Bringing the Wonders of Nature to All Children with Where Wonder Grows
The duo behind Pura Belpré Award winner, All Around Us, return with another exciting collaboration, Where Wonder Grows. Written by Xelena González and illustrated by Adriana M. Garcia, Where Wonder Grows is a breath-taking exploration into the wonder of the natural world.
Inspired by their classroom visits from all over the country, González and Garcia create a visually stunning, poetically simple and yet sublime story of three young mestizo* girls exploring the grandeur of their grandmother’s special rock garden through their cherished Indigenous traditions.
In their garden where wonder grows and stories blossom, their grandmother relays all the varied collective elements of nature that created or shaped these cherished beings; fire from volcanoes and ocean waters are beautifully depicted across the page — a privilege to behold and consume.
Cinco Puntos Press website.
A truly engaging and imaginative story, creating the space to appreciate nature as it stands and as it has been, will allow young readers to creativity explore their own backyards thoughtfully, affording the conversations around the power of our environment by investigating the beauty of rocks, shells, crystals, and meteorites.
An Own Voices picture book, Where Wonder Grows, is an invaluable and unique story, exemplary of what BIPOC authors and illustrators have to share. And in a time where children consistently find themselves managing screen time and the ongoing stress of the pandemic, González and Garcia provide a meditational work that provides an escape into the natural world as appreciated and respected through the lens of sacred Indigenous beliefs.
Where Wonder Grows is a powerful and intimate tribute to the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation and the mysteries of nature as appreciated through the nation’s ancestral culture. Encouraging all children to connect with nature in their own backyards, this gorgeous book is set to be a cornerstone family favorite.
*Mestizo: of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry, common in Mexican and Mexican-Americans.
Chelsea Villareal is a Queer Mexican-American Children’s Media Strategist from Portland, Oregon. She holds a BUPA in Political Science & Media Studies from Portland State University and is currently enrolled in her Masters at Columbia University, TC. She works on the Brand Marketing team at Penguin Young Readers and also holds down the role of Program Manager at We Need Diverse Books. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and two crazy, lazy feline beasts.
La Consejería: What is the best way to get an agent?
Q: What is the best way to get an agent? Muchísimas gracias por su ayuda!
A: The first step is research! There are a lot of agent databases available to you like Manuscript Wishlist, QueryTracker, and AgentQuery. Latinx in Publishing also hosts a list of agents who have expressed interest in representing/currently represent Latinx authors and illustrators on our website. Another resource you can refer to is Literary Agents of Color. There’s also Publishers Marketplace; however, you’ll need to be pay a membership fee to access it.
Create a list of agents who represent the books in the genre you’ve written in and are currently open to queries. But remember to be thorough in your research and to protect yourself as well—if someone is asking you to pay a fee they are not a reputable agent.
Now that you've done your research and made your list, it’s time to start querying. As you are writing personalized query letters to each agent make sure that you are following their submission guidelines exactly. Agents receive hundreds of queries, and they have specific guidelines for a reason.
Finally, after your queries have been sent and you’re waiting for them to respond, it’s alway good to follow up if you haven’t heard a response in fair amount of time (at least six weeks).
To submit your own question to La Consejería, click here and fill out the form!
Embracing Brown Power with Miscolta’s Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories
Angie Rubio’s last name means “blond” in Spanish—isn’t that funny? As an elementary schooler, she thinks it’s a great joke, despite the fact that her white friends don’t seem to understand. Angie has dark hair and Brown skin, just like the rest of her family, and as she grows older, she finds it’s not just her jokes that her friends don’t seem to get.
Donna Miscolta’s Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories, a collection of linked stories mostly set in the 1960s and 1970s in California, is filled with these little gems. Through this moment and others, Angie, a Mexican-American Navy brat, finds that she is different from her classmates. She does not have blond hair, or blue eyes, and she certainly doesn’t have the popularity of her peers that do. She is often alienated and abandoned by the school pack, left feeling the ‘alone’ that so many of us feel when we’re not meant to feel the belonging orchestrated by those who apparently have the say-so. “Popularity isn’t everything,” Angie’s mother frequently says.
Jaded Ibis Press website.
As the book follows Angie from kindergarten up to her senior year in high school, she explores a myriad of relationship dynamics at home and at school, and there are often disconnects. For one, Angie’s mother does not speak Spanish directly to her children, so Angie and her siblings often wonder what her mother is saying to her aunt—especially when they one day decide to give Angie and her sister unexpected perms.
When Angie’s family finally settles in California, where her father explores a new career after the Navy, she begins to foster stronger connections to her new community and to herself. Best friendships fade, microaggressions become unbearable, and her passion for writing and activism burgeons.
As Angie enters adolescence, her wit and bravery shine as her intolerance for systemic racism against herself and her family grows. She is shy, but holds her own against the onslaught of a privileged white narrative imposed on her every day at school. At home her older sister, Eva, the smart one, frequently reminds her, especially during the toughest moments of Angie’s self-realization, that they, indeed, are different. This time, however, it’s a fact that Angie begins to embrace.
Angie’s high school years are a true pleasure to behold—a young woman coming into her own and moving toward a promising future. She enjoys speech club, takes advanced classes, and even tries out with her best friends for cheerleading. Despite her friends’ triumphs, they are still often silenced or rejected because of their differences from popular girls like Judy. “Brown power,” they say together, knowing they will soon be able to escape their high school’s ongoing oppression.
Donna Miscolta’s Living Color is an intimate exploration of the intersectional identity of a young Mexican-American girl, and the tensions between what she’s been told is true and the truth itself. Just as Angie takes a powerful step forward in determining her own future, her own way, Latinx youth should all keep these words close to the chest: Brown power, for today and for tomorrow.
Chelsea Villareal is a Queer Mexican-American Children’s Media Strategist from Portland, Oregon. She holds a BUPA in Political Science & Media Studies from Portland State University and is currently enrolled in her Masters at Columbia University, TC. She works on the Brand Marketing team at Penguin Young Readers and also holds down the role of Program Manager at We Need Diverse Books. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and two crazy, lazy feline beasts.
September 2020 Latinx Releases
September 1, 2020
CEMETERY BOYS | Young Adult
by Aiden Thomas (Feiwel & Friends)
When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.
However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school's resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He's determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.
FEATHERED SERPENT AND THE FIVE SUNS: A MESOAMERICAN CREATION MYTH | Picture Book
by Duncan Tonatiuh (Abrams BFYR)
Long ago, the gods of Mesoamerica set out to create humans. They tried many times during each sun, or age. When all their attempts failed and the gods grew tired, only one did not give up: Quetzalcóatl—the Feathered Serpent. To continue, he first had to retrieve the sacred bones of creation guarded by Mictlantecuhtli, lord of the underworld. Gathering his staff, shield, cloak, and shell ornament for good luck, Feathered Serpent embarked on the dangerous quest to create humankind.
Award-winning author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh brings to life the story of Feathered Serpent, one of the most important deities in ancient Mesoamerica. With his instantly recognizable, acclaimed art style and grand storytelling, Tonatiuh recounts a thrilling creation tale of epic proportions.
GABI, FRAGMENTOS DE UNA ADOLESCENTE | Young Adult
by Isabel Quintero (Vintage Español)
Gabi aún no entiende quién es. Escribir la ayudará a juntar sus pedazos.
Gabi Hernández está en su último año de la preparatoria. Para entretenerse, escribe todo lo que le pasa en su diario: las solicitudes a las universidades, el embarazo de Cindy, cuando Sebastián salió del clóset, los chicos guapos de su clase, la adicción de su padre a la metanfetamina, y toda la comida que se le antoja. Pero lo mejor de todo lo que escribe es la poesía que la ayuda a ser quien es.
MAÑANALAND | Middle Grade
by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Scholastic)
Maximiliano Córdoba loves stories, especially the legend Buelo tells him about a mythical gatekeeper who can guide brave travelers on a journey into tomorrow.
If Max could see tomorrow, he would know if he'd make Santa Maria's celebrated fútbol team and whether he'd ever meet his mother, who disappeared when he was a baby. He longs to know more about her, but Papá won't talk. So when Max uncovers a buried family secret — involving an underground network of guardians who lead people fleeing a neighboring country to safety — he decides to seek answers on his own.
With a treasured compass, a mysterious stone rubbing, and Buelo's legend as his only guides, he sets out on a perilous quest to discover if he is true of heart and what the future holds.
This timeless tale of struggle, hope, and the search for tomorrow has much to offer today about compassion and our shared humanity.
PUNCHING THE AIR | Young Adult
by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam (Balzer + Bray)
Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.
The story that I think
will be my life
starts today
Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?
With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.
RISE OF THE HALFLING KING | Middle Graphic Novel
by David Boowles; Illus. by Charlene Bowles (Cinco Puntos Press)
Sayam has always been different from other kids―he’s very short for his age, his best friend is a monkey, and most curious of all: he was born from an egg! His grandmother, a witch, found him and taught him all the ancient magic she uses to help her people. So when a giant snake starts terrorizing a nearby city, Sayam decides it’s time for him to use his knowledge to help others, and steps into action. But the beast might not be Sayam’s biggest problem: the ruthless King Kinich Kak Ek sees Sayam as a threat to his throne. Prophecy declares that whoever succeeds at three impossible tests will be king. Monstrous snakes and impossible tests are a lot for a boy to handle, but Sayam is brave and has a loyal monkey, a wise grandmother, and magical knowledge on his side!
