MEXICAN WHITEBOY by Matt de la Peña








Originally published in 2008.

Synopsis:

Danny is spending the summer in San Diego living with his father's family - his grandmother, his uncles, his aunts, and his cousins. He dreams of visiting his father in Mexico and is disdainful of his mother who is spending the summer in San Francisco with her very serious boyfriend.

What complicates the matter is that Danny's mom is white and Danny basically speaks no Spanish. He feels out of place when he is with his mom in her neighborhood because of his Mexican heritage. He feels out of place with his father's family because of his white heritage. He also knows there are family secrets that they are hiding from him.

What Danny has going for him is baseball. He can do it all, but he is a brilliant young pitcher. He finds another ball player named Uno. Uno is half black and half Mexican and understands how Danny feels out of place everywhere he goes.

Together, Danny and Uno come up with a plan to leverage their baseball skills...

My review: 

I was excited to read this novel after having read the author's coming of age novel about Superman. That was a great novel with an action-driven plot. Mexican WhiteBoy is more of a novel about relationships and family secrets. The middle 1/3 of the book meanders around until the plan to use their baseball skills come to fruition. 

Not a bad novel. Not a great novel. I rate this novel 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: MEXICAN WHITEBOY by Matt de la Peña.

In November of 2023 it was announced that the group Moms for Liberty had challenged more than 300 books in Florida. This is one of the books that the Moms challenged. Read more about the books here.

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