We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.Ī Dream Called Home is the inspiring new memoir from Reyna Grande, the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and nationally bestselling author of The Distance Between Us, about her quest for belonging, a writing career, and a home built of more than words and dreams. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. This reading group guide for A Dream Called Home includes an introduction, discussion question,s and ideas for enhancing your book club.

Told in Reyna’s exquisite, heartfelt prose, A Dream Called Home demonstrates how, by daring to pursue her dreams, Reyna was able to build the one thing she had always longed for: a home that would endure. Through it all, Reyna is determined to make the impossible possible, going from undocumented immigrant of little means to “a fierce, smart, shimmering light of a writer” (Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild) a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist whose “power is growing with every book” (Luis Alberto Urrea, Pultizer Prize finalist) and a proud mother of two beautiful children who will never have to know the pain of poverty and neglect. Again, she finds solace in words, holding fast to her vision of becoming a writer, only to discover she knows nothing about what it takes to make a career out of a dream.

Taking refuge in words, Reyna’s love of reading and writing propels her to rise above until she achieves the impossible and is accepted to the University of California, Santa Cruz.Īlthough her acceptance is a triumph, the actual experience of American college life is intimidating and unfamiliar for someone like Reyna, who is now estranged from her family and support system.

“Here is a life story so unbelievable, it could only be true.” -Sandra Cisneros, bestselling author of The House on Mango Streetįrom bestselling author of the remarkable memoir The Distance Between Us comes an inspiring account of one woman’s quest to find her place in America as a first-generation Latina university student and aspiring writer determined to build a new life for her family one fearless word at a time.Īs an immigrant in an unfamiliar country, with an indifferent mother and abusive father, Reyna had few resources at her disposal.

A dream called home a memoir