Current (2008) Colorado Book Award Finalist
2009 Kentucky Bluegrass Award Nominee (chosen by the kids of Kentucky)
Américas Award Winner
International Reading Association (IRA) Young Adult Fiction Award Winner
Cooperative Children's Book Center's (CCBC) Choice List 2008
Michigan Library Association Thumbs Up Award Nominee
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2007
2008-2009 Texas Tayshas Reading List (from the Young Adult Round Table of the Texas Library Association)
Tayshas Lists
Cybils Award Finalist (The Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Award)
the cybils blog
A Best Book for Young Adults 2008
Featured as a recommended book in Girls' Life Magazine, October 2007.
Publishers' Weekly Starred Review
Featured Book on PW's Children's Bookshelf, Oct 4 2007
Ages 10 up - Suffused with the region's vibrant colors, Resau's (What the Moon Saw) memorable novel deftly blends Latin America's richness and mystery with the brutal realities its emigrants carry away... The prose captivates from the first chapter... Central themes of fear and emotional survival permeate the multilayered plot... A mystical overlay from the practices of Pablo's Mixtec relatives adds even more luster to a vibrant, large-hearted story.
Starred Review from School Library Journal, 2007
Gr 8 Up - The author's love for the culture and physical setting of rural Oaxaca and northern Guatemala is shown in beautiful, descriptive detail. Rich, poetic language, elements of the hero quest story pattern, and quotations from St. Exupéry's The Little Prince are braided through this coming-of-age romance as Sophie grows from amorphous onlooker into a strong, risk-taking young woman. Secondary characters, especially the 60-year-old Dika and her "boyfriend," Mr. Lorenzo, are well developed. Readers will sympathize with Pablo and agonize as he chooses whether to stay in Mexico or return to Sophie's family in Arizona . The satisfying love stories and moving glimpse of the immigrant experience make this a captivating read.
Kathleen Isaacs, Towson University , MD
ALA Booklist Starred Review, 2007
The author of What the Moon Saw (2006), Resau works her magic again in this compelling first-person narrative. Full of longing and trepidation, Sophie is limited at the beginning of the story. But as she travels and comes to understand people better; life-altering perspectives awaken a newfound courage. Late in the novel, magical elements and coincidence demand suspension of disbelief; but many readers will be willing to follow Sophie's story wherever it leads. The vivid characters, the fine imagery, and the satisfying story arc make this a rewarding novel.
Carolyn Phelan
Kirkus Reviews, 2007
The characters are so compelling and sympathetic that the reader really cares how they all fare. Emotionally charged and powerful.
(Fiction. 12-15)
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Oct 2007
Resau, who capably treats the topic of self-discovery in her first novel, What The Moon Saw, continues along similar lines here, with poignant descriptions of illegal border crossings and guerilla warfare providing a substantive background for the foreground story of coming into one's own and joining the larger organism that is one's family. The book is strengthened by a core of storytelling and intertextuality (Angel tells personal narratives in the car, Sophie reads aloud from Pablo Neruda and e.e. cummings, and each of seven parts is prefaced by a passage from The Little Prince) and suspense (which family will Pablo choose? How will Sophie overcome her fears?). An unexpectedly empowering moment that has Sophie laughing in the face of a filthy washroom is truly liberating and uplifting, and her new fearlessness should prove bolstering for readers who are on their way to discovering their own inner chispa, or spark.
Review from VOYA, August 2007
5Q-highest rating, "hard to imagine it being better written"
4P-"broad general or genre YA appeal"
M J-Middle and Junior High School
The characters in this book are all delightful. They are warm and real, with varying degrees of unconventional.� The are quite different from each other, but still they connect.� The reader becomes very close to them.� The themes of civil violence, a desire to better one's life, and the dilemma of how to do it-legally or illegally-make it a great book for class discussions on current events.� The writing is so rich that it would also be a great read-aloud.
Susan Allen
Online, Author, and Newspaper Reviews
Teens Read Too
Rating: 5 Stars *Gold Star*
Laura Resau's RED GLASS was an amazing read. It's a wonderful mixture of excerpts from Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry's The Little Prince, eccentric people, political unrest, and magical fortunes folded into a cross-continental summer road trip. ...I loved this book. One of the things that was really well done was how it was multi-cultural without being culturally exclusive. Even though some of the dialogue was written in Spanish, it was still easy to read. But the best part of the book was its characters. They are both hilarious and tragic, but never melodramatic. At times, I felt as if author Laura Resau was in my head. Teens will identify with Sophie as one of their own.
