Oct 21 2015

Growing Up Cuban: Laura Lacámara and Meg Medina

My Cuban Evolution

By Laura Lacámara

Growing up Cuban-American in suburban Southern California, I teetered back and forth between feeling different, like I didn’t belong, and feeling exotic and special.

The feeling different part came mostly when I was little.

We spoke Spanish at home, while all my friends spoke English.

We ate lechón (roast pork), black beans, and plantains on Christmas eve (nochebuena), instead of turkey, stuffing, and yams on Christmas night.

Then, there was that same embarrassing question asked by all my friends who came over to the house: “Why are your parents fighting?”

“They are not,” I would respond, “they are just talking about what they want for dinner.”

In high school, being Cuban meant getting an easy “A” in Spanish. By the end of high school, being a Spanish-speaking Cuban had gone from totally embarrassing to super cool. I was the “exotic” one among my group of white suburban friends. (I knew I wasn’t really exotic, but I didn’t contradict them because I liked feeling special!)

Finally, in college, came exploring my roots, and ultimately embracing (and being proud of!) my Cuban-American identity.

Of course, the whole Cuban roots and identity thing comes with the inevitable responsibility to comment on Fidel Castro.

So, when asked that obligatory question by my white, non-Cuban friends: “Don’t you think it’s great that Castro’s revolution has given every Cuban citizen access to a pair of shoes and an education?”

Rather than launching into a big political discussion about the whole embargo thing (which I am totally in favor of lifting, by the way), I now offer the following joke:

“Comrades, what are the three great successes of the revolution? Healthcare, education, and sports. What are the three failures? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

Politics aside, being Cuban remains a very personal thing for me. Sometimes it has felt like missing pieces I can only catch glimpses of here and there, but never quite own.

As a Cuban-American author writing stories inspired by growing up in my Cuban family, I’ve been able to explore some of these pieces and the quality of what Cuba, or being Cuban means to me.

Yes, I have lived in the U.S. most of my life, and I can express myself (verbally and on paper) better in English than in Spanish.

But, deep-down, that Spanish-speaking part of me, the one that finds “home” in a plate of black beans and rice with a slice of my mom’s homemade flan, will always be Cubana!

Cuban-born Laura Lacámara is the award-winning author and illustrator of Dalia’s Wondrous Hair / El cabello maravilloso de Dalia (Piñata Books), a bilingual picture book about a clever girl who transforms her unruly hair into a vibrant garden.

Laura also wrote Floating on Mama’s Song / Flotando en la canción de mamá, a bilingual picture book inspired by her mother, who was an opera singer in Havana. Illustrated by Yuyi Morales and published by HarperCollins, Floating on Mama’s Song was a Junior Library Guild Selection for Fall 2010 and was a Tejas Star Book Award Finalist for 2011-2012.

You can learn more about Laura’s work at her official website.

Cheeseburger by Day, Guayaba by Night

Juan Medina and LIdia Metauten wedding_NEW copy

Meg Medina’s parents at their wedding

By Meg Medina

My parents left Cuba as part of the political exodus in the early sixties. I was the first person in my family born in the United States. I learned Spanish from my mother and English from Romper Room. I grew up biculturally: Cheeseburger by day, guayaba by night, so to speak. All to say that I find that I am Cuban to Americans. To Cubans, I am from the US.

When I consider Cuba, I can only rely on black and white photos and on dreamlike stories – perhaps even the obsessions – of my family. I cut my teeth listening to yarns about a place where you wore only a sweater in the winter, where mangos the size of softballs were heavy with sweetness. It was a place of rivers and beautiful ocean waters where you could see your toes. It was the place of tobacco on their fingertips, a place where my family was happiest and the place that broke their hearts.

Two of Meg’s relatives on the streets of Havana

My own memories are these: Months of waiting for letters to arrive on thin airmail paper and my aunt’s voice reading the words aloud. A box of old photographs that arrived decades later, the images bored through by insects, and how those photos made my old mother cry. The odd catch in my chest when I see how dire need somehow got recycled into kitschy tourists waving from the seats of classic American cars.

