Content report card
Heat parent’s guide: what’s inside
Language
Sexual content
LGBTQ+ themes
Substance use
What it offers
A note for parents
Heat is a sports-centered coming-of-age story about a young pitcher navigating poverty, family responsibility, and immigration challenges. The book emphasizes resilience, loyalty, and finding community support while dealing with serious real-world hardships. It's emotionally mature but age-appropriate for middle-grade readers, with baseball serving as both backdrop and metaphor for overcoming obstacles.
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From the publisher
Michael Arroyo has a pitching arm that throws serious heat. But his firepower is nothing compared to the heat Michael faces in his day-to-day life. Newly orphaned after his father led the family's escape from Cuba, Michael's only family is his seventeen-yearold brother Carlos. If Social Services hears of their situatio... Michael Arroyo has a pitching arm that throws serious heat. But his firepower is nothing compared to the heat Michael faces in his day-to-day life. Newly orphaned after his father led the family's escape from Cuba, Michael's only family is his seventeen-yearold brother Carlos. If Social Services hears of their situation, they will be separated in the foster-care system—or worse, sent back to Cuba. Together, the boys carry on alone, dodging bills and anyone who asks too many questions. But then someone wonders how a twelve-year-old boy could possibly throw with as much power as Michael Arroyo throws. With no way to prove his age, no birth certificate, and no parent to fight for his cause, Michael's secret world is blown wide open, and he discovers that family can come from the most unexpected sources.
Shelved under
- Cubans
- Brothers
- Fiction
- Illegal aliens
- Juvenile fiction
- Little League baseball
- Baseball
- Social service
- Orphans
- Baseball stories
- Reading Level-Grade 11
- Reading Level-Grade 12
Books in the Heat series
Full series in order →Share this guide
ISBN 9780142407578 · Puffin