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Title: Under the Mesquite
Author: Guadalupe Garcia McCall
Published: 2011
Genre: Fiction
Awards: Tomas Rivera Award
Summary: This is a book about a family that crosses the boarder. This story emphasizes the importance of family, persistence, and heritage.

How have I missed this beautiful text published in 2011 by a teacher???Evocative novel in verse set in Texas along the border in Eagle Pass. Lupita is an aspiring writer and actress with seven siblings who bears responsibilities as her mother battles cancer. She finds refuge in poetry, performing, and frequent trips to her original home in Piedras Negras, Mexico at a time when traversing borders (not so very long ago) was fluid and less agitated.

Day 72: "Sometimes it's best to take things down and start all over again." #shoes by #some

In the squint of morning
before anyone else is awake,
when the roaring sounds
of unbridled verse
rush furiously through my head,
the mesquite is my confidant.

Novel in verse. When her mother is seriously ill, Lupita, eldest of eight siblings in a Mexican indigenous family living on the American side of the border, steps in to take charge, even though she is still in high school. Lyrical, gentle, moving. #nativebooks
#IndigenousVoices