The Smoking Mirror
Carol and Johnny Garza are 12-year-old twins whose lives in a small Texas town are forever changed by their mother’s unexplained disappearance. Shipped off to relatives in Mexico by their grieving father, the twins soon learn that their mother is a nagual, a shapeshifter, and that they have inherited her powers. In order to rescue her, they will have to descend into the Aztec underworld and face the dangers that await them.
American Library Association, 2016 Pura Belpre Author Honor winning novel.
David Bowles is a product of a Mexican-American family and has lived most of his life in deep South Texas, where he teaches at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley. Recipient of awards from the American Library Association, Texas Institute of Letters and Texas Associated Press, he has written several books, most significantly the ALA Pura Belpré Honor Book, The Smoking Mirror. Additionally, his work has been published in venues including Rattle, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Metamorphoses, Translation Review, Concho River Review, Huizache, Journal of Children’s Literature, Asymptote, Eye to the Telescope and Newfound.
