Twisted Cross: Adventure to the New World (Mission Bells #1)

Description

Hispanic history and heritage inspire the story of Salvador (14) in Twisted Cross: Adventure to the New World. Not every teen comes from an ideal home or enjoys the support of a loving family. This has always been true but seldom written about in teen literature. When adult readers say Salvador is not a 'good boy' or too likable, the author defends him saying, "Who would be, given his circumstances?" He is the character behind the headlines about abuse and abandonment. How many students have this experience? How many of them never find themselves in the books they are assigned to read? Salvador finds the strength to go forward, to support his friends, work, travel, even learn to read and help a community survive. Yes, Twisted Cross is a tough story about a rough kid that some readers never expect to like. Salvador and his friend Blas are dragooned from an 18th-century prison in Cadiz, Spain (1795), sent to colonial Mexico, and later assigned to support the Father Serra expedition to establish the California Missions. Salvador tangles with padres and pirates on his journey to discover the New World -- and himself.Twisted Cross, a historic adventure-themed story, is book one in the Mission Bells trilogy for YA readers.The book addresses Latino culture and the colonial development of the California coast.Book Two, in the Mission Bells series, The Laredo School for Young Ladies, features the lives of young Mexican, Spanish and indigenous California girls (including Salvador's daughter) who are aggressively courted by land-hungry Yankees and rough-cut fur traders in the Spanish colony. Daughters from the ranches are sent for refinement to the anglophile Laredo School in Texas during the brief Mexican rule preceding U.S. annexation and statehood (TX 1845/CA 1850).Book Three, Broken Promises, reveals the schemes perpetrated by the U.S. government and savvy industrialists to gain an advantage during the California gold rush, the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) that reversed established land grants like those held by Salvador Tenorio.