Richie’s Picks: QUESO, JUST IN TIME
Richie Partington
Richie’s Picks: QUESO, JUST IN TIME by Ernesto Cisneros, HarperCollins/QuillTree, March 2026, 272p., ISBN: 978-0-06-309224-2
“Tell me, doctor
Where are we going this time?
Is this the fifties?
Or nineteen ninety-nine?
– Huey Lewis and the News, “Back in Time” (1985)
“There’s a honk outside. It’s Queso Sr., getting a bit antsy.
Pancho and I hurry outside. I take his lead and jump into the bed of Queso Sr.’s white pickup truck–a Datsun model I’ve never heard of.
Pancho gestures for me to sit back against the rear window facing the tailgate. I check for seatbelts or handgrips…anything I can hold onto on the drive. Only there’s nothing. ¡Nada! Did people really ride around in the back like this? Was safety not yet invented?
I decide to tough it out. The whole ride to school is a bit bumpy and windy–really windy. Pancho’s hair is all fluffed up. So is mine, I bet. And to make matters worse, each pothole is a sharp pain in the butt, literally.
Still though…I gotta admit, it’s kind of fun, too. Kind of like riding in a convertible.
Queso Sr. makes his way down Fifth Street. It’s a lot like the version of the neighborhood that I know, only with way more shops and restaurants and lots and lots of tagging.
Splurgeon (eventually to be rebranded as Romero-Cruz Academy) is surrounded by kids standing around in everyday street clothes–not uniforms like we have in my time. And by street clothes, I’m talking mostly baggy khakis, high-wasted jeans, and unbuttoned flannel shirts. They somehow look more grown-up, tougher, like they could mess me up if they wanted to.
I suddenly remember when Dad mentioned the school had to close down because the teachers all walked out and filed a formal complaint because of the ‘hostile work environment.’
I think back to the guys at the Salvador Rec Center. About the things that Dad told me about the way he grew up.
About the neighborhood gangs.
About the weekly shootings. Some by car. Some on foot.
About the drug dealers.
About the police!
I look over at Pancho and just about confess everything to him–including the time-travel stuff. Only I stop when he looks back at me, smiling.
Something I never got to see enough in my timeline.
Suddenly, I’m not all that concerned about any of that.”
Twelve-year-old Queso (Quetzalcóatl Castillo Anguiano) is a sweet kid who has been depressed over not having had more time with his now-dead father. Given that desire, and with the apparent assistance of a cute wild bunny who shows up in his backyard treehouse–which was built a generation ago by his father (Pancho) and grandfather (Queso Sr.)--Queso takes a nap and regains consciousness in 1985, when his father was twelve like Queso is.
Here are ten great songs from 1985 that Queso would have been hearing back there:
A-Ha -- Take on Me
Dire Straits -- Money for Nothing
John Mellencamp -- Small Town
Joni Mitchell -- Good Friends
Sting -- Set them Free
Suzanne Vega -- Undertow
Tears for Fears -- Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Whitney Houston -- Saving All My Love
Bangles -- Walk Like an Egyptian
Prince and the Revolution -- Raspberry Beret
He and his father soon cross paths and immediately connect. Despite the similarity in his and his father’s appearances, Queso successfully hides his real identity from his father, and then from his grandparents, who he gets to know again, when his then-tween father brings his new friend Queso home. Explaining to them that he is currently parentless, Queso is invited to spend time living in “his” house, in 1985, back when it was new, back when it was his father and grandparents living in it. Queso also gets enrolled at his father’s school (which, a generation later, had been Queso’s school)..
The big question is: Whether accidentally or purposely, when Queso does something in 1985 that alters events that his father has told Queso about, back in Queso’s timeline, will it actually change the family history that Queso has learned from his father while growing up? And will Queso ever successfully return to his own time?
Today’s teens will be startled and thoroughly amused by the major changes Queso observes in 1985 relating to technology, media, popular culture, and his hometown.
QUESO, JUST IN TIME is a fun and thought-provoking read. I encourage tweens to pull up YouTube, and watch the related music video, so they know how to properly Walk Like an Egyptian. Then I would urge them to head down to the library–ancient Egyptian style–and check out this thoroughly modern time-travel tale.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com