The Multnomah County Library has made the Everybody Reads 2025 title selection. Javier Zamora’s Solito is an account of Zamora’s 3,000-mile journey from El Salvador to the US when he was nine years old. His crossing involved perilous boat trips and relentless desert treks during two life-altering months alongside a group of strangers who became an unexpected family. He traveled unaccompanied by boat, bus and foot. After the person hired to lead the group abandoned them in Oaxaca, Zamora managed to make it to Arizona with the aid of other migrants.
Zamora was born in La Herradura, El Salvador in 1990. When he was a year old, his father fled El Salvador, followed by his mother in 1995. At that time, Zamora was left in the care of his grandparents who raised him until he migrated to the US when he was nine.
Check out Solito from the library (book, downloadable audio book or eBook). All formats are available in Spanish and English. Events surrounding the book and its themes, both in person and virtually take place through March. Visit multcolib.org/events-classes and select “Everybody Reads” as the event type for event details and registration.
Everybody Reads 2025 will conclude with “An Evening with Javier Zamora” Tuesday, March 11, 7:30-9 pm at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets ($25-$65) are available from Literary Arts, literary-arts.org.
