Prismatic springs. Steaming geysers. Sprawling canyons. In Andrea Beatriz Arango’s fourth novel, she ventures into the verdant and breathtaking world of Yellowstone. For many kids, this would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but for Gustavo Santos Costa, the national park has become his next home. As he struggles to fight off his night terrors and find his footing, Arango takes us on a journey of finding new places, new friends, and new perspectives.
Trigger Warning: The mention of certain content and topics in this article, including mental health, may be triggering for some readers.
About No Place on Earth
Gustavo’s parents are going through a trial separation, which leads to Gus’s mom applying for a job at Yellowstone National Park, moving Gustavo and his sister Lorena there while their dad stays behind in Puerto Rico. As if the move wasn’t bad enough, Gustavo’s already chronic nightmares get worse inside the park, and he even starts seeing one of his classmates in his dreams. But when something happens to his friend, can Gustavo find the strength to help even when most things already feel too big to take on?
Welcome, Andrea Beatriz Arango! Thank you for sitting down with us today to discuss not only the inspirations behind your next novel, but the portrayal of anxiety and Latino representation at its core. Let’s get started.
Out of all of the national parks, what drew you to Yellowstone as a setting?
My mom really wanted to have an adventure when she turned 60. So even though she had lived in Puerto Rico her whole life, she applied for a job at Yellowstone and got it! She spent 2 years living in the park, and I was lucky enough to get to visit her there that first winter. I immediately fell in love. The bison, especially, have my whole heart.
You and your main character, Gustavo, have a shared experience immigrating from Puerto Rico to the United States. How much of this book draws from your personal life, and how often do you find that you “write what you know?”
While I did move to the US, I did so in my late twenties, for work. (And then I came back — I live in PR currently.) Most of Gustavo’s frustration over the move was that he felt like he had no say in it, and I was lucky enough to have been able to choose my journey. However, Gustavo and I do have our nightmares in common! I always tell students that every one of my books has a nugget of truth in it, and in the case of this book, the biggest similarities to my real life are my mom’s experiences in Yellowstone and my brain’s similarities to Gustavo’s.
While this novel was primarily written in English, it also features some Spanish through Gus’s narration. Why did you find it important to express his cultural identity through language? What was your technical approach to integrating a second language in this book in a way that felt natural?
All of my books incorporate Spanish, but I try to be very conscious of my monolingual readers! I only use Spanish in ways that can be figured out via context clues and never reveal crucial plot details in that language. And because neither my agent nor my editor speaks Spanish, they’ve been incredibly useful in helping me find that balance. If it gets too hard for them to figure out what I’m saying, they let me know so I can figure out how to rephrase.
This novel was also your first foray into prose! What was the biggest challenge you faced stepping away from writing in verse?
Funnily enough, most of the writing I’ve done throughout my life has been in prose. It just so happens that the novel that finally got me my publishing deal was in verse… so then I kind of rolled with it. And don’t get me wrong — I love writing in verse. But it’s been nice to go back to the kind of writing that made me want to be an author in the first place. That being said, it was definitely a challenge to write this book! I got used to the low word count in verse novels, haha.
Whether undergoing the stress of a big move or facing anxiety for the first time, why do you think it is important to see these experiences expressed through literature, particularly in middle school?
While I would love to imagine that all students have adults they can talk to about their mental health, I know for a fact that that’s not the case for most young people — at least the ones I had in my classroom during my 10 years as a teacher. And it certainly wasn’t the case for my family either. I didn’t even go to therapy until I was an adult, and I definitely needed it in middle school.
Books, in that way, can serve as tools to give readers vocabulary and mirrors they might not encounter elsewhere. I hope that’s what my books are doing.
Building off that, why were you inspired to use dreams as a tool for exploring those internal conflicts?
As I mentioned earlier, I too have nightmares tied to my anxiety as Gustavo does. Growing up, it actually felt really isolating. I didn’t know a single person who experienced sleep the way I did. Even now, I rarely meet other folks with chronic nightmares. So I loved the idea of two conflicting dream experiences coming together in the novel as a way to bridge communication. Especially since both boys have mental health stuff going on, just materializing in different ways.
Can you tell us about the strangest dream that you have ever had?
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever had someone ask me that, but I’m realizing it might come up quite a lot with this book, haha! My dreams tend to be more sad than strange, but I will say that I often find myself in situations where I need to fly to escape something; however, I never have actual wings. So I end up having to flap my normal people arms really, really hard to get into the air, like an awkward girl chicken, which is a pretty funny visual to think about.
Apart from being a book lover, you’ve also featured video game recommendations on your Instagram. For readers who enjoy No Place on Earth, which game would you recommend to them, and why?
I LOVE this question! I’d probably recommend Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. It’s a co-op magical (and emotional!) adventure where you and your brother have to work together to find the tree of life and save your dad. But there’s also a game coming out later this year called Ikuma: The Frozen Compass, which is a survival game set in the Arctic, and that one looks amazing as well. You play as a boy and his loyal dog in that one.
Thank you, Andrea Beatriz Arango, for such a dream of an interview! If you haven’t picked up No Place on Earth, be sure to stop in at your favorite local indie bookshop or use any of the links above!
About Andrea Beatriz Arango
Andrea Beatriz Arango is the author of the Newbery Honor Book Iveliz Explains It All, the Pura Belpré Honor Book Something Like Home, It’s All or Nothing, Vale, and the forthcoming No Place on Earth. Andrea was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where she first discovered her love of writing and eventually became a teacher. She then spent a decade in the United States working in public schools and nonprofits. When she’s not busy writing about middle schoolers and their families, you can find her hoping to spot manatees at the beach. Andrea lives in Puerto Rico with her family and two dogs.
To learn more about Andrea, check out her website and follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
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