A riveting true story about dreams, dedication, and an amazing robot named Stinky, based on Joshua Davis’ New York Times bestseller and now adapted for young readers by bestselling Mexican American author Reyna Grande.

In 2004, four undocumented Mexican teenagers arrived at the national underwater robotics championship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. No one had ever told Oscar, Cristian, Luis, or Lorenzo that they would amount to much―until two inspiring high school science teachers convinced the boys to enter the competition. Up against some of the best collegiate engineers in the country, this team of underdogs from Phoenix, Arizona, scraped together spare parts and a few small donations to astound not only the competition’s judges but themselves, too.

Adapted by Reyna Grande―author of the acclaimed memoir The Distance Between Us about her experience as an undocumented child immigrant―this young readers’ edition of Joshua Davis’s New York Times bestseller showcases these students’ ingenuity and courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Timely and empowering, Spare Parts is an accessible introduction to STEM, immigration, and the reality of the American Dream.

Una guerra olvidada. Un romance inolvidable.

El año es 1846. Después de la controvertida anexión de Texas, el ejército de los EE. UU. marcha hacia el sur para provocar la guerra con México por la disputada frontera del Río Grande. Ximena Salomé es una talentosa curandera mexicana que sueña con construir una familia con el hombre que ama en la codiciada tierra que llama hogar. Pero cuando los Texas Rangers asaltan su rancho y matan a tiros a su esposo, sus sueños se reducen a cenizas. Prometiendo honrar la memoria de su esposo y defender a su país, Ximena usa sus habilidades curativas como enfermera del ejército en el frente de la devastadora guerra.

Mientras tanto, John Riley, un inmigrante irlandés en el ejército yanqui desesperado por ayudar a su familia a escapar de la hambruna que devasta su tierra natal, está asqueado por la guerra injusta y las atrocidades indescriptibles contra sus compatriotas por parte de oficiales nativistas. En un audaz acto de desafío, cruza a nado el Río Grande y se une al ejército mexicano, una deserción que se castiga con la ejecución. Forma el Batallón de San Patricio, una banda de soldados irlandeses dispuestos a luchar a muerte por la libertad de México. Cuando Ximena y John se encuentran, surge entre ellos una peligrosa atracción. A medida que la guerra se intensifica, también lo hace su pasión. Arrastrados por fuerzas con el poder de cambiar la historia, luchan no solo por el destino de una nación sino también por su futuro juntos.

Desgarradora y lírica, la fascinante saga de Reyna Grande, inspirada en hechos reales y figuras históricas, da vida a estos dos personajes inolvidables e ilumina un momento en gran parte olvidado en la historia que impacta la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México hasta el día de hoy. ¿Sobrevivirán Ximena y John al caos de esta amarga guerra, o su amor será devorado junto con la tierra que luchan por defender?

““Wide-ranging yet consistently affecting, these pieces offer a crucial and inspired survey of the immigrant experience in America.”” –Publishers Weekly

“[These contributions] touch on so many different facets of the immigrant experience that readers will find much to ponder… [and] experience how creative writing enriches our understanding of each other and our lives.” –Booklist

Introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen

A unique collection of 41 groundbreaking essays, poems, and artwork by migrants, refugees and Dreamers—including award-winning writers, artists, and activists—that illuminate what it is like living undocumented today.

In the overheated debate about immigration, we often lose sight of the humanity at the heart of this complex issue. The immigrants and refugees living precariously in the United States are mothers and fathers, children, neighbors, and friends. Individuals propelled by hope and fear, they gamble their lives on the promise of America, yet their voices are rarely heard.

This anthology of essays, poetry, and art seeks to shift the immigration debate—now shaped by rancorous stereotypes and xenophobia—towards one rooted in humanity and justice. Through their storytelling and art, the contributors to this thought-provoking book remind us that they are human still. Transcending their current immigration status, they offer nuanced portraits of their existence before and after migration, the factors behind their choices, the pain of leaving their homeland and beginning anew in a strange country, and their collective hunger for a future not defined by borders.

