La Linea by: Ann Jaramillo

[Inkweaver]

This is going to be a very memorable book for me. Being in Virginia (rural) I am surrounded by cotton and tobacco fields, which leads to immigrant workers. Most of them are Mexican and nearly all of them are considered illegal. One of my best friends is an illegal immigrant. This book is fiction, but all of these events are happening and have happened to millions of people all over America. The book begins with a young boy, Miguel, in a small Mexican village living with the rest of his family, excluding his mother and father. His parents had already made the journey to America a few years earlier. He receives a letter from his father one day, telling him that it is time to make the journey. All of the funds were to be paid by a local millionaire. There are more details behind that, but we'll just stick to the basics. He eventually lands himself on a bus heading north, where he finds that his younger sister, Elena, has secretly followed him! This complicates things to no end. I will leave it at that, but there is a ton more. Lastly, this book has won the Virginia Reader's Choice Award 2009-2010 and might just be the best book I've ever read!