YA, Why Not?: We Were Here by Matt de la Peña

Miguel arrives at the group home after spending time in juvy with no expectations. The first thing he does is get in a fight with one of the other boys living there. That night he wakes up with that crazy Chinese kid Mong watching him sleep. The next few weeks he steers clear of everyone else, and sticks to himself. There isn't any point, right? He's alone wherever he goes. After what happened, there's no hope for him. He'll just serve his time, write in this stupid journal the judge ordered him to keep, read any book he can get his hands on, and hopefully this year will be over soon.

When they want him to call his moms, he makes a pact. Miguel knows she doesn't want to talk to him, so he's going to call some other number and pretend to talk to her. The look in her eye when they came to take him to juvy was almost like relief.

When his bunkmate from juvy shows up at the Lighthouse, he can't believe his rotten luck. Rondell gets put in his room again. The guy is huge, like you can't even believe. If Miguel was scared of anything anymore, he might even be scared of him... Jaden, their group supervisor, plays all like he's everybody's friend. Pretty funny coming from one of the only white boys in the place.

When Mong comes to him and tells him about his plan to break out, Rondell overhears. Without really even thinking it through, the three of them are on the road to Mexico. Mong's got a plan all in place. Miguel swipes almost $800 from the Lighthouse to get them some money to survive on. He feels mad guilty about that, but it is what it is. The plan is to get to Mexico and become fisherman. Miguel can get behind that, his family is from Mexico. Hell, his gramps snuck across the border.

On their way down the coast, the boys build a tentative friendship as they sleep out on beaches and snarf tacos. One night, Mong takes them to his childhood summer home, where his dad would bring him as a kid. Miguel swiped more than just money from the Lighthouse, and he knows what happened to Mong's family. He knows how Rondell ended up where he is too. It makes what comes next both easier and harder to accept.

What do a grip of teenage group home kids, on the run with no place to go, have going for them? Maybe each other. Maybe a whole lot more. It's a touching story of hard knocks, real life, and second chances. Well written, de la Peña captures the voice of a tough teen of the streets in a heart-felt way. Highly recommended, especially for high school boys.

"I read the first twenty-something pages, and right off I knew why it was so popular. It was the way the kid, Holden, talked about stuff. And how he seemed so honest about everything that was going through his head. The only thing I wonder about sometimes, though is why some rich kids like him complain about their lives so much. I know everybody's situation is hard in its own way, but when you look at a kid like Mong or Rondell, when you read their files and think about how they never even say a word about it, they just deal, and then you start reading about some prep school kid like Holden, and how the whole time he keeps complaining and complaining...I don't know, I just think about that sometimes," (de la Peña pg. 143, 2009).