A boy helps his father keep their very old car running as they make a trip to Havana for his newborn cousin's zero-year birthday. Includes author's note about cars in Cuba.

In Cuba's "special period in times of peace" of 1991, Liana and Amado find love after their severe hunger gives both courage to risk government retribution by skipping a summer of labor to seek food. Told in their two voices plus that of the stray dog that brought them together.

In 1961 Cuba, with the threat of military service for children looming, twelve-year-old Cumba's parents send him to Miami, where he lives with a new family and misses his homeland.

Sent to Cuba to visit the father he barely knows, Edver is surprised to meet a half-sister, Luza, whose plan to lure their cryptozoologist mother into coming there, too, turns dangerous.

"Examines the impact of the 1959 Cuban Revolution on four children from very different walks of life. In the wake of a new regime in Cuba, Ana, Miguel, Zulema, and Juan learn to find a place for themselves in a world forever changed. In a tumultuous moment of history, we see the lasting effects of a revolution in Havana, the countryside, Miami, and New York. Their separate narratives build, overlap, and entwine to creat one inspiring story--an adventure...