What Gives Israel Moya Hope

More hope. From the kidlit community, to you.  

No matter where you are. No matter what’s going on around you. No matter what is pulling your attention or competing for space in your mind. May these next few minutes offer you rest, peace, and hope.

Hope - May 16, 2026

Israel Moya, author of Monarchs in the Wild (Tu Books), shares what is giving him hope today:  young, creative, hopeful, courageous people.

Listen along:

About the Book: Monarchs in the Wild by Israel Moya. Published by Tu Books.

After witnessing the tragic death of a classmate, seventeen-year-old Cal desperately searches for a way out of his blink-and-you'll-miss-it rural town of La Sombra, California--before he, too, becomes a nobody-migrant statistic.

In the summer of 1994, seventeen-year-old Cal ''California'' Garcia can't seem to escape the gossip and horrified looks of his fellow La Sombra residents. They judge him on nothing more than the long scar on his face, his beat up '68 Mustang, and always being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Cal constantly feels like he's been set up to fail. His father left his family after the tragic accident that gave him his scar. His mother spends all her time at church, enchanted by the words of a crooked pastor. And his new-old Mustang brings more trouble and chaos than it's worth. Everything about being in La Sombra tells him he is and always will be a nothing. But as his senior year is coming to an end, his life is turned drastically upside down. Out by the railroad tracks, Cal finds Nora, valedictorian Nora, fallen off a bridge.

The monarch butterflies stitched onto her jeans are seared into his memory forever. Having found her body, Cal becomes a person of interest in Nora's suspicious death.

As Cal tries to escape suspicion, an opportunity for a way out of La Sombra emerges from nowhere, and Cal is forced to choose his own fate. Will Cal finally decide who he is and where he wants to be? Or will he let circumstance choose for him and live his life as just another statistic in a farm-worker town?

More:

Visit Israel Moya online at israelmoya.com  

Learn more about Boyds Mills and their upcoming programs by visiting boydsmills.org. 

Learn more about Lee & Low Books and their upcoming releases by visiting www.leeandlow.com.

Transcript:

Israel: "Monarchs in the Wild is a young adult coming-of-age novel out in June, and I'm excited to share it with you because at its core, it's a story about hope.

The main character, Cal Garcia, is overcome by obstacles, his life circumstances. He's a bit rough around the edges, and life is throwing everything at him, including social changes that make life confusing and difficult. But at the heart of the story is a young person who persists, who is resilient.

And that leads me to the question of what is giving me hope today? Well, young people like Cal, like this fictitious character, are all around us. Young people who are creative, imaginative, resilient, and who have courage, who have their own opinions.

That gives me a lot of hope, even though sometimes they can be very confusing or funny or just different. That's okay. That's okay.

The fact that we have young people who are willing to express themselves and to show imagination, I think is, is wonderful. It is very reassuring. I think if we're going to overcome the current challenges and the challenges of the future, we need to be courageous and have imagination in order to create new solutions to, you know, solve our differences and and all our social problems.

So yeah, that's what's giving me hope: Young, creative, hopeful, courageous people.

Well, thanks, and we'll see you around. Bye."