Scan barcode
A review by sarahanne8382
Mexican Whiteboy by Matt de la Peña
4.0
I can't decide if I just liked this one or really liked it. It's really more 3.5 stars until I make up my mind, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and bumping it up to 4 for now.
Danny's spending the summer with his Mexican relatives around San Diego while his sister and white mother spend the summer in San Francisco with his mom's new boyfriend. A few years ago Danny's dad left and he can't help but think that it's because he's too white. He hopes that by staying with his dad's family he can become Mexican enough for his dad to come back. There's also a baseball storyline woven in as Danny happens to be a phenomenal pitcher, but loses his control every time he faces an actual batter. Through baseball he becomes friends with another boy in the neighborhood who's also trying to reconnect with his long absent father and is also only half Mexican.
This is a great book for showing instead of telling and so it's hard to lay out a good plot description without giving away too many of the things you're meant to figure out for yourself along the way. Danny does a lot of growing in this story and ends up in a place that really feels right, which is a relief, because when the story starts it's hard to believe how in the dark Danny is about many things.
I can see why this and de la Pena's other book show up on reluctant reader lists. These aren't your typical comfortably middle class teenagers and they certainly don't talk like it. It's a much more realistic story that a lot of reluctant readers will be more comfortable digging into.
Danny's spending the summer with his Mexican relatives around San Diego while his sister and white mother spend the summer in San Francisco with his mom's new boyfriend. A few years ago Danny's dad left and he can't help but think that it's because he's too white. He hopes that by staying with his dad's family he can become Mexican enough for his dad to come back. There's also a baseball storyline woven in as Danny happens to be a phenomenal pitcher, but loses his control every time he faces an actual batter. Through baseball he becomes friends with another boy in the neighborhood who's also trying to reconnect with his long absent father and is also only half Mexican.
This is a great book for showing instead of telling and so it's hard to lay out a good plot description without giving away too many of the things you're meant to figure out for yourself along the way. Danny does a lot of growing in this story and ends up in a place that really feels right, which is a relief, because when the story starts it's hard to believe how in the dark Danny is about many things.
I can see why this and de la Pena's other book show up on reluctant reader lists. These aren't your typical comfortably middle class teenagers and they certainly don't talk like it. It's a much more realistic story that a lot of reluctant readers will be more comfortable digging into.