Lalo Lespérance never forgot / Phillippe Diederich

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Amoving middle-grade mystery about a boy dealing with long-repressed memories of his father as he learns about his Mexican and Haitian heritage while spying on a mysteriousstranger during the first weeks of COVID lockdown.

Lalo Lesperance lives with his older brother andMexican American mother in a low-incomeapartment building in Fort Myers. They moved there from a subdivision after the family lost Lalo's Haitian Americanfather. At school, Lalo is known as the boy who can't remember anything and needs special help inall his classes. But when the first COVID lockdown hits, he finds himself in a friendship ofconvenience with Vivi, a Mexican Americankid his age who gets perfect gradesand who never gave him a second thought when they were in school. Vivi's abuelawatches the kids while their mothers work long shifts as nurses at a clinic slammed by COVID. As Lalo navigates his much smaller pandemic world, he discovers his apartment building has its own mysteries, like a sinister stranger in an old RV and a storage closet full of junk, including an old radio that just might hold the key to remembering why Lalo's family moved to the apartment and what happened to his father.