Both Sides

April 15, 2020
These 15 sometimes-sad, sometimes-infuriating, but always-illuminating stories take place around the U.S.-Mexico border. Dichotomies abound, with life here vs. there often the least of them. Love and pain, hope and fear, and kindness and cruelty are border staples, and they feature vividly in stories that tell of children trying to get back to Mexico after their parents have been deported there, of a man whose last act of loyalty precedes his grisly suicide, and of a despairing cop who grieves a poor artist found dead in the desert. Some award-winning and best-selling authors will be a draw here: Pura Belpr� honoree David Bowles; Christopher David Rosales, winner of the International Latino Book Award; Bram Stoker-nominated Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason; and ALA Black Caucus Literary Award winner Sandra Jackson-Opoku. Other authors are worth discovering, too, notably J. Todd Scott, whose Waw Kiwulik portrays the bifurcated life of the O'odham, whose tribal lands straddle the border. This gratifying and sometimes wryly funny read stands on its own, but it's also worth recommending as an #ownvoices alternative to Jeanine Cummins' American Dirt (2020).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)