by Javier Zamora

Reviewed by Linda:
I want to give a copy of this unforgettable, heart-warming book to everyone I know, and am glad it has been on the bestseller list. Javier Zamora, a poet and beautiful writer, was born in El Salvador a little over thirty years ago. By the time he was five, he was living with his grandparents as his parents had fled the country because of the U.S.-funded civil war. When he was nine, they paid for him to travel to the United States in a group of strangers led by a “coyote.” The trip was to take two weeks. In this memoir of that journey, which instead two months and encompassed perilous boat trips, exhausting desert treks, and guns pointed at him, the author presents his experiences through the eyes of a child who is scared yet fascinated by his changing surroundings, a boy who was fortunate to be shown great kindness from strangers.