SANCTUARY | Young Adult
by Paola Mendoza & Abby Sher (Putnam Books)
It’s 2032, and in this near-future America, all citizens are chipped and everyone is tracked–from buses to grocery stores. It’s almost impossible to survive as an undocumented immigrant, but that’s exactly what sixteen-year-old Vali is doing. She and her family have carved out a stable, happy life in small-town Vermont, but when Vali’s mother’s counterfeit chip starts malfunctioning and the Deportation Forces raid their town, they are forced to flee.
Now on the run, Vali and her family are desperately trying to make it to her tía Luna’s in California, a sanctuary state that is currently being walled off from the rest of the country. But when Vali’s mother is detained before their journey even really begins, Vali must carry on with her younger brother across the country to make it to safety before it’s too late.
THE SHADOW CROSSER | Middle Grade
by J. C. Cervantes (Disney Hyperion)
Zane Obispo has been looking forward to his training at the Shaman Institute for Higher Order Magic, and not only because it means he'll be reunited with his best friend, Brooks. Anything would be better than how he has spent the last three months: searching for the remaining godborns with a nasty demon who can sniff them out (literally). But when Zane tracks down the last kid on his list, he's in for a surprise: the "one" is actually a pair of twins, and they're trying to prevent a mysterious object from falling into the wrong hands.
After a shocking betrayal, Zane finds himself at SHIHOM sooner than expected. Even more shocking is the news that the Maya gods have gone missing. The bat god, Camazotz, and Ixkik' (aka Blood Moon) have taken them out of commission . . . and the godborns are their next target. The only thing the villains need now? The object that the twins possess.Zane knows the godborns aren't strong enough yet to stand up to Zotz, Ixkik', and their army. There might be a way to save the gods, but it involves locating a magical calendar that can see across time and space . . . not to mention traveling more than thirty years into the past. In The Shadow Crosser, Zane and his friends embark on their most treacherous mission yet--a mission that, with one blunder, could change history as we know it, and worse, destroy the universe.
UNFORGETTING | Memoir
by Roberto Lovato (Harper)
In Unforgetting, Roberto interweaves his father’s complicated history and his own with first-hand reportage on gang life, state violence, and the heart of the immigration crisis in both El Salvador and the United States. In doing so he makes the political personal, revealing the cyclical ways violence operates in our homes and our societies, as well as the ways hope and tenderness can rise up out of the darkness if we are courageous enough to unforget.
WAYWARD WITCH | Young Adult
by Zoraida Córdova (Sourcebooks Fire)
Rose Mortiz has always been a fixer, but lately she's been feeling lost. She has brand new powers that she doesn't understand, and her family is still trying to figure out how to function in the wake of her amnesiac father's return home. Then, on the night of her Deathday party, Rose discovers her father's memory loss has been a lie.
As she rushes to his side, the two are ambushed and pulled through a portal to the land of Adas, a fairy realm hidden in the Caribbean Sea. There Rose is forced to work with a group of others to save Adas. Soon, she begins to discover the scope of her powers, the troubling truth about her father's past, and the sacrifices he made to save her sisters. But if Rose wants to return home so that she can repair her broken family, she must figure out how to heal Adas first.
September 8, 2020
BRONX SHAPES | Picture Book
by Alex Rivera (Kokila)
Take a walk through the Bronx and what do you see? CIRCLE wheels on a classic tricycle, a vast DIAMOND where the Yankees play baseball, colorful TRIANGLE flags above the bodega, and more! Bronxshapes, the second board book in a new series, teaches young readers about shapes through Bronx native Alex Rivera’s eye-catching photographs and creative design. The small square trim (7″ x 7″) and sturdy pages are a perfect format for toddlers, and the content inside promotes language acquisition and concept learning in both English and Spanish. Curl up with your little one for a bilingual story time that helps them reach important developmental milestones.
BRONX TONES | Picture Book
by Alex Rivera (Kokila)
Where can you find your best friend playing with a RED balloon, tamales from your favorite GREEN cart, or YELLOW pineapple raspados? The Bronx! Bronxtones, the first board book in a new series, teaches young readers about colors through the vibrant palette of the Bronx, as captured by Bronx native Alex Rivera’s eye-catching photographs and creative design. The small square trim (7″ x 7″) and sturdy pages are a perfect format for toddlers, and the content inside promotes language acquisition and concept learning in both English and Spanish. Curl up with your little one for a bilingual story time that helps them reach important developmental milestones.
CARMEN SANDIEGO: SECRETS OF THE SILVER LION | Middle Grade
by Emma Otheguy (HMH)
From the bustling streets of New York City to the cobblestones of Seville and the silver mines high in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia, Carmen is off on another quest to stop VILE in this heart-pounding caper full of twists and turns!
For centuries, the magnificent Throne of Felipe has stood with two empty spaces beside its famous silver arrow—spaces where the silver castle and lion should have been. And now, with the recent discovery of the silver castle within a secret vault in Seville, Spain, the hunt is on for the third silver icon. With all three pieces in the place, the throne will be enormously valuable—making it a hot item on VILE’s radar. Now it’s up to Carmen and crew to find the silver lion before VILE does, and protect the throne from winding up in the wrong hands.
DIGGING FOR WORDS: JOSÉ ALBERTO GUTIÉRREZ AND THE LIBRARY HE BUILT| Picture Book
by Angela Burke Kunkel; Illus. by Paola Escobar (Schwartz & Wade)
In the city of Bogata, in the barrio of La Nueva Gloria, there live two Joses. One is a boy who dreams of Saturdays-- that's the day he gets to visit Paradise, the library. The second Jose is a garbage collector. From dusk until dawn, he scans the sidewalks as he drives, squinting in the dim light, searching household trash for hidden treasure . . . books! Some are stacked in neat piles, as if waiting for José́. Others take a bit more digging. Ever since he found his first book, Anna Karenina, years earlier, he's been collecting books--thick ones and thin ones, worn ones and almost new ones-- to add to the collection in his home. And on Saturdays, kids like little Jose run to the steps of Paradise to discover a world filled with books and wonder.
EVELYN DEL REY IS MOVING AWAY | Picture Books
by Meg Medina; Illus. by Sonia Sánchez (Candlewick)
Evelyn Del Rey is Daniela’s best friend. They do everything together and even live in twin apartments across the street from each other: Daniela with her mami and hamster, and Evelyn with her mami, papi, and cat. But not after today—not after Evelyn moves away. Until then, the girls play amid the moving boxes until it’s time to say goodbye, making promises to keep in touch, because they know that their friendship will always be special. The tenderness of Meg Medina’s beautifully written story about friendship and change is balanced by Sonia Sánchez’s colorful and vibrant depictions of the girls’ urban neighborhood.
LILLYBELLE: A DAMSEL NOT IN DISTRESS | Picture Book
by Joana Pastro; Illus. by Jhon Ortiz (Boyds Mills Press)
At the School for Damsels, LillyBelle enjoys many damsel-in-training classes, like cake baking and vocal training, but the rule that a damsel must be in distress . . . not so much. When she's captured by one villain after another, LillyBelle will need to use her charm and her wit to save herself and prove once and for all that damsels don't have to be in distress--all in time for tea!
LUPE WONG WON’T DANCE | Middle Grade
by Donna Barba Higuera (Levine Querido)
Lupe Wong is going to be the first female pitcher in the Major Leagues.
She's also championed causes her whole young life. Some worthy…like expanding the options for race on school tests beyond just a few bubbles. And some not so much…like complaining to the BBC about the length between Doctor Who seasons.
Lupe needs an A in all her classes in order to meet her favorite pitcher, Fu Li Hernandez, who's Chinacan/Mexinese just like her. So when the horror that is square dancing rears its head in gym? Obviously she's not gonna let that slide.
PRIME DECEPTIONS | Science Fiction
by Valeri Valdes (Harper Voyager)
Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra find themselves once again on the fringe of populated space—and at the center of a raging covert war. When Eva’s sister asks for help locating a missing scientist, promises of a big paycheck and a noble cause convince Eva to take the job despite lingering trust issues.
With reluctant assistance from her estranged mother, Eva and her crew follow the missing scientist’s trail across the universe, from the costume-filled halls of a never-ending convention to a dangerous bot-fighting arena. They ultimately find themselves at the last place Eva wants to see again—Garilia—where she experienced her most shameful and haunting failure.
To complete her mission and get paid, Eva must navigate a paradise embroiled in a rebellion, where massive forests and pristine beaches hide psychic creatures and pervasive surveillance technology. Can she find her quarry while avoiding the oppressive local regime, or will she be doomed to repeat past mistakes when her dark deeds come to light?
THE ROCK THROUGH THE LENS: HIS LIFE, HIS MOVIES, HIS WORLD | Biography
by Hiram Garcia (St. Martin’s Press)
Hiram Garcia, who has known Dwayne Johnson since college, is a longtime collaborator, producing partner, and talented photographer. As a film and television producer as well as in his role as the President of Production at Seven Bucks Productions, Garcia has unprecedented access to capture images on the sets of Seven Bucks’ films including such blockbuster hits as Jumanji: The Next Level, Jungle Cruise, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, and more.
As one of his closest friends, Garcia knows Johnson inside and out, and that deep relationship informs the photographs he shares in this book. Whether it’s an action-packed photo snapped during an intense film take, or a relaxed and candid shot of Johnson with his daughters, Garcia focuses his lens on the qualities he most admires in his friend: his extraordinary work ethic, his infectious smile, his empathy and sense of humor, and the joy and determination Johnson brings to everything he does.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING THROUGH| Literary Fiction
by Sigrid Nunez (Riverhead Books)
In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.
