Frontera
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
YALSA 2024 Great Graphic Novels for Teens
2024 Children’s Book Council’s Young Adults' Favorites Award
2024 Texas Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List
Mateo makes the dangerous journey back home to the United States through the Sonoran Desert with the help of a new friend, a ghost named Guillermo, in a supernatural borderland odyssey by debut graphic novelists Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo.
As long as he remembers to stay smart and keep his eyes open, Mateo knows that he can survive the trek across the Sonoran Desert that will take him from Mexico to the United States. That is, until he’s caught by the Border Patrol only moments after sneaking across the fence in the dead of night.
Escaping their clutches comes at a price and, lost in the desert without a guide or water, Mateo is ill-prepared for the unforgiving heat that is sure to arrive come sunrise. With the odds stacked against him, his one chance at survival may be putting his trust in something, or rather someone, that he isn’t even sure exists.
If you’d asked him if ghosts were real before he found himself face-to-face with one, Mateo wouldn’t have even considered it. But now, confronted with the nearly undeniable presence of Guillermo, he’s having second thoughts. Having spent his afterlife guiding migrants to safety, Guillermo knows things about the Sonoran Desert far beyond what could be explained by a mere hallucination. But even as Mateo forms an uneasy partnership with Guillermo, survival is still uncertain.
The Sonoran Desert, with its hostile temperatures and inhabitants, is teeming with danger as the Border Patrol and rogue militias prowl its deadly terrain. As his journey stretches on, Mateo will have to decide exactly what and who he’s willing to sacrifice to find home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Mexican teenager must rely on a new ghost friend to cross the Sonoran Desert in this poignant graphic novel by Anta (Home) and debut creator Salcedo. Mateo has just left Guadalajara to cross the Mexico-U.S. border to Phoenix. Though his parents hired a coyote to smuggle him across, impatient Mateo goes alone, and is pursued by border patrol—then saved by Guillermo, a ghost in a cowboy hat. Via flashbacks in which the ghost guides Mateo's spirit through his own memories, Guillermo reveals that he died while crossing the desert 70 years prior. Unable to move on, his soul now wanders the landscape, protecting migrants from the police. With help from Guillermo and a Tohono O'odham woman, Mateo combats heat exhaustion, dodges militia men, and resolves to help Guillermo cross over to the afterlife. By juxtaposing Mateo's present treacherous situation with harrowing scenes from Guillermo's and other migrants' pasts, Anta pulls no punches, organically weaving together myriad contemporary border issues. Salcedo's richly colored backdrops and expressive characters make the desert and its inhabitants come alive in an adventure steeped in magical realism that artfully conveys a small sampling of migrant stories. Ages 13–up. ■