Ana Cortez is fifteen years old. She has been in the foster care system since she was six - when her grandmother died. She has been placed with good and bad foster parents and once in a group home.
She is not moving because she is a bad kid, but because the system is broken. She spoke up to help her foster siblings and was kicked out. Of course, that is not the story told to her case worker.
Now Ana has one more chance. She can choose between a group home (not a safe place in her experience) or a work study program. If she completes the work study, she will be old enough to emancipate at the end of it.
Abbie and Emmett Garber run a small family farm in Northern California on the coast. They took over the farm when their father died. Abbie had left for a while but came back to help Emmett. For a while she and Emmett and Emmett's wife (Abbie's best friend) all ran the farm together. Now that Abbie and Emmett are on their own, Abbie has signed them up to foster a teen to help on the farm.
With Ana having never been out of East Los Angeles and Abbie and Emmett picturing someone a little heartier looking than the petite Ana, they will have to learn to communicate to see if they can work and live together for the summer.
This is a great book - both for teens and adults. It would, if done well, be a great movie. Read it today.
Teran, Andi. (2015). Ana of California. New York: Penguin Books.
No comments:
Post a Comment