Brownstone

By Samuel Teer, Mar Julia (Illustrator)

A summer with her estranged father challenges Almudena to bridge cultural gaps and find her place.

4.3/5 Goodreads · 5,289 ratings

320 pages

$18.99Save 5%

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Bookroo's summary

Almudena faces a summer of discovery with her estranged Guatemalan father, Xavier, in his dilapidated brownstone. As she navigates language barriers and cultural expectations in his vibrant neighborhood, Almudena must reconcile her mixed heritage. Can she mend the broken ties and find belonging in a community that questions her identity? With time running out, Almudena and Xavier must learn to connect, transforming a fractured building and community into a family. Will this summer be enough to bridge the gaps and heal old wounds?

From the publisher

WINNER OF THE PRINTZ AWARDA Harvey Award Nominee!An Indie Next List Selection!A Kirkus Reviews Best Book!A Publishers Weekly Best Book!A 2025 CBC Best Children’s Book of the Year selection! “Angsty. Awkward. With a scrappy heart of gold, Brownstone is a must-read for anyone who’s ever felt totally out of place.” –Gabby Rivera, bestselling author of Juliet Takes a BreathAn exciting teen coming-of-age epic from author Samuel Teer and debut graphic novel artist Mar Julia, Brownstone is a vivid, sweeping, ultimately hopeful story about navigating your heritage even when you feel like you don’t quite fit in.Almudena has always wondered about the dad she never met.Now, with her white mother headed on a once-in-a-lifetime trip without her, she’s left alone with her Guatemalan father for an entire summer. Xavier seems happy to see her, but he expects her to live in (and help fix up) his old, broken-down brownstone. And all along, she must navigate the language barrier of his rapid-fire Spanish–which she doesn’t speak.As Almudena tries to adjust to this new reality, she gets to know the residents of Xavier’s Latin American neighborhood. Each member of the community has their own joys and heartbreaks as well as their own strong opinions on how this young Latina should talk, dress, and behave. Some can’t understand why she doesn’t know where she comes from. Others think she’s “not brown enough” to fit in.But time is running out for Almudena and Xavier to get to know each other, and the key to their connection may ultimately lie in bringing all these different elements together. Fixing a broken building is one thing, but turning these stubborn individuals into a found family might take more than this one summer.

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