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Benny Ramírez and the Nearly Departed

Additional information

Author

José Pablo Iriarte

Genre

Middle Grade – Contemporary

Release Date

April 30, 2024

Publisher

Knopf Books for Young Readers, PRH

Categories , Tag Product ID: 19665

Description

Benny Ramírez can see dead people . . . Well, one dead person, anyway. A hilarious and heartwarming story about a boy who can suddenly see the ghost of his famous musician grandfather!

After moving cross-country into his late grandfather’s Miami mansion, Benny discovers that the ghost of his famous trumpet-playing abuelo, the great Ignacio Ramírez, is still there . . . and isn’t too thrilled about it. He’s been barred from the afterlife, and no one can see him except his grandson. But Benny’s got problems of his own. He’s enrolled in a performing arts school with his siblings, despite having no obvious talent.
Luckily, Abuelo believes they can help each other. Abuelo has until New Year’s Eve to do some good in the world and thinks that teaching Benny how to play the trumpet and become a school celebrity might be the key to earning his wings. Having no better ideas, Benny finds himself taking Abuelo’s advice—to disastrous and hilarious results.
Benny and Abuelo will find that there’s more than one way to be great in this unforgettable, laugh-out-loud tale of family, music, and self-discovery.

About the Author

Photograph of author José Pablo Iriarte
Photo Credit: © 2019 Michael Cairns

José Pablo Iriarte is a Cuban-American writer and teacher who lives in Central Florida. Their fiction can be found in magazines such as Uncanny, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and others, and has been reprinted in numerous Year’s Best anthologies. Their novelette, “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births,” was a Nebula Award Finalist for 2018 and longlisted for the Otherwise (Tiptree) Award, while their short story “Proof by Induction” was a Nebula Award Finalist for 2021. José is on the board of directors of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and their longer work is represented by the Donald Maass Literary Agency. Learn more at www.labyrinthrat.com, or follow José on Twitter @labyrinthrat.

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