• Land of the Cranes

Land of the Cranes

Author
Publication Date
May 17, 2022
Genre / Grade Band
Fiction /  6th − 8th
Language
English
Format
Novel in Verse
Land of the Cranes

Description

From the prolific author of The Moon Within comes the heart-wrenchingly beautiful story in verse of a young Latinx girl who learns to hold on to hope and love even in the darkest of places: a family detention center for migrants and refugees.

Nine-year-old Betita knows she is a crane. Papi has told her the story, even before her family fled to Los Angeles to seek refuge from cartel wars in Mexico. The Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan, what is now the Southwest US, called the land of the cranes. They left Aztlan to establish their great city in the center of the universe-Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. It was prophesized that their people would one day return to live among the cranes in their promised land. Papi tells Betita that they are cranes that have come home.

Then one day, Betita's beloved father is arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Mexico. Betita and her pregnant mother are left behind on their own, but soon they too are detained and must learn to survive in a family detention camp outside of Los Angeles. Even in cruel and inhumane conditions, Betita finds heart in her own poetry and in the community she and her mother find in the camp. The voices of her fellow asylum seekers fly above the hatred keeping them caged, but each day threatens to tear them down lower than they ever thought they could be. Will Betita and her family ever be whole again?

Publication date
May 17, 2022
Genre
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781338343861
Publisher
Scholastic Press
BISAC categories
JUV039250 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Emigration & Immigration
JUV011030 - Juvenile Fiction | People & Places | United States - Hispanic & Latino
JUV070000 - Juvenile Fiction | Poetry (see also Stories in Verse)
Library of Congress categories
Immigrants
United States
Families
California
Los Angeles
Novels in verse
Los Angeles (Calif.)
Illegal aliens
Mexicans
Detention of persons
Deportation

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review

This free-verse novel by Salazar (The Moon Within), set in 2018 and narrated in the perceptive, compassionate voice of fourth grader Betita Quintero, offers a close look at the experiences of an undocumented Mexican-born child and her pregnant mother in a family detention center. Betita lives in modest circumstances in East Los Angeles with her loving, hardworking Mami and Papi, learning from inspiring teacher Ms. Martinez to create daily picture poems "to paint our feelings." The Quinteros' hopes that the sanctuary state will provide safety are dashed with an ICE raid at Papi's work site; when Betita and Mami travel to visit him at the Tijuana border, a missed turn takes them into Mexico and detainment in a "big frozen/ concrete monster," where they huddle with other women and children under Mylar "capes" in chain-link cells, and are mocked by the guards. Betita's faith in the story Papi tells--that one day "our people would return to Aztlán," the land of the cranes, the U.S. Southwest--sustains her as the picture poems she creates become both solace and a source of important documentation. Salazar's lyrical verse fashions empowerment out of indignity and suffering, creating a stirring and accessible, all-too-timely story. Ages 8-12. Agent: Marietta B. Zacker, Gallt & Zacker Literary. (Sept.)

Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.
Aida Salazar
Aida Salazar is an award-winning author and arts activist whose writings for adults and children explore issues of identity and social justice. She is the author of the middle-grade verse novels The Moon Within (International Latino Book Award Winner), Land of the Cranes (Americas Award Winner), the picture book anthology, In the Spirit of a Dream, and the picture book biography Jovita Wore Pants: The Story of a Mexican Freedom Fighter. She is a founding member of Las Musas, a Latinx kidlit debut author collective. Her short story "By the Light of the Moon" was adapted into a ballet production by the Sonoma Conservatory of Dance and is the first Xicana-themed ballet in history. She lives with her family of artists in Oakland, California.