Listen Back: Mariana Llanos and Anna López Real share Luca's Bridge/El puente de Luca
- Matthew C. Winner
- Aug 31, 2025
- 1 min read
Original Air Date: August 20, 2019
Author Mariana Llanos and illustrator Anna López Real join Matthew in conversation to share LUCA'S BRIDGE/El puente de Luca. LUCA’S BRIDGE is a border story. It is a family story. It is a story that centers on the universal language of emotion. Luca is an American citizen, but his parents are not. And when his parents are deported, the whole family must leave, which means Luca is forced to leave his own country in order to go to a country he has never known where people speak a language he has never spoken. But there’s hope. As Mariana reminds us, there’s always hope.
Listen along:
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Luca has never lived outside the U.S., but when his parents receive a letter in the mail, the family must pack up and leave home for a strange land. Together in their car, Luca, his brother Paco, and their parents head across the border to Mexico where his parents were born. Luca doesn’t understand why he must leave the only home he’s ever known, his friends, and his school. He struggles through lonely and disorienting times―reflected both in Real’s delicate, symbolic illustrations and through Llanos’ description of his dreams―and leans on music, memory, and familial love for support. Luca’s Bridge / El puente de Luca is a story for everyone about immigration, deportation, home, and identity.
SHOW NOTES:
Learn more about Mariana Llanos at marianallanos.com
Learn more about Anna López Real at www.behance.net/AnnaLopezReal
Luca's Bridge/El puente de Luca (book trailer)
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