I Am a Taxi

December 1, 2006
Gr 5-8-Elliss novel attempts to expose the strains that cocaine production and trade and the U.S War on Drugs have placed on Bolivians. Diegos parents have been wrongfully incarcerated for drug smuggling. While they serve their 16-year sentences, the 12-year-old, who would otherwise be homeless, lives in the womens prison with his mother and younger sister. He earns money as a taxi, running errands in the city for the prisoners. One day his friend convinces him that they can make easier money working for men who turn out to be involved in cocaine manufacturing. The boys are enslaved in the jungle, Diegos friend dies, and Diego barely escapes with his life. This harrowing part of the narrative is somewhat rushed and is less convincing than the rest. Nonetheless, because of its unusual setting and subject matter, and Elliss efforts to explicate complex social, political, and economic issues, this book should find a place in larger collections."Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2006
Diego, 12, lives in prison in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, stuck there with his parents, who have been falsely arrested for smuggling drugs. He attends school and works as a "taxi," running errands for the inmates in the great street market. Then his friend, Mando, persuades him to make big money, and the boys find themselves stomping coca leaves in cocaine pits in the jungle, with local gangsters and a smooth boss who supplies "hungry noses" in America. Readers will be caught up by the nonstop action in the prison, and also in the jungle survival adventure, where escape is tempered by the specter of death. The connection between medicinal coca leaves, sacred to the indigenous people, and their exploitation by the global drug runners is not entirely clear, but, as in " The Breadwinner" (2001) and many of her previous books, Ellis tells a bold story of contemporary kids in crisis and brutally exploited far away. A sequel is on the way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)