People often ask: “Have you been to Cuba?”

I have never set foot on the island, but in a way, I have been there every day of my life. But how do we talk about Cuba as phantom limb? And, more important, how do we knit ourselves back together – los de aquí y los de allá – and move forward in search of new and better times?

Meg Medina is an award-winning Cuban American author who writes picture books, middle grade, and YA fiction.

She is the 2014 recipient of the Pura Belpré medal and the 2013 CYBILS Fiction winner for her young adult novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass. She is also the 2012 Ezra Jack Keats New Writers medal winner for her picture book Tia Isa Wants a Car.

Petite Shards Productions

Her most recent picture book, Mango, Abuela, and Me, a Junior Library Guild Selection, has earned starred reviews in Booklist and Publishers Weekly, and is included in the 2015 American Booksellers Association’s Best Books for Young Readers Catalog.

Meg’s other books are The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind, a 2012 Bank Street Best Book and CBI Recommended Read in the UK; and Milagros: Girl From Away.

Read a wonderful write-up on the Cuban inspiration of Meg’s newest book, Mango, Abuela and Me, at her blog, where you can also find information on her speaking schedule and much more.

Oct 20 2015

Alma Flor Ada: Always Cuban

“Yo soy un hombre sincero

de donde crece la palma…”

–José Martí

During most of my life I have lived outside of Cuba, as part of the Cuban Diaspora, yet my being continues to be rooted in the fertile island where I was born and where I lived as a child, an adolescent, and a young woman.

Alma Flor

In 1958, during the Batista dictatorship, my father’s dream of helping low-income families own their own homes was thwarted when the soldiers who had bought some of the accessible yet solid houses he had built with such care, refused to make their mortgage payments. Trying to find a solution, my father met with the garrison’s commander. Instead of support, he received a frightening threat that led us to flee to Miami.

At that time, Miami did not have the Latino presence it has today. As I wanted to study Spanish and Latin-American literature, I begged to go study in Mexico City. I was fascinated by the artistic and literary achievements of post-Revolutionary Mexico. However, my parents did not feel comfortable sending me to a country where we knew no one. Instead, they suggested I go to Spain, where my mother had relatives.

Spain became the third country where I lived. While the Franco regime imposed many limitations, I was immensely fortunate to be mentored by some extraordinary professors, Elena Catena, don Alonso Zamora Vicente, and doña María Josefa Canellada, who helped channel my thirst for learning. I will always be grateful for their teaching and their example.

A set of unexpected circumstances led me to Perú, which became the fourth country where I lived. In Cuba, I had delighted in being my parents’ daughter; in Perú I became a mother. In Cuba, I had absorbed my family’s commitment to education; in Perú, I became a teacher. In Cuba, I had learned the key role of education in striving for social justice; in Perú, I studied Paulo Freire’s words and became actively concerned with social issues.

While in Perú, I finished my doctorate degree. The topic of my dissertation led to an appointment as a research scholar at Harvard. There I experienced an exciting cultural milieu comprised of distinguished authors and artists who had left Spain after the Spanish Civil War, including the poet Jorge Guillen. Later, after two years in Lima, I returned to the United States with my children and became involved in several grassroots movements on behalf of social justice and education.

Each of these four countries left a profound imprint on me, as I learned to understand their different worldviews, to enjoy their colors and fragrances, and to love their people. I also learned to rebel against the unjust social conditions suffered by many in each of these places, and also, to admire the resilience, fortitude and creativity of the majority of the people I met, wherever I lived. But always, as the backdrop to all these life experiences, my memories of Cuba continued to nourish my deepest soul.

