Jasminne Mendez didn’t speak English when she started kindergarten, and her young, white teacher thought the girl was deaf because in Louisiana, you were either Black or white. She had no idea that a Black girl could be a Spanish speaker. In this memoir for teens about growing up Afro Latina in the Deep South, Jasminne writes about feeling torn between her Dominican, Spanish speaking culture at home and the American, English speaking one around her. She desperately wanted to fit in, to be seen as American, and she realized early on that language mattered. Learning to read and write English well was the road to acceptance. Mendez shares typical childhood experiences such as having an imaginary friend, boys and puberty, but she also exposes the anti-Black racism within her own family and the conflict created by her family’s conservative traditions.
Latinx in US
Iveliz Explains It All
Twelve year old Iveliz is trying to manage her mental health and advocate for the help and understanding she deserves, but in the meantime her new friend calls her crazy and her abuela Mimi dismisses the therapy and medicine Iveliz needs to feel like herself.
Felice And The Wailing Woman (Los Monstruos)
The twelve year old daughter of La Llorona vows to free her mother and reverse the curses that have plagued the magical town of Tres Leches.
Spare Parts
In 2004, four undocumented Mexican teenagers arrived at the national underwater robotics championship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. No one had ever told Oscar, Cristian, Luis, or Lorenzo that they would amount to much until two inspiring high school science teachers convinced the boys to enter the competition. Up against some of the best collegiate engineers in the country, this team of underdogs from Phoenix, Arizona, scraped together spare parts and a few small donations to astound not only the competition’s judges but themselves, too.
Abuelita And Me
In this poignant, empowering picture book debut, a girl and her beloved abuelita lean on each other as they contend with racism while running errands in the city.
Patchwork
In profound, uplifting verse and sumptuous artwork, beloved creators Matt de la Peña and Corinna Luyken explore the endless possibilities each child contains: A young dancer may grow into a computer coder; a basketball player might become a poet; a class clown may one day serve as an inspiring teacher; and today’s quiet empath might be tomorrow’s great leader.
Plátanos Are Love
A delicious picture book about the ways plantains shape Latinx culture, community, and family, told through a young girl’s experiences in the kitchen with her abuela.
My Town / Mi Pueblo
“In this bilingual picture book, cousins from opposite sides of the border visit each other’s towns and delight in their similarities and differences”–
Abuela Y El Covid / Grandma And Covid (English And Spanish Edition)
A young boy enjoys time with his grandmother who lives far away, using cell phones and other devices, but one day she stops calling and sending photos and videos of her dogs. He finds out that she needs an oxygen mask to speak and breathe and worries about her the next time they talk.
Singing With Elephants
Lonely Cuban-born eleven-year-old Oriol lives in Santa Barbara, California, where she enjoys caring for injured animals, but her budding friendship with Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature, emboldens Oriol, an aspiring writer, to open up and create a world of words for herself.