News & Reviews

General Interviews:

One Thing Leads to Another: An Interview with Francisco X. Stork

Podcast: https://evergreenpodcasts.com/wild-precious-life

I Am Not Alone

REVIEWS

Kirkus (Starred Review)

 (MAY, 2023)

Eighteen-year-old Alberto works hard—earning money as a painter that he sends back to family in Mexico, studying for his high school equivalency certificate, and helping the older sister he lives with care for her baby—all while pursuing his passion for pottery. But he worries about his deteriorating mental health: An aggressive, insulting voice in his head has begun urging him to engage in uncharacteristic violence. Jewish high school senior Grace is at the top of her class. Although she’s planning to attend Princeton and become a doctor, Grace has been questioning everything since her parents’ divorce. She’s drawn to Alberto from the day they meet, and when tragedy strikes and Alberto is accused of killing an elderly client and goes on the run, the pair struggle to figure out what really happened. Alberto’s suspected schizophrenia makes him heartbreakingly susceptible to both the best and worst of humanity; he encounters those who cruelly take advantage of his mental state but experiences extraordinary kindness from Grace’s formerly estranged family members and their rabbi. Told in the teens’ alternating perspectives, the narrative poignantly conveys how compassion and a willingness to overcome the perceived stigma of severe mental illness, together with the appropriate medical attention, can make all the difference.

An illuminatingly powerful story about mental illness, young love, faith, and hope. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)

 

 

ON THE HOOK

Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUjpt3wb9lU&t=7s

REVIEWS

Booklist (Starred Review)

After his father’s death and the descent of his brother, Fili, into depression, things are finally looking up for Hector and his family. He has won first place in his school’s essay contest, and even more exciting, his now-recovered brother plans to purchase a new house for his entire family to move out of the projects. Tragedy strikes when Fili is killed by Joey, a classmate of Hector’s who believes that Fili disrespected Joey’s brother by stealing his girlfriend. In retaliation, Hector runs over Joey’s brother, crippling him. Both boys, still minors, are sentenced to mandatory attendance at Furman Academy, a military-style school near San Antonio. Hector vows that Joey will pay for his crime, one way or another. Stork returns to his 2006 novel, Behind the Eyes, and reenvisions it to help young people today “know about the courage of love in a world where hatred is so pervasive.” He absolutely succeeds by focusing on Hector’s choice between embracing revenge and granting forgiveness to move on with his life. Intense, at times brutal, but so vital for today’s polarized society, this book will hopefully encourage readers to have compassion for others, even those with whom they vehemently disagree.

— Reinhardt Suarez

Kirkus (Starred Review)

Mexican American Hector lives a quiet yet fulfilling life in El Paso, Texas. He’s the star of his high school’s chess team; enjoys spending free time with his best friend, Azi; and just won an essay contest about the pursuit of happiness. But his circumstances begin to shift when Joey, the younger brother of a local gang member and drug dealer, singles Hector out with threats and an act of disturbing violence. Joey’s dangerous fixation on Hector—in addition to a volatile situation involving an ex-girlfriend of Joey’s brother—eventually culminates in a violent collision that costs Hector tremendously. The latter two-thirds of the novel focus on Hector’s and Joey’s time at a reformatory school in San Antonio that they’re both mandated to attend. There, Hector grapples with his chaotic mental state as he fantasizes about enacting revenge on those who wronged him and struggles to adapt to new challenges. Hector is an expertly crafted protagonist, roiling with guilt, grief, and a thirst for violence that threatens to consume him if he doesn’t shift his perspective. What starts as a quiet drama quickly escalates to a potent, fiery story while remaining a deep meditation about cycles of violence.

A staggering and fearless book. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14-18)

Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)

Throughout Stork’s (Illegal) unflinching, fully fleshed out novel centering a 16-year-old chess aficionado turned reformatory school student, his introspective Mexican American protagonist wrestles with an unimaginable question: “How could he live with himself knowing that he let his brother die?” The journey to find an answer forms the bulk of the narrative, examining the weight of guilt, the drive for revenge, and toxic masculinity in fine-point detail. Set in El Paso, Tex., and told in limited third-person perspective, Stork’s narrative introduces readers, before tragedy strikes, to Hector Robles. Hector aspires to achieve grandmaster status before his 18th birthday and to eventually get his family out of public housing. But when classmate Joey zeroes in on Hector for targeted harassment and violence, which escalates to a brutal, tragic confrontation between their families, Hector must decide whether his need for revenge outweighs his desire to heal. From the novel’s first chapter, Stork transmits the emotions “going at it bare-fisted in the boxing ring inside [Hector’s] head” with sensitivity and finesse, laying bare Hector’s complex, dynamic feelings right up until the novel’s cathartic end. Ages 12–up. 

