There’s a lot weighing on Vega Lucero’s mind these days. She’s worried about her abuelo, Tata, after his fall. She’s also stressed about the prospect of her mom selling their family business, the Lone Star Market. Situated in Vega’s rest-stop desert hometown of Date City, the small store sells mostly snack food and necessities like sunblock and cold medicine. It’s been in the family for generations.
“What would happen to the Lone Star if we went away?” Vega wonders. “What would happen to all of our stories?”
One day, as these intrusive thoughts take over, something flashes at the edge of Vega’s vision. A fireball blazes in the sky over her family store and disappears into the wilderness. Vega will soon find out it was a meteorite. And she’ll also learn just how much it could be worth. So Vega devises a plan: If she could only find the meteorite and sell it, then she could take care of Tata’s medical expenses and save the store.
Vega’s Piece of the Sky by Jennifer Torres is an engrossing and heartfelt middle grade novel about three middle schoolers whose lives intersect when a meteorite crashes down in California’s Imperial Valley. The book’s chapters alternate between the first-person voice of Vega, and the third-person narration over Vega’s very anxious cousin, Mila, and an out-of-towner named Jasper – the son of a zealous meteorite hunter. Both Vega and Jasper have their own motives for wanting to find the meteorite, and Torres does an effective job at concealing them from the other characters. Readers may also find Mila’s story intriguing, as we don’t initially know the reason her parents sent her to stay with Vega for the summer.
Vega, Mila, and Jasper embark on an overnight adventure and a treasure hunt that feels very urgent – as urgent as anything can feel for the middle schoolers. Out now from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Vega’s Piece of the Sky has just the right amount of knowledge tidbits about meteorites and space, and plenty of heart. This is a wonderful book for readers who want a story that is both touching and filled with excitement.
Torres spoke with Latinx in Publishing about the inspiration behind Vega’s Piece of the Sky, her research process, and more.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on Vega's Piece of the Sky! I understand the Lone Star Market in the book was inspired by a real market in California that belonged to your great-grandparents. Can you tell us more about the real Lone Star Market, and what made you want to center a fictionalized version of it for this story?
Jennifer Torres (JT): Thank you so much. That was a really special detail for me in this book. My great-grandparents, Albert and Clara Sandoval, opened the Lone Star Market in 1936 near Calexico, California – so very, very near the California-Mexico border. This was how they established themselves in California, created a new life for their family, and built a community. Calexico is in the Imperial Valley, so it’s a desert, and it was a very diverse place then. The market was a gas station and a little convenience store, and then also grew into a dance hall. My great-grandmother would throw big parties with bands and decorations and things. But after a while, they closed it up and moved up to the Los Angeles area, where they had some more family – and where I’m from.
As far as I can tell, there is nothing left of the Lone Star; just some newspaper clippings I was able to find from old newspaper archives and one single picture of my nana, my grandmother, sitting in front of it on a summer day.
I wanted to set the book in the Imperial Valley near Calexico because it’s a place that’s important to my family. The book involves meteors and I talk about how meteors carry with them the story of our early solar system. And just like those meteors, we carry around so much history with us. So even though I never personally stepped foot in the Lone Star, it is a part of me and a part of my story, and a part of how I got to be who I am today – that struggle, that dedication, all of that. Even though the physical proof of it is gone, it still lives on in me and in my family. So by bringing the story back to life, I got to honor that part of my own personal history.
“ The book involves meteors and I talk about how meteors carry with them the story of our early solar system. And just like those meteors, we carry around so much history with us.”
AC: Your book is about three middle graders who are united over a search for a meteorite. I love how your story is compelling and, interspersed throughout, are details on these rare rocks from outer space. What was the research into meteorites like for you?