September 15, 2020
EACH OF US A DESERT | Young Adult
by Mark Oshiro (Tor Teen)
Xochitl is destined to wander the desert alone, speaking her troubled village's stories into its arid winds. Her only companions are the blessed stars above and enigmatic lines of poetry magically strewn across dusty dunes.
Her one desire: to share her heart with a kindred spirit.
One night, Xo's wish is granted—in the form of Emilia, the cold and beautiful daughter of the town's murderous conqueror. But when the two set out on a magical journey across the desert, they find their hearts could be a match... if only they can survive the nightmare-like terrors that arise when the sun goes down.
EIGHTEEN INCHES: THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE HEART AND MIND | Poetry
by Mirtha Michelle Castro Mármol (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
This book is one woman’s account of her longing to know herself fully. Her mind, body, and soul. This book might make you cry, fill you with nostalgia, empower you, or even give you hope. You might not see eye to eye with every idea inside, but with any luck you’ll see your soul reflected in its pages. You will question things. You will remember your past. You will be thankful for your present. You will dream a new dream. Above all, you will feel. Welcome to the journey of Eighteen Inches, a battlefield between a woman’s beat-up heart and her complex mind.
FURIA | Young Adult
by Yamile Saied Méndez (Algonquin Young Readers)
In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan lives a double life.
At home, she is a careful daughter, living within her mother’s narrow expectations, in her rising-soccer-star brother’s shadow, and under the abusive rule of her short-tempered father.
On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. When her team qualifies for the South American tournament, Camila gets the chance to see just how far those talents can take her. In her wildest dreams, she’d get an athletic scholarship to a North American university.
But the path ahead isn’t easy. Her parents don’t know about her passion. They wouldn’t allow a girl to play fútbol—and she needs their permission to go any farther. And the boy she once loved is back in town. Since he left, Diego has become an international star, playing in Italy for the renowned team Juventus. Camila doesn’t have time to be distracted by her feelings for him. Things aren’t the same as when he left: she has her own passions and ambitions now, and La Furia cannot be denied. As her life becomes more complicated, Camila is forced to face her secrets and make her way in a world with no place for the dreams and ambition of a girl like her.
LAND OF THE CRANES | Middle Grade
by Aida Salazar (Scholastic)
Nine-year-old Betita knows she is a crane. Papi has told her the story, even before her family fled to Los Angeles to seek refuge from cartel wars in Mexico. The Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan, what is now the Southwest US, called the land of the cranes. They left Aztlan to establish their great city in the center of the universe — Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. It was prophesized that their people would one day return to live among the cranes in their promised land. Papi tells Betita that they are cranes that have come home.
Then one day, Betita's beloved father is arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Mexico. Betita and her pregnant mother are left behind on their own, but soon they too are detained and must learn to survive in a family detention camp outside of Los Angeles. Even in cruel and inhumane conditions, Betita finds heart in her own poetry and in the community she and her mother find in the camp. The voices of her fellow asylum-seekers fly above the hatred keeping them caged, but each day threatens to tear them down lower than they ever thought they could be. Will Betita and her family ever be whole again?
ONCE I WAS YOU: A MEMOIR OF LOVE AND HATE IN A TORN AMERICA | Memoir
by Maria Hinojosa (Atria Books)
In Once I Was You, Maria shares her intimate experience growing up Mexican American on the south side of Chicago and documenting the existential wasteland of immigration detention camps for news outlets that often challenged her work. In these pages, she offers a personal and eye-opening account of how the rhetoric around immigration has not only long informed American attitudes toward outsiders, but also enabled willful negligence and profiteering at the expense of our country’s most vulnerable populations—charging us with the broken system we have today.
OUR SUBWAY BABY | Picture Book
by Peter Mercurio; Illus. by Leo Espinosa (Dial Books)
“Some babies are born into their families. Some are adopted. This is the story of how one baby found his family in the New York City subway.”
So begins the true story of Kevin and how he found his Daddy Danny and Papa Pete. Written in a direct address to his son, Pete’s moving and emotional text tells how his partner, Danny, found a baby tucked away in the corner of a subway station on his way home from work one day. Pete and Danny ended up adopting the baby together. Although neither of them had prepared for the prospect of parenthood, they are reminded, “Where there is love, anything is possible.”
NEVER LOOK BACK | Young Adult
by Lilliam Rivera (Bloomsbury)
Eury comes to the Bronx as a girl haunted. Haunted by losing everything in Hurricane Maria--and by an evil spirit, Ato. She fully expects the tragedy that befell her and her family in Puerto Rico to catch up with her in New York. Yet, for a time, she can almost set this fear aside, because there's this boy . . .
Pheus is a golden-voiced, bachata-singing charmer, ready to spend the summer on the beach with his friends, serenading his on-again, off-again flame. That changes when he meets Eury. All he wants is to put a smile on her face and fight off her demons. But some dangers are too powerful for even the strongest love, and as the world threatens to tear them apart, Eury and Pheus must fight for each other and their lives.
Featuring contemporary Afro-Latinx characters, this retelling of the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice is perfect for fans of Ibi Zoboi's Pride and Daniel José Older's Shadowshaper.
RESISTENCIA: POEMS OF PROTEST AND REVOLUTION | Poetry
Edited by Mark Eisner & Tina Escaja (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Included in English translation alongside their original language, the fifty-four poems in Resistencia are a testament to the art of translation as much as the act of resistance. An all-star team of translators, including former US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera along with young, emerging talent, have made many of the poems available for the first time to an English-speaking audience. Urgent, timely, and absolutely essential, these poems inspire us all to embrace our most fearless selves and unite against all forms of tyranny and oppression.
A WORLD TOGETHER | Picture Book
by Sonia Manzano (National Geographic Children’s Books)
This lovely picture book from a first-generation American affirms our common humanity as it presents the glorious similarities and differences that connect us all. It’s a charming book to share with friends and family and to read aloud with little ones. It has an inspiring message: With laugher and love, we can help bring a world together.
September 21, 2020
LIVING COLOR: ANGIE RUBIO STORIES | Literary Fiction
by Donna Miscolta (Jaded Ibis Press)
We first meet Angie Rubio at age five, being scolded by her kindergarten teacher for not knowing how to skip properly.
Set in California in the 1960s and '70s, Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories takes Angie year by year from kindergarten through high school, offering a portrait of the artist as a shy, awkward Mexican-American girl.
September 22, 2020
FLYING FREE: MY VICTORY OVER FEAR TO BECOME THE FIRST LATINA PILOT ON THE US AEROBATIC TEAM | Memoir
by Cecilia Aragon (Blackstone Publishing)
Flying Free is the story of how Cecilia Aragon broke free from expectations and rose above her own limits by combining math and logic with her passion for flying in unexpected ways. You don’t have to be a math whiz or a science geek to learn from her story. You just have to want to soar.
GOD-LEVEL KNOWLEDGE DARTS: LIFE LESSONS FROM THE BRONX | Nonfiction
by Desus & Mero (Random House)
Who could have predicted that, after a fateful meeting in a Bronx summer school in the 1990s, Desus & Mero would turn their friendship into an empire of talking to each other. And it’s no surprise—tuning in to them is like listening to the funniest, smartest people you know dissect a topic and then light it on fire. Now they’ve written the most essential guide to life of this century*, in which all the important questions are asked: How do I talk to my kids about drugs if I do them, too? What are the ethics of ghosting in a relationship? How do I bet on sports? How should I behave in jail? How much is too much to spend on sneakers? Is porn really that bad for me?
As they put it: “We want to share all we’ve learned, after years in the Bronx streets, with you: the people. So with a lifetime spent building up a plethora of information from trials and tribulations and a handful of misdemeanors, we decided to write this book—a sequel to the Bible, or maybe to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, depending on how big a nerd you are. Let this book be your North Star.”
IF DOMINICAN WERE A COLOR | Picture Book
by Sili Recio; Illus. by Brianna McCarthy (Denene Millner Books)
The palette of the Dominican Republic is exuberant and unlimited. Maiz comes up amarillo, the blue-black of dreams washes over sandy shores, and people’s skin can be the shade of cinnamon in cocoa or of mahogany. This exuberantly colorful, softly rhyming picture book is a gentle reminder that a nation’s hues are as wide as nature itself.
THE MAPS OF MEMORY: RETURN TO BUTTERFLY HILL | Middle Grade
by Marjorie Agosin; Illus. by Lee White (Atheneum Books)
During Celeste Marconi’s time in Maine, thoughts of the brightly colored cafes and salty air of Valparaíso, Chile, carried her through difficult, homesick days. Now, she’s finally returned home to find the dictatorship has left its mark on her once beautiful and vibrant community.
Celeste is determined to help her beloved Butterfly Hill get back to the way it was and to encourage her neighbors to fight to regain what they’ve lost. More than anything, Celeste wishes she could bring back her best friend, Lucilla, who was one of many to disappear during the dictatorship. Celeste tries to piece together what happened, but it all seems too big to fix—until she receives a letter that changes everything.
When Celeste sets off on her biggest adventure yet, she’ll uncover more heartbreaking truths of what her country has endured. But every small victory makes a difference, and even if Butterfly Hill can never be what it was, moving forward and healing can make it something even better.
MISS METEOR | Young Adult
by Tahlor Kay Mejia & Anna-Marie McLemore (HarperTeen)
There hasn’t been a winner of the Miss Meteor beauty pageant who looks like Lita Perez or Chicky Quintanilla in all its history.
