In her latest novel, Pura Belpré Award–winning author Carolina Ixta weaves a tender story about love and hope, following a teen as she works to protect her family and community from a major corporation taking over her town.
Paloma Vistamontes is heartbroken. A year ago, her ex-boyfriend, Julio Ramos, broke up with her after his father’s death, a tragedy that drove Paloma and him apart. Ever since then, the mountains have felt flatter, the sky farther away.
Now, her hometown of San Fermín, a place where honest people work on farms and in factories, is in danger. Selva, a massive e-commerce conglomerate, threatens to open one of their warehouses beside her high school.
This isn’t the first time they’ve done this. Since Selva arrived, they’ve opened warehouses everywhere where there used to be green spaces. Because of them, the air pollution is so bad that school is often canceled. Many people, including Paloma’s ever-practical Ma, want to leave.
But Paloma wants nothing more than to stay. Because when the smog clears, there is still hope. That hope drives Paloma to reconnect with Julio to expose and challenge the dangers that Selva introduces to communities like their own. Can they stop Selva from destroying everything they know? Is there still a chance for their budding romance?---from the publisher
384 pages 978-0063287914 Ages 14 and up
Keywords: coming of age, social activist, air pollution, finding your voice, hope, romance, 14 year old, 15 year old, 16 year old
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“Just go out for a breath of air
And you’ll be ready for Medicare
The city streets are really quite a thrill
If the hoods don’t get you, the monoxide will.”
– Tom Lehrer, “Pollution” (1965)
“[W]hat I have grown to learn through my own time in academia, in reading, and in research is that the racism in urban planning, the process of developing a city’s infrastructure, is never coincidental. The location of city dumps, the location of highways, and the location of warehouses are always strategically planned.”
— Author’s Note
(This book was inspired by the author’s learning that an Inland Empire community approved construction of a warehouse next to the local high school.)
Issues of social, economic, and environmental justice permeate FEW BLUE SKIES, a contemporary tale for tweens and teens that is set in southern California’s Inland Empire. Two teens who have known each other forever–and share a sweet, innocent past together–team up on a research project tied to a lucrative scholarship contest. The topic of their research is personal for both of them. It relates to their dads’ respective respiratory illnesses that certainly seem to stem from working in the community’s pollution-belching warehouse operations. It’s a story that illustrates injustices stemming from the siting of health-threatening industries in low income communities. It also shows how a prosperous corporation can readily work the system to the detriment of the people and community involved.
“Where most people had family photos pinned to the fridge, my ma had newspaper clippings of homes for rent back in her hometown. They all looked the same: jaws of gates, stucco walls, terra-cotta tiles, an hour from here, away from all the warehouses, away from all the smog.
I could imagine her at work, sitting in a corner booth, poring over them in her break–a pair of scissors in her hand as she cut fantasy from paper.
‘How can we stay here?’ my ma asks, watching as my papa crosses into the kitchen. I hand him his water and he ushers us to all sit at the kitchen table. My ma sets her elbows against the surface, presses her fingers tight against her temples. ‘She’s putting them everywhere.’
She tilts her head toward the living room, where the news is still on, where the mayor is still smiling. The volume is low, and I want so badly to get up and turn it off. To not know.
But not knowing feels worse than knowing.
I glimpse at the mayor who has divided the city, the community, my family, in half. She began her term twelve years ago and has yet to be voted out, funneling her quiet Selva donations to bolster her reelection campaigns every cycle.
But what my ma is saying isn’t true. The mayor wasn’t putting them everywhere.
On the north side, where Mayor Warner lived, there were no warehouses. There were parks, there were gardens, there were trees.
But on the south side, where most of the Latino and Black residents lived, we have warehouses.”
In FEW BLUE SKIES, the smog that is connected to the logistics industry and all those warehouses has created a life-and-death situation for Paloma’s and Julio’s dads, along with others living and working on the south side of town. Together, the two teens employ disciplined science research techniques in order to develop empirical proof of the harm being done, as they seek to win the scholarship contest that could provide the funds Julio needs in order to attend UC Davis.
The story also does a stellar job of delving into the web of relationships between the two teens, their friends, parents, and community members.
Filled with first love, political corruption, heartbreaking tragedy, a look at how online shopping is causing big changes in our world, some jaw-dropping surprises, and some heartbreaking choices, FEW BLUE SKIES is a powerful, relevant, and thoroughly-engaging read that will leave readers pondering how they might act and react in similar circumstances.
Recommended by: Richie Partington, MLIS, California USA
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