A modern-day Don Quixote tale, in which fired teacher Ignacio Matus inspires a band of hapless students to re-take the Alamo and thus reclaim Mexican honor and secure their own places in history. Matus is obsessed with Mexico’s status—military and Olympic—and depressed by his students’ lack of understanding of history; what better way to galvanize the next generation than by taking Texas back? The general genuinely loves his enlightened army of six and Toscana’s writing reflects that tenderness and indulgent humor. The tragic but inevitable ending still allows that this army was ennobled by their reach for something more important.