Christina Diaz Gonzalez

Very fast paced, complex. I didn't find it all that believable, but I think it will be popular with intended audience. The altered DNA plotline was great, but I have a hard time with the 12 YO computer genius and with the family basically creating their own witness protection program without outside support. I am naïve about these things -- it might very well be possible, but I found it unlikely. I'm also not all that convinced about social media as the answer to the permanent safety question, but again, what do I know?
It is a mile-a-minute storyline and I like that the heart of it is based on real science.… (més)

An updated Breakfast Club : five Spanish-speaking/Latine kids assigned before-school cafeteria duty discover a woman and her kid living in their van and try to help them. The group starts in the principal's office, and each character gets to tell part of the story of their efforts to help, along with their own troubles: Puerto Rican/American Jorge/George worries about getting into a magnet school; Sara lives with her dad but misses her mom and brothers back in Mexico; Nico is living with a great-aunt while his parents try to emigrate from Venezuela; Cuban-American Dayara struggles with (undiagnosed?) dyslexia; and Dominican-American Miguel has a talent for art, but his dad wants him to concentrate on baseball.

All of the text is speech bubbles: a solid outline denotes spoken dialogue, while a connected, dotted-line outline offers a translation, so most of the story is in both Spanish and English.… (més)

This book was a treat to read. Five kids are called to the principal’s office to be interrogated. They had to wait for an interpreter because not all the kids speak English. There was apparently an incident and the principle wanted to get to the bottom of it. All these kids think they are in trouble but shouldn’t be. We hear the story from each of them in turn until the end. This book shows the casual racism that can be apparent in school. How people assume someone is ‘dumb’ because they don’t speak the language, or that they are low class, or someone beneath others because of a language barrier. It also shows how, particularly Latinx people are seen as foreign, even when born in the us, or how many see them all as “Mexican” in a derogatory sense, when they come from all over. These five kids start out as strangers but form a friendship because it is others who think they should be together. It is others who think the only way they could do good in the community is to be the janitor. This book has such a heartwarming message of love and acceptance for all people. It shows it with words, and with illustrations. One thing that made this book outstanding, is the authors didn’t pick a language. They present all words in both languages. The reader could tell when the kids were speaking English, or when they were speaking Spanish, but nothing was left out. This book makes itself a standout by being inclusive. It facilitates in learning other languages, rather than creating a guessing game of what is being said. I loved this book and hope to see it on library and book store shelves for many years to come.… (més)