Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

 INFINITE COUNTRY by Patricia Engel is one of my favorite books of the year so far and I believe the characters and action will also appeal to our students. Engel tells the story of Talia, a teenager who escapes from a rural correctional facility in Colombia in order to return to her father, Mauro, in Bogota. There, she hopes to board a plane and be reunited with her siblings and mother, Elena, who live in the United States. Talia, too, was born in the US, but her father was deported shortly afterwards and with three young children, her mother had little choice but to send Talia to be raised by her abuela. Engel shifts time and narrators to offer thought-provoking perspective on immigration (“… that’s the thing about being paperless. This country locks you in until it locks you out”) and on family relationships. At one point, Elena muses, “She blamed herself for displacing her own children, especially her girls. Karina and Talia, binational, each born in one country and raised in another like repotted flowers, creatures forced to live in the wrong habitat.” The writing is superb and INFINITE COUNTRY received starred reviews from Bookist, Kirkus and Publishers Weekly (“sharp, unflinching narrative teems with insight”).