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Summary
Summary
Zitlally's family is undocumented, and her father has just been arrested for speeding and deported back to Mexico. As her family waits for him to return--they've paid a coyote to guide him back across the border--they receive news that he and the coyote's other charges have been kidnapped and are being held for ransom. Meanwhile, Zitlally and a new friend find a dog in the forest near their trailer park. They name it Star for the star-shaped patch over its eye. As time goes on, Zitlally starts to realize that Star is her father's "spirit animal," and that as long as Star is safe, her father will be also. But what will happen to Zitlally's dad when Star disappears?
"A vibrant, large-hearted story." --Publishers Weekly, Starred (on Red Glass )
Author Notes
Laura Resau lived in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Mexico, for two years as an English teacher and anthropologist. She now lives with her husband, her dog, and her son, Bran, in Colorado, where she teaches cultural anthropology and English as a Second Language. She is also the author of What the Moon Saw and Red Glass .
Reviews (4)
Horn Book Review
When her illegal-immigrant father is deported back to Mexico right after her eleventh birthday, Zitlally withdraws, losing the American friends she had tried so hard to cultivate. Left to herself, she finds a pathetic chained-up dog, names him Star (the meaning of her own name), and slowly builds trust with him. She also finds a new friend in Crystal, an outcast at school because of her poor hygiene and her habit of spinning outrageous stories. Zitlally decides to overlook her lies, and the two work together to find Star when he disappears, not just because they love the dog but also because they feel his fate is tied to that of Zitlally's father, kidnapped on his journey back into the United States. This novel features unusually gritty topics for its intended audience of second- to fifth graders, but they are ones that spring from the type of situations that illegal Mexican immigrants face daily. Resau gives her protagonist a lyrical voice and outlook, as when the two girls pretend they can eat sunshine, but the shy Zitlally also develops courage when she must communicate in both English and Spanish with lots of people while searching for Star. The story is appended with a folktale about a magical forest and animal spirits, followed by a Spanish glossary, a few words in Nahuatl (the ancient Aztec language), and an author's note about immigration. Resau's good intentions overwhelm the book, but for some readers these will be outweighed by some beautifully written passages and the appeal of the dog story. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* As in Francisco Jiménez's The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1997) and Pam Muñoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising (2000), Resau's novel tells a child's migration story with simple immediacy. After her father is imprisoned in Colorado and then deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant, lonely 11-year-old Zitlally befriends her neighbor and classmate, Crystal. Together, the girls care for Star, an abandoned dog they find chained up in their trailer-park forest, made up of heaps of rusted car parts. Zitlally's stressed, angry mama works many jobs and sells the family's truck so that they can send Papá money to pay border smugglers, who will help him try to return. Then Papá is kidnapped and held for ransom, and Zitlally's illegal family cannot go to the police. Crystal's family is also in trouble: her father is in prison in the U.S., although she makes up wild stories about him working in Antarctica and Madagascar. Always true to Zitlally's viewpoint, the unaffected writing makes clear the anguish of illegals. The thematic parallels with the dog, also an illegal of sorts, are redundant; it's the family story, more than the pet plot, that will grab readers. A pronunciation guide, a glossary, and a note about immigration from Mexico to the U.S. close this unforgettable narrative of a girl's daily struggle to find a home.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-Seeking solace in a "forest" of abandoned car parts after her father's deportation, fifth-grader Zitlally befriends a small dog chained to a rusty truck hood and names him Star. Remembering the tales her Nahuatl-speaking Papa told her, she begins to think of the dog as his "spirit animal." If she can rescue Star, perhaps her father will return safely from Mexico. With her trailer-park neighbor and new friend Crystal, she nurtures and trains the dog, searching for him when he disappears and rescuing him when an injury threatens his life. The magical thinking that worked in Mexico when she was young and frightened by a dog bite works again to reunite her family. Once again, Resau has woven details of immigrant life into a compelling story. The focus is on the developing friendships, both between Zitlally and her previously ignored neighbor, and between the fearful youngster and the dog. Conversations between the two girls are believable and the details of their lives convincing. The first-person narrative moves steadily as Zitlally loses and then gradually recovers her voice and gains confidence. Vignette illustrations introduce the chapters. A version of Zitlally's father's spirit animal story, a note about immigration, and glossaries of Spanish and Nahuatl words are appended. This is a well-told and deeply satisfying read.-Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
