Name: Brownstone
Author: Teer, Samuel
ISBN: [978-0-358-39475-4,0-358-39475-9]

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Brownstone

Author: Teer, Samuel

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Follett Number: 2876FD6
Audience: Middle School
Publisher: Versify/Harper Alley, imprints of HarperCollins Publishers, 2024
Format: 315 pages : chiefly color illustrations ; 23 cm
ISBN-13: 978-0-358-39475-4
ISBN-10: 0-358-39475-9
LCCN: 2023-943609
Dewey: 741.5
Classifications: Nonfiction

Subjects:

Family Life Fiction

Fathers and Daughters Fiction

Gentrification Fiction

Graphic Novels

Guatemalan Americans Fiction

Hispanic Americans Fiction

Historical Comics

Identity Fiction

Multiracial People Fiction

Neighborhoods Fiction

In the summer of 1995, almost-fifteen-year-old Almudena is sent to live with her estranged Spanish-speaking father, and together they renovate a brownstone and build a relationship while Almudena navigates the Latin American side of her heritage for the first time.

From the publisher:
An Indie Next List Selection! A Harvey Award Nominee! "Angsty. Awkward. With a scrappy heart of gold, Brownstone is a must-read for anyone who's ever felt totally out of place." --Gabby Rivera, bestselling author of Juliet Takes a Breath An exciting teen coming-of-age epic from author Samuel Teer and debut graphic novel artist Mar Julia, Brownstone is a vivid, sweeping, ultimately hopeful story about navigating your heritage even when you feel like you don't quite fit in. Almudena has always wondered about the dad she never met. Now, with her white mother headed on a once-in-a-lifetime trip without her, she's left alone with her Guatemalan father for an entire summer. Xavier seems happy to see her, but he expects her to live in (and help fix up) his old, broken-down brownstone. And all along, she must navigate the language barrier of his rapid-fire Spanish--which she doesn't speak. As Almudena tries to adjust to this new reality, she gets to know the residents of Xavier's Latin American neighborhood. Each member of the community has their own joys and heartbreaks as well as their own strong opinions on how this young Latina should talk, dress, and behave. Some can't understand why she doesn't know where she comes from. Others think she's "not brown enough" to fit in. But time is running out for Almudena and Xavier to get to know each other, and the key to their connection may ultimately lie in bringing all these different elements together. Fixing a broken building is one thing, but turning these stubborn individuals into a found family might take more than this one summer.

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Audience: Middle School

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