The trials and triumphs of an Iranian Jewish boy in small-town Texas in 1979, the year of the hostage crisis.

Joseph Nissan, whose parents fled Iran under circumstances they have never explained, has a lot to juggle as a 12-year-old—school, sports, bar mitzvah preparations, first love, and ever-escalating bigotry and bullying from both the kids and adults of Hazel, Texas. In the first scene of this engrossing, high-energy novel, white cousins Larry and Brian Edmondson show up on their bicycles to harass Joseph and his Mexican American friends, hurling racist abuse until Joseph’s father, an intimidating 6-foot-5, arrives to shoo them away. Khubiar compellingly evokes the complex, uneasy mix of ethnicities and identities that characterized this time and place and explores the role of the police as violence escalates, and drug-related criminal activity plays a role. Joseph’s crush on Vonda Baer, daughter of a white fundamentalist preacher, is so dangerous to both of them that Vonda insists they restrict themselves to passing notes. Joseph gets around his shortcomings as a writer with beautiful quotes from the poetry of Hafiz, one of the many creative solutions this resourceful, determined boy comes up with to the problems he faces, including his very religious parents’ resistance to his playing football. Joseph is a wonderful creation—both deeply good and prone to mischief—and he will captivate readers.

A sizzling page-turner with an unusual and important focus. (Historical fiction. 12-17)