Days of the Dead

Glorieta Davis y Espinosa doesn’t hate that Papi is getting remarried, or the fact that he’s happy again after years of mourning Mamá. She does hate her new, white stepsister. And she hates la Migra, the immigration police, who threaten her friends and neighbors with deportation.

Most of all, she hates that the urn containing Mamá’s ashes disappeared into a drawer the day of Papi's wedding—and that there even is an urn. If only her Tía Diosonita, the town patrona, would put aside her belief that suicide is a sin, Mamá could be buried with her family and her community.

If everything about Glorieta’s life is going to change, then she wants one thing to go her way: this year, she wants to celebrate Mamá during los Días de los Muertos—something that’s only possible if Mamá’s ashes can be buried. So with the help of her best friend and her prankster cousin, Glorieta sets out to change her Tía’s mind. To do so, she’ll have to learn to let hate go—and to love the people who stand in her way.

In lovely prose that sparkles with magical undertones, author Kersten Hamilton weaves a tender story about grief, faith, immigration, and the redemptive power of love.