Product Description

Sixteen-year-old Billy was kidnapped by his natural father from the adoptive family he grew up in. Six years later, after being arrested in a minor bar brawl, Billy is torn from his world and returned to his adoptive family where he must confront the painful memories of his ordeal. "A first novel that should find a wide audience among YAs who enjoy a good story with real depth." --Kirkus Reviews ALA Best Book for Young Adults
ALA Recommended Book for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3868671 in Books
• Published on: 1994-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 236 pages

From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 7-10-Roybal's novel relates with wrenching clarity the pain and confusion that adults sometimes inflict on their children. William Campbell was raised by his mother's sister and her husband. The Campbells provided the only family he had ever known, until his father, a rodeo cowboy, kidnapped him. The novel opens six years after the kidnapping, with Billy, now 16, living with his father in a predominantly Hispanic community in rural New Mexico. He has adjusted to his new life-he hunts and ropes calves and has friends. He loves his father, and understands the man's gruff, no-nonsense personality. But when Billy is picked up by the police after a fight and his fingerprints match those of a boy who has been missing for six years, his uncle drives down from Iowa to take him back to a life now completely alien to him; a life where he is William Campbell, not Billy Melendez. Spanish phrases and slang lend authenticity to the text and serve to contrast the New Mexico setting with that of suburban Iowa. Readers can sense the angst and terror of a child torn between adults in this complex tale of conflict, set against the battling emotions of the main character and those who love him.
Julie Halverstadt, Douglas Public Library District, Castle Rock, CO
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 7-9. Sixteen-year-old Billy Melendez knows who he is--a rural New Mexico cowboy-in-training and a high-school brawler. When he's fingerprinted after an arrest for fighting in a bar, the prints tell what Billy wants to forget--that he's really William James Campbell, abducted from an Iowa Little League game six years earlier. Forced to leave his kidnapper (his biological father) and return to his Iowa family, Billy struggles with his feelings as well as with a new school and neighborhood. The narrative structure, with frequent flashbacks to the kidnapping, mirrors Billy's journey toward a recognition of both households' complexities. Also captured are the ethnic, regional, and class identities at play as Billy Melendez moves into Billy Campbell's world, where boots aren't in and Spanish-speaking families are recent arrivals. Mary Harris Veeder

Customer Reviews

Kidnapped
I don't know WHAT book the others read but this is a fantastic story of growing up. A great teen novel. Especially reccomend to anyone who grew up in a rural setting. She is as good as S.E. Hinton