 

 ILLEGAL

Awards

2021 International Latino Book Award (Gold Medal)

2020 In The Margins Book Award

2020 Young Adult Book Award – Texas Institute of Letter

Booklist (starred review)

After taking down a cartel and narrowly escaping by crossing the border from Mexico to the U.S., siblings Sara and Emiliano find themselves in even more danger than they were back home. Sara, a former journalist in Juarez, is in a detention facility, awaiting her asylum hearing. Her younger brother, Emiliano, is in hiding with a most precious cargo, the cell phone of cartel boss Hinojosa, which may contain the contact information of human traffickers based in the U.S. It is a race against time as Sara desperately tries to survive the cruel and inhumane conditions of the facility. Meanwhile, Emiliano must rely on his ingenuity and determination to avoid his pursuers. Picking up where 2017 Disappeared left off, Stork does not miss a beat. This time, Emiliano is the spotlight character, with Sara providing stark interludes inside the detention facility. While Disappeared took pains to illustrate the lives of the poor in Mexico, this throws light on the many experiences of Mexican immigrants in the U.S., from migrants being detained to undocumented workers fearing ICE raids to those who have attained citizenship and have perhaps too easily forgotten the poverty and despair back home. This book will not disappoint as both a thrilling page-turner and as a powerful analysis of injustice happening within America’s borders.

Reinhardt Suarez

 Kirkus

Following their escape from the cartels and corrupt local police threatening their lives in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Sara Zapata and her brother, Emiliano, learn that even Los Estados Unidos can’t guarantee their safety.

About 10 days have passed since their fateful trek across the border chronicled in the closing chapters of Disappeared (2017). Held captive at the Fort Stockton Detention Center, Sara awaits the results of her appeal for asylum in the U.S., every day losing more hope among the other women refugees. In the meantime, she must endure the ire of detention center personnel, including an office director with dangerous criminal ties. Unable to continue her investigation of a human trafficking ring with roots in Mexico and the U.S., Sara pins all her hopes on Emiliano, who now holds the all-important cellphone with incriminating data linking the powerful officials and criminals involved in the abduction and captivity of las Desaparecidas. Emiliano, meanwhile, heads off on a harrowing journey of his own, struggling to reconnect with his estranged, Americanized father while striving to elude danger at every corner, including the looming threat of deportation. Switching from third-person narration to a less enthralling first-person alternating narration, this sequel piles on the suspense and twists. Though there is some muddled political commentary, Stork offers a biting indictment of the U.S. government’s immoral apathy to the refugee crisis within its borders. Strong character development, however, reigns supreme.

A brilliant, penetrating follow-up. (Thriller. 12-18)

Hornbook

In this sequel to Disappeared (rev. 9/17), Mexican journalist Sara Zapata is now in the Fort Stockton Detention Center in Texas, lost in a sea of asylum petitions, after she and her brother Emiliano fled Juárez with a cell phone belonging to the head of a drug trafficking ring. While Sara stays to plead for asylum, seventeen-year-old Emiliano proceeds alone to pursue the mysterious Big Shot behind the trafficking ring in the United States. Stork’s suspenseful narrative alternates between Sara’s and Emiliano’s first-person points of view. Both protagonists have a strong inner compass guiding them to do the right thing, and providing a moral center to a tale that incorporates family, immigration, detention centers, human trafficking, and the web of evil that spreads from a city in Mexico right up to the Washington lawyers and government officials who profit from it. The story stands alone, but readers will likely want to read Disappeared for the bigger picture.

DEAN SCHNEIDER

 

DISAPPEARED 

Awards

2018 Walter Dean Myers Award Honor Book (We Need Diverse Books)

2018  Young Adult Book Award – Texas Institute of Letters

Some Reviews:

Horn Book (Starred Review)

