Islandborn
A powerful tale about the magic of memory and the infinite power of the imagination
A New York Times bestseller, April 2018
Every kid in Lola's school was from somewhere else.
Hers was a school of faraway places.
When Lola's teacher asks the students to draw a picture of where their families immigrated from, all the kids are excited. Except Lola. She can't remember the Island – she left when she was just a baby. But with the help of her family and friends, and their memories – joyous, fantastical, heartbreaking, and frightening – Lola's imagination takes her on an extraordinary journey back to The Island. As she draws closer to the heart of her family's story, Lola comes to understand the truth of her abuela's words: 'just because you don't remember a place doesn't mean it's not in you.'
Gloriously illustrated and lyrically written, Islandborn is a celebration of creativity, diversity, and our imagination's boundless ability to connect us – to our families, to our past and to ourselves.
Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Leo Espinosa is an award-winning illustrator from Bogotá, Colombia, whose work has been in The New Yorker, Wired, Esquire, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and more. Leo lives with his family in Salt Lake City, Utah.