But that’s not the only reason Lita wants to enter the contest, or her ex-best friend Chicky wants to help her. The road to becoming Miss Meteor isn’t about being perfect; it’s about sharing who you are with the world—and loving the parts of yourself no one else understands.
So to pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough—they are everything.
MÁS ALLÁ | Literary Fiction
by Julia Alvarez (Vintage Español)
Poco después de jubilarse de la universidad donde enseñaba literatura, Antonia Vega, una escritora latina, pierde a su adorado esposo y su vida parece desmoronarse de repente. Hasta entonces parecía haber encontrado consuelo en la literatura que ama—las palabras de sus autores preferidos dan vueltas en su cabeza como plegarias—, pero la desaparición de su hermana, con su personalidad impredecible y su gran corazón, junto con la aparición de una inmigrante ilegal en el garaje de su casa, devuelven a Antonia a la dura realidad. En estas circunstancias, el mundo requiere más que palabras.
Mas allá es una novela ágil y de prosa depurada. En momentos en los que reinan la confusión y el caos, la protagonista se plantea: ¿Le debemos algo a los que sufren, sean inmigrantes desconocidos o familiares cercanos? ¿Cómo podemos mantener la fe en los demás y en nosotros mismos en una realidad destrozada? Y, sobre todo, ¿cómo honramos a las personas que amamos y hemos perdido?
THE RESURRECTION OF FULGENCIO RAMIREZ | Literary Fiction
by Rudy Ruiz (Blackstone Publishing)
A work of magical realism, The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez weaves together the past and present as Fulgencio strives to succeed in America, break a mystical family curse, and win back Carolinais love after their doomed youthful romance. Through enchanting language and meditations about the porous nature of borders -- cultural, geographic, and otherworldly -- The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez offers a vision of how the past has divided us, and how the future could unite us.
VAMPIRES NEVER GET OLD: TALES WITH FRESH BITE | Young Adult
Edited by Zoraida Córdova & Natalie C. Parker (Imprint)
In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out—and going out for their first kill—and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night.
WHITE FOX | Young Adult
by Sara Faring (Imprint)
After their world-famous actor mother disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Manon and Thaïs left their remote Mediterranean island home—sent away by their pharma-tech tycoon father. Opposites in every way, the sisters drifted apart in their grief. Yet their mother's unfinished story still haunts them both, and they can't put to rest the possibility that she is still alive.
Lured home a decade later, Manon and Thaïs discover their mother’s legendary last work, long thought lost: White Fox, a screenplay filled with enigmatic metaphors. The clues in this dark fairytale draw them deep into the island's surreal society, into the twisted secrets hidden by their glittering family, to reveal the truth about their mother—and themselves.
September 25, 2020
TERMINAL 3 | Science Fiction
by Illimani Ferreira (Möbius Books)
It is the dawn of the 22nd century, and Earth is on the “Fabulous Side of the Galaxy.”
Imagine the future. Not the flossy-glossy one that feels like riding a Tesla driven by a coked out Ayn Rand. No. Imagine instead... a future somewhere between a white cishet libertarian’s wet dream with sexbots and a nightmare Greta Thunberg had during a nap after eating expired tofu chimichangas. Can you picture that? No? Try this:
Los Angeles has become a main hub of the Galactic Confederation – a relay outpost for extra terrestrial travelers coming from and going to the Norma and Scotus-Centaurus arms of the Milky Way, also known as ‘The Effed Up Side of the Galaxy.’
After his mom disappeared during a quantum terrorist attack when he was a boy, Gabe Chagas decided to follow in her footsteps and become a member of the LAX Security force, where he spends his time deporting aliens for a living.
Gabe isn’t particularly fit. As a matter of fact, he’s a total wimp. What he lacks in courage, he also lacks in brains. But when Gabe receives a cryptic message directing him to a non-existent gate in LAX’s infamous Terminal 3 promising answers for his mother’s disappearance – and her presumed status as an undocumented time traveler – his own terrestrial residency falls under scrutiny.
Welcome to Terminal 3.
Your flight WILL be delayed.
September 29, 2020
HISTORICALLY INACCURATE | Young Adult
by Shay Bravo (Wattpad Books)
After her mother’s deportation last year, all Soledad “Sol” Gutierrez wants is for her life to go back to normal. Everything’s changed―new apartment, new school, new family dynamic―and Sol desperately wants to fit in. When she joins her community college’s history club, it comes with an odd initiation process: break into Westray’s oldest house and steal . . . a fork?
There’s just one problem: while the owners of the house aren’t home, their grandson Ethan is, and when he catches Sol with her hand in the kitchen drawer, she barely escapes with the fork intact. This one chance encounter irrevocably alters her life, and Sol soon learns that sometimes fitting in isn’t as important as being yourself―even if that’s the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.
LORD HELP ME: INSPIRING PRAYERS FOR EVERY DAY | Picture Book
by Emme Muñiz; Illus. by Brenda Figueroa (Crown Books for Young Readers)
We all have moments every day where we can use a little help. Some are small, like waking up for school or getting along with a sibling. Others are big, like helping to save the planet and all its creatures—especially sloths! But asking God for help always brings us the strength to get through anything. Emme Muñiz shares her own daily prayers to offer families a way to embrace the peace and power of everyday faith.
Read an Excerpt from Lupe Wong Won't Dance by Donna Barba Higuera, out September 2020
Latinx in Publishing is pleased to share an excerpt from Lupe Wong Won’t Dance by Donna Barba Higuera, out on September 8th.
Lupe Wong is going to be the first female pitcher in the Major Leagues. She's also championed causes her whole young life. Some worthy…like expanding the options for race on school tests beyond just a few bubbles. And some not so much…like complaining to the BBC about the length between Doctor Who seasons. Lupe needs an A in all her classes in order to meet her favorite pitcher, Fu Li Hernandez, who's Chinacan/Mexinese just like her. So when the horror that is square dancing rears its head in gym? Obviously she's not gonna let that slide.
“Welcome to this quarter’s curriculum, class!”
I’ve never associated the inside of a gym with such horror. There has to be a way to make it stop. Fu Li Hernandez wouldn’t be caught dead square dancing. Dancing belongs in nightclubs and ballet studios, not a gym. And square dancing belongs somewhere far away where it can’t embarrass anyone, like the 1800s.
We spend the remaining twenty minutes of P.E. watching different versions of the same routine. I’m clenching my toes inside my shoes the entire time. I glance down the line. Most faces are aghast, like they just saw their grandma in her underwear. Except Carl Trondson’s mouth is slightly ajar and his eyes are closed. Is he seriously sleeping through this horror? And Gordon Schnelly, he’s actually tapping his foot along with the music! Each square dance starts with a different man or woman, all with Southern accents, wailing, “If it hadn’t been for Cotton-Eyed Joe, I’d been married a long time ago.”
When the women sing, Cotton-Eyed Joe sounds like even more of a jerk. What had he done to them that they all would’ve been married and happy if he hadn’t come along? Bad enough that Cotton-Eyed Joe had ruined their lives—now he’s trying to ruin mine.
Finally, the torture of the music and watching Coach Solden jog around flailing her arms and legs is over. But some things you can’t unsee.
“By the way.” Coach gives us a wink. “Lace up your dancing shoes. We start tomorrow.”
An icy shiver runs up my spine. A low groan echoes through the gym. I think I hear someone clap, but it must be my imagination. Shoulders sagging, we retreat to the locker rooms.
Andy and I change quickly and head to wait outside the boys’ locker room.
Blake walks out wearing our team’s Issaquah Select baseball jersey and gives me a fist bump. “Hey, Lupe. How’s the arm?”
I make a muscle, and Blake leans in squinting. I chuck him on the shoulder and we both start laughing.
He walks away and Andy rolls her eyes. “You guys are dorks,” she says.
As the last of the boys stream out, I arch my head around the corner. “Niles! We’re not going to prom!”
“Sorry!” he yells back.
Gordon Schnelly beats him out. Gordon is sweating even though we didn’t do anything.
The two-minute warning bell rings. Niles walks out tying his “Annelids Unite! Save the Giant Palouse Earthworm!” sweatshirt around his waist. I might be what my mom calls “a social justice warrior,” but Niles is a huge advocate for our region’s endangered species. Unfortunately for Niles, the Pacific Northwest has some bizarre endangered animals.
“And just so you know, if you were trying to take me to prom, I wouldn’t come out at all.” He motions over his head for us to catch up, like we’re the ones who’ve made us late for our last class of the day.
We speed walk away from the gym and toward the main building. Other kids run past in the opposite direction. When the halls come into view, Andy, Niles, and I exchange a glance. Extra crammed halls mean extra danger.
In elementary school, Niles had Mr. Nguyen as his special ed. teacher back when we didn’t rotate classrooms. Now Niles goes to the Learning Resource Center (a.k.a. LRC) twice a week with Mr. Lambert, or when he, his mom, or a teacher requests it. Niles is on the autism spectrum, so they’ve worked his schedule so he doesn’t have to spend too much time in the halls. But our last class of the day takes us right down the main hallway. And this is one of those days that makes me nervous.
I lock elbows with Niles on one side and Andy on the other. The school hallways are outside, so even when it’s barely sprinkling (which is nearly every day in the Northwest), everyone rushes more. Kids jostle past one another like salmon in the river by our school. So our lame school mascot is appropriate for more than one reason. Someone even painted the halls mud and algae colors to make us feel like Sammy Sockeye too.