Sara Zapata’s best friend is missing. Kidnapped. Sara, a rising-star reporter at Juárez, Mexico’s El Sol newspaper, is determined to find her and shine a light on the missing and murdered girls in Juárez, the Desaparecidas. Sara tells her boss Felipe, someone has to keep the memory of these girls alive. If we don’tt care about them, then who will? But as she unearths the State Police’s deep connection to sex slavery, she receives a death threat that puts her family in danger. Her younger brother Emiliano is an entrepreneur on the cusp of success; he’s finally making connections to make a better life for their family and be considered worthy of his wealthy girlfriend. Unlike his father, he doesn’t plan to leave his family behind and move to the United States. But when the lines between right and wrong blur, who can you trust? How do you keep your soul while trying to survive? This emotional thriller which takes place over the course of seven harrowing days and includes betrayal, desperate escapes, and a perilous trek across the desert to cross the border into the U.S. tackles these questions and more. In chapters that alternate between Sara’s and Emiliano’s perspectives, Stork beautifully explores the strong ties to one’s home along with the darker pervasiveness of Juárez’s corruption (this city is like a spiderweb. Every thread is connected directly or indirectly to every other thread); the lure of power; and the strength necessary to dream, hope, and make positive change in such crushingly dangerous and difficult circumstances.

Kirkus (Starred Review)

Sara Zapata and her brother, Emiliano, do their best to survive with their integrity intact while their beloved Juárez is overrun and endangered by a web of criminals that even involve the police and local government officials. Sara is a journalist who writes about her best friend, Linda, the latest girl kidnapped by the cartels. The heartfelt story sends ripples through the community, and the paper receives grateful letters from the families of other kidnapped girls–and death threats warning her to drop her investigation. Meanwhile, Emiliano is prospering after his foray into petty thefts and subsequent capture ushered him under the wing of Brother Patricio, the leader of his explorer club, the Jiparis, and his soccer coach. Emiliano’s a star soccer player and has started a side business selling some Jiparis’ artisan crafts to shop owners. Despite this, he’s still too poor to date his crush, Perla Rubi, so when he’s tempted into the same web of criminals that are coming after Sara and have taken Linda, the pull of wealth and a future with Perla Rubi is stronger than his need to do the right thing. Stork deftly writes criminals who aren’t monsters but men who do monstrous things, and while his understanding of Emiliano’s coming-of-age is fully engaging, he really impresses with his evocation of Sara’s need to navigate the advances of men she knows and doesn’t know and the powerful women equally dangerous to her. A tense thriller elevated by Stork’s nuanced writing and empathy for every character, including the villains–superb. (Thriller. 12-adult)

Booklist (Starred Review)

As a reporter for El Sol newspaper in Juárez, Mexico, Sara tirelessly writes reports on Las Desaparecidas–girls who suddenly vanish from their homes. It’s more than just a job: her best friend, Linda, disappeared several months ago. Meanwhile, her younger brother Emiliano is hard at work earning what he can from small jobs to help support Sara and their mother. When an opportunity arises to increase his family finances, he jumps at the chance, only to find out that his dreams of a better life lay in the town’s most lucrative industry–the drug trade. Both siblings find out how much danger they are in when Sara receives threats on her life that may involve Emiliano’s potential business partners. Together, the siblings flee to safety, toward the U.S. border. The plight of Las Desaparecidas is all too real for girls all over Mexico, and Stork does not shy away from the facts of human trafficking, the drug industry, and the senseless violence that accompanies them. Stork uses parallel storylines to flesh out the two protagonists, and then slowly brings them together to a harrowing climax. Not only does this result in a riveting story, it also highlights the harsh complexity of young Mexicans’ lives. Readers will find this thrilling as well as eye opening.– Reinhardt Suarez

School Library Journal (Starred Review)

Gr 8 Up—Sara, a reporter at her Mexican hometown, writes a column in the local newspaper detailing numerous cases of abducted young girls in Ciudad Juárez, including her best friend Linda. When the young woman receives a coded email message hinting at her friend’s whereabouts and captors, she investigates further and discovers how deeply the corruption and criminality runs in her city. Her brother, Emiliano, lives a normal life focusing on soccer, his crush Perla Rubi, and a budding artisanal crafts business. He is determined to rescue his mother and sister from the poverty and dangers around them, leading him to accept a lucrative but illicit business deal. Stork’s use of alternating perspectives provides insight into the siblings’ motivations, and establishes a strong sense of setting as the characters move through a variety of environments. Sara’s thread is fast-paced and thrusts the plot forward, while Emiliano’s moral and emotional struggles provide complexity. Once the siblings flee to the U.S. to save Sara from the criminals she exposes, her story line recedes and Emiliano becomes the focus. This novel touches on themes like the persecution of journalists, political corruption, and cyber investigations. A timely and touching novel that will surely engross fans of true crime stories. This title would be a welcome addition to young adult collections. —Jessica Agudelo, New York Public Library

