Potentially Sensitive Areas: Violence, Mild sexual themes, Drugs, Criminal culture, Harsh realities of prison life

In this heart-wrenching novel inspired by real events, Melanie Crowder sheds light on a little-known era of modern South American history-where injustice still darkens the minds and hearts of people alike-and proves that hope can be found, even in the most desperate places. Pulled between two equally undesirable options, Francisco must confront everything he once believed about the world around him and his place within it. With their lives upended, Francisco faces an impossible decision: Break up the family and take his sister to their grandparents in the Andean highlands, fleeing the city and the future that was just within his grasp, or remain together in the increasingly dangerous prison. Prison life is dirty, dire, and dehumanizing. There, they find a world unlike anything they’ve ever known, where everything-a door, a mattress, protection from other inmates-has its price. Francisco and his sister are left with no choice: They must move into the prison with their father. But when his father is arrested on false charges and sent to prison by a corrupt system that targets the uneducated, the poor, and the indigenous majority, Francisco’s mother abandons hope and her family. It’s 1999 in Bolivia and Francisco’s life consists of school, soccer, and trying to find space for himself in his family’s cramped yet boisterous home. Modern history unearthed as a boy becomes an innocent victim of corruption in the underbelly of Bolivia’s crime world, where the power of family is both a prison and the only means of survival.

An Uninterrupted View of the Sky by Melanie Crowder.

A Nearer Moon by Melanie Crowder