Young adult books from North and South America
Asphalt angels by Ineke Holtwijk; translated by Wanda Boeke. Brazil, 1999.
Abandoned on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, thirteen-year-old Alex joins a group of children like him and finds himself adapting to his new life.
The tree is older than you are: a bilingual gathering of poems & stories from Mexico with paintings by Mexican artists; selected by Naomi Shihab Nye. Mexico, 1995.
This extraordinary anthology features the work of 64 Mexican writers and artists, among them Octavio Paz, Rodolfo Morales, and Leticia Tarrago, as well as those having their work published in the U.S. for the first time. The 102 poems and stories are presented in the original Spanish and in translation.
Sweetgrass by Jan Hudson. Canada, 1999.
Living on the western Canadian prairie in the nineteenth century, Sweetgrass, a fifteen-year-old Blackfoot Indian girl, saves her family from a smallpox epidemic and proves her maturity to her father.
A thief in the village, and other stories by James Berry. Jamaica, 1987.
A collection of nine short stories about life in contemporary Jamaica, covering such subjects as a young boy's desire to buy shoes for the cricket team and a girl's adventures on a coconut plantation.
Among the volcanoes by Omar S. Castaņeda. Guatemala, 1991.
When her mother becomes ill, Isabel, a Mayan girl living in contemporary Guatemala, must care for her and continue her search for her own identity in a world fraught with upheaval and change.