Publishers Weekly

Siblings Sara and Emiliano Zapata live in Juárez, Mexico, where crime, kidnapping, and drugs are regular concerns for them. Through her work as a reporter for a local newspaper, Sara writes profiles of the girls who have gone missing, including her best friend Linda, taken four months earlier. It’s her way of letting the world know that she won’t forget Linda or the others. When Sara receives an encrypted email threatening her life, as well as those of her brother and mother, she decides it’s time to find out who has been taking the girls. Meanwhile, Emiliano, who has been working to build a folk art business, is being slowly pulled into the city’s criminal underbelly because of his desire to win over Perla Rubi, the daughter of a wealthy cartel lawyer. Stork (The Memory of Light) crafts a narrative that is both riveting and eye-opening. Part thriller, part sociological study, the novel sheds light on poverty, corruption, and greed while bringing readers intimately close to the plight of those who illegally cross borders with the hope of a brighter future. Ages 12—up. Agent: Faye Bender, Book Group. (Sept.)

School Library Connection

Stork reveals the underside of Mexican drug cartels and the harsh realities of illegal U.S. border crossings in this terse two-person narrative. Sara, a young Mexican journalist, has worked tirelessly to report on criminal activities in her hometown of Juarez, Mexico. Sara’s younger brother Emiliano, a high school senior, is his school’s soccer star and a budding entrepreneur, selling a friend’s handmade piñatas to tourists. He is also desperately in love with Perla Rubi, the daughter of a wealthy lawyer. When Emiliano is asked to fill the piñatas with drugs headed for the US, he is torn. He has always been incredibly honest, but the lure of wealth to display for Perla’s attention is a heady temptation. When Sara’s best friend disappears, her reporting becomes personal. Many other young women have been kidnapped and forced into prostitution with the full knowledge of government officials. As she continues to expose the criminal element in the corrupt government, she and her family are forced to flee across the US border. As the characters confront desert survival and the terror of being discovered by cartel assassins, as well as the Border Patrol, readers will be kept in page-turning suspense. Themes of honesty, family, love, betrayal and forgiveness are all crafted into this skillful thriller. Schools with large Latino populations may find this of particular interest. Booktalk this spellbinder for maximum exposure. Tena Natale Litherland, Retired Librarian, Webb School of Knoxville and Adjunct Lecturer, University of Tennessee. Highly Recommended

Shelf Awareness

“Maybe in other cities in the world, a young woman can be one hour late and it isn’t a cause for worry. In Juárez, that is simply not possible.” In Juárez, Mexico, the bodies of girls who don’t come home often are found months later. Sara Zapata’s best friend, Linda, went missing four months ago. She’s now one of the Desaparecidas, the Disappeared. Sara is determined not to give up on Linda and uses her position at a local newspaper, El Sol, to tell Linda’s story and the stories of countless other Desaparecidas throughout Juárez. Though Sara has been threatened for her journalism before, she is shaken when the latest threat comes in to her bosses at El Sol: “If you publish anything of Linda Fuentes we will kill your reporter and her family.” For the first time, she realizes her journalism may also put her mother and little brother, Emiliano, in danger. Still, Sara hasn’t published a story about Linda since her first article after Linda’s disappearance. Why would someone threaten her now?

While Sara begins to investigate the threat, Emiliano faces challenges of his own. After a close brush with the law, only Brother Patricio’s intervention saved Emiliano from jail. With Brother Patricio, Emiliano founded the Jiparis, “a Mexican version of the Boy Scouts” and found a way to channel his anger into healthier, more productive outlets. Now Emiliano even has his own business: some of the other Jiparis are talented artists who make crafts that Emiliano sells to local business owners to be resold to tourists, splitting the profits with his craftsmen. He hopes the money he earns can help his family, and also help him finally win over Perla Rubi’s wealthy family. His friends think he’s crazy, but Emiliano knows Perla Rubi cares about him as much as he cares about her. A chance meeting with her father leads to a startling business proposal, but Emiliano isn’t sure he wants to be involved. Still, Mr. Esmeralda reasons, “There’s no way to be successful in Mexico without getting dirty. The best one can do is control the degree of dirt.”

As Emiliano’s fortunes take a turn, Sara’s persecution becomes more real and both siblings face decisions and consequences that will alter their lives forever. Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork (Marcelo in the Real World; The Memory of Light) is a gripping, ripped-from-the-headlines tale of trafficking and the risks one must take to uncover truth. Juárez, alternately glittering and gritty, is “like a spiderweb. Every thread is connected directly or indirectly to every other thread.” Stork makes fantastic use of the tightly-focused perspectives of Emiliano and Sara; as Emiliano tentatively steps into the web and Sara desperately tries to stay out of it, Disappeared will have readers wondering whether either can escape. —Kyla Paterno, former children’s and YA book buyer. Discovery: In Juárez, Mexico, a journalist searching for her missing best friend finds her life threatened while her younger brother learns the cost of joining Juárez’s upper class.

