NCW Libraries

"In Cipota under the Moon, Claudia Castro Luna scores a series of poems as an ode to the Salvadoran immigrant experience in the United States. The poems are wrought with memories of the 1980s civil war and rich with observations from recent returns to her native country. Castro Luna draws a parallel between the ruthlessness of the war and the violence endured by communities of color in US cities; she shows how children are often the silent, unseen...

When a young boy and his mother come to the United States from El Salvador, leaving his father behind, the boy misses his father very much and wants to do something special to show him how much he cares.

From the Publisher: Young Rene's teacher is calling role one morning, and Rene is dismayed to hear someone else answer to his name. It's not only that he thought he was the only person with that name, but also that the new student who answers is a girl. That afternoon his classmates tease, "Rene has a girl's name." After discussing it with Mama and Papa, Rene decides, "My name is so beautiful that a girl copied it from me," not the other way around....

"The deeply reported story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California--fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong. Growing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, Ernesto Flores had always had a fascination with the United States, the faraway land of skyscrapers and Nikes, while his identical twin, Raul, never felt that northbound tug. But when Ernesto ends up on the wrong side of the...

"Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago--'one day, you'll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.' Javier's adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone except for a group of strangers...

In this story based on the author's childhood, a young Salvadoran immigrant is teased for having two last names until he presents his family tree project celebrating his heritage. Cuando el autor era niño e inmigró a los Estados Unidos, los otros niños se riéron porque tenía dos apellidos. René utiliza su tarea de genealogía para explicar porqué su nombre es tan largo.