Present needs, future dreams, and training in how to fight draw two small-town middle schoolers together."Parents can be…yeah," says shy, chubby Stan at one point to his more outgoing sparring partner, Elpidia. That's the main theme Wallace takes up in this outing, which he sets in an impoverished town on the dusty shores of California's Salton Sea. Stan is tired of being scared of his violently abusive dad. Elpidia is being brutally beaten down by a vengeful paternal Cahuilla cousin from the reservation. She's been living with her Peruvian maternal grandmother since her parents' imprisonment following a house fire related to their substance abuse. Elpidia joins Stan, the only white kid in her class, for instruction in the martial art escrima from gentle, reclusive Filipino American army vet Charlie Ramos, whose life has complications of its own. Both young people keep notebooks-Stan for his escapist stories, Elpidia for recipes she intends to dish up in a food truck that will one day take her to see the wide world. The friends dream of a combined bookstore/restaurant and have each other's backs when crises arise. Elpidia's abuela is one of several memorable members in a diverse and richly drawn cast, and the tale is shaped as much by cultural conflicts and identity as by the personal qualities, situations, and close bonds of its two main characters.Heavy going but strongly characterized and hopeful at the end. (content advisory) (Fiction. 10-14)

Trauma brings together two 12-year-olds living in a financially compromised desert village in an unflinching novel by Wallace (The Supervillain’s Guide to Being a Fat Kid). After Elpidia’s family house burns down in a fire and her parents are incarcerated for illegal substance use, the events open a rift between the maternal Cahuillan and paternal Peruvian sides of her family. Elpidia is sent to live with her abuela at Lakeshore Estate in Southern California and attends a local school with her Cahuillan cousin, who constantly bullies her. Abuela insists that Elpidia learn to defend herself and signs her up for martial arts classes taught by Filipino American veteran Charlie. There, she meets and befriends schoolmate Stan, bullied for being “fat and white and slow,” who wants to protect himself and his mother from his physically abusive father. Wallace’s succinct middle grade drama considers heavy subjects such as systemic racism, substance reliance, intergenerational trauma, financial precarity, domestic violence, and anti-fat bias. Elpidia and Stan’s affectionate and steadfast relationship, as well as their conversations surrounding wide-eyed dreams for their imagined future together, grants this viscerally told story both levity and hope. Ages 8–12. Agent: DongWon Song, Howard Morhaim Literary. (Oct.)