 

The Memory of Light (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic January 2016)

Awards:

2017 Tomás Rivera Book Award  – Given to authors and illustrators who create literature that depicts the Mexican American experience.

2017 Millikin Medal for Excellence in Young Adult Literature

http://www.millikin.edu/staley/about-library/millikin-medal

 

Trailer of  The Memory of Light 

 

Some Reviews:

Chicago Tribune

If clinical depression is not the same as sadness, then what is it? Francisco X. Stork examines this question with the same grace, eloquence and respect found in all of his writing for young adults, particularly in his previous, much-acclaimed novel “Marcelo in the Real World.” In “The Memory of Light”, he pulls back the curtain on a disease that often feels shameful, as if sufferers themselves are to blame, and gives readers space to consider nonjudgmentally, almost philosophically, both the pain and the wisdom depression can bring. Hospitalized after a suicide attempt, Vicky Cruz has one thing in common with the three other teens in her therapy group. They are, as Vicky puts it, “failures at the thing called living.” Vicky has long defined herself as the opposite of her materially successful family, who set and reach goals with apparent ease. Whereas her father and sister seem to have weathered their grief over Vicky’s mother’s death and moved on, she has stalled. They ask her why she wanted to kill herself; yet, for her, “want” is barely a concept. “I don’t want anything. I simply don’t want.” Under the patient guidance of her doctor, and in conversation with her therapy mates, who gradually become solid friends, Vicky learns that she has depression, but that it doesn’t have to consume her. She starts to feel valued and needed for who she is rather than striving unsuccessfully to fit her father’s blueprint for who she is supposed to be. Emily Dickinson’s image of “boots of lead creaking across her soul” resonates, and she wonders if she, too, “could learn to work with words and images and rhythms so other can see and feel what they could not see or feel or understand before” — in short, what Stork himself does so well.

– Christine Heppermann

(Starred) Kirkus Reviews, November 2015

After a failed suicide attempt, 16-year-old Vicky Cruz wakes up in a hospital’s mental ward, where she must find a path to recovery–and maybe rescue some others. Vicky meets Mona, Gabriel, and E.M.–a clan very different from Vicky primarily because of their economic limitations–at Lakeview Hospital. There, with the guidance of their group-therapy leader, Dr. Desai, they daily delve into deep-seated issues that include anger management, bipolar disorder, clinical depression, and schizophrenia. Beyond the hospital walls, Vicky’s school friends amount to zero, and her future plans are difficult to conjure. Vicky has a flawed family: Becca, her Harvard-student sister, has grown distant; Miguel, her temperamental first-generation father, married Barbara only six months after Vicky’s mother died of cancer; and collectively the two are sending Vicky’s longtime nanny, Juanita, back to Mexico. A quick first-person narration guides readers through the complexity of Vicky’s thoughts and, more importantly, revelations. From her darkest moments to welcome comedic respites to Emily Dickinson’s poetry, Stork remains loyal to his characters, their moments of weakness, and their pragmatic views, and he does not shy away from such topics as domestic violence, social-class struggles, theology, and philosophy. Following Schneider Award-winning Marcelo in the Real World (2009), Stork further marks himself as a major voice in teen literature by delivering one of his richest and most emotionally charged novels yet.

(Starred) Booklist, November 2015

When high-school sophomore Vicky Cruz wakes in the hospital psychiatric ward after a failed suicide attempt, she knows it’s only a matter of time before she tries again. She agrees to stay for two weeks, not because she thinks it will change anything, but because she can’t bear pretending anymore. Through Vicky’s interactions with others in group therapy–chatty, energetic Mona; bold, angry E.M.; and preternaturally wise Gabriel–she finds acceptance and understanding, while her sessions with kindly Dr. Desai help re-frame her life from the perspective of someone with an illness that needs treatment, not someone who “isn’t trying hard enough.” The final third of the novel is crowded with less-credible action sequences, including a near drowning and a violent confrontation with an abuser, but overall Vicky’s story has undeniable emotional strength and an encouraging, compassionate message. Stork (Marcelo in the Real World, 2009) writes his characters with authenticity and respect, from their inner lives to their economic and cultural backgrounds (Vicky is Mexican American); as Vicky gradually recovers and begins to imagine her future, other characters work out their damaging assumptions as well. Though occasionally message-heavy, this important story of a teenager learning to live with clinical depression is informative and highly rewarding.

