With humor and sensitivity, Bowles ( The Hidden City) mixes family scenes-such as Fourth of July celebrations and older relatives’ frank, enraging accounts of discrimination-and junior high concerns, including Güero’s relief when he and his friends (“diverse nerds and geeks”) take refuge in the library and his astonishment when he learns that brave, tough Joanna likes him back. Güero, so called for his rusty-colored hair and pale, freckled skin, enjoys life with his large family in a home that “glows warm with love,” but at school, he’s taunted about his complexion and bullied by enormous classmate Snake Barrera. Watch out for Joanna! She’s tough as nails.īut trusting in his family’s traditions, his accordion and his bookworm squad, he faces seventh grade with book smarts and a big heart.Growing up as a Mexican-American “border kid, a foot on either bank,” the 12-year-old narrator of Bowles’s skillful, moving novel-in-poems details his seventh-grade year. Sure, they get in trouble like anybody else, and like other middle-school boys, they discover girls. Güero is also a nerd - reader, gamer, musician - who runs with a squad of misfits like him, Los Bobbys. But make no mistake: our red-headed, freckled hero is puro mexicano, like Canelo Álvarez, the Mexican boxer. In Spanish, “Güero” is a nickname for guys with pale skin, Latino or Anglo. He’s starting 7th grade with a woke English teacher who knows how to make poetry cool. Twelve-year-old Güero is Mexican American, at home with Spanish or English and on both sides of the river.

Life is tough for a border kid, but Güero has figured out how to cope. Como todos los chicos de su edad, Los Bobbys se meten en problemas y, ¡hasta les gustan las chicas! Pero bueno, ¡cuidado con Joanna! Es dura como ninguna.ĭe la mano de las tradiciones familiares, su acordeón y su escuadrón de nerds, Güero le hace frente al séptimo año escolar con inteligencia y un gran corazon. Además, Güero es un nerd - lector, gamer, músico - que se junta con una banda de inadaptados como el: Los Bobbys. Pero no te equivoques, nuestro héroe pelirrojo y con pecas es puro mexicano, como el Canelo Álvarez. Güero es como llaman a los chicos como el: pálidos. Güero ha comenzado el séptimo año en la escuela, y su profe de inglés hace que hasta los poemas suenen cool. Sabe sentirse en casa en ambos lados del rio, y en su vida hay tanto español como inglés. Güero tiene doce años y es mexicano y americano al mismo tiempo. La vida de un niño nacido en la frontera no es fácil, pero Güero sabe cómo hacerle frente: escribiendo poemas.

They Call Me Güero by David Bowles