Carol and Johnny Garza are 12-year-old twins whose lives in a small Texas town are forever changed by their mother’s unexplained disappearance. Shipped off to relatives in Mexico by their grieving father, the twins soon learn that their mother is a nagual, a shapeshifter, and that they have inherited her powers. In order to rescue her, they will have to descend into the Aztec underworld and face the dangers that await them. American Library Association, 2016 Pura Belpre Author Honor winning novel. " The Smoking Mirror is realistically embedded in adolescent situations, such as bullying, sibling friendship and rivalry, parental loss, and fear of narcoviolence, while developing fantastical scenarios, such as gaining supernatural abilities, descending into the underworld, and battling creatures from Aztec and Mayan mythologies. Published only in English, the novel includes dialogue, songs and chants in Spanish. The sequel forthcoming in 2016 is eagerly anticipated." -- Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature "Bowles really knows his stuff, being a scholar who translates Nahuatl poetry. He also knows how to tell an exciting story. There are places in the book where I could smell Mexico. Kids will love this Orpheus-like journey of a brother and sister, as they discover their shape-shifting nagual-powers, into an Aztec/Mayan underworld to find their mother. And they have fantastic adventures among places, things, and creatures the likes of which Harry Potter never encountered. And Tezcatlipoca himself showes up. It's cleverly packaged with manga-like art." -- La Bloga "Bowles creates an action-packed story based on Aztec and Mayan mythology while capturing the realities of life in contemporary South Texas and Mexico." --Pura Belpré Award Committee "With his new novel The Smoking Mirror, South Texas author David Bowles is helping to fill what amounts to an ethnic gap in mythology-oriented adventure literature for middle-grade readers by exploring the Aztec underworld, Mictlan. He's created a rollercoaster narrative that fascinates, educates and (almost inevitably) terrifies." -- San Antonio Express News " The Smoking Mirror is an entertaining adventure story that moves at a quick pace and features a memorable and underrepresented mythology." -- Rich in Color "A wild, magical adventure into an ancient world...emotional and mystical!" --Guadalupe Garcia McCall, award-winning author of Under the Mesquite and Summer of the Mariposas "If you're looking for a Latino Percy Jackson, this is it." --Jason Henderson, author of Ben 10: Volume 1, Incredible Hulk: Abominations, and the Alex Van Helsing series David Bowles  is a product of a Mexican-American family and has lived most of his life in deep South Texas, where he teaches at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley. Recipient of awards from the American Library Association, Texas Institute of Letters and Texas Associated Press, he has written several books, most significantly the ALA Pura Belpré Honor Book,  The Smoking Mirror . Additionally, his work has been published in venues including  Rattle ,  Strange Horizons ,  Apex Magazine ,  Metamorphoses ,  Translation Review ,  Concho River Review ,  Huizache ,  Journal of Children’s Literature ,  Asymptote ,  Eye to the Telescope  and  Newfound .