cover image Billy CL

Billy CL

Laura Roybal. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $16 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-395-67649-3

When Will Campbell is kidnapped by his natural father, a rodeo rider, all the 10-year-old can think about is returning to his adoptive home in Iowa. But five rugged years with ``Dad,'' Guillermo Santiago Melendez, in rural New Mexico have given the boy a solid sense of himself as Billy Melendez. He is anguished when, his true identity discovered, he is sent back to the family who ``didn't care enough to come find him.'' Relearning the rules of his inflexible legal father, Dave Campbell, causes more than a few problems for the self-sufficient teen. Meanwhile, his cowboy garb is ridiculed at school and his new-found Hispanic friends don't meet the Campbells' approval. Cow-punchers and urbanites alike will sympathize with Billy's struggle to adjust, his loneliness and his frustration at being misunderstood. His muddled emotions are convincingly conveyed, as is his gradual acceptance of the jarring changes in his life. Like Caroline Cooney's Whatever Happened to Janie? , this eye-opening and atmospheric story shows the vacillating loyalties and deep-rooted anger of a child caught between families. First-novelist Roybal's smooth narrative and captivating characters will keep readers turning the pages. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)