border crossing

Until Someone Listens (Spanish Edition)

In this heart wrenching, autobiographical story, Estela Juarez’s letters take her from the local news all the way to the national stage, where she discovers the power in her words and pledges to keep using her voice until her family and others like hers are together again.

Featured in WOW Review Volume XVI, Issue 2.

Jimena Perez Puede Volar

Ten-year-old Jimena loves El Salvador but when gangs threaten to force her to join, she and her mother immigrate to the United States, but are separated at the border.

A Sky Without Lines

A moving and timely story of a young boy separated from his beloved brother and father by a border Arturo loves to look at maps and the lines where different countries meet––as if greeting each other with a big hug. But his mother tells him these lines have a different purpose––to keep people from moving freely across the land. Arturo and his mother are separated from his father and his brother Antonio by one of these lines. Will he ever see his brother again? But the sky has no lines, so Arturo dreams of flying with Antonio through the open sky to the moon, free of barriers. Artful, moving watercolor illustrations express a young boy’s sorrow at separation and his joyful dreams of a world without lines.

Dos Conejos Blancos

In this moving and timely story, a young child describes what it is like to be a migrant as she and her father travel north toward the US border. They travel mostly on the roof of a train known as The Beast, but the little girl doesn’t know where they are going. She counts the animals by the road, the clouds in the sky, the stars. Sometimes she sees soldiers. She sleeps, dreaming that she is always on the move, although sometimes they are forced to stop and her father has to earn more money before they can continue their journey. As many thousands of people, especially children, in Mexico and Central America continue to make the arduous journey to the US border in search of a better life, this is an important book that shows a young migrant’s perspective.

Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote

When Papa Rabbit does not return home as expected from many seasons of working in the great carrot and lettuce fields of El Norte, his son Pancho sets out on a dangerous trek to find him, guided by a coyote. Includes author’s note.

The Crossing

Thirteen-year-old Manny, a street kid fighting for survival in a Mexican border town, develops a strange friendship with an emotionally disturbed American soldier who decides to help him get across the border.

Where the Streets Had a Name

Thirteen year old Hayaat is on a mission. She believes a handful of soil from her grandmother’s ancestral home in Jerusalem will save her beloved Sitti Zeynab’s life. The only problem is that Hayaat and her family live behind the impenetrable wall that divides the West Bank, and they’re on the wrong side of check points, curfews, and the travel permit system. Plus, Hayaat’s best friend Samy always manages to attract trouble. But luck is on the pair’s side as they undertake the journey to Jerusalem from the Palestinian Territories when Hayaat and Samy have a curfew-free day to travel. But while their journey may only be a few kilometers long, it could take a lifetime to complete. Deals with the Israel-Palestinian conflict with sensitivity and grace.

Star in the Forest

After eleven-year-old Zitlally’s father is deported to Mexico, she takes refuge in her trailer park’s forest of rusted car parts, where she befriends a spunky neighbor and finds a stray dog that she nurses back to health and believes she must keep safe so.

Red Glass

Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.