While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house-and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw-Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and-most serious-civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done.
Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves-during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes.
Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement. But even as Efrén’s world seems to be crashing around him, Cisneros celebrates the kindness of the Mexican American community and its richness of food, culture, and resilient spirit. Debut author Cisneros paints a vivid and palpable #ownvoices picture of the lost childhoods as children and parents are separated due to immigration issues. Taking care of Max, whose oxygen supply was cut off during childbirth and has learning disabilities, and figuring out which friends and adults to trust with his secret add layers of responsibility Efrén feels unprepared to deal with. Unsure of how much information about his mother’s fate to give them, Efrén tries his best to make Amá’s miracles his own as he struggles to keep his siblings safe, feed them, and take them to school while still dealing with his own schooling. When his father takes on a second job to make ends meet, Efrén becomes the primary caregiver for Mía and Max, his younger twin siblings. His neighbor Doña Chana tells him that an ICE raid was conducted at the supermarket and that Amá was picked up and deported to Mexico. Twelve-year-old Efrén Nava’s world is turned upside down the day he comes back from school and his mother is nowhere to be found. A young boy must become an adult overnight when his mother is deported.
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