Showing results by narrator "Andre Bellido" in All Categories

A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine—a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed. A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest of them make a pact: to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night.

Tracy Flick wants to be President of Winwood High. She’s one of those ambitious girls who finds time to do it all: edit the yearbook, star in the musical, sleep with her English teacher. But another teacher, staunch idealist Jim McAllister, a.k.a. “Mr. M.,” thinks the students deserve better. So he persuades Paul Warren—a well-liked, good-hearted jock—to throw in his hat. But that puts Paul’s sister Tammy in a snit. So she runs too, on an apathy platform, before starting a real campaign...to get herself kicked out of school.

The twenty-first century began optimistically in Latin America. Left-leaning leaders armed with programs to reduce poverty and reclaim national wealth were seeing results—but as the aughts gave way to the teens, they began to fall like dominos. Where did the dreams of this "pink tide" go? Look no further than the original culprits of Latin American disenfranchisement: resource-rich land and unscrupulous extraction.

Winged beings are meant to be free. And so are artists, but the Cuban government has criminalized any art that doesn’t meet their approval. Soleida and her parents protest this injustice with their secret sculpture garden of chained birds. Then a hurricane exposes the illegal art, and her parents are arrested. Soleida escapes to Central America alone, joining the thousands of Cuban refugees stranded in Costa Rica while seeking asylum elsewhere. There she meets Dariel, a Cuban American boy whose enigmatic music enchants birds and animals—and Soleida.

There has been very little written about juvenile detention and the path to justice. For many kids, a mistake made at age thirteen or fourteen—often resulting from external factors coupled with a biologically immature brain—can resonate through the rest of their lives, making high school difficult, college nearly impossible, and a middle-class life a mere fantasy. Here, in Children of the State, Jeff Hobbs challenges any preconceived perceptions about how the juvenile justice system works.

Chef and Restaurateur Jake Ruiz left Newport, Washington, and never looked back. After his parents had practically disowned him for being gay, the town was nothing but bad memories for Jake. But, years later, a family emergency brings him back to his hometown. Grappling with the death of his husband and suddenly finding himself a single father to his five-year-old, Jake also has to now deal with his disapproving mother, his ailing father, a crumbling family restaurant, and the sudden reintroduction of Jake's childhood crush into his life, Colton Humphrey.  

This is the story of a successful young couple living in Austin, Texas, whose personal histories, identities, aptitudes and ambitions have brought them to this booming city in this time, to the music and tech industries, and to one another. New and old successes and family ties and responsibilities force them to reckon with the people their happy modern lives have made them. Two Twins is an exploration of millennial middle age, how our personal anthropologies inform what we want from life, and the kinds of love we’re capable of offering and the kinds we’re apt to receive.

Fully updated with the latest American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations for the treatment and care of individuals with ADHD, this award-winning guide offers parents balanced, reassuring information to help them understand and manage this challenging and often misunderstood condition. 

In Sapogonia, award-winning author Ana Castillo confronts the complex issues of race and identity facing those of mixed heritage through the struggles of Máximo Madrigal, an expatriate of Sapogonia, the metaphorical homeland of all mestizos. Subtly political, it demonstrates how warring blood within a single body resists any peaceful resolution.

Five years after the Lawton High football team last took the field, everyone is gathering for a special event back home in Alabama. But coming back together brings up memories from the past. Special ones. Painful ones. Unforgettable ones. And for some, the reunion introduces an opportunity to confront unresolved issues. Can Asa and Ezmita continue to run away from what their hearts truly want? What about Nash and Tallulah—will their natural attraction to each other last when trust concerns rise to the surface? 

When Asa and Ezmita cross paths that night, neither of them is in the mood to socialize. But they also feel this undeniable chemistry, one that gives them each hope that better days lie ahead. Then Asa is sent away to live with his grandmother for four months, only to return to Lawton and find out Ezmita has moved on. Still, the sparks between Asa and Ezmita linger. Neither of them has forgotten the way they felt seen by the other at their lowest points. 

For five hundred years, Latina/o culture and identity have been shaped by their challenges to the religious, socio-economic, and political status quo, whether in opposition to Spanish colonialism, Latin American dictatorships, US imperialism in Central America, the oppression of farmworkers, or the current exploitation of undocumented immigrants. Christianity has played a significant role in that movement at every stage. Robert Chao Romero, the son of a Mexican father and a Chinese immigrant mother, explores the history and theology of what he terms the "Brown Church."