Alamo Wars (Piñata Books)

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Alamo Wars , Dallas ISD educator/author Ray Villareal’s anticipated second novel, will challenge young readers to consider both sides of conflict.
Villareal sets the stage for a series of modern-day conflicts with the sudden death of Josephine “Miss Mac” McKeever who had taught English and theatre arts at Rosemont Middle School for so long that her colleagues sometimes joked that she would die in the classroom. So when she does just that, students, teachers, and administrators are stunned. To commemorate her fifty-one years of service, it is quickly decided that the seventh-grade class will present her original play about the Alamo.
But everyone soon learns that presenting a play isn’t as easy as Miss Mac had always made it seem, and soon the entire school community is in an uproar as conflicts related to the play emerge. Seventh-grader and Golden Gloves boxer Marco Díaz is, at first, excited to be chosen to play Jim Bowie, the brave Texan who defended the Alamo against Santa Anna’s Mexican Army. But his friend Raquel, an undocumented immigrant, calls him a sell-out because she believes the play makes heroes out of the people who stole her ancestors’ land. And Sandy Martínez, Miss Mac’s much younger replacement, finds the Mexican characters’ dialogue not only politically incorrect but downright offensive. Miss Mac’s friends, however, are adamantly opposed to making changes.
Meanwhile, rehearsals only serve to increase the tension between Marco’s friend Izzy Peña and the school bully Billy Ray Cansler. And it’s only a matter of time before Billy Ray corners Izzy when Marco isn’t around to protect him. Weary from struggling with disruptive kids, teachers and students dropping out of the play, and parents with unreasonable expectations, everyone begins to wonder if the show should go on. Is it too much to expect everyone to bury the conflicts of the past and learn to work together to forge a new history?