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Small Change (Richard Jackson Books (DK Ink))
Small Change - Richard Jackson Books DK Ink Author:Marc Talbert Tom would rather be freezing at home in Minnesota than lolling on the beach in the Mexican sun. He's at just that age, 14, when travels, with his parents--even to the charming seaside town of Felicidad--represent the height of embarrassment and boredom. His little sister, Philippa, is at ease anywhere. Tom, hidden behind his wraparound sunglasse... more »s, is never at ease now, caught uncomfortably between adolescent smugness and chagrin. So when Ignacio, a local boy his age, "charges" Tom twenty pesos for helping him barter over some huaraches, Tom feels outraged as well as duped. That small change comes to mean much in this piquant story of an American boy's opening up to a different, and ultimately very appealing, culture. Tom and Philippa are spirited away from violent crossfire between soldiers and townspeople by Ignacio and the boy's father. They are taken for a wild truck ride into the countryside and there are treated to a kind of family life that Tom couldn't imagine before (or admit to wanting). Yet even in paradise the threat of violence erupts--though this time it is Tom, Ignacio's Amigo, his "brother," who stands up to danger.« less