Sanctuary

Starred review from August 1, 2020

Gr 7 Up-A stunning work of YA dystopian fiction driven by the ardent voice of a teenage protagonist. The novel captures the United States' currently ominous immigration policies and extends them to violent extremes, making the stress and fear of living as an undocumented person come alive through the foil of a technocratic surveillance state. Vali, a girl of Colombian descent, lives in small-town Vermont with her mother and brother. The family lost their father to a traumatic immigration incident, and Mom supports them by working on a dairy farm. Vali is undocumented but carries a "fake chip" in her wrist that she uses to scan into her public school and various government buildings. When a newly bolstered federal Deportation Force seizes all the laborers at her mother's workplace, the family flees towards California, getting separated along the way. The plot points get the blood pumping, and the familial portrait rendered throughout the fast-paced drama is rich in symbolism. VERDICT This novel is a triumph in its genre and so politically astute that it sears.-Sierra Dickey, Ctr. for New Americans, Northampton, MA

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2020
An immigrant family travels across the country to escape persecution. Valentina Gonz�lez Ramirez, a teenage Colombian immigrant living in Southboro, Vermont, still remembers when the president won his third term and started building the Great American Wall between California and Mexico, implanting ID chips in people, and increasing deportation raids. It was in one of those raids that her father was captured and returned to Colombia, where he was murdered. After years of living in relative calm in Vermont, Vali and her family see a live-feed of a land mine exploding under the feet of a skinny girl in a worn Mickey Mouse T-shirt as she tries to cross the heavily guarded territory between Mexico and the U.S. Soon Vali's world changes forever. Violent raids, increased security measures on ID chips, and California's seceding to become a sanctuary push Vali, her mother, and her 8-year-old brother, Ernie, to embark on a journey to California and freedom. Mendoza and Sher's novel is set in a not-so-distant dystopian future in which the government controls the broadcasting system and censors the media. In their portrayal of Vali's family's quest for safety, the authors beautifully mirror the treacherous, painful, and terrifying treks involving natural and human threats that migrants to the U.S. undertake as they traverse continents and oceans. Gruesome at times and always honest, Vali's journey depicts immigrants' desire for a safe and dignified life. Wrenching and unmissable. (authors' note) (Dystopian. 13-18)

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August 1, 2020
Grades 9-12 The all-too-possible future in this suspenseful dystopian novel amplifies the undocumented immigrant experience in the U.S. In 2032, the violent death of a young girl at the Great American Wall near San Diego gives the authoritarian, xenophobic president the right moment to enact a media shutdown and launch the Deportation Force (DF), a brutal extension of ICE that operates outside the law. Eleventh-grader Vali has lived safely with her mami and eight-year-old brother, Ernie, in Vermont since her father was deported back to Colombia. But now the DF is closing in. When Mami's counterfeit wrist identification chip malfunctions, Vali and Ernie must leave her behind to survive. Vali trusts a coyote to drive them to California, which has declared itself a sanctuary. At the halfway mark they are on foot, hunted by drones, and barely escape an attempt to force Vali into prostitution. Death edges closer every hour as hunger, thirst, and injury sap their energy. This intense, realistic novel never lets up, even as Vali flashes back to the love and sacrifices that sustain her.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from November 2, 2020
An unforgiving landscape punctuates an undocumented teen’s arduous journey to escape government persecution and find a safe haven in this searing near-future dystopian novel. For 16-year-old Colombian immigrant Valentina “Vali” González Ramirez, a life of safety and security hinges on a black-market implant “no bigger than a grain of rice.” In the year 2032, the U.S.—in the middle of an economic downturn—exerts considerable control over its population through censorship, xenophobic propaganda, and frequent scans of mandatory ID chips. Vali, who lost her father due to cruel deportation policies enacted by ICE, depends on a fake chip to avoid detection. When an incident at the U.S.-Mexico border leads to increased security measures and violence, Vali and her family attempt the dangerous trek from Vermont to a newly seceded California—and freedom. Coauthors Mendoza and Sher do delicate work, using Vali’s interior life and a speculative lens to lay bare the trauma and anguish that migrants to the U.S. can experience as well as the human capacity for survival. Though the novel’s unflinching honesty and real-world parallels deliver uncomfortable truths, its propulsive narrative and its message of hope and resilience will carry readers through. Ages 12–up.