A coming-of-age prequel to "Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead," we follow the struggle of Carmen Principia to achieve her dreams, despite her impoverished beginnings as the Pinata-Maker's daughter in San Ysidro, California. She has a college degree in mind; her mother wants her to hone her skills in what else? pinata-making Add relationships with men and a challenging roommate. The results are an emotional, sometimes comic, adventure in learning about the real world beyond the ivory tower of the U.

A new, combined edition of flash fiction, traditional short stories, and short memoir essays by the prize-winning author, Eileen Clemens Granfors.

Like "Esperanza Rising" and "Rules of Attraction," this coming-of-age novel, "Some Rivers End on The Day of the Dead" follows a Hispanic teen, Marisol. She and her mother are on the run from their home in Tijuana, Mexico. Her father, investigating the drug wars as a journalist, has been murdered. But Marisol's new home is a riverbed camp in a rich California suburb. A wildfire separates Marisol from her mother and her school. Cut off and alone, she challenges herself to find a way to reunite with her family and to celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico to honor her father with the proper traditions.