Win a copy of The Heart is Not a Size

Yesterday, Ruta Rimas, who has been seeing The Heart is Not a Size through its pre-publishing days at HarperTeen, wrote to say that an early copy of the hardback has arrived at her office.

Contest, I thought.

And so here is a question for any of you who might like to win a copy: Where in the world do you hope to go next, and why? Leave your answer in the comments section here, and I'll choose a name at random by March 10th.

Heart, for its part, takes place partly in Juarez, a place I visited in 2005. Here's a scene from the novel:

Despite the sun and the uptilting slope of the hill, these kids didn’t walk. Even the brother who was carrying his baby sister never slowed for a second, his body bent forward at the waist. There were brothers who came with brothers and clusters of girls and those who came from what must have been east by themselves, all of them dressed in parakeet colors, and I remember a pair of shining patent leathers, throwing the sun back up to the sun. I remember taking that photograph. Sun like bleach, like stain.

Riley’s sapphire eyes were platters; for one bright instant they turned and took the me behind my camera in—took me in, and I snapped that portrait. The loose hair at the back of Sophie’s neck corked, anticipated, seemed ready to flee, but it was Drake who went to tell Mack, and Mack who brought Roberto, and Roberto who called out to the children by name, waving them up the hill faster. The first to reach the top of the hill was a pair of brothers with bright blue eyes and red paisley bandanas that tied back their thick, black hair. Some buttons on their shirts were missing. Their pants were light and loose. When they got to where we were they hung their heads a little bit, but that didn’t disguise their smiles.

The others were right on their heels. A boy in a strawberry-colored sleeveless shirt who had lost his front teeth. The girl with the black patent shoes. Several children—both boys and girls—wearing the same red paisley as the bandana boys. There were streaming colors in the hair of the girls—crimson bows and silver strings, wide navy blue bands striped with mango—and I kept thinking how much those kids must have been loved, how beautiful they’d been made by their mothers before they’d left their shacks and gone into the streets and trusted us to receive them. I thought that, and I took photographs. Portrait after portrait, and then again I turned the camera to Riley’s face, as she stood there in the circle of children, as she reached her hands toward them.