Created entirely by undocumented or formerly undocumented migrants, Somewhere We Are Human is a journey of memory and yearning from people newly arrived to America, those who have been here for decades, and those who have ultimately chosen to leave or were deported. Touching on themes of race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality, politics, and parenthood, Somewhere We Are Human reveals how joy, hope, mourning, and perseverance can take root in the toughest soil and bloom in the harshest conditions.

A Long Petal of the Sea meets Cold Mountain in this sweeping historical saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight, at first for their survival and then for their love, amidst the atrocity of the Mexican-American War—from the author of the “timely and riveting” (People) Across a Hundred Mountains and The Distance Between Us.

A forgotten war. An unforgettable romance.

The year is 1846. After the controversial annexation of Texas, the US Army marches south to provoke war with México over the disputed Río Grande boundary.​

Ximena Salomé is a gifted Mexican healer who dreams of building a family with the man she loves on the coveted land she calls home. But when Texas Rangers storm her ranch and shoot her husband dead, her dreams are burned to ashes. Vowing to honor her husband’s memory and defend her country, Ximena uses her healing skills as an army nurse on the frontlines of the ravaging war.

Meanwhile, John Riley, an Irish immigrant in the Yankee army desperate to help his family escape the famine devastating his homeland, is sickened by the unjust war and the unspeakable atrocities against his countrymen by nativist officers. In a bold act of defiance, he swims across the Río Grande and joins the Mexican Army—a desertion punishable by execution. He forms the St. Patrick’s Battalion, a band of Irish soldiers willing to fight to the death for México’s freedom.

When Ximena and John meet, a dangerous attraction blooms between them. As the war intensifies, so does their passion. Swept up by forces with the power to change history, they fight not only for the fate of a nation but for their future together.

Heartbreaking and lyrical, Reyna Grande’s spellbinding saga, inspired by true events and historical figures, brings these two unforgettable characters to life and illuminates a largely forgotten moment in history that impacts the US-México border to this day.

Will Ximena and John survive the chaos of this bitter war, or will their love be devoured along with the land they strive to defend?

La extraordinaria historia de Reyna Grande—que comenzó en su exitosa autobiografía La distancia entre nosotros—continúa ahora en esta fabulosa travesía para encontrar su lugar en los Estados Unidos como universitaria latina de primera generación y como escritora.

Reyna Grande tenía nueve años cuando cruzó la frontera de México y los Estados Unidos buscando un hogar y el reencuentro con sus padres, quienes la habían dejado en su tierra natal para migrar a Los Ángeles en busca de una mejor vida. Sin embargo, lo que encontró fue a una madre indiferente y a un padre alcohólico y violento, en un país cuyo sistema educativo menospreciaba sus raíces.

Reyna se refugió en las palabras. Su amor por la lectura y la escritura fueron su inspiración para salir adelante y lograr lo que parecía imposible: ser la primera persona en su familia en asistir a la universidad. Pero la experiencia universitaria resultó intimidante, y muy pronto descubrió que desconocía lo que se requiere para forjar una carrera a partir de un sueño.

Contra viento y marea, Reyna convirtió su condición de inmigrante indocumentada en la de “una escritora valiente, inteligente y brillante” (Cheryl Strayed, autora de Wild) que “habla por millones de inmigrantes cuyas voces no han sido escuchadas” (Sandra Cisneros, autora de La casa en Mango Street). Narrada con esa prosa conmovedora y sincera que la caracteriza, en La búsqueda de un sueño Reyna Grande nos relata cómo persiguió sus sueños para construir lo que siempre había anhelado: un hogar duradero.

