Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds is a spectacular 2016 bilingual picture book by award-winning Salvadoran poet Jorge Argueta. He describes the beauty of daily life in El Salvador and the sorrow that young people face when forced to flee for survival.  

Argueta's own experience as a refugee from El Salvador's war of the 1980s allows him to convey the pain many young Central Americans face today when they say goodbye to everything they know because they fear for their lives.  

Through poetry, prose, and illustrations, Argueta and artist Alfonso Ruano paint a vivid picture of life in El Salvador and the extreme hardships faced along the journey north.

While most appropriate for upper elementary and middle school, sections of the book could be shared with early elementary classes.

Read a longer review of Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds (Groundwood Books, 2016) at DeColores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children.