JT: In 2012, a meteorite fell in Northern California, where I was living at the time. It landed in Sutter’s Mill. If you grew up in California, you would know that it’s where settlers found gold and sparked the Gold Rush. So I thought that was really interesting, especially because after the meteor fell, that area was just swarmed with all kinds of people coming to look for a piece of it. There were scientists, there were rock enthusiasts, there were curious neighbors and everyone working together to try to find this piece of the sky, really. That was just so intriguing to me. What would inspire someone to drop everything and just try to search for a rock on the ground?
As I learned more about meteors and what they are, and where they come from, I found it so fascinating and really awe-inspiring that something that could be orbiting Earth for millions, maybe billions of years, and [how] one day, something tugs it out of orbit and it can land at your feet. So that inspired a lot of meteorite research. I read lots of accounts from meteorite hunters – people who drop everything and will go anywhere in the world where a meteorite is found – to try to get a feel for the passion that drives them and some of the personalities. NASA has wonderful resources on meteorites, as does the University of Arizona.
As I finally got down to writing it [the book], I got to talk to actual scientists who have searched for meteorites and studied them, to help me make sure that what I was writing about was sound. I learned so much in writing this book. I didn’t want to slow down the story at all, or make it a distracting amount of science, but I do think that those little details are enriching and make the experience of reading the book a little deeper.
AC: How were you able to make meteorites digestible for young readers?
JT: I think it helps that I was coming to it not as a scientist, either. I’m coming to it as a novice and someone who is learning. And so I figured if I could write about it in a way that was understandable to me, then it would be understandable and engaging to young readers. One of the exciting things about writing for middle grade audiences is that readers will always surprise and inspire you by how much they know, or how much they perceive. I’ve gotten to share the book with a couple of classrooms, and there are students who are already meteorite enthusiasts or into astronomy. It’s really fun to see that spark of recognition in them. It was a balance; you want to make it understandable and engaging, but you never want to talk down to the reader. So that was the balance I was hoping to strike.
AC: You do a great job of tapping into the voice of young people and how they sometimes try to solve problems on their own. Vega, for example, believes with all her heart that finding the meteorite will stop her mother from selling the family store. What message were you hoping to send about young people when they place too much on their shoulders?
JT: That is a really great question. I think part of the middle grade years is figuring out who are you outside of your home? And who are you in your community, and what powers [do] you have on your own? I would like readers to take away that they are problem-solvers, and they do have responsibility to themselves and to their communities. But of course, she took on too much, right? And so I also think it’s important to recognize when to seek help. It’s always OK to reach out when you don’t have the understanding or don’t have the resources to solve a problem. There’s nothing wrong with that. And to realize that it’s not all on you. That this problem that Vega thinks she created really wasn’t her fault, and that it’s just a thing that happened – and that her family and community can pull together – and they do – to try to make things better.
AC: What are you hoping readers take away from Vega’s Piece of the Sky?
JT: So much. I love this book so much. First of all, a sense of wonder at the natural world and at the universe. I included details about the stars and the meteorites, and even fossils and rocks. There’s so much out there that is inspiring to learn about and to be a part of. I grew up camping and being outside. It’s getting better for sure, but you don’t see a lot of Latine children portrayed outdoors in literature and being a part of the sciences. So I definitely wanted to show some representation there.
I hope that readers take away that courage can look like many different things. You can have courage that looks like Vega’s. That’s what we think of when we think of bravery; she’s going to march out into the night and she’s going to find this meteorite. But courage also looks like Mila’s courage – Vega’s anxious cousin. I think she’s probably the bravest of the three. She has to overcome so much of what she thinks about herself, and the very real anxieties that she faces. And the kind of courage that Jasper shows in standing up to his dad is also a really brave act. So courage can look like all of these different things. It doesn’t always look the way you expect it to.
Jennifer Torres is the author of Stef Soto, Taco Queen; The Fresh New Face of Griselda; and other books for young readers. She writes stories about home, friendship, and unexpected courage inspired by her Mexican American heritage. Jennifer started her career as a newspaper reporter, and even though she writes fiction now, she hopes her stories still have some truth in them. She lives with her family in Southern California.
Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family.
