Julia Alvarez won the 2010 Pura Belpré award for her novel, Return to Sender, in which an Americian boy named Tyler develops a close friendship with an undocumented girl named Mari who lives and works with her family on Tyler's family's farm. 
Alvarez explains in a note to her readers that the title of her book comes from the name of a real-life national sweep conducted in 2006 by the U.S. immigration authorities to round up undocumented immigrants who had criminal records. "Return to sender" is stamped on mail that has been incorrectly addressed or has insufficient postage, so the implication was that these people were also misdirected or insufficient.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this story, but I think Alvarez could have been more subtle in delivering her message. Most of the story is told through letters that Mari writes, and quite often I found myself thinking that Alvarez's voice overpowered Mari's, and the writing became more didactic than I was comfortable with. Still, Mari writes eloquently of the heartache she feels because she is separated from her mother, who has not returned from a trip to Mexico and is missing. She also expresses the joy of her friendship with Tyler, as well as the terrible anxiety she feels when her uncle is arrested and eventually deported. This story takes on an important issue, and I think Alvarez does an admirable job in illustating for a young audience its complexity.
Yeah! I've found another awesome series to read aloud with my boys: The Looking Glass Wars, by Frank Beddor. 
I just finished the first book and am looking forward to reading the second, Seeing Redd. I found an interesting interview with the author here. Also check out The Lookin Glass Wars website, where you can listen to music and play games created for the series.
When I chose this book to read next, I had no idea the series was such a phenomenon. Novels, graphic novels (the Hatter M series), music, games, a movie in the works, fan clubs -- wow! I actually started the series by listening to the audio CD on my way to work. Gerard Doyle is amazing. He seems to have a distinctive voice for almost every character. My favorites are Jack of Diamonds, General Doppelganger (whose voice is really doubled -- as in Doyle's voice X2 whenever this character speaks -- cool!), and Redd. He really makes the characters come alive. I found that I was missing out on some of the story, though, because I sometimes was distracted during the ride to work (what a pain, to have to actually pay attention to my driving! :) ), so I checked out the book and started reading from the beginning again.
I was quickly taken in with Beddor's tale, which is both funny and horrifying at the same time. Alyss, on her 7th birthday, finds herself lost in Victorian London, alone, after her evil Aunt Redd stages a coup, kills her sister Genevieve (Alyss's mother) and proclaims herself Queen of Wonderland. Hatter Madigan, who is head of the Millinery (the military of Wonderland) and is also the royal bodyguard, has come with Alyss through the portal between Wonderland and London, which is known as the Pool of Tears. They became separated en route, though, and he is searching for Alyss. Meanwhile, back in Wonderland, the cowardly, despicable Jack of Diamonds is getting very rich pretending loyalty to both sides of the conflict, and ordinary Wonderlanders live in fear of Queen Redd and her henchman, The Cat. There is plenty of adventure here, as the forces of black and white imagination battle over control of the queendom.
I was happy when I found out that one of the main characters of Masterpiece, by Elise Broach, is an insect. 
I like books about talking animals, especially those where the animals are not the traditionally cute and fuzzy kind. The rats in Elizabeth Winthrop's The Red-Hot Rattoons made rats kid-friendly long before Hollywood did the same thing with Ratatouille, and Lynne Jonell's Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat skates right along with that same idea. From there, how far is it, really, to an artistically gifted beetle?
Yes, in Masterpiece, Marvin the beetle in an artistic genius who surprises 11-year-old James with his exceptional drawing ability. Marvin and his family live in the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink in James's family's apartment. One night, Marvin uses the new pen and ink drawing supplies James received for a birthday present to draw a picture of the scene outside James's window. In the morning, James's mother thinks James is the artist, and things kind of spiral a little bit out of control from there to involve an art museum and the mysterious theft of a very old and valuable drawing.
This is a clever but not too complex little story and I liked it a lot. It was actually refreshing after reading Pepper Roux, which was so complicated it made my head spin.
