The Making of Yolanda la Bruja

*Signed Bookplate*

Elizabeth Acevedo has said that reading Lorraine Avila feels like an UPPERCUT to the senses. You’ve never encountered an author with prose of this sensitivity and fire.

Yolanda Alvarez is having a good year. Shes starting to feel at home Julia De Burgos High, her school in the Bronx. She has her best friend Victory, and maybe something with Jos, a senior boy shes getting to know. Shes confident her initiation into her familys bruja tradition will happen soon.

But then a white boy, the son of a politician, appears at Julia De Burgos High, and his vibes are off. And Yolandas initiation begins with a series of troubling visions of the violence this boy threatens. How can Yolanda protect her community, in a world that doesnt listen? Only with the wisdom and love of her family, friends, and community and the Brujas Diosas, her ancestors and guides.

The Making of Yolanda La Brujais the book this country, struggling with the plague of gun violence, so desperately needs, but which few could write. Here Lorraine Avila brings a story born from the intersection of race, justice, education, and spirituality that will capture readers everywhere.