What Night Brings by Carla Trujillo

Marci Cruz, 11, is determined, sincere, and funny without meaning to be.  She speaks Spanglish sometimes and makes up her own terms for sex stuff.  Like many kids, she notices how the community treats people who are different and people who ask questions that no one wants to answer.   

Marci and her younger sister, Corin, get frequent beatings from their father.  Their mother is aware, but is blind to his faults.  Marci prays to god to get her father out of her life forever.  She doesn’t go as far as wanting her dad to be dead because she doesn’t want god to think badly of her.  She needs god's help to change her into a boy, which she believes will allow her to live out her attraction to girls.

Although the well-described beatings continue and helpful adults seem to be missing, all is not hopeless. The two girls, Marci and Corin, work together on inventive ways to help their mother come to her senses about their dad.   Marci also manages to get to the library, make a garden, and have a crush.--Joy Ferguson

Joy Ferguson has worked with detained youth as both an outreach librarian and a facility staff member.  She currently serves students as a school librarian  at PS 261 Phillip Livingston School.