Sundust - by Zeke Peña (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A look at the author's hometown of El Paso, where the sun reigns over the vast desert and shapes all that it touches"--

Book Synopsis

In his striking author-illustrator debut, Zeke Peña offers an immersive and fantastical desert adventure, where the sun reigns over the vast landscape and shapes all that it touches.

Where the rock wall ends, the desert beyond begins.

Following a blazing trail of sundust, two curious siblings hop the wall into a place that's endless and free. Here, prickly old nopal trees beg to be climbed, empty turtle shells invite a closer look, enormous rocks model how to sit still and listen, and a colibrí offers an unexpected ride. Here in the desert, where life revolves around the Sun, brother and sister explore, imagine, and wonder, "What if Sun's power was inside me?" until their mom's whistle calls them back home again.

With spare, lyrical text, Pura Belpré Honor and Ezra Jack Keats Honor recipient Zeke Peña (illustrator of My Papi Has a Motorcycle) has created a fantastical tale that suspends moments in time with his radiant art and celebrates the bonds between the sun, the desert, and its people.

Review Quotes

Praise for Sundust by Zeke Peña:

★ "In a wide-ranging solo debut, Peña (My Papi Has a Motorcycle) imagines two Latinx-cued children exploring a sweeping desertscape.... Speech bubbles add levity to energy-charged prose through this surreal exploration of the way the natural world endures and transforms." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

★ "A hypnotic joy." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

About the Author

Zeke Peña is a cartoonist and illustrator from El Paso, Texas. He studied art history at the University of Texas at Austin and is self-taught in illustration and painting. He has published work with VICE.com, Latino USA, The Believer Magazine, The Nib, Penguin Random House, Holt/Macmillan, and Cinco Puntos Press. He received the Boston Globe- Horn Book Award for a graphic biography he illustrated titled Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide and the Pura Belpré Illustration Honor for My Papi Has a Motorcycle. You can see more of his work at ZPVisual.com.