THE STREET BELONGS TO US

Tween best friends spend a summer waging a friendly street battle in 1980s Los Angeles.

Alex Richardson-Salazar lives on Muscatel Avenue, a street that abuts a freeway and Rosemead, a debris basin they call “the wash.” When the city begins to dig up the street to build sidewalks during the summer of 1984, tomboyish Alex and her best friend, Wolf McCann, decide the muddy trenches would make an ideal place to play. Wolf, who calls himself a soldier and has worn a camouflage uniform every day since his mother died two years earlier, helps Alex wage a lively war, using mud and water balloons as ammunition against the boys of the neighborhood. One day they discover a buried document referencing Aztlán, in the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico. They consult Alex’s tiny, fierce Nana, and she is happy to tell the kids stories about everything from surviving the Mexican Revolution to the rise of Los Angeles’ Chicano movement. The narrative’s touching intergenerational relationships combined with the historical commentary are reminiscent of Meg Medina and Ruth Behar. The ample black-and-white illustrations skillfully capture the characters’ personalities, offering a cheerful glimpse into times when people used phones with cords and children engaged in hours of elaborate, outdoor play. Alex is White/Mexican; Wolf is cued as White, and the neighborhood is racially and ethnically diverse.

A thoughtful and poignant look at friendship, loss, and exploring cultural heritage.