Sundust — Zeke Pena

In his striking author-illustrator debut, Zeke Peña offers an immersive and fantastical desert adventure, where the sun reigns over the vast landscape and shapes all that it touches.

Where the rock wall ends, the desert beyond begins.

Following a blazing trail of sundust, two curious siblings hop the wall into a place that's endless and free. Here, prickly old nopal trees beg to be climbed, empty turtle shells invite a closer look, enormous rocks model how to sit still and listen, and a colibrí offers an unexpected ride. Here in the desert, where life revolves around the Sun, brother and sister explore, imagine, and wonder, “What if Sun's power was inside me?” until their mom's whistle calls them back home again.

With spare, lyrical text, Pura Belpré Honor and Ezra Jack Keats Honor recipient Zeke Peña (illustrator of My Papi Has a Motorcycle) has created a fantastical tale that suspends moments in time with his radiant art and celebrates the bonds between the sun, the desert, and its people.