Tunnel Kids

Author: Lawrence J. Taylor

First line: The noon skies turned midnight black and cracked open, roaring with lightning.

Why you should read this book: They are street kids--cholos--who run with gangs, huff spray paint from old soda cans, and lie in wait amidst the filth of the tunnels that run under Ambros Nogales, ambushing the pollos trying to cross secretly into America, robbing them of their money, and sometimes worse. Yet they are still children, and human beings with intelligence, ambition, and emotion, as Lawrence and his partner, photographer Maeve Hickey learn over several summers spent volunteering at Mi Nueva Casa, a shelter for street kids on the Mexican side of the border. With Hickey's stark portraits of the children brought to life through Taylor's prose, this is part-documentary, part-ethnography, an outsider's peek into a dark, frightening, and often forgotten world of poverty and desperation at the US-Mexico border.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your hobby is patrolling the border with a shotgun and you have INS on speed dial.