Land of the Cranes (Scholastic Gold)

By: Aida Salazar

Narrated by: Dani Gonzalez

From the prolific author of The Moon Within comes the heart-wrenchingly beautiful story in verse of a young Latinx girl who learns to hold on to hope and love even in the darkest of places: a family detention center for migrants and refugees.

Nine-year-old Betita knows she is a crane. Papi has told her the story, even before her family fled to Los Angeles to seek refuge from cartel wars in Mexico. The Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan, what is now the Southwest US, called the land of the cranes. They left Aztlan to establish their great city in the center of the universe - Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. It was prophesized that their people would one day return to live among the cranes in their promised land. Papi tells Betita that they are cranes that have come home.

Then one day, Betita's beloved father is arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Mexico. Betita and her pregnant mother are left behind on their own, but soon they too are detained and must learn to survive in a family detention camp outside of Los Angeles. Even in cruel and inhumane conditions, Betita finds heart in her own poetry and in the community she and her mother find in the camp. The voices of her fellow asylum seekers fly above the hatred keeping them caged, but each day threatens to tear them down lower than they ever thought they could be. Will Betita and her family ever be whole again?

©2020 Aida Salazar (P)2020 Scholastic Inc.

Entrance to the soul of migration stories

I read this book as an organizer of an adult literature and film circle on borderlands issues. It is the first time we have looked at children’s literature and the story is one the grips young people and adults alike. I recommend it highly as a young person’s accounting of the multitude of challenges facing immigrants today. Although fiction, every page rings with truth. An absolutely fabulous book.

love, love, love

read as part of a book club, I am impressed with the authors writing style. It pulled me in and kept me captivated. it is a story that needed to be told.