, a migrant worker, and a boy wanting to be a boy. Sixteen-year-old Cesar Garcia is careening. His father, Papi Cesar, has left the migrant circuit in California for his other wife and children in Denver. Sweet Mama Lucy tries to provide for her son with dichos and tales of her own misspent youth. But at Rambling West High School in Fowlerville, the sides are drawn: Hmongs vs. Chicanos vs. everybody vs. Cesar, the new kid on the block. Precise and profound, CrashBoomLove will appeal to and resonate with high school readers across the country.

Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida

Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Mexican American family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone’s struggle.

Featured in Volume VI, Issue 1 of WOW Review.

The Heights

Henry liked to imagine his life began that cold rainy day in San Francisco when Mr. Earnshaw found him shivering by the side of the road. That was the day Henry met Catherine. For Henry, Catherine is like a precious gift. She pushes away his angry thoughts and makes him feel safe and calm. And though Mr. Earnshaw, a widow, raises the orphan and Catherine as brother and sister, their love for each other goes much deeper. They vow to always be together.     But everything changes when Mr. Earnshaw dies suddenly and Hindley, Mr. Earnshaw’s own son, gains control of the family finances. Furiously jealous, Hindley never accepted Henry as a true member of the family. He works to sever Henry’s relationship with Catherine and the violent rage Henry has harbored since he was a child bubbles to the surface. . . . Contemporizing the classic novel, Wuthering Heights, notable YA author, Brian James delives into the dark nature of obsessive love, the social injustices of class, and the self-destructive power of revenge in this emotionally raw unforgettable offering.  

The Boy without a Flag: Tales of the South Bronx

The violent world of the underclass and the daily battle with hopeless poverty, drug addiction, and other urban horrors come vividly to life in a collection of stories about being young and desperate in the South Bronx. A first collection. Original.

Behind The Eyes

behindHector Robles has spent his sixteen years in the projects of El Paso trying to stay unnoticed. His peaceful obscurity is shattered when his impulsive brother challenges the leader of a gang called the Discípulos. Suddenly Hector is drawn into their world of violence and hopelessness. When a marker is placed on his life, Hector tries to escape by going away to a school for students with troubled pasts. But it isn’t easy to function when he’s paralyzed by the fear that they’ll find him, even there. Ultimately, by confronting external threats and the internal pain of his memories and mistakes, Hector begins to understand what manhood really means.

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

As a Chicano boy living in the unglamorous town of Hollywood, New Mexico, and a member of the graduating class of 1969, Sammy Santos faces the challenges of “gringo” racism, unpopular dress codes, the Vietnam War, barrio violence, and poverty.

 

 

The Making Of A Civil Rights Leader (Hispanic Civil Rights)

Born in 1944, José Angel Gutiérrez grew up in a time when Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Texas and the Southwest attended separate schools and avoided public facilities and restaurants that were designated “Whites Only.” Despite the limits of segregation and rural culture in Texas, the passion to learn and to educate others, as well as to undo injustice, burned in his belly from an early age. Gutiérrez offers portraits of his early influences, from his father’s own pursuit of knowledge and political involvement, to his Mexican pre-school teacher’s dedication to bilingual-bicultural education which did not exist in public schools at that time, and to his mother’s courage and persistence, taking up migrant field work to provide for her family after the death of young Gutiérrez’s father. In this intensely narrated memoir, Gutiérrez details his rise from being beaten down by racist political and agricultural interests in South Texas to his leadership role in the Chicano civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Complemented by photos from his personal archives, Gutiérrez recalls his struggle for education, his early baptism in grass-roots political organizing, and his success in creating one of history’s most successful third party movements, La Raza Unida Party. Along the way, Gutiérrez earned college and law degrees, as well as a Ph. D. in Political Science. He was elected or appointed to school boards, commissions, judgeships and party chairmanships, all with the single-minded purpose of extending equality to Mexican Americans and other minorities in the United States. Through his tireless efforts, he crossed paths with African American and Native American civil rights leaders, Mexican presidents, and other international figures.