“Let’s go,” Andy says, just before we plunge in. We huddle close together and ease into the main hall.
A mechanical pencil falls out of Andy’s unzipped bag about two seconds in and I grab her before she bends down. “What are you doing?” I squeak out. I hand her one of my pencils and keep things moving. “Let it go. You could end up with a concussion or lose a limb.”
Andy stares back longingly as her pencil disappears in a twister of legs and feet.
Even though my brother, Paolo, routinely threatens to “return me to the zoo where my parents found me,” he liked me enough to warn me about the mortal dangers of the halls before I started middle school. “If you die, more food for me. But if you want to live through middle school, keep moving, and, never, ever stop to pick up something you’ve dropped.”
It’s like a Fast and the Furious speed track, but half the people are racing in the wrong direction. On the first day of middle school, Gordon Schnelly ran head-on into a kid with a scoliosis brace and chipped one front tooth and lost the other. He never did find the tooth that flew off the cement path into the mud sludge.
I dodge two chatty girls who are not respecting the passing lanes. When I see a quick break in the traffic, I whip around to face Niles and Andy and start walking backward.
“So, what do you think our plan should be?” I ask. “Plan for what?” Niles says. Andy also looks puzzled.
“Weren’t you there?” My voice is higher than usual. “To get rid of square dancing. I’d do almost anything else than bounce around like a doofus wearing a picnic blanket. Besides, P.E. is not the place for dancing.”
Andy rolls her eyes. “I see a new cause coming.”
Niles executes an impossible last-minute side step before he gets pummeled by a sprinter. “Would you rather eat raw maggot puke or learn the dance?” he says.
“Raw maggot puke for sure,” I say.
I come up with the two most disgusting things I can at the moment. “Would you rather dance with Samantha or eat locker room drain hair?” I ask.
“Drain hair, not even close,” Niles answers, and we burst out laughing.
Andy scoffs. “That’s not really helpful, you guys.”
Niles and I can’t get enough of our “would you rathers”; they’ve always been our thing. But they’re not really Andy’s. Between her mom’s mandated after-school computer coding and Colloquial Japanese for International Business classes, Andy probably doesn’t have room left in her brain for pondering much of anything else. And right now, she’s probably right. We have more important things to focus on.
“So how are we getting rid of square dancing?” I ask.
Used with permission from Levine Querido.
Donna Barba Higuera grew up in central California surrounded by agricultural and oil fields. As a child, rather than dealing with the regular dust devils, she preferred spending recess squirreled away in the janitor’s closet with a good book. Her favorite hobbies were calling dial-a-story over and over again, and sneaking into a restricted cemetery to weave her own spooky tales using the crumbling headstones as inspiration.
Donna's Young Adult and Middle Grade books feature characters drawn into creepy, situations, melding history, folklore, and or her own life experience into reinvented storylines. She still dreams in Spanglish.
Donna lives in Washington State with her family, three dogs and two frogs. Donna's backyard is a haunted 19th century logging camp. (The haunted part may or may not be true—she makes stuff up.) She is a Critique-Group-Coordinator for SCBWI-Western Washington and teaches “The Hero’s Journey for Young Authors” to future writers.
Lupe Wong Won’t Dance estará disponible en español como Lupe Wong no baila el 9 de febrero de 2021.
Mark Oshiro on The Unintended Education of Literature
I’m a new writer to fantasy, but one of the joys of getting to write within that genre is the freedom that comes with creation. To craft magical worlds, to imagine complicated systems, to write of lands that are mysterious and frightening and maybe a little recognizable… it’s been a treat bringing Each of Us A Desert to life.
I never thought I’d be a fantasy author! As I was working on what would be my second YA novel, I asked for advice and guidance from my fantasy-writing peers, and it was my dear friend Zoraida Córdova who gave me a warning to heed that is unique to fantasy authors of color. She said it would only be a matter of time before someone assumed that my fantasy world was not a creation of my own, but a clever “riff” or “expansion” of my culture.
And I’m here to tell y’all, weeks out from my second book being out in the world, that it’s already happening.
The first time, a lovely person who had managed to get an ARC early on sent me a message. I was flattered and blown away by their kind words about Desert, but then was left speechless by the closing remark:
“Thank you so much for teaching me about your culture.”
My culture? I assumed, at first, that this person meant… queer culture? Maybe? There’s a lot of queerness textually and sub-textually within Desert, but then I kept reading, and I was even more puzzled by their gratitude:
“I had never heard of the myth of the cuentistas, and I can’t wait to go look up more about them.”
Well, you’ve never heard of them because… it’s a fantasy book. I made it up. Because… it’s a fantasy book?
I knew what they were getting at though, and it struck right at the heart of what a lot of non-white fantasy writers have to deal with. Readers will consume our work, and often make the mistake that we must be basing these secondary worlds on our “culture.” Within that is something insidious and insulting, since it forms the basis of the assumption: that we don’t have the skills or the imagination to create a world that feels believable and real.
I wish I could say this was the only instance this has happened. Again, I’ll remind you that the book isn’t even out yet.
Courtesy of Tor Teen
So let’s dig into this a little bit more. Each of Us A Desert melds numerous genre tropes together: it’s a post-apocalyptic story told in the aftermath of a great fire that a vengeful god cast down upon Their people. It’s a horror novel, because in this world, the sins you commit and the things you do wrong can manifest as horrific entities known as pesadillas—nightmares made flesh. And it’s also an adventure story, about a teenage girl named Xochitl who is forced into a role within her religion that requires her to never leave home. She is a cuentista, and she is told that she must cleanse her people regularly, lest they receive the wrath of their god all over again.
There are absolutely outside influences that helped me craft this story. For example, I was a teenage convert to Catholicism, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to see how that affected the book. I grew up in a relatively small city near the desert, and much of the book is a metaphorical representation of the loneliness that queer people in rural towns experience. It’s possible that you could tie the whole Catholic thing to being Latinx, but only to an extent, and perhaps only because I am Latinx and was once a Catholic. It’s not a universal thing.
Which is sort of the point I’m leading to. There is no universal Latinx experience within this book, and I feel that those who are looking for stories from “my culture” assume that we are a monolith: that all Latinx people experience the same things. I deal with migration in Desert; not all Latinx people are migrants. I talk about religion, faith, and duty, and there are countless religions spread across Latin America and the diaspora. My book can’t faithfully address all of them. I was certainly inspired by the long history of magical realism when constructing this book, but that movement itself is varied, complicated, and hotly debated.
And yet, the assumption still happens. I’ve been asked if my “people” believe that sins can become real. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a fantasy book. Someone else has asked me what it was like growing up underground. (There is a community within the book that survived the great fire by burrowing into the earth.) I told them I couldn’t speak to that because I just made it up for the book. Another asked if I’d been a religious figure when I was a child, like Xochitl was for her people.
It’s… a fantasy book. Why can’t I have created an interesting story because I’m creative?
There’s also that frustrating aspect of this that, once again, frames whiteness and the stories born out of whiteness as the default. One of the earliest (and most negative) reviews I got for Anger said that the book did not do enough to teach white people what to do about racism. Even in such drastically different stories, this same unfair expectation was there. Why is it that our books have to educate anyone? Why can’t they entertain? Thrill? Delight? Terrify? Why must authors of color bear this sort of burden?
A radical shift must occur for this mindset to be eradicated. We must stop assuming that stories written by non-white people are always about their “culture.” That notion lacks specificity, for one, but it also offers a dim view into what readers consider a default. Why aren’t white writers assumed to be writing their culture when they write fantasy? Readers can accept a fully formed and created world in that context. Any deviation from that norm must therefore not be as good or not be as original.
In the context of Latinx stories, this assumption becomes downright offensive. Latinx is an umbrella term, and it’s one loaded with a complicated history. What does it mean when an outsider says a book is based on a “Latinx culture”? Which one? From what country? State? Region? Are you talking of the dominant culture within that location, or are you referring to those who are usually forgotten or who have been cast aside? More often than not, a person making that reference is never referring to any Afro-Latinx cultures or Indigenous cultures, nor do they have a grasp on how colonization by Spain complicates matters even further. To them, we’re a monolith. We apparently all look the same and speak the same language and have the same feelings on the word Latinx, too. (We don’t.)
I think fiction that illuminates and educates is beautiful. I don’t want to come off as hating that idea, and if my work does teach someone, then I am honored for that. That expectation shouldn’t be applied without thought or context, however. Latinx writers should be able to craft whatever fantastical stories they want without being held to impossible standards. And that’s going to require imagination on the part of those consuming our stories.
MARK OSHIRO is the Hugo-nominated writer of the online Mark Does Stuff universe (Mark Reads and Mark Watches), where they analyze book and TV series. Their debut novel, Anger Is a Gift, was a recipient of the Schneider Family Book Award for 2019. Their lifelong goal is to pet every dog in the world. Please visit them online at www.MarkOshiro.com and follow them on social @MarkDoesStuff
'Plantains and the Seven Plagues' is an intimate look at family and memory
A couple of months after her mother passed away, Paz Ellis sat down to write. Ellis grew up in an expansive, tight-knit, mixed-heritage family in New Jersey. Her Dominican mother and Cuban father provided her with a family history and cultural legacy that informed her experiences and sense of self, which she examines in her memoir. The book that resulted from these meditations is a familiar yet revealing account of growing up as a mixed-heritage Latina in New Jersey that often feels less like a memoir and more like spending time with a close friend who has invited you to have a conversation and who shares her life story with you over a cup of café con leche.
Image courtesy of Paz Ellis.
