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YA
Manzano (Sesame Street's recently retired Maria) recounts her Bronx childhood and adolescence in first-person, present-tense narration. After an intentionally disjointed beginning--vignettes shift among her father's drunken abuse, her mother's love, their unstable living situation--the story gains coherence as it progresses, ending when she auditions for Sesame Street. Manzano's writing is lyrical and accessible, laced with fear, confusion, love, anger (and a number of f-bombs).
Reviewer: Randy Ribay
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
September, 2015