What a busy month full of new releases! We’ve got some exciting picks for most anticipated books this August, check out our list below to find the newest addition to your TBR pile. 📚✨
Menudo Sunday: A Spanglish Counting Book by María Dolores Águila | Illustrated by Erika Meza | PICTURE BOOK
Sundays are the best: that’s when a little girl and her mamá, abuelitos, tías and primos all gather together to eat yummy menudo, a traditional Mexican soup. But when playtime with the cousins and family dogs gets out of hand and Abuelito Esteban’s special bowl of menudo breaks, everyone has to pitch in to make a new batch! Through all the menudo mishaps and sneaky snacks for perritos with wagging tails, young readers will giggle as they learn to count from 1-15 in Spanish and English.
Bonus materials at the back of the book include a glossary of Spanish words, a note from the author, and tips for hosting your very own Menudo Sunday!
Solitaria by Eliana Alvez Cruz | Translated by Benjamin Brooks | ADULT FICTION
Mabel has been staying in the Golden Plate—the most expensive building on the block, in an unnamed city in Brazil—for almost her entire life. Yet her presence there is merely tolerated: she inhabits a miniscule room with her mother, Eunice, who alongside Mabel provides round-the-clock attention and care for the wealthy family who lives there. As Mabel grows up, her dissatisfaction with the forced smallness of her life becomes difficult to bear, and she is driven to work toward new possibilities for herself.
Eunice does the best that she can—uneducated, and with a daughter and ailing mother both depending solely on her, her life is a series of limitations. She moves through the rooms of the penthouse suite in silent servitude, and though Mabel is ashamed of this invisibility act they've both perfected, the era of slavery is still fresh in the country's consciousness, and Eunice thinks it best not to dwell too hard on such things. But when tragedy strikes, and a little boy dies, Eunice must decide if she can face the indifference and injustices of the ruling class she has spent so long orbiting.
Told through direct, agile and evocative prose, Solitaria is a liberation novel of the most rousing order. Through the book's awareness of space and whose presence is permissible, the world of the Golden Plate unfurls, and an unflinching portrait emerges of modern-day Brazil, its legacies of colonial violence haunting rooms across the country, both big and small.
Marisol Acts the Part by Elle Gonzalez Rose | YOUNG ADULT
Actress Marisol Polly-Rodriguez might be entering her flop era. After wrapping up a hit show, she’s neither booked nor busy. Not to mention, her former costar turned boyfriend, Miles, recently dumped her for being an “unserious” performer. Can you imagine?
To prove to Miles—and online trolls—that she takes her craft very seriously, Marisol lands a role on the same upcoming drama series he does. But with the eccentric director constantly rewriting her lines and a snobby castmate trying to upstage her, Marisol quickly realizes that her hope of nabbing an award nomination might be a pipe dream.
The only person she doesn’t have to put on a performance for is the show’s leading lady, Jamila. Marisol hasn’t been able to look away from her since their first audition. Falling for Jamila wasn’t part of Marisol’s plan, but even the most dedicated actors go off script sometimes, right?
The Darién Gap: A Reporter's Journey Through the Deadly Crossroads of the Americas by Belén Fernández | NONFICTION
The narrow Darién Gap, the only land bridge connecting South and Central America, encompasses a spectacularly hostile jungle, covered in steep mountains, dense rainforests, and flood-prone marshes. Known in Spanish as el infierno verde, or "the green hell," it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world. Its terrain is too treacherous for roads, yet hundreds of thousands of refuge seekers contend with its horrors every year in the hopes of reaching the United States, still some three thousand miles away. And of the countless who set out for the border, an untold number never arrive.
In this book, journalist Belén Fernández visits the Darién Gap to report on the dehumanizing and deadly stretch of land that has become a mass graveyard for migrants. Fernández's travels bring her into contact with refuge seekers, people smugglers, law enforcement officials, and many more whose stories bring life to a place overwhelmingly associated with death. Combining history, on-the-ground reporting, travelogue, memoir, and searing politico-economic analysis, she shines light on a largely made-in-the-USA crisis that has come to define our modern era.
Engrossing and heartrending, The Darién Gap is a poignant and compassionate indictment of structural inequality and institutionalized inhumanity in a world where the have-nots must risk death for a chance at a better life--or any life at all.
Wanda Hears the Stars: A Blind Astronomer Listens to the Universe by Amy S. Hansen & Wanda Díaz Merced | Illustrated by Rocio Arreola Mendoza | CHILDREN’S
Growing up in Puerto Rico, Wanda Díaz Merced wanted to learn everything she could about the stars. But in college she started losing her sight. How could she study what she couldn't see?
Wanda found a way. She learned to hear the stars using sonification, which converts data into sounds. Listening to those chimes and drumbeats, she made new discoveries about the universe.
Today Wanda is a leading advocate for inclusive science. She and her friend Amy S. Hansen collaborated on this book to inspire children to follow their curiosity no matter the challenges. As Wanda urges, "Never give up!"
Wanda Hears the Stars is the perfect picture book biography to inspire any STEM-minded future scientist!
Gabriela and His Grace by Liana De la Rosa | ADULT FICTION
As the youngest and most rebellious daughter of the overly protective Luna family, Gabriela Luna Valdés claws after her freedom in any way she can. This time, her hunger for adventure has led her aboard a windswept ship bearing for her homeland, away from a mob of fumbling British suitors. But Gabby can’t escape her father’s expectation that she settle down to find a proper husband—a compromise she’s unwilling to make.
For Sebastian Brooks, Duke of Whitfield, the trip to Mexico is his last chance. His last chance to rectify his family’s estate and refill their dwindling coffers. And his last chance to match wits with the sharp-tongued but deliciously tempting Gabriela.
When Gabby finds herself in need of a hasty escape, Sebastian agrees to assist her…but their close proximity sparks a red-hot passion that could ruin all their plans. With scandal looming, can Sebastian convince Gabby his regard is sincere or will she sail away with his heart?
