Behind the Eyes - Hardcover

Stork, Francisco

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525477357 ISBN 13: 9780525477358

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile, 2006

Synopsis

Sixteen-year-old Hector is the hope of his family, but when he seeks revenge after his brother's gang-related death and is sent to a San Antonio reform school, it takes an odd assortment of characters to help him see that hope is still alive.

About this title

About the Author:

Francisco X. Stork is also the author of The Way of the Jaguar, a prize recipient in the 1999 Chicano/Latino Literary Contest. He lives in Massachusetts.

From Booklist:

Sixteen-year-old Hector Robles, growing up in a struggling Mexican American family in El Paso, is a good student and wants to attend college. But after his older brother dies in a gang war, it's not safe for Hector at home, and he reluctantly agrees to attend a reform school in San Antonio. The action-packed scenes are laced with obscenities, and the gang confrontations and power struggles in the prison-like school are fierce and violent. Though the message about redemption is sometimes too heavy, the diverse characters are powerfully drawn, as is the elemental immigrant family story, told in flashbacks, in which Hector remembers the struggle in El Paso and his own love, guilt, and shame. In one haunting episode, Hector wins a prize for an essay honoring his father, but he doesn't tell his family about the award; he's too ashamed of them to ask them to attend the ceremony where he reads it. Link this to Milton Meltzer's Starting from Home (2000) and Richard Rodriguez's The Hunger of Memory (1982). Hazel Rochman
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About this edition

• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0525477357
• ISBN 13: 9780525477358
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256