2025 Américas Award

Elvira Gonzales' HURDLES IN THE DARK (Roaring Brook, Macmillan), represented by Zeynep Sen, has been named a Commending Title in the 2025 Américas Award.

CLASP founded the Américas Award in 1993 to encourage and commend authors, illustrators and publishers who produce quality children’s and young adult books that portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinx cultures in the United States, and to provide teachers with recommendations for classroom use. CLASP offers up to two annual book awards, together with a commended list of titles.

Twenty-four hours: that's how long fourteen-year-old Elvira Gonzalez is given to come up with the $40,000 she needs to save her kidnapped mother from a drug cartel. It's 2006 and Elvira's hometown of Laredo, Texas, has become engulfed by the Mexican Drug War. Elvira's life is unraveling around her—setting her on a harrowing path that leads her to being locked up in one of South Texas's worst juvenile detention centers.

After Elvira's released from juvie, she's resolved to never go back. That's when her unexpected salvation arrives in the form of 33-inch-high plastic hurdles. Determined to win a track scholarship out of Laredo, Elvira begins breaking into the school, alone, at 5:30 in the morning to practice hurdling. Soon, she catches the attention of a renowned high school coach, an adult man in his 30s. As they train, their coach-student relationship begins to change, becoming sexual. At just seventeen years old, Elvira experiences the dangers many young athletes face, especially those who are marginalized. In spite of these towering obstacles, Elvira eventually propels herself to become one of the top ranked hurdlers in the USA and the first in her family to go to college.