Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco

With humor and sensitivity, a debut novelist explores the coming of age of a girl caught between two cultures as she finds the courage to forge a new destiny.

"Miss, will you be my Amiga?" Amiga means "friend" in Spanish, but at the youth center, it meant a lady to take you places. I never asked myself if two people as different as Miss and me could ever really be amigas.

When Jacinta Juarez is paired with a rich, famous mentor, she is swept away from the diapers and dishes of her own boring ...