When her father is deported, Zitlally, a Mexican girl living in Colorado, feels that her home is breaking into pieces, like the fractions she is studying at school. Her grades start falling, she cannot tell her friends the truth, her mother is always on the phone and she and her sisters are left to their own devices. Zitlally spends the afternoons in a cemetery of old car parts behind her family's mobile home. She calls this junkyard a forest, and, like the forests described in her father's folktales, it is magical. Resau introduces preteens to the drama that thousands of children of immigrants face in the United States: the fear of their parents' deportation. But she also brings in important cultural aspects of the Nahua and the Mixtec communities, like their belief in animal totems, as manifest in Zitlally's spiritual link to the little dog that she names Star. Zitlally's first-person narration effectively re-creates the ingenuous voice of an 11-year-old, infused with concern for her family. A story of friendship that will speak to children of different cultures. Nahualt and Spanish glossaries. (Fiction. 7-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 There is a forest behind my trailer, through the weeds and under the gate and across the trickly, oily ditch. It is a forest of very, very old car parts, heaps of rusted metal, spotted orangey brown, with rainbow layers of fading paint, and leaves and vines poking and twisting through the holes. Birds and snakes and bugs sometimes peek out from the pipes and hubcaps. My neighborhood is called Forest View Mobile Home Park. I think this must be the forest they're talking about. On the day Papa was deported, that's where I went. The police had pulled him over a week earlier, and while he was in jail, Mama was on her cell phone all the time. Deportado, deportado, deportado, she said, in a hushed, dangerous voice. Deportado, she said to my aunts Rosa and Virginia and Mar'a. Deportado, she said over the phone to Uncle Luciano in Mexico. Deportado meant Papa would be sent back to Mexico, and it would be very, very hard for him to come back. The day before he was deported, I saw Papa at the jail. He stared at me through the scratchy plastic divider. The phone shook in his hand. He said, "Goodbye, Zitlally." Then he whispered, "Ni-mitz nequi." I love you. He looked strange in the blue jumpsuit, and even stranger because he was crying, right there in front of the other prisoners and their families and the guards. But my tears stayed hidden under a stone inside a cave inside me. I worried that Papa thought I wasn't sad because my face was dry when I said goodbye. The next day, alone in the car part forest, I felt tears pushing out like a geyser. My name is Zitlally. Estrella. Star. That's what it means in Nahuatl. Nahuatl is what Papa speaks to me in secret, even though I don't understand. It is a soft language full of shhhhs and perfect for whispering at night. I used to think it was the language of the stars, what they whispered to each other. This year during the Mexico unit in school, I found out it was the language of the Aztecs. The Aztecs are supposed to be all dead. Maybe they're the ones whispering. I didn't tell anyone that their words aren't dead. I know because Papa speaks them. Because he named me one. Because I hear the stars whispering. Shhhh. The day after Papa was deportado, Mama was on the phone saying deportado, deportado and crying and Reina was watching a murder movie on TV and Dalia was hanging out with her friends at the edge of the park that no kids are allowed to go to because of the broken glass and needles. Usually Mama would frown and Papa would say that Dalia couldn't hang out with them and that Reina couldn't watch murder movies, but now that Mama was always on the phone, saying deportado, deportado, she didn't notice much. I brought my math worksheets outside and sat on the ripped Astroturf porch, leaning against the tin side of our trailer. I shivered and wished I'd brought a sweater. It was a little cold because it was April. Fractions. Four-fifths. The fraction of my family here. Papa used to look over my shoulder as I did math homework and help me. He didn't do problems the way Mr. Martin did on the board. He had his own system. He was a framer and always had to cut wood perfectly, down to the exact one-eighth of an inch, and not waste any wood. He was a master of fractions. Something crashed, something glass. It came from next door. Then came a waterfall of bashing and breaking and yelling. It was that girl, Crystal's, mom and her mom's boyfriend. I never talked to Crystal at school. My best friend, Morgan, said that Crystal shopped at garage sales. My second-best friend, Emma, said she had poor dental hygiene and chronic halitosis. And my third-best friend, Olivia, said she used to pee in her pants in first grade. Since they were my best friends forever, I knew where my loyalty was. When Crystal tried to talk to me at the bus stop Excerpted from Star in the Forest by Laura Resau All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
