on sale October 4, 2022
Mariana and Her Familia by Monica Mancillas | Picture Book
Mariana is visiting her abuelita and extended family in Mexico for the first time. Her tummy does a flip as she and Mami cross the frontera.
There are all new sights, smells, and sounds. And at Abuelita's house, Mariana is overwhelmed by new faces and Spanish phrases she doesn't understand.
But with a story, some kindness, and a few new words from Abuelita, Mariana discovers that the love of family knows no cultural divide.
On This Airplane by Lourdes Heuer | Picture Book
On this airplane . . .
Someone travels solo,
two travel as one,
three return
and four set out.
In this simple and moving book, a young family takes a plane to their new home. While onboard, they encounter all the people you meet on a plane: a bookworm, a businessperson, tourists, crying babies, and daydreamers . . . all with their own stories and all heading somewhere special.
The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera | Young Adult
It's the night before Death-Cast goes live, and there's one question on everyone's mind: Can Death-Cast actually predict when someone will die, or is it just an elaborate hoax?
Orion Pagan has waited years for someone to tell him that he's going to die. He has a serious heart condition, and he signed up for Death-Cast so he could know what's coming.
Valentino Prince is restarting his life in New York. He has a long and promising future ahead and he only registered for Death-Cast after his twin sister nearly died in a car accident.
Orion and Valentino cross paths in Times Square and immediately feel a deep connection. But when the first round of End Day calls goes out, their lives are changed forever--one of them receives a call, and the other doesn't. Though neither boy is certain how the day will end, they know they want to spend it together...even if that means their goodbye will be heartbreaking.
Told with acclaimed author Adam Silvera's signature bittersweet touch, this story celebrates the lasting impact that people have on each other and proves that life is always worth living to the fullest.
The Lords of Night (a Shadow Bruja Novel) by J. C. Cervantes | Middle Grade
Fourteen-year-old Renata Santiago is the most powerful godborn of them all, a bruja with a unique combination of DNA. The Mexica blood from her dad's side gives her the ability to manipulate shadows. Her mom Pacific, a Maya goddess, gifted her a magical rope that controls time, and Ren recently used it to save a few gods from getting stuck forever in 1987. She brought them back to the present, but her BFF Ah Puch, the once fearsome god of death, darkness, and destruction, is now a teenager with no divine powers.
Ren is also a girl with ordinary hopes and dreams. She wishes, for example, that her blog about alien sightings would garner more respect. She's always been absolutely convinced that there's a connection between aliens and the Maya civilization. Plenty of online haters feel differently, and they call her a fake, a liar, and a loser.
When Ren receives an email about an alien sighting in Kansas, she thinks it may support her theory. She also suspects that the cinco--five renegade godborns--are up to no good. Soon she finds herself embroiled in a quest to prevent the troublemakers from awakening the nine Aztec Lords of Night. Problem is, none of Ren's friends are available to help her hunt down the cinco and the dangerous gods they are resurrecting. Ren has no choice but to team up with two strangers recruited by Ah Puch: Edison, a teen hybrid demon, and Montero, an eleven-year-old Aztec hunter. Succeeding in this quest will prove that Ren is no fake, liar, or loser. But it isn't just another challenge. It could well be an impossible one that leaves Ren questioning her very existence.
on sale October 11, 2022
Undercover Latina by Aya De Leon | Middle Grade
A Latina teen spy goes undercover as a white girl to stop a white supremacist terrorist plot in a fast-paced middle-grade debut from a seasoned author of contemporary crime fiction.
In her debut for younger readers, Aya de León pits a teen spy against the ominous workings of a white nationalist. Fourteen-year-old Andréa Hernández-Baldoquín hails from a family of spies working for the Factory, an international organization dedicated to protecting people of color. For her first solo mission, Andréa straightens her hair and goes undercover as Andrea Burke, a white girl, to befriend the estranged son of a dangerous white supremacist. In addition to her Factory training, the assignment calls for a deep dive into the son's interests--comic books and gaming--all while taking care not to speak Spanish and blow her family's cover. But it's hard to hide who you really are, especially when you develop a crush on your target's Latino best friend. Can Andréa keep her head, her geek cred, and her code-switching on track to trap a terrorist? Smart, entertaining, and politically astute, this is fast-paced upper-middle-grade fare from an established author of heist and espionage novels for adults.
What the Jaguar Told Her by Alexandra V. Mendez | Middle Grade
Jade is starting eighth grade in a new city--Atlanta. She just wants to go back to Chicago, where her friends are. Where her Abuela lives.
But Jade does like walking to her new school on the trail that winds through the woods behind her house, where lush flowers bloom and soft leaves rustle beneath her feet. In the forest, Jade feels protected. Sometimes, it's as if it's listening to her.
There, Jade meets Itztli, an elderly storyteller who exists between dreams and reality. In the golden afternoons when Itztli appears, he steps out of the forest as a lithe, agile jaguar. But when he speaks to Jade, he is a wise old man who makes intricate works of art and tells her ancestral stories of Mexico. At first, Itztli's stories feel far removed from Jade's life. But as her Abuela suddenly falls ill, two towers come crashing down in New York City, and Jade becomes someone or something she doesn't yet understand, Itztli's stories take on new meaning. Jade must learn to have patience and strength to become who she was always meant to be, as the stirrings of an ancient power awaken within her.
What the Jaguar Told Her is a lyrical debut about growing up in the midst of change, and a magical cultural homecoming.
Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman by Yvonne Martinez | Non Fiction
At eighteen, Yvonne Martinez flees brutal domestic violence and is taken in by her dying grandmother . . . who used to be a sex worker. Before she dies, her grandmother reveals family secrets and shares her uncommon wisdom. “Someday, Mija,” she tells Yvonne, “you’ll learn the difference between a whore and a working woman.” She also shares disturbing facts about their family’s history—eventually leading Yvonne to discover that her grandmother was trafficked as a child in Depression-era Utah by her own mother, Yvonne’s great-grandmother, and that she was blamed for her own rape.
In the years that follow her grandmother’s passing, Yvonne gets an education and starts a family. As she heals from her own abuse by her mother and stepfather, she becomes an advocate/labor activist. Grounded in her grandmother’s dictum not to whore herself out, she learns to fight for herself and teaches others to do the same—exposing sexual harassment in the labor unions where she works and fighting corruption. Intense but ultimately uplifting, Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman is a compelling memoir in essays of transforming transgenerational trauma into resilience and post-traumatic growth.
Brown Enough by Christopher Rivas | Non Fiction
At a time when disinformation, hate crimes, inequality, racial injustice, and white supremacy are on the rise, Brown Enough, part memoir and part social commentary, emerges, asking readers to proudly put their bodies, their identities, into the conversations of race. Brown Enough is a roller coaster of finding one's true self while simultaneously having a racial awakening amidst the struggle to be "perfectly" Latinx, woke, and as Brown as possible to make it in today's America.
Its pages are full of honest explorations of love, sex, fake-it-till-you-make-it ambition, bad Spanish, color, code-switching, white-washing, scandal, Hollywood, and more. This memoir navigates these necessary and often revealing topics through fourteen chapters, each a distinct moment where Rivas explores his Brownness and how to own it.
Brown Enough opens with a moment that forever changed Christopher Rivas's life, the night Ta-Nehisi Coates shared, in an intimate gathering in downtown L.A., the Brown man's role in the race conversation.
"All I hear is black and white. As a Brown man, a Latin man, where does that leave me?" Coates took a short breath and responded, "Not in it."
Like a reprimanded child, Rivas took his seat and remained silent for much of the event. But the effects didn't end there. This conversation pushed Rivas to contemplate and rethink how whiteness and Blackness had impacted his sense of self and worth.
"Why is Brown not in it?" became the unspoken question for the rest of his life and a thread moving through this collection. Eventually, in every conversation, during every date, at every job, Rivas began to ask, "What are the consequences of not being in the conversation?" "What does it take to be in it?"
Brown Enough is the quest to find an answer.
on sale October 18, 2022
Frizzy by Claribel A. Ortega | Graphic Novel
A middle grade graphic novel about Marlene, a young girl who stops straightening her hair and embraces her natural curls.
Marlene loves three things: books, her cool Tía Ruby and hanging out with her best friend Camila. But according to her mother, Paola, the only thing she needs to focus on is school and growing up. That means straightening her hair every weekend so she could have presentable, good hair.
But Marlene hates being in the salon and doesn't understand why her curls are not considered pretty by those around her. With a few hiccups, a dash of embarrassment, and the much-needed help of Camila and Tia Ruby--she slowly starts a journey to learn to appreciate and proudly wear her curly hair.
on sale October 25, 2022
A Touch of Moonlight by Yaffa S. Santos | Fiction
Larimar Cintrón works hard at three things: her job as brand manager for Beacon Café, a New York based corporate bakery chain; taking care of her parents and her abuela; and hiding that she's a ciguapa--a mythical creature of Dominican folklore with long, straight hair and backwards-facing feet. Larimar may only be a ciguapa on full moons, but she feels like an outsider in her family the rest of the month too. Her love of '90s punk rock music and style further sets her apart. But when her best friend introduces her to Ray, a bakery owner and fellow punk rock lover, Larimar thinks she may have finally found someone with whom she can be her true self.
As Beacon's brand manager, Larimar oversees all new location openings, including its newest store in New Jersey, which could be the project that finally lands her a coveted promotion. But when she discovers the location is right across from Ray's bakery, Borrachitos, Larimar is torn between impressing her boss and saving Ray's business.
As Larimar continues to grow closer to Ray and the new store's opening looms, she struggles to hide the truth about herself and her job. But embracing her magical nature may be the only way Larimar can have everything she wants. Witty and poignant, A Touch of Moonlight is a celebration of heritage, culture, and identity--of embracing yourself and finding your place in the world.
A Seed in the Sun by Aida Salazar | Middle Grade
Lula Viramontes aches to one day become someone whom no one can ignore: a daring ringleader in a Mexican traveling circus. But between working the grape harvest in Delano, California, with her older siblings under dangerous conditions; taking care of her younger siblings and Mamá, who has mysteriously fallen ill; and doing everything she can to avoid Papá's volatile temper, it's hard to hold on to those dreams.
Then she meets Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong, and other labor rights activists and realizes she may need to raise her voice sooner rather than later: Farmworkers are striking for better treatment and wages, and whether Lula's family joins them or not will determine their future.
On Sale October 27, 2022
Santiago's Dinosaurios by Mariana Rios Ramirez | Picture Book
Santiago finds a way to connect to his classmates--through dinosaurios!
Santiago is new to the United States, and he doesn't speak English. On his first day of school, how will he connect with his peers? Santiago learns that even when you don't speak the same language, some interests--like dinosaurs--are universal.
