FARMER, Nancy. The House of the Scorpion. NY: Atheneum [2002]. 8vo, [xviii] 382pp. Black quarter-cloth stamped in gold with orange boards. A fine copy in original color pictorial dust jacket. Signed by the author, three-time Newbery Honor author Nancy Farmer.

First edition. 2002 National Book Award Winner, 2003 Newbery Honor Book, and 2003 Printz Honor Book! Matteo Alacrán is a clone, an outcast hated and feared as a beast by human society. Sheltered by the a 142-year-old drug lord drug lord, El Patrón, who rules a land called Opium, a strip between the U.S. and a place once called Mexico. When Matteo escapes his captivity and discovers he is the clone of El Patrón himself, he is set on a course that will force him to come face to face with questions about the meaning of life and death, the nature of one's responsibility for others, and just what it is that makes us human.