Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove don't appear to have much in common. Ram lives in the Mexican-American working-class barrio of El Paso called "Dizzy Land." His brother is sinking into a world of drugs, wreaking havoc in their household. Jake is a rich West Side white boy who has developed a problem managing his anger. An only child, he is a misfit in his mother's shallow and materialistic world. But Ram and Jake do have one thing in common: They are lost boys who have never met their fathers. This sad fact has left both of them undeniably scarred and obsessed with the men who abandoned them. As Jake and Ram overcome their suspicions of each other, they begin to move away from their loner existences and realize that they are capable of reaching out beyond their wounds and the neighborhoods that they grew up in. Their friendship becomes a healing in a world of hurt.

San Antonio Express-News wrote, "Benjamin Alire Sáenz exquisitely captures the mood and voice of a community, a culture, and a generation"; that is proven again in this beautifully crafted novel....

"The story's rhythmic, repetitive structure makes it an excellent read-aloud. . . . Meanwhile, [Esau Andrade] Valencia's bright oil paintings evoke the joy of dreams and imagination. . . . Children of all backgrounds will enjoy it."—School Library Journal

Ninety-two-year-old Octavio Rivera is a beautiful dreamer. And lately he has been visited by some very interesting dreams—dreams about piñatas that spill their treasures before him, revealing kissing turtles, winged pigs, hitchhiking armadillos and many more fantastic things! Octavio doesn’t tell anyone about his dreams except his young granddaughter Regina because she alone understands beautiful and fantastic dreams. On the ninth afternoon Octavio prepares for his siesta hoping to be blessed with one last lovely dream. That afternoon he dreams of a sky full of sweet and perfect hummingbirds calling his name over and over again…

Like Margaret Wild’s marvelous book Old Pig, A Perfect Season for Dreaming unfolds the sweet possibilities in relationships between the very old and the very young.

Benjamin Alire Sáenz­—novelist, poet, essayist and writer of children’s books—is at the forefront of the emerging Latino literatures. He has received the Wallace Stegner Fellowship and the Lannan Fellowship and an American Book Award. He teaches at the University of Texas at El Paso, and considers himself a fronterizo, a person of the border.

Esau Andrade Valencia, born in Mexico, comes from a family of folk artists. Although still young, he is increasingly recognized as a master artist in the tradition of the great painters such as Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo, in whose footsteps he follows. Esau's paintings are included in the collection of The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach as well as in the Downey Museum of Art in California.

From award-winning poet Benjamin Alire Sáenz comes In Perfect Light, a haunting novel depicting the cruelties of cultural displacement and the resilience of those who are left in its aftermath.

In Perfect Light is the story of two strong-willed people who are forever altered by a single tragedy. After Andés Segovia's parents are killed in a car accident when he is still a young boy, his older brother decides to steal the family away to Juárez, Mexico. That decision, made with the best intentions, sets into motion the unraveling of an American family.

Years later, his family destroyed, Andés is left to make sense of the chaos -- but he is ill-equipped to make sense of his life. He begins a dark journey toward self-destruction, his talent and brilliance brought down by the weight of a burden too frightening and maddening to bear alone. The manifestation of this frustration is a singular rage that finds an outlet in a dark and seedy El Paso bar -- leading him improbably to Grace Delgado.

Recently confronted with her own sense of isolation and mortality, Grace is an unlikely angel, a therapist who agrees to treat Andés after he is arrested in the United States. The two are suspicious of each other, yet they slowly arrive at a tentative working relationship that allows each of them to examine his and her own fragile and damaged past. Andés begins to confront what lies behind his own violence, and Grace begins to understand how she has contributed to her own self-exile and isolation. What begins as an intriguing favor to a friend becomes Grace's lifeline -- even as secrets surrounding the death of Andés' parents threaten to strain the connection irreparably.

With the urgent, unflinching vision of a true storyteller and the precise, arresting language of a poet, Sáenz's In Perfect Light bears witness to the cruelty of circumstance and, more than offering escape, the novel offers the possibility of salvation.

The Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, is like so many others in America in 1967, trying to make sense of a rapidly escalating war they feel does not concern them. But when the eldest son, Gustavo, a complex and errant rebel, receives a certified letter ordering him to report to basic training, he chooses to flee instead to Mexico. Retreating back to the land of his grandfather—a foreign country to which he is no longer culturally connected—Gustavo sets into motion a series of events that will have catastrophic consequences on the fragile bonds holding the family together.

Told with raw power and searing bluntness, and filled with important themes as immediate as today’s headlines, Names on a Map is arguably the most important work to date of a major American literary artist.

This is a bilingual book for kids and dogs and even their parents. Like all kids, Little Diego and his big sister Gabriela argue over their new dog Sofie. She belongs to me, says Diego. No, she’s mine, says Gabriela. It’s only when Sofie gets really sick that they find out who their tortilla-loving pup really belongs to. Once again, Benjamin Alire Sáenz shows he understands the chemistry and dynamics of family, this time with a dog stirring up the recipe. The illustrations for The Dog Who Loved Tortillas are by Geronimo Garcia, who created the characters of Little Diego and Gabriela first introduced in Sáenz’s early best-selling title A Gift from Papá Diego (sixty thousand copies in print).

Benjamin Alire Sáenz received three starred Publishers Weekly reviews in 2008—one for his young adult novel He Forgot to Say Goodbye (Simon & Schuster) and two for his illustrated book A Perfect Season for Dreaming (Cinco Puntos Press). Long at the forefront of the emerging Latino literature in the United States, he has received both the Wallace Stegner and Lannan fellowships, and he is a recipient of the American Book Award. His young adult novel Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood was named one of the Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults in 2005. Saenz lives in El Paso, Texas.

Geronimo Garcia is a highly successful and internationally recognized graphic designer. He lives in El Paso, Texas.