I Am a Taxi is a young adult novel by Deborah Ellis, set in Bolivia around 2006, the year the book was published. The novel follows twelve-year-old Diego who lives with his sister and his parents in the San Sebastian Women's Prison in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Diego grew up on a coca farm (coca is a medicinal plant known around the region), which was shut down by the government after Diego and his parents were wrongfully accused during a raid. Diego's life becomes even more challenging when he finds himself wrapped up in a dangerous plan created by his friend Mando to make big money, fast. Diego, his mother, and his baby sister are not in a good situation. Diego is twelve, and he lives with his mother and sister in a tiny cell in the San Sebastian Women's Prison in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Both of Diego's parents have been sentenced to thirteen years in prison after being wrongfully accused of possessing coca paste, an illegal substance used to make cocaine. Though Diego and his family were once coca farmers, they were not involved in the burgeoning illegal drug trade sweeping their country. However, the War on Drugs brought police raids, and during one of those raids, Diego's parents happened to be sitting on bus seats under which someone had taped bags of illegal coca paste. Now, Diego's mother is in the San Sebastian prison and his father is nearby, in the local men's prison in Cochabamba. Though his mother is locked in prison, Diego is able to come and go as he pleases and to attend school in town. Despite these privileges, Diego is miserable, realizing his prospects are slim – prisoners are supposed to fend for themselves and pay for their own goods, and Diego is the only person in his family with any ability to make money. Because he can freely move through town, unlike many other people in the prison, Diego works as a taxi – he transports goods to and from the prison for the women living there. Diego makes enough money in his job as a taxi to support his mother and father, who try to raise him well despite their dismal circumstances. Still, Diego holds out hope that someday soon, perhaps on New Year’s Eve, his wish to return to their rural coca farm will be granted by the Angel Gabriel, and he and his family can be together and happy again. Diego realizes that the circumstances he and his family find themselves in are dire and there will be few options for him as he grows older. Though he is a boy, he is aware enough to recognize the horrible situation he is in. Trouble strikes when Diego is supposed to be watching his baby sister and she disappears during an outing in town. The search for his sister and the trouble to keep track of her earns his mother an enormous fine, and the prison governing board decides to fire Diego from his job as a taxi for the female inmates. Finding himself without a job or a way to help his mother pay their bills, Diego makes a rash decision – he joins his friend Mando, who has a new scheme to make lots of money and fast. Mando's scheme leads Diego, on his own, into the deep jungles of Bolivia, where he works essentially as a slave on an illegal farm that is producing cocaine for local cartels to sell overseas. Diego knows almost immediately that this plan isn't going to work, and the longer he stays on the farm, the more he begins to realize that his life is in danger. At the end of the novel, Diego manages to escape with his life after a brush with death, returning to his parents and his sister in Cochabamba. Though in some ways this is a happy ending, Ellis makes it clear that Diego's prospects are still not good – though he has escaped from untimely death, he is still a victim of abject poverty and a lack of social and economic capital. Deborah Ellis is a young adult author who feels it is her mission to educate more privileged children about the real situations that many of their Third World counterparts manage every day. A feminist and anti-war activist, she is best known for her Breadwinner trilogy, which follows an eleven-year-old girl in Afghanistan who disguises herself as a boy in order to make money for her family after her father is kidnapped by the Taliban. I Am A Taxi is the first book in the Cocalero series, followed by the book Sacred Leaf.

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Deborah Ellis

Middle grade

Novel

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I Am a Taxi

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