Leapfrog depicts one summer in the life of a very poor young boy in post-revolutionary Havana in the late '50s. He has superhero fantasies, hangs around with the neighborhood kids, smokes cigarettes, tells very lame jokes. The kids fight, discuss the mysteries of religion and sex, and play games -- such as leapfrog. So vivid and so very credible, Leapfrog reads as if Rosales had simply transcribed everything that he'd heard or said for this one moving and touching book about a lost childhood.

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