Luis J. Rodríguez

"Nine-year-old América Soliz is an undocumented immigrant of Mexican-Indian heritage living in the violence-ravaged Pilsen barrio of Chicago. Feeling unwelcome in her new country, she yearns to return to her native Oaxaca. Then one day, a Puerto Rican poet visits America's ESL class and tells the students that 'There's poetry in everyone…and poets belong to the whole world.' Soon, America begins to express herself through poetry, eventually coming to realize that as a poet, she is a citizen of the world with a bright future ahead of her." — School Library Journal