In Plantains and the Seven Plagues: A Memoir: Half-Dominican, Half-Cuban, and Full Life, Ellis takes us through her life, beginning with her early childhood and continuing through adulthood and her own marriage, and finally recounts her parents’ passing. She writes about significant milestones and events in her life, but also lets us into the everyday and shares the quiet moments that formed the glue of her family relationships. That is what makes this memoir so relatable and captivating. For example, Ellis recalls early Saturday morning cleaning routines with her mother with the music on full blast. She recalls translating documents for her immigrant parents and serving as an interpreter during parent-teacher conferences. She muses on her father’s mourning of his Cuban homeland, and on the schisms his Cuban background caused when he married a Dominican woman. She reminisces about introducing her own future spouse, a white Irish American man, to her large Latino family. All of these snapshots and small moments add up to often funny, sometimes painful streams of memories that Ellis dives into as she interrogates the legacy of intergenerational trauma and reflects on what she wants to pass on to her own children.
It must be noted that Ellis is able to conjure the world as she experienced it in her childhood with compassion and ease, but she does so without glossing over the difficult realities of intergenerational trauma and its effects on the lives of the children of immigrants. Ellis wrestles with the ways that her mother’s struggle with depression and mental health and her father’s coping with disability impacted her and her family, as well as the effects that addiction, racism, and economic struggle all had on her upbringing. It is precisely Ellis’s honesty in confronting and sharing these issues on the page that makes the stories she tells engrossing, heart-breaking and relatable all at once.
Plantains and the Seven Plagues is many things. It is a deeply nostalgic and intimate reflection on a full life lived between cultures—Cuban, Dominican and American. It is a meditation on family legacy, storytelling, and intergenerational trauma as told through one woman’s life. But most of all, it is an utterly binge-able read that you can devour in one sitting, but that will make you want to slow down and savor every bite. If you are looking for an intimate and engaging read on family and memory, this one's for you.
Content warning for the inclusion of slurs: g*psy, and r*tarded.
Mariana Huerta was born in Mexico City and now lives in New England. She has a B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago and a background in Higher Education, but books are her one true love. She also runs the blog Latinas Leyendo which aims to highlight and celebrate books by and about Latinx folk. You can also find her book reviews on Twitter @latinasleyendo and Instagram @latinasleyendo.
August 2020 Latinx Releases
August 4, 2020
G.O.A.T. - SERENA WILLIAMS: MAKING THE CASE FOR THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME | Nonfictin
by Tami Charles (Sterling Children’s Books)
G.O.A.T. is an acronym that stands for Greatest Of All Time—and it takes lifelong dedication, nonstop hard work, and undeniable, unbelievable talent even to be considered for that honor. Serena Williams is the most decorated female tennis player of all time. She’s been ranked #1 by the Women’s Tennis Association countless times since 2002, and no one holds more Grand Slam titles—not just as a single’s player, but also, with her sister Venus, in women’s doubles. Find out all about this powerhouse player and her dozens of amazing victories in this entertaining book that’s packed with stats, sidebars, and details about the athlete’s journey. Sports-crazed kids will love it.
GUILLOTINE | Poetry
by Eduardo C. Corral (Graywolf Press)
Guillotine traverses desert landscapes cut through by migrants, the grief of loss, betrayal’s lingering scars, the border itself—great distances in which violence and yearning find roots. Through the voices of undocumented immigrants, border patrol agents, and scorned lovers, award-winning poet Eduardo C. Corral writes dramatic portraits of contradiction, survival, and a deeply human, relentless interiority. With extraordinary lyric imagination, these poems wonder about being unwanted or renounced. What do we do with unrequited love? Is it with or without it that we would waste away?
THE HOLLOW ONES | Graywolf Press
by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan (Hachette)
Odessa Hardwicke's life is derailed when she's forced to turn her gun on her partner, Walt Leppo, a decorated FBI agent who turns suddenly, inexplicably violent while apprehending a rampaging murderer. The shooting, justified by self-defense, shakes the young FBI agent to her core. Devastated, Odessa is placed on desk leave pending a full investigation. But what most troubles Odessa isn't the tragedy itself -- it's the shadowy presence she thought she saw fleeing the deceased agent's body after his death.
Questioning her future with the FBI and her sanity, Hardwicke accepts a low-level assignment to clear out the belongings of a retired agent in the New York office. What she finds there will put her on the trail of a mysterious figure named Hugo Blackwood, a man of enormous means who claims to have been alive for centuries, and who is either an unhinged lunatic, or humanity's best and only defense against unspeakable evil.
From the authors who brought you The Strain Trilogy comes a strange, terrifying, and darkly wondrous world of suspense, mystery, and literary horror. The Hollow Ones is a chilling, spell-binding tale, a hauntingly original new fable from Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro and bestselling author Chuck Hogan featuring their most fascinating character yet.
ILLEGAL | Young Adult
by Francisco X. Stork (Scholastic)
Life in Mexico is a death sentence for Emiliano and his sister Sara. To escape the violent cartel that is after them, they flee across the border, seeking a better life in the United States and hoping that they can find a way to bring their pursuers to justice. Sara turns herself over to the authorities to apply for asylum.Emiliano enters the country illegally, planning to live with their father.
But now Sara is being held indefinitely in a detention facility, awaiting an asylum hearing that may never come, finding it harder every day to hold on to her faith and hope. Life for Emiliano is not easy either. Everywhere he goes, it's clear that he doesn't belong. And all the while, the cartel is closing in on them...Emiliano sets off on a tense and dangerous race to find justice, but can he expose the web of crimes from his place in the shadows?
LOBIZONA | Young Adult
by Romina Garber (Wednesday Books)
Some people ARE illegal.
Lobizonas do NOT exist.
Both of these statements are false.
Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who's on the run from her father's Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida.
Until Manu's protective bubble is shattered.
Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past—a mysterious "Z" emblem—which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.
As Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it's not just her U.S. residency that's illegal. . . .it’s her entire existence.
LUCI SOARS | Picture Book
by Lulu Delacre (Philomel Books)
Luci was born without a shadow. Mamá says no one notices. But Luci does. And sometimes others do too. Sometimes they stare, sometimes they tease Luci, and sometimes they make her cry. But when Luci learns to look at what makes her different as a strength, she realizes she has more power than she ever thought. And that her differences can even be a superpower.
From three-time Pura Belpré Award honoree Lulu Delacre comes a heartfelt and uplifting story with a timeless message: what sets you apart is often what makes you great.
MY TIME TO SPEAK: RECLAIMING ANCESTRY AND CONFRONTING RACE | Memoir
by Ilia Calderón (Atria Books)
As a child, Ilia Calderón felt like a typical girl from Colombia. In Chocó, the Afro-Latino province where she grew up, your skin could be any shade and you’d still be considered blood. Race was a non-issue, and Ilia didn’t think much about it—until she left her community to attend high school and college in Medellín. For the first time, she became familiar with horrifying racial slurs thrown at her both inside and outside of the classroom.
From that point on, she resolved to become “deaf” to racism, determined to overcome it in every way she could, even when she was told time and time again that prominent castings weren’t “for people like you.” When a twist of fate presented her the opportunity of a lifetime at Telemundo in Miami, she was excited to start a new life, and identity, in the United States, where racial boundaries, she believed, had long since dissolved and equality was the rule.
Instead, in her new life as an American, she faced a new type of racial discrimination, as an immigrant women of color speaking to the increasingly marginalized Latinx community in Spanish.
Now, Ilia draws back the curtain on the ups and downs of her remarkable life and career. From personal inner struggles to professional issues—such as being directly threatened by a Ku Klux Klan member after an interview—she discusses how she built a new identity in the United States in the midst of racially charged violence and political polarization. Along the way, she’ll show how she’s overcome fear and confronted hate head on, and the inspirational philosophy that has always propelled her forward.
PAOLA SANTIAGO AND THE RIVER OF TEARS | Middle Grade
by Tehlor Kay Mejia (Disney Hyperion)
Space-obsessed 12-year-old Paola Santiago and her two best friends, Emma and Dante, know the rule: Stay away from the river. It's all they've heard since a schoolmate of theirs drowned a year ago. Pao is embarrassed to admit that she has been told to stay away for even longer than that, because her mother is constantly warning her about La Llorona, the wailing ghost woman who wanders the banks of the Gila at night, looking for young people to drag into its murky depths.Hating her mother's humiliating superstitions and knowing that she and her friends would never venture into the water, Pao organizes a meet-up to test out her new telescope near the Gila, since it's the best stargazing spot. But when Emma never arrives and Pao sees a shadowy figure in the reeds, it seems like maybe her mom was right. . . .Pao has always relied on hard science to make sense of the world, but to find her friend she will have to enter the world of her nightmares, which includes unnatural mist, mind-bending monsters, and relentless spirits controlled by a terrifying force that defies both logic and legend.
SHE WAS THE FIRST!: THE TRAILBLAZING LIFE OF SHIRLEY CHISHOLM | Picture Book
by Katheryn Russell-Brown; Illus. by Eric Velasquez (Clarion Books)
Even as a young child growing up in the 1920s, Shirley Chisholm was a leader. At the age of three, older children were already following her lead in their Brooklyn neighborhood.
As a student at Brooklyn College, Shirley could outtalk anyone who opposed her on the debate team. After graduating, she used her voice and leadership to fight for educational change. In community groups, she stood up for the rights of women and minorities. Her small stature and fiery determination often took people by surprise. But they listened.
