A fearful boy from Puerto Rico inexplicably enters another boy's dream world in the mystical middle-grade novel No Place on Earth, which explores anxiety and depression while compassionately challenging gender stereotypes.
When Gustavo's parents decide on a "trial separation," he moves from Puerto Rico to Yellowstone National Park, where his mom has taken a job. Gustavo's dad says he can come back to Puerto Rico if he's able to tough it out in the wild first ("I didn't raise un miedoso"). But the 11-year-old struggles with anxiety and panic attacks, visualizing disaster in excruciating detail. The difficult situation becomes surreal when the unknown boy who has been appearing in Gustavo's dreams turns out to be classmate Kordell ("the only Black kid on the whole bus")--and Kordell has been dreaming about Gustavo. In the boys' strange, shared dream life, Gustavo's anxiety comes terrifyingly to life, while Kordell finds a "happy escape" from crushing depression exacerbated by his parents' divorce. The boys resist befriending each other until they realize they both have the power to control the dreams.
Newbery Honor winner Andrea Beatriz Arango (Iveliz Explains It All) thoughtfully and astutely portrays the challenges of addressing anxiety and depression in a culture that favors toughness over sensitivity. The boys' dreams appear in verse, contrasting with the immediacy of waking life's prose. Gustavo does grow tougher in Yellowstone, but not in the way his dad imagined; he learns to accept himself, reject his father's cruel "jokes," and "feel the fear/ and then let it go." --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor