Simplified, yet stark and moving portrait of the plight of those living in the Northern Triangle of Central America: Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, all very dangerous places to live. ( )

Thirteen-year-old Manuelito's parents worry about the gangs in their Guatemalan town, so they send Manuelito off with a coyote in hopes of uniting him with his aunt in Long Island for a better life.

This book tackles the very tough and important topic of asylum seekers leaving Central America due to threats of violence. I had seen some positive reviews and had been very interested in reading it. However, I felt that the actual book did not quite live up to expectations.

The writing style is very sparse with little time wasted on describing a single thing outside the fleeing violence plotline. In other words, books that tackle that this subject often spend a little bit of time describing the good parts of a child or teen's home life prior to when an escalating situation makes them have to leave. Not so here.

Again, the language is very tight, with no words minced or spared for anything flowery or evocative. For example, among the opening lines are "Besides the people who live in our village, there is a convent, a school, and the PACs --armed civil patrol. They are men from the village. The army gave them weapons. They are very dangerous because they don't mind killing people they don't agree with." There may be some folks who enjoy such direct, to-the-point writing, but I did not care for it.

The illustrations are all black-and-white drawings that have a sketchy charcoal feel to them. Again, some readers may really enjoy that style, but it did not do much for me. Backmatter includes a couple of notes about the situation in Central America and the need for refugee status. Like the story itself, it is presented as entirely bleak with no cause for hope at all. (Granted, the situation IS bleak, but at least the fictional part could have a glimmer of cautious optimism, especially given that the audience for this book is young.) ( )

An attempt to humanize the asylum seekers trying to cross the United States' southern border from Central America, this book is well intentioned if not particularly well done. The narration of the young protagonist is just sort of awkward, and the writer and artist sometimes do not seem in sync with their words and images.

Also, I think the intended audience is children, but I'm not sure younger readers will be able to handle the very real, very bleak ending. ( )