In 1964, Shirley took her voice and leadership to politics, becoming the first Black woman elected to the New York State Assembly, and in 1968, the first Black woman elected to Congress. Then in 1972, she became the first Black woman to seek the presidency of the United States. She pushed for laws that helped women, children, students, poor people, farm workers, Native people, and others who were often ignored. She fought for healthcare. She spoke up for military veterans. She spoke out against war
Shirley Chisholm, a woman of many firsts, was an unforgettable political trailblazer, a candidate of the people and catalyst of change who opened the door for women in the political arena and for the first Black president of the United States.
POE DAMERON: FREE FALL | Young Adult
by Alex Segura (Disney Books)
Learn more about the dashing hero from the new Star Wars films! Telling a story hinted at in The Rise of Skywalker….
It’s been a few years since Poe’s mother passed away, and Poe and his father, who was a pilot for the Rebellion, have had more and more trouble connecting. Not sure what he wants to do with his life, teenage Poe runs away from home to find adventure, and to figure out what kind of man he is meant to be.
YOU HAD ME AT HOLA | Romance
by Alexis Daria (Avon)
Leading Ladies do not end up on tabloid covers.
After a messy public breakup, soap opera darling Jasmine Lin Rodriguez finds her face splashed across the tabloids. When she returns to her hometown of New York City to film the starring role in a bilingual romantic comedy for the number one streaming service in the country, Jasmine figures her new “Leading Lady Plan” should be easy enough to follow—until a casting shake-up pairs her with telenovela hunk Ashton Suárez.
Leading Ladies don’t need a man to be happy.
After his last telenovela character was killed off, Ashton is worried his career is dead as well. Joining this new cast as a last-minute addition will give him the chance to show off his acting chops to American audiences and ping the radar of Hollywood casting agents. To make it work, he’ll need to generate smoking-hot on-screen chemistry with Jasmine. Easier said than done, especially when a disastrous first impression smothers the embers of whatever sexual heat they might have had.
Leading Ladies do not rebound with their new costars.
With their careers on the line, Jasmine and Ashton agree to rehearse in private. But rehearsal leads to kissing, and kissing leads to a behind-the-scenes romance worthy of a soap opera. While their on-screen performance improves, the media spotlight on Jasmine soon threatens to destroy her new image and expose Ashton’s most closely guarded secret.
August 7, 2020
FUSSY FLAMINGO | Picture Book
by Shelly Vaughan James; Illus. by Matthew Rivera (Sourcebooks)
Meet Lola, the "no, no" flamingo. Lola will NOT eat shrimp, thank you very much. She does NOT care that it will turn her feathers pink. It is just plain yucky. But when Lola sneaks other snacks, she discovers that you really are what you eat. Each time Lola tries a new food, she turns that color, with hilarious results! This very silly story will delight even the pickiest of young readers and resonate with parents eager to see just one bite.
August 11, 2020
AOC: THE FEARLESS RISE AND POWERFUL RESONANCE OF ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ | Nonfiction
Edited by Lynda Lopez (St. Martin’s Press)
From the moment Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat a ten-term incumbent in the primary election for New York’s 14th, her journey to the national, if not world, stage, was fast-tracked. Six months later, as the youngest Congresswoman ever elected, AOC became one of a handful of Latina politicians in Washington, D.C. Just thirty, she represents her generation, the millennials, in many groundbreaking ways: proudly working class, Democratic Socialist, of Puerto Rican descent, master of social media, not to mention of the Bronx, feminist—and a great dancer.
AOC investigates her symbolic and personal significance for so many, from her willingness to use her imperfect bi-lingualism, to the threat she poses by governing like a man, to the long history of Puerto Rican activism that she joins. Contributors span a wide range of voices and ages, from media to the arts and politics.
HATEMONGER: STEPHEN MILLER, DONALD TRUMP, AND THE WHITE NATIONALIST AGENDA | Nonfiction
by Jean Guerrero (William Morrow)
Radicalized as a teenager, Miller relished provocation at his high school in liberal Santa Monica, California. He clashed with administrators and antagonized dark-skinned classmates with invectives against bilingualism and multiculturalism. At Duke University, he cloaked racist and classist ideas in the language of patriotism and heritage to get them airtime amid controversies. On Capitol Hill, he served Tea Party congresswoman Michele Bachmann and nativist Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.
Recruited to Trump’s campaign, Miller met his idol. Having dreamed of Trump’s presidency before he even announced his decision to run, Miller became his senior policy advisor and speechwriter. Together, they stoked dystopian fears about the Democrats, “Deep State” and “American Carnage,” painting migrants and their supporters as an existential threat to America. Through backroom machinations and sheer force of will, Miller survived dozens of resignations and encouraged Trump’s harshest impulses, in conflict with the president’s own family. While Trump railed against illegal immigration, Miller crusaded against legal immigration. He targeted refugees, asylum seekers and their children, engineering an ethical crisis for a nation that once saw itself as the conscience of the world. Miller rallied support for this agenda, even as federal judges tried to stop it, by courting the white rage that found violent expression in tragedies from El Paso to Charlottesville.
NACHO’S NACHOS: THE STORY BEHIND THE WORLD’S FAVORITE SNACK | Picture Books
by Sandra Nickel; Illus. by Oliver Dominguez (Lee & Low Books)
Ignacio Anaya was born in Mexico in 1895, and like a lot of Ignacios, he was nicknamed Nacho. Young Nacho loved to eat and cook, and when he grew up, he found a job in a restaurant. Eventually he became head waiter at the Victory Club, a popular restaurant in Piedras Negras, Mexico, right across the Rio Grande river from Eagle Pass, Texas.
One afternoon in 1940, during the Victory Club's quiet hours between lunch and dinner, Mamie Finan, a regular customer from the US, walked in with three friends. They wanted a snack--something new, something different. Nacho rushed to the kitchen and improvised with what was on hand: corn tortillas, cheddar cheese, and jalapeño peppers. In that moment, Nacho's Special, the dish that later became known simply as nachos, was born!
Word of this delicious new snack spread quickly. Soon restaurants all over Mexico, the United States, and later the world, were serving nachos. Little did Nacho know that his name would one day be a household word around the globe!
SIA MARTINEZ AND THE MOONLIT BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING | Young Adult
by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland (Simon Pulse)
It’s been three years since ICE raids and phone calls from Mexico and an ill-fated walk across the Sonoran. Three years since Sia Martinez’s mom disappeared. Sia wants to move on, but it’s hard in her tiny Arizona town where people refer to her mom’s deportation as “an unfortunate incident.”
Sia knows that her mom must be dead, but every new moon Sia drives into the desert and lights San Anthony and la Guadalupe candles to guide her mom home.
Then one night, under a million stars, Sia’s life and the world as we know it cracks wide open. Because a blue-lit spacecraft crashes in front of Sia’s car…and it’s carrying her mom, who’s very much alive.
As Sia races to save her mom from armed-quite-possibly-alien soldiers, she uncovers secrets as profound as they are dangerous in this stunning and inventive exploration of first love, family, immigration, and our vast, limitless universe.
WHAT IF A FISH | Middle Grade
by Anika Fajardo (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Half-Colombian Eddie Aguado has never really felt Colombian. Especially after Papa died. And since Mama keeps her memories of Papa locked up where Eddie can’t get to them, he only has Papa’s third-place fishing tournament medal to remember him by. He’ll have to figure out how to be more Colombian on his own.
As if by magic, the perfect opportunity arises. Eddie—who’s never left Minnesota—is invited to spend the summer in Colombia with his older half-brother. But as his adventure unfolds, he feels more and more like a fish out of water.
Figuring out how to be a true colombiano might be more difficult than he thought.
August 15, 2020
TÍTULO / TITLE | Poetry
by Legna Rodriguez Iglesias; Translated by Katherine M. Hedeen (Kenning Editions)
TÍTULO / TITLE is a book of poems by the Cuban poet, prose writer, and playwright Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, published here for the first time in Spanish, and in English translation by Katherine M. Hedeen. Rodríguez Iglesias belongs to the so-called Generation Zero in Cuba, those born after 1970 and who publish after 2000. After the fall of European socialism, Generation Zero grew up with little opportunities or future and its poetry embodies the crisis. TITLE does so by affirming a poetics of ugliness--the quotidian ugliness of poverty. Material need signals spiritual need. In an experimental, asphyxiating rush of repetition and enjambment, TITLE chronicles separation, alienation, unease, madness, illness while it presents readers with a unique vision of queerness, humanity, poetry. None of it is exceptional. These poems do not fall back on exotifying stereotypes. Instead, they offer a critical perspective of all sides. There is a brilliant grayness to this poetry that rejects how Cubans are supposed to write their reality, on either side of the Gulf.
August 18, 2020
DON’T ASK ME WHERE I’M FROM | Young Adult
by Jennifer De Leon; Illus. by Elena Garnu (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books)
Liliana Cruz is a hitting a wall—or rather, walls.
There’s the wall her mom has put up ever since Liliana’s dad left—again.
There’s the wall that delineates Liliana’s diverse inner-city Boston neighborhood from Westburg, the wealthy—and white—suburban high school she’s just been accepted into.
And there’s the wall Liliana creates within herself, because to survive at Westburg, she can’t just lighten up, she has to whiten up.
So what if she changes her name? So what if she changes the way she talks? So what if she’s seeing her neighborhood in a different way? But then light is shed on some hard truths: It isn’t that her father doesn’t want to come home—he can’t…and her whole family is in jeopardy. And when racial tensions at school reach a fever pitch, the walls that divide feel insurmountable.