– Krista Hutley

(Starred) Publisher’s Weekly, November 2015

Vicky Cruz, 16, “put[s] on strong every morning,” trying to please her demanding father, a emotionally stunted man who married his assistant shortly after the death of his wife, six years earlier. But when Vicky’s father summarily fires her beloved, arthritic nanny, paying for her to return to Mexico, Vicky surrenders to the “soul pain” she has felt for years and swallows a bottle of her stepmother’s sleeping pills. Stork (Marcelo in the Real World) writes sensitively about Vicky’s journey from near death to shaky recovery, discussing his own experience with depression in an afterword. Awakening in a public hospital’s psych ward, Vicky attends group therapy with patients who have a catalogue of disorders, and learns from them to value her strengths. Various studies have estimated that perhaps as many as one in five teens has a diagnosable mental health problem; it’s a subject that needs the discussion Stork’s potent novel can readily provide. Vicky isn’t healed, but she finds a reason to keep living, and that constitutes progress worth celebrating.

(Starred) School Library Journal, January 2015 

After attempting to commit suicide in her bedroom, Vicky Cruz wakes up in the psychiatric wing of the hospital. Exhausted and nearly catatonic, Vicky goes through the motions asked of her by the quiet but firm Dr. Desai while intending to stay only the mandatory time before going home to try again. After attending group therapy with the other three young people on the ward–her energetic roommate Mona, intimidating E.M., and angelic Gabriel, however, Vicky accepts Dr. Desai’s help in convincing her domineering father to let her stay. As Vicky begins intensive treatment, things start to look up, but the looming question of whether she and her friends can survive in the outside world remains. Stork’s latest starts slow, with a cold, dry tone that mirrors Vicky’s own emotional depletion. As the new environment and people begin to reach Vicky, however, the prose follows suit, growing smoothly into a warm and powerful tone. Unlike many novels about teens and suicide, this work focuses entirely on recovery. Vicky is dealing with a deep depression born from her mother’s death and learns not only to name her illness but to cope with the effects and stand up for her needs. Stork’s depiction of depression deftly avoids the traps of preaching or romanticizing and instead is accurate, heartbreaking, and hopeful. A beautiful read that adds essential depth to the discussion of teens and mental illness.

—Amy Diegelman, Vineyard Haven Public Library, MA

***

“The Memory of Light is filled with hard truths and beautiful revelations. It’s a beacon of hope for those in the dark of depression. This book just might save your life.”

-Stephanie Perkins, New York Times bestselling author of Isla and the Happily Ever After.

***

“The Memory of Light takes you to that cold strange place that is depression. Vicky’s journey back from darkness doesn’t simplify or sentimentalize the effects of mental illness. Francisco Stork shows us the universe of the human mind, how it can be terrifyingly dark — and how in the company of the right kind heart — infinitely dazzling.”

–Martha Brockenborough, author of the Game of Love and Death

***

“This is an honest look at recovery, about finding out from rock bottom, and about learning that the process of living with a mental illness is just that: A learning process. A solid, powerful story.”

Kelly Jensen, blogger at Stackedbooks.org

***

 

IRISES (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic January 2012)

(Starred) Publisher’s Weekly, November 14, 2011 In this ethically nuanced novel, Stork (Marcelo in the Real World) thrusts a devastating choice on two strong heroines. When their strict minister father dies, two El Paso sisters, 18-year-old Kate, who dreams of going to medical school, and 16-year-old Mary, a talented painter, are left with many painful decisions. At the forefront of their minds are their mother, who has been in a persistent vegetative state for more than two years following a car accident, and their perilous financial situation. Tension escalates when the church plans to evict them, the insurance company denies their father’s policy, and Kate resists pressure to marry her dependable boyfriend. As both sisters change and open up in unexpected ways without their father’s restrictive presence, questions of faith and the girls’ differing beliefs and outlooks provide a powerful theme, further complicated when Kate raises a potentially divisive question: whether to keep their mother on life support. Stork demonstrates his customary skill in creating memorable and multidimensional characters in a story that leaves lingering, contemplative questions regarding death, survival, and love. Agent: Faye Bender Literary Agency. Ages 14—up. (Jan.)