“The emotional and practical challenges for a young immigrant are on full display in Grande’s evocative, inspiring memoir.” —People

From bestselling author Reyna Grande—whose remarkable memoir The Distance Between Us has become required reading in schools across the country—comes an inspiring account of one woman’s quest to find her place in America as a first-generation Latina university student and aspiring writer determined to build a new life for her family one fearless word at a time.

When Reyna Grande was nine years old, she walked across the US–Mexico border in search of a home, desperate to be reunited with the parents who had left her behind years before for a better life in the City of Angels. What she found instead was an indifferent mother, an abusive, alcoholic father, and a school system that belittled her heritage.

With so few resources at her disposal, Reyna finds refuge in words, and it is her love of reading and writing that propels her to rise above until she achieves the impossible and is accepted to the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Although her acceptance is a triumph, the actual experience of American college life is intimidating and unfamiliar for someone like Reyna, who is now once again estranged from her family and support system. Again, she finds solace in words, holding fast to her vision of becoming a writer, only to discover she knows nothing about what it takes to make a career out of a dream.

Through it all, Reyna is determined to make the impossible possible, going from undocumented immigrant of little means to “a fierce, smart, shimmering light of a writer” (Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild); a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist “speak[ing] for millions of immigrants whose voices have gone unheard” (Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street); and a proud mother of two beautiful children who will never have to know the pain of poverty and neglect.

Told in Reyna’s exquisite, heartfelt prose, A Dream Called Home demonstrates how, by daring to pursue her dreams, Reyna was able to build the one thing she had always longed for: a home that would endure.

Award-winning author Reyna Grande shares her compelling experience of crossing borders and cultures in this middle grade adaptation of her “compelling…unvarnished, resonant” (BookPage) memoir, The Distance Between Us.

When her parents make the dangerous and illegal trek across the Mexican border in pursuit of the American dream, Reyna and her siblings are forced to live with their stern grandmother, as they wait for their parents to build the foundation of a new life.

But when things don’t go quite as planned, Reyna finds herself preparing for her own journey to “El Otro Lado” to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years: her long-absent father. Both funny and heartbreaking, The Distance Between Us beautifully captures the struggle that Reyna and her siblings endured while trying to assimilate to a different culture, language, and family life in El Otro Lado (The Other Side).

In Dancing with Butterflies, Reyna Grande renders the Mexican immigrant experience in “lyrical and sensual” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) prose through the poignant stories of four women brought together through folklorico dance.

Dancing with Butterflies uses the alternating voices of four very different women whose lives interconnect through a common passion for their Mexican heritage and a dance company called Alegría. Yesenia, who founded Alegría with her husband, Eduardo, sabotages her own efforts to remain a vital, vibrant woman when she travels back and forth across the Mexican border for cheap plastic surgery. Elena, grief-stricken by the death of her only child and the end of her marriage, finds herself falling dangerously in love with one of her underage students. Elena’s sister, Adriana, wears the wounds of abandonment by a dysfunctional family and becomes unable to discern love from abuse. Soledad, the sweet-tempered illegal immigrant who designs costumes for Alegría, finds herself stuck back in Mexico, where she returns to see her dying grandmother.

Reyna Grande has brought these fictional characters so convincingly to life that readers will imagine they know them.

Winner of the American Book Award, Across a Hundred Mountains is a “timely and riveting” (People) novel about a young girl who leaves her small town in Mexico to find her father, who left his family to work in America—a story of migration, loss, and discovery.

After a tragedy separates her from her mother, Juana García leaves in search of her father, who left them two years earlier. Out of money and in need of someone to help her across the border, Juana meets Adelina Vasquez, a young woman who left her family in California to follow her lover to Mexico. Finding themselves—in a Tijuana jail—in desperate circumstances, they offer each other much needed material and spiritual support and ultimately become linked forever in the most unexpected of ways.

In Across a Hundred Mountains, Reyna Grande puts a human face on the controversial issue of immigration, helping readers to better understand “the desperation of illegal immigrants and the families they leave behind” (Entertainment Weekly) in pursuit of a better life.