But a wall isn’t always a barrier. It can be a foundation for something better. And Liliana must choose: Use this foundation as a platform to speak her truth, or risk crumbling under its weight.
FINISH THE FIGHT!: THE BRAVE AND REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN WHO FOUGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO VOTE | Middle Grade Nonfiction
by Veronica Chambers and The Staff of The New York Times (Versify)
This exciting collaboration with the New York Times will reveal the untold stories of the diverse heroines who fought for the 19th amendment. On the 100th anniversary of the historic win for women’s rights, it’s time to celebrate the names and stories of the women whose courage helped change the fabric of America.
SHARUKO: EL ARQUEÓLOGO PERUANO JULIO C. TELLO | Picture Book
by Monica Brown; Illus. by Elisa Chavarri (Lee & Low)
Growing up in the late 1800s, Julio Tello, an Indigenous boy, spent time exploring the caves and burial grounds in the foothills of the Peruvian Andes. Nothing scared Julio, not even the ancient human skulls he found. His bravery earned him the boyhood nickname Sharuko, which means brave in Quechua, the language of the Native people of Peru.
At the age of twelve, Julio moved to Lima to continue his education. While in medical school, he discovered an article about the skulls he had found. The skulls had long ago been sent to Lima to be studied by scientists. The article renewed Julio's interest in his ancestry, and he decided to devote his medical skills to the study of Peru's Indigenous history.
Over his lifetime, Julio Tello made many revolutionary discoveries at archaeological sites around Peru, and he worked to preserve the historical treasures he excavated. He showed that Peru's Indigenous cultures had been established thousands of years ago, disproving the popular belief that Peruvian culture had been introduced more recently from other countries. He fostered pride in his country's Indigenous ancestry, making him a hero to all Peruvians. Because of the brave man once known as Sharuko, people around the world today know of Peru's long history and its living cultural legacy.
August 25, 2020
HERE TO STAY | Romance
by Adriana Herrera (Harlequin/Carina Press)
Julia del Mar Ortiz is not having the best year.
She moved to Dallas with her boyfriend, who ended up ditching her and running back to New York after only a few weeks. Left with a massive—by NYC standards, anyway—apartment and a car lease in the scorching Texas heat, Julia is struggling…except that’s not completely true. Running the charitable foundation of one of the most iconic high fashion department stores in the world is serious #lifegoals.
It’s more than enough to make her want to stick it out down South.
The only monkey wrench in Julia’s plans is the blue-eyed, smart-mouthed consultant the store hired to take them public. Fellow New Yorker Rocco Quinn’s first order of business? Putting Julia’s job on the chopping block.
When Julia is tasked with making sure Rocco sees how valuable the programs she runs are, she’s caught between a rock and a very hard set of abs. Because Rocco Quinn is almost impossible to hate—and even harder to resist.
THE LAST GREAT ROAD BUM | Fiction
by Héctor Tobar (MCD)
Joe Sanderson died in pursuit of a life worth writing about. He was, in his words, a “road bum,” an adventurer and a storyteller, belonging to no place, people, or set of ideas. He was born into a childhood of middle-class contentment in Urbana, Illinois and died fighting with guerillas in Central America. With these facts, acclaimed novelist and journalist Héctor Tobar set out to write what would become The Last Great Road Bum.
A decade ago, Tobar came into possession of the personal writings of the late Joe Sanderson, which chart Sanderson’s freewheeling course across the known world, from Illinois to Jamaica, to Vietnam, to Nigeria, to El Salvador―a life determinedly an adventure, ending in unlikely, anonymous heroism.
The Last Great Road Bum is the great American novel Joe Sanderson never could have written, but did truly live―a fascinating, timely hybrid of fiction and nonfiction that only a master of both like Héctor Tobar could pull off.
LETTERS FROM CUBA | Middle Grade
by Ruth Behar (PYR/Nancy Paulsen Books)
The situation is getting dire for Jews in Poland on the eve of World War II. Esther’s father has fled to Cuba, and she is the first one to join him. It’s heartbreaking to be separated from her beloved sister, so Esther promises to write down everything that happens until they’re reunited. And she does, recording both the good–the kindness of the Cuban people and her discovery of a valuable hidden talent–and the bad: the fact that Nazism has found a foothold even in Cuba. Esther’s evocative letters are full of her appreciation for life and reveal a resourceful, determined girl with a rare ability to bring people together, all the while striving to get the rest of their family out of Poland before it’s too late.
Based on Ruth Behar’s family history, this compelling story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the most challenging times.
ME & MAMA | Picture Book
by Cozbi A. Cabrera (Denene Millner Books)
On a rainy day when the house smells like cinnamon and Papa and Luca are still asleep, when the clouds are wearing shadows and the wind paints the window with beads of water, I want to be everywhere Mama is.
With lyrical prose and a tender touch, Mama and Me is an ode to the strength of the bond between a mother and a daughter as they spend a rainy day together.
QUEEN OF TEJANO MUSIC: SELENA | Picture Book
by Silvia López; Illus. by Paola Escobar (Little Bee Books)
Selena Quintanilla's music career began at the age of nine when she started singing in her family's band. She went from using a hairbrush as a microphone to traveling from town to town to play gigs. But Selena faced a challenge: People said that she would never make it in Tejano music, which was dominated by male performers. Selena was determined to prove them wrong.
Born and raised in Texas, Selena didn't know how to speak Spanish, but with the help of her dad, she learned to sing it. With songs written and composed by her older brother and the fun dance steps Selena created, her band, Selena Y Los Dinos, rose to stardom! A true trailblazer, her success in Tejano music and her crossover into mainstream American music opened the door for other Latinx entertainers, and she became an inspiration for Latina girls everywhere.
THE WRONG MR. DARCY | Romance
by Evelyn Lozada with Holly Lorinez (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Hara Isari has big ambitions and they won’t be sidetracked by her mother’s insisting that she settle down soon. She dreams of leaving her small-town newspaper behind, as well as her felon father, and building a career as a sports writer, so when she is chosen to exclusively interview a basketball superstar, she jumps at the chance. It’s time to show the bigwigs what she’s truly made of.
At the same time, she meets a rookie on the rise, Derek Darcy. Darcy is incredibly handsome, obnoxiously proud, and has a major chip on his shoulder. Hara can’t think of a man more arrogant and infuriating. However, fate keeps bringing them together—from locker rooms to elegant parties, to the storm of the century—and what begins as a clash might just be more complicated than Hara anticipated. When she begins to see Darcy in a new light, Hara is not quite sure if she should drop the ball or play the love game.
Looking for Your Next Artsy Read? Enter Latorre's 'Democracy on the Wall'
El arte está en la calle. Guisela Latorre’s Democracy on the Wall expertly explores the world of street art, muralists, and graffiterx across various urban areas throughout Chile after the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorial rule as president in 1990. While Pinochet no longer holds office, the impacts of his systemic repression and terror still plague Chile.
Latorre argues that Chileans experience the most unequal society in the developed world, using research that includes oral history interviews, on-site investigations, and archival sources. She engages directly with contemporary Chilean street artists for conversations about the larger hopeful movement of “democracy to come” and the unwritten history of street art in Chile.
Image courtesy of the Ohio State University Press.
During the sixteen years of Pinochet’s tyrannical rule, the street art scene was destroyed, white-washed, censored and criminalized. Fortunately, the Chilean street art movement had secured its foundation during the previous presidency. During Salvador Allende’s presidency, street artists, muralist brigades, and graffiterx were intervening in public spaces with visual politics, taking up space, providing imagery for an egalitarian movement toward a better future for all. After Pinochet’s regime “fell,” artists began to reclaim the public sphere.
As a Chilean immigrant now living in the United States, with the experience of living under Pinochet herself, Latorre provides readers with a gift. It is with her experience and understanding of Chilean culture, in tandem with her feminist framework, that this professor at Ohio State University opens our eyes to an invaluable perspective on Chilean street art history.
With her familiarity with the protest movements that led to Chile’s strong street art scene, Latorre is able to explore her case studies thematically, with a fluidity that evokes that of the street art medium itself. Throughout the book, the reader can explore the resurgence of collective muralist brigades, such as the Brigada Ramona Parra (BRP) and the Brigada Chacón (BC), museos a cielo abierto (MCAs) or “open-sky museums,” “Wildstyle” graffiti, and the movement and empowerment of graffiteras.
Democracy on the Wall: Street Art of the Post-Dictatorship Era in Chile is a remarkable introduction to the strength and endurance of Chilean street art culture after a period of great social injustice. Chilean street artists' ability to bring progressive, creative, striking, and inspiring visuals into the public sphere, during and after the Pinochet era, should serve to remind readers of the power of the humanities emboldened by human spirit.
There is so much to be gained by reading Latorre’s work on Chilean street art. The Black Lives Matter movement of the United States, and the world, continues to battle systemic racist oppression and police brutality. On the streets, people are demanding long-due freedom and justice for all. While mobilizing for a more egalitarian global society, it’s likely that we will begin to see even more “democracy on the wall.” I welcome it, wholeheartedly.
Chelsea Villareal is a Mexican American Children’s Media Strategist from Portland, Oregon – Hey Cascadians! She holds a BUPA in Political Science & Media Studies from Portland State University, attended the NYU Summer Publishing Institute and is currently enrolled in her Masters at Columbia University. She works on the Brand Marketing team at Penguin Young Readers and holds down the role of Program Manager at We Need Diverse Books. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and two crazy, lazy feline beasts.