(Recommended) Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books – February 2012 Since the accident that left their mother in a permanent vegetative state, Kate and Mary have suffered without her gentle support and respite from their pastor father’s oppressive rules about how they should dress, talk, and behave. Elder sister Kate has found some escape by depending on her best friend and her boyfriend to get her out of the house, but Mary has resigned herself to caring for her mother at home, her only self-asserting behavior being to claim an extra hour of art-studio time every day after school. When their father dies, the girls are lost at first, and they’re concerned about their financial ability to continue their mother’s care. Kate’s boyfriend proposes, but she finds herself attracted to the new pastor at their church, who introduces some challenges to her ideas of what it means to be selfish, among them the possibility of removing her mother’s feeding tube. The formal, measured diction of the prose reinforces the weightiness of the issues the girls face; it slows the reading down and mimics the girls’ own voices as they gradually awaken from their sheltered past to consider the ethics of their dreams. Kate and Mary are very different: Kate is a strong pragmatist who is extremely rational but feels inadequate in matters of the heart, while Mary is a dreamy artist who leads with her emotions; however, they are both strongly committed to each other and to their principles. Their story is thus a powerfully thoughtful exploration of one of the most serious questions contemporary life throws at us, and it’s made engrossingly messy by the sisters’ differences as well as the fact that their choice will ultimately determine their ability to embark on their own futures. Strong stuff, gently handled. KC

THE LAST SUMMER OF THE DEATH WARRIORS (Arthur A. Levine / Scholastic, March 2010)

Awards:

Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award presented by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English.
The award is given to a young adult title demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal and literary merit.

Some Reviews: April 11, 2010 New York Times

Starred The Horn Book March/April 2010 Following his breakout book, Marcelo in the Real World (rev. 3/09), Stork offers yet another story with complex characters, rich and powerful themes, and a vivid setting. Tough-guy Pancho Sanchez is a ward of the state of New Mexico: his father died in an accident and his “slow” older sister, Rosa, died in a motel room under mysterious circumstances. Pancho is convinced that she was murdered and lives to take vengeance on his sister’s killer. Pancho is placed first in a foster home and then in an orphanage, where he meets and befriends D.Q., a strange boy with terminal cancer. D.Q. is writing the Death Warrior Manifesto, outlining his philosophy of embracing and loving life. He senses a kindred spirit in Pancho and recruits him to accompany him on an extended trip to Albuquerque for experimental treatment, hoping to mitigate Pancho’s lust for revenge. Once there, Pancho works on tracking down Rosa’s murderer, but he also bonds more closely with D.Q. and Marisol, a girl both Pancho and D.Q. fall for. Ultimately, Pancho needs to decide whether to cling to his desire for vengeance or forsake that quest, embrace forgiveness and acceptance, and move on with his life. Perceptive readers will not fail to recognize the allusions to Don Quixote in this novel of lonely quests and unlikely friendship. Stork’s latest marks him as one of the most promising young adult authors of the new decade; it features unforgettable characters confronting the big philosophical questions in life that will resonate with readers long after book’s end.

Starred – Publishers Weekly February 2010 Characters that are just as fully formed and memorable as in Stork’s Marcelo in the Real World embody this openhearted, sapient novel about finding authentic faith and choosing higher love. Seventeen-year-old Pancho Sanchez is sent to a Catholic orphanage after his father and sister die in the span of a few months. Though the cause of his sister’s death is technically “undetermined,” Pancho plans to kill the man he believes responsible (“How strange that a feeling once so foreign to him now gripped him with such persistence. He could not imagine living without avenging his sister’s death”). When D.Q., a fellow resident dying from brain cancer, asks Pancho to accompany him to Albuquerque for experimental treatments, Pancho agrees–he’ll get paid and it’s where his sister’s killer lives. D.Q. is deeply philosophical, composing a “Death Warrior” manifesto about living purposefully; through him, Pancho gradually opens to a world that he previously approached like a punching bag. Stork weaves racial and familial tension, tentative romances, and themes of responsibility and belief through the story, as the boys unite over the need to determine the course of their lives. Starred — Booklist February 2010 Though the police say that his sister, Rosa, died of natural causes, 17-year-old Pancho Sanchez is convinced she was murdered, and looking to exact revenge. With no surviving family (his mother died when he was five, and his father only three months before Rosa), Pancho is placed in an orphanage in Las Cruces, where he meets D.Q., a boy who is dying from a rare form of brain cancer. D.Q. is not just determined to find a cure, he’s also equally set on training Pancho to become what he calls a “Death Warrior.” Together, the unlikely companions embark on a quest to Albuquerque (Stork acknowledges echoes of Don Quixote here), and though they travel for their own reasons, once arrived, each will have to come to terms with what it might actually mean to be a Death Warrior. Stork (Marcelo in the Real World, 2008) has written another ambitious portrait of a complex teen, one that investigates the large considerations of life and death, love and hate, and faith and doubt. Though the writing occasionally tends toward the didactic, this novel, in the way of the best literary fiction, is an invitation to careful reading that rewards serious analysis and discussion. Thoughtful readers will be delighted by both the challenge and Stork’s respect for their abilities.

MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, March 2009)

Awards:

• 2010 Once Upon a World Children’s Book Award for Young Adults (Awarded by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance Library and Archives)
• Schneider Family Book Award (January 2010) (Awarded by the American Library Association for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences).
• New York Times Notable Children’s Book of 2009 Washington Post Best Kids’ Books of the Year
• Smithsonian Notable Book of 2009
• A YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, 2010
• YALSA Top 10 Best Books for Young Adults,
• 2010 NPR.org Best Young Adult Fiction for 2009
• 2009 Booklist Editors’ Choice
• Horn Book Fanfare Book
• Kirkus Best Book of 2009
• Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2009
• School Library Journal Best Book of 2009
• CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2010
• 2010 IRA Notable Books for a Global Society

Some Reviews: May 10, 2009. New York Times

Starred — Booklist – April 1, 2009 “Shot with spirituality, laced with love, and fraught with conundrums, this book, like Marcelo himself, surprises.”

Starred — School Library Journal – Mar. 2009 Writing in the first-person narrative, Stork does an amazing job of entering Marcelo’s consciousness and presenting him as a dynamic, sympathetic, and wholly believable character.

Starred — Horn Book March/April, 2009 Seventeen-year-old Marcelo Sandoval marches to the beat of a different drummer – literally. He perceives internal music in his head; he is obsessed with religion; he has difficulty interacting with others – behaviors that place him at the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. He is happy at Paterson, the special-education school he’s attended since first grade, and life is comfortable. Then his father proposes an unwelcome deal: if Marcelo proves successful in “the real world” by working in the mailroom at his law firm over the summer he will be allowed to choose between returning to his beloved Paterson or attending – as his father prefers – a regular high school. But as Marcelo begins his summer job, he finds his moral compass tested just as much as his coping and social skills. His loyalty is divided on multiple levels: between his father and the law firm, between a plaintiff and the law firm, between the privileged son of his father’s law partner who befriends him with dubious motives and the beautiful co-worker who gradually comes to care deeply for him. While the voice is reminiscent of the narrator of Haddon’s Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – both have an appealing blend of naivete and wisdom – Marcelo has the superior character development. His inspiring, brave journey into the real world will likely engender a fierce protective instinct in readers, ratcheting up the tension as the plot winds to its sweet, satisfying denouement. It is the rare novel that reaffirms a belief in goodness;rarer still is one that does so this emphatically. j.h.

Starred — Publisher’s Weekly January 2009 Artfully crafted characters form the heart of Stork’s (The Way of the Jaguar) judicious novel. Marcelo Sandoval, a 17-year-old with an Asperger’s-like condition, has arranged a job caring for ponies at his special school’s therapeutic-riding stables. But he is forced to exit his comfort zone when his high-powered father steers Marcelo to work in his law firm’s mailroom (in return, Marcelo can decide whether to stay in special ed, as he prefers, or be mainstreamed for his senior year).Narrating with characteristically flat inflections and frequently forgetting to use the first person, Marcelo manifests his anomalies: heharbors an obsession with religion (he regularly meets with a plainspoken female rabbi, though he’s not Jewish); hears “internal “music; and sleeps in a tree house. Readers enter his private world as he navigates the unfamiliar realm of menial tasks and office politics with the ingenuity of a child, his voice never straying from authenticity even as the summer strips away some of his differences. Stork introduces ethical dilemmas, the possibility of love, and other “real world” conflicts, all the while preserving the integrity of his characterizations and intensifying the novel’s psychological and emotional stakes. Not to be missed. Ages 14-up. (Mar.)

Starred — Kirkus Reviews — Jan 15, 2009 Making good on the promise of his Way of the Jaguar (2000), Stork delivers a powerful tale populated by appealing (and decidedly unappealing) characters and rich in emotional nuance. (Fiction. YA)

Other Good News About Marcelo: So far (as of February 14, 2010) Marcelo will be published in sixteen languages: Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Greek, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Vietnamese, Slovak, Korean, Hungarian, Chinese Simplified, Turkish and Hebrew.

My favorite comment on the book: “Sir, on behalf of myself and my twin sons, who are like Marcelo, I want to thank-you for writing this book.