Teens Read Too
Curled Up With a Good Kid's Book: a reading resource for kids, teachers, libraians, and parents
Sophie's family is made memorable by Laura Resau's well-wrought use of descriptive language... Red Glass is beautifully written and quite emotionally moving in many places... The plight of immigrants in the United States is something we hear about on a daily basis on TV and read about in the newspapers, so there's an immediacy and freshness to Red Glass that's lacking in many books for children and teens. The various plot lines are skillfully woven as well, and you'll care about the lives of each of the main characters... Red Glass is highly recommended to readers of all ages.
Douglas R. Cobb, 2007
Curled Up With a Good Kid's Book
Chicago Parent
This story is so wonderfully written, the scenery and the people are absolutely beautiful.
Sandi Pedersen
Chicago Parent
I drank up RED GLASS in two nights. Resau's novel is a touching journey-story set in Arizona, Mexico, and Guatemala... Sophie's story encourages us not only to appreciate the familiar qualities we find in others, but to embrace the differences that might normally keep us apart. Red Glass is carefully crafted--beautiful and very sharp.
Christy Lenzi, Author Blog
Despite the shacks and outhouses, Laura Resau somehow doesn't make Pablo's village seem quaint and primitive. She's been there, and it shows - the place feels real, not like some Disneyfied Mexico-land. Mostly though, I loved the characters. Little Pablo and crazy, exuberant Dika in particular. They're an odd, perhaps far-fetched group, but they're awfully endearing. Don't let them slip by you.
Sarah Miller, Author Blog
...Red Glass is a different sort of book--it is an Epic Journey, into wonderful, scary new places (very well described), where ghosts from the past and present dangers must be confronted (don't leave the path to see the beautiful flowers more closely, warns one character. There are land mines)... This is a great book for providing information and provoking thought about immigration, Mexico, and Guatemala... I liked Sophie's introspection, and I liked the budding romance between her and Angel, which was tender and suitable for all ages... [Red Glass] pays re-reading. The second time through I found myself finding still more images and metaphors to ponder. And I liked the characters as people so much that it was a pleasure to spend more time with them.
Charlotte's Library Blog
The details of life in a Mexican village and Sophie's journey from Tucson to Guatemala are vivid and memorable. Great characterization, good plot, and a unique setting spiced with love make this a winner.
Genrefluent
If there is a book that will provide adolescents with some amazing big-picture food for thought at a time when our elected representatives in Washington, DC are debating what to do in reaction to the presence of millions of undocumented men, women, and children within our national borders, the amazing and heart-stopping RED GLASS is that book. . . RED GLASS will certainly add fuel to the debate over who and why and how many people desiring to come here should be permitted into America, and whether or not we should be building giant walls along our borders.
Richie Partington, Librarian, MLIS Richie's Picks
This book...I don't even know how to write about how much I loved this book. It's a book about immigration, about survival, about opening your heart, taking risks, and family - the kind with blood ties and the ones that we create along the way. I fell in love with every single character. Seriously, every character is so perfectly written I don't think I could pick a favorite. . . It is beautifully written, the characters are all well developed, there is personal growth, not only for our main character. Everyone changes, grows, evolves. Just like real life. I can't recommend this book enough.
Patti, Librarian, Austin, Texas, May 2007
Oops... Wrong Cookie
Interview-based Magazine and Newspaper Articles
Rocky Mountain Chapter of the SCBWI, Feb. 2008
Member profile in the Kitetales newsletter. Scroll to page 8.
Washington Parent Magazine, Dec. 2007Crossing the Border with Laura Resau's Red Glass: Step into a dynamic novel that uniquely blends self-discovery with society's underlying immigration tensions
by Melissa Mercer Washington Parent
Rocky Mountain Chronicle, Sept. 2007Travel Makes the World Go 'Round:
Global experiences inspire one local young-adult author to craft worldly characters
by Laura Katers
Rocky Mountain Chronicle
