Indivisible

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This timely, moving debut novel follows a teen's efforts to keep his family together as his parents face deportation.

Mateo Garcia and his younger sister, Sophie, have been taught to fear one word for as long as they can remember: deportation. Over the past few years, however, the fear that their undocumented immigrant parents could be sent back to Mexico has started to fade. Ma and Pa have been in the United States for so long, they have American-born children, and they're hard workers and good neighbors. When Mateo returns from school one day to find that his parents have been taken by ICE, he realizes that his family's worst nightmare has become a reality. With his parents' fate and his own future hanging in the balance, Mateo must figure out who he is and what he is capable of, even as he's forced to question what it means to be an American.

Daniel Aleman's Indivisible is a remarkable story—both powerful in its explorations of immigration in America and deeply intimate in its portrait of a teen boy driven by his fierce, protective love for his parents and his sister.

"Both a gripping, harrowing story about an American tragedy and a moving portrait of the bonds of family and unexpected community, Indivisible somehow never loses its humor, its humanity or its hope." Kelly Loy Gilbert, author of Stonewall Honor Book Picture Us In the Light

“Stellar, clear and emotional, realistic and suspenseful. The story is complex and heart-wrenching, yet full of hope and familial love.” Booklist

"Insightful.... The uncertainty and heartbreak faced by families separated by deportation is brilliantly displayed." School Library Journal

Daniel Aleman was born and raised in Mexico City. A graduate of McGill University, he currently lives in Toronto. Indivisible is his first novel.