Jillian in the Borderlands

Jillian GuzmA!n, who is nine years old at the beginning of the book, communicates through drawings rather than speech as she travels with her mother, Angie OMalley, throughout the borderlands of Arizona and northwestern Mexico. Later she creates survival maps for border crossers and paints murals at the Casa de los Olvidados, a refuge in Sonora run by the traditional healer Juana of God. These darkly funny tales, focusing on Mexican-American, Euro-American, and Mexican characters, feature visionary experiences, ghosts, faith healers, a deers head that speaks, a dog who channels spirits of the deadand a young woman whose drawings begin to create realities instead of just reflecting them.