Showing results by author "Elizabeth Acevedo" in All Categories

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people.... In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the Principal's office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance - and Papi's secrets - the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

Xiomara has always kept her words to herself. When it comes to standing her ground in her Harlem neighbourhood, she lets her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But X has secrets: her feelings for a boy in her bio class and the notebook full of poems that she keeps under her bed. And a slam poetry club that will pull those secrets into the spotlight. Because in spite of a world that might not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to stay silent.

Seventeen-year-old Lil is anything but small. She's rebellious, she's loyal; she's figuring out what kind of good person she wants to be, or if she wants to be a good person at all. But more than anything? Lil wants to be free. Because Lil is on probation. She's just out of juvenile detention, and is living a strange kind of new normal at home with her Mami, Papi and baby sister Omaris. And she's trying really hard to be New Lil - follow the rules, keep her head down, take a breath and smile till her court hearing in three weeks' time.

Ever since she got pregnant, 17-year-old Emoni's life has been about making the tough decisions - doing what has to be done for her young daughter and her grandmother. Keeping her head down at school, trying not to get caught up with new boy Malachi. The one place she can let everything go is in the kitchen, where she has magical hands - whipping up extraordinary food beloved by everyone. Emoni wants to be a chef more than anything, but she knows it's pointless to pursue the impossible. There are rules she has to play by.

Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. When she decides she wants a living wake - a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she's led - her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death? Or someone else's? Does she have other motives? But Flor isn't the only person with secrets.