An Island Like You

by Ortiz Cofer, Judith

• ISBN13: 9780545131339
• ISBN10: 0545131332
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-01
• Publisher: Orchard Books

Summary

Rita is exiled to Puerto Rico for a summer with her grandparents after her parents catch her with a boy. Luis sits atop a six-foot mountain of hubcaps in his father's junkyard, working off a sentence for breaking and entering. Sandra tries to reconcile her looks to the conventional Latino notion of beauty. And Arturo, different from his macho classmates, fantasizes about escaping his community. They are the teenagers of the barrio - and this is their world. Praise for AN ISLAND LIKE YOU: "[Cofer's] contemporary teenage voices are candid, funny, weary, and irreverent in these stories about immigrant kids caught between their Puerto Rican families and the pull and push of the American dream." - Booklist (starred review) "The Caribbean flavor of the tales gives them their color and freshness, but the narratives have universal resonance. . . ." -Horn Book Awards for AN ISLAND LIKE YOU: A Recipient of the Pura Belpre Award (ALSC/REFORMA) An ALA Best Book for Young Adults A School of Library Journal Best Book of the Year An ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

Author Biography

Judith Ortiz Cofer is an award-winning author known for her stories about coming-of-age experiences in the barrio and her writings about the cultural conflicts of immigrants. She is the author of many distinguished titles for young adults such as, CALL ME MARIA, THE MEANING OF CONSEULO, SILENT DANCING: A PARTIAL REMEMBERANCE OD A PUERTO RICAN CHILDHOOD, and THE LINE IN THE SUN. She lives in Georgia where she is the Regents’ and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.