The Other Side: Stories of Central American Teen Refugees Who Dream of Crossing the Border

Award-winning Mexican author Juan Pablo Villalobos explores illegal immigration with this emotionally raw and timely nonfiction book about ten Central American teens and their journeys to the United States.

You can't really tell what time it is when you're in the freezer.

Every year, thousands of migrant children and teens cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The journey is treacherous and sometimes deadly, but worth the risk for migrants who are escaping gang violence and poverty in their home countries. And for those refugees who do succeed? They face an immigration process that is as winding and multi-tiered as the journey that brought them here.

In this book, award-winning Mexican author Juan Pablo Villalobos strings together the diverse experiences of eleven real migrant teenagers, offering readers a beginning road map to issues facing the region. These timely accounts of courage, sacrifice, and survival--including two fourteen-year-old girls forming a tenuous friendship as they wait in a frigid holding cell, a boy in Chicago beginning to craft his future while piecing together his past in El Salvador, and cousins learning to lift each other up through angry waters--offer a rare and invaluable window into the U.S.-Central American refugee crisis.

In turns optimistic and heartbreaking, The Other Side balances the boundless hope at the center of immigration with the weight of its risks and repercussions. Here is a necessary read for young people on both sides of the issue.

Author: Juan Pablo Villalobos
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
Published: 09/10/2019
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.60w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780374305734
Audience: Young Adult

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4.9
Point Value: 3
Interest Level: Middle Grade Plus
Quiz #/Name: 508756 / Other Side: Stories of Central American Teen Refugees Who Dream of Crossing the Border


Award: Kirkus Prize - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 08/01/2019 pg. 49
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2019 pg. 221
School Library Journal 09/01/2019 pg. 149

About the Author
Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. He has written literary criticism, film criticism, and short stories. Villalobos has penned multiple books, including Down the Rabbit Hole, which has been translated into fifteen languages and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and Quesadillas. He lives in Barcelona, Spain, with his wife and their two sons.