Book description
MATTEO ALACRáN WAS NOT BORN; HE WAS HARVESTED.
His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium -- a
strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was
once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri
dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the
miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but
most consider him a monster -- except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves
Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself.
As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a
sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón's power-hungry
family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape
is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán
Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his
difference in ways he doesn't even suspect.
“A story rich in twists and tangles, heroes and
heroines, villages and dupes, and often dazzlingly beautiful
descriptive prose.”
Nancy Farmer has written three Newbery Honor
books: The Ear, the Eye and the Arm; A Girl Named
Disaster; and The House of the Scorpion, which, in 2002,
also won the National Book Award and the Printz Honor. Other books
include The Sea of Trolls, The Land of the Silver
Apples, The Islands of the Blessed, Do You Know Me,
The Warm Place, and three picture books for young children.
She grew up on the Arizona-Mexico border and now lives with her family
in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona.
