At the BN Teen Blog Dahlia Adler tagged five great immigrant stories in YA, including:
The Secret Side of Empty, by Maria Andreu
M.T.’s done just fine in school and in life as an undocumented immigrant from Argentina, but now that she’s a senior and all talk has turned to the future, it’s impossible for her to ignore the fact that her plans don’t look anything like her friends’. In fact, she doesn’t really have any plans at all—how can she when everything seems dependent on having pieces of paper she can’t get? While M.T. slowly recedes from her social and academic lives in order to avoid explaining why she can’t go on an international trip, get her license, or apply to college, she’s also dealing with the fact that her abusive father wants the family to return to Argentina, a future M.T. can picture even less. Without support from those around her, she’ll have to rely on herself to find a way forward, and that may mean putting a whole lot of trust in people, including herself, to make the seemingly impossible happen. This raw and touching first novel draws heavily on the author’s own experiences.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
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