{"product_id":"dark-water-isbn-9780375843303","title":"Dark Water","description":"A National Book Award Finalist\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews \u003c\/i\u003eBest Books for Teens\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFifteen-year-old Pearl DeWitt lives in Fallbrook, California, where it's sunny 340 days of the year, and where her uncle owns a grove of 900 avocado trees. Uncle Hoyt hires migrant workers regularly, but Pearl doesn't pay much attention to them...until Amiel. From the moment she sees him, Pearl is drawn to this boy who keeps to himself, fears being caught by \u003ci\u003ela migra\u003c\/i\u003e, and is mysteriously unable to talk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen the wildfires strike.\"This debut solo effort after several collaborations with husband Tom McNeal (\u003ci\u003eThe Decoding of Lana Morris\u003c\/i\u003e, 2007, etc.) stands out in the crowded coming-of-age field. The affecting narrative springs believably from the first-person thoughts of Pearl DeWitt as she recalls her 15th summer, when, entranced by a nearly mute, illegal Mexican migrant worker, the beautiful and gifted teenage Amiel, Pearl makes choices that lead to tragedy. Evocative language electrifies the scenes between the pair, as they develop a relationship both complicated and deepened by their limited verbal communication. Her warnings to readers of impending disaster amplify rather than diminish the impact of the misguided, wrenching decisions she makes when a raging wildfire sweeps through their rural California community. Besides her poignant relationship with Amiel, Pearl navigates her father’s recent abandonment of her and her mother and her complicated relationship with her cousin Robby as he blunderingly deals with his father’s apparent infidelity. Notable for well-drawn characters, an engaging plot and, especially, hauntingly beautiful language, this is an outstanding book.\"\u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e-\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003eLaura Rhoton McNeal holds a master’s degree in fiction writing from Syracuse University. She taught middle school and high school English before becoming a novelist and journalist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTogether, Laura and her husband, Tom McNeal, are the authors of \u003ci\u003eCrooked,\u003c\/i\u003e winner of the California Book Award for Juvenile Literature and an ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults; \u003ci\u003eZipped,\u003c\/i\u003e winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Children’s Literature; \u003ci\u003eCrushed\u003c\/i\u003e (called “compelling” by \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e); and \u003ci\u003eThe Decoding of Lana Morris,\u003c\/i\u003e a \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e Best Young Adult Book of the Year. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe McNeals live in Southern California with their two sons, Sam and Hank. To learn more, please visit the authors’ Web site at www.mcnealbooks.com.One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou wouldn't have noticed me before the fire unless you saw that my eyes, like a pair of socks chosen in the dark, don't match. One is blue and the other's brown, a genetic trait called heterochromia that I share with white cats, Catahoula hog dogs, and water buffaloes. My uncle Hoyt used to tell me, when I was little, that it meant I could see fairies and peaceful ghosts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen I met Amiel, and for six months it seemed true what he whispered in his damaged voice: \u003ci\u003eTú eres de dos mundos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was wrong, of course. You can only belong to one world at a time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow that he's gone, I try to see things when I'm alone. I put one hand over my blue eye, and I look south. With my brown eye I can see all the way to Mexico. I fly over freeways and tile roofs and malls and swimming pools. I cross the Sierra de Juárez Mountains and the Sea of Cortés to the place where Amiel was born, and I find the turquoise house with a red door. There are three chairs on the covered patio: one for him, one for me, and one for Uncle Hoyt. I tell myself the chairs are empty because we're not there yet. I watch for as long as I can and when my eye starts to water, I remove my hand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTomorrow, I'll look again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeople move to Fallbrook, California, because it's sunny 340 days of the year. They move here to grow petunias and marigolds and palms and cycads and cactus and self-propagating succulents and blood oranges and Meyer lemons and sweet limes and, above all, avocados. They move here to grow them, I should say, or to pick them for other people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe houses are far apart when you're out in the hills, where trees and petunias grow in straight lines for profit, but once you get close to town, the streets look like something drawn by a child with an Etch A Sketch. No overall plan, no sidewalks, just driveways going off in crazy lines that lead to other driveways, where signs point to other dead-end streets named in Spanish or English with no particular theme--La Oreja Place sticking out of Rodeo Queen Drive leading to Tecolote Avenue, which if it were a sentence would read \"the Ear on the Rodeo Queen of the Owl.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ear and the queen and the owl are overrun with bougainvillea, ivy geraniums, tulip vines, and star jasmine, and that's what makes Fallbrook beautiful from a distance but tangled and confusing up close. It's a place where you can get lost no matter how long you've lived here, and there are only two roads out, something we didn't think much about before the fires began.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI first saw Amiel de la Cruz Guerrero on the corner of one of those Etch A Sketch streets, where Alvarado meets Stage Coach. I was fifteen and he was seventeen, although he told employers he was twenty. I was in my sophomore year of high school and my mother was substitute-teaching because my father had left us, and as my mother was constantly saying over the phone when she thought I wasn't listening, \u003ci\u003eThe wolf is at the door.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery weekday morning at seven-thirty we'd leave my uncle's avocado ranch, where we were living free of rent (but not shame) in the guesthouse. My mother would drink her coffee in the car while she drove, and I would eat dry Corn Pops from a Tupperware bowl. Traffic would bunch up as all the cars going to all the schools had to inch through the same four-way stop at Alvarado and Stage Coach, one corner of which was a day-labor gathering site, meaning Mexican and Guatemalan men would stand around on the empty lot hoping to get a day's work digging trenches, moving furniture, hauling firewood, or picking fruit. The men stared intensely into every car, hoping to win you over before you stopped. Pick me, their faces said. The wolf is at the door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut on this morning, the men had their backs to the road. Our car rolled slowly to the stop sign, going even slower than usual because the drivers of the cars were staring, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen we got close enough, I could see a lanky guy in a flannel shirt and work pants doing some sort of act. Fallbrook calls itself the Avocado Capital of the World, so you don't live here without seeing guys pick avocados. Mostly it's done on high ladders, but there's also this funky tool like a lacrosse stick with a six-foot handle. You stick the pole way up in the tree, hook the avocado, yank, then lower the pole so you can drop the fruit into a huge canvas bag you're wearing slung over one shoulder and across your chest. That's what Amiel was doing that morning, only without the pole, the sack, the tree, or the avocado.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What in the world?\" my mom asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He's picking imaginary fruit,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe snuck a look. \"That's the oddest thing I've ever seen.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Can we hire him?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe snorted. It was our turn to dart through the intersection just as Amiel de la Cruz Guerrero touched his imaginary avocado-picking pole to a live electrical wire and received an imaginary jolt, which made all the day-labor guys laugh.","brand":"Ember","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302038327525,"sku":"NP9780375843303","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375843303.jpg?v=1767724721","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/dark-water-isbn-9780375843303","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}