Alma Flor in teen years

As a child, some of my best friends were trees. In the large overgrown gardens of the old historical house where I was born, many different kinds of living creatures inspired me to learn to observe and respect nature. Our colonial city was a microcosm of the larger world; there I learned to listen to those around me and reflect on what I heard. From my family, I learned the values of caring and compassion; kindness and generosity; friendship, knowledge, and justice.

The overgrown gardens have expanded and today I consider the whole planet my home. I continue to marvel at its richness and diversity, including the daily miracles of flower petals and bird feathers. I especially attempt to not remain indifferent to any human experience. Yet, no matter how far my circle of interest may expand, I never feel far from my roots; on the contrary, it is through being nurtured by them, that I can open my heart to everything else.

I learned about immigration from my own family. Both of my grandfathers had immigrated to Cuba from Spain. They each made great efforts to contribute to their new homeland and to defend freedom of thought. My maternal grandfather, Medardo Lafuente Rubio, used his talents for self-expression as a poet, public speaker, educator, and journalist to promote universal human values. During the despotic dictatorship of Machado, he was incarcerated for defending freedom in his newspaper. His time in prison greatly damaged his health and he died not long after his eventual release. My paternal grandfather owned a newspaper and also one of the earliest radio stations in Cuba. His words, whether written or spoken, always defended the value of free independent thinking that had been crushed in his county of birth by Franco’s dictatorship.

My grandmother on her graduation as a teacher

AFA’s grandmother at graduation from teaching school.

My maternal grandmother, Dolores Salvador, was the strongest influence in my life. Losing her when I was very young filled me with profound nostalgia. In response to the pain of this loss, I sought to protect and nurture my memories of her, as one would a tender plant. And thus I became a storyteller, sharing my stories again and again, sometimes orally, other times in writing, often in silence.

The feelings arising from my own experiences have inspired much of my writing. Even one of my more recent books, Love, Amalia, co-authored with my son Gabriel Zubizarreta, is rooted in the memory of losing my grandmother. Another source of inspiration has been the desire to continue to savor my own children’s childhood.

AFA’s grandmother, surrounded by her children

I often remind teachers to encourage children to write, as each child has a unique perspective to share. I am very grateful to an editor of The Hungry Mind who many years ago, asked me to contribute one real-life childhood story for his publication. In response, I wrote my first three real-life stories and submitted them to him. He told me kindly that, while he could only publish one, he wanted to encourage me to write a few more. And thus, Where the Flame Trees Bloom was born.

It took the additional encouragement of my dear friend Antonio Martorell, an inspired artist and illustrator, to continue writing the childhood memoirs that became Under the Royal Palms, and which received the Pura Belpré Medal in 2000. More recently, when Simon & Schuster decided to re-print both of these books under one cover, Emma Ledbetter, my supportive editor, welcomed the idea of also including some new stories from my growing-up years in Cuba. Thus Island Treasures has come to be.

Like the mountain springs in Tope de Collantes, in Cuba, whose currents of clear cool water never stop running, all of our memories hold an endless number of sensations, feelings, faces, flavors, aromas, textures, and emotions, if only we are willing to turn inward, to welcome and honor them in some way. It is my hope that as I share my stories with you in Island Treasures, your own awareness of the people who have enriched your life and the moments that have helped shape who you are, will deepen. May you welcome and value your own stories as an intrinsic part of who you are, dear reader, while also rejoicing in who you have become.

Alma Flor Ada has written countless books, most of which do not specify Cuban settings or characters, but which nearly always highlight Latino life. She is an author, educator, scholar, and internationally known speaker. Her life’s work includes advocacy for peace and social justice. A Professor Emerita at the University of San Francisco, she is also a former Radcliffe Scholar at Harvard University and Fulbright Research Scholar.

In the world of children’s books, Alma Flor is known for her poetry, narratives, folklore and non-fiction. She’s the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Christopher Medal, the Pura Belpré Medal, the International Latino Book Award, and the Virginia Hamilton Award, in recognition of her body of work for children. Learn more at her official website.

Oct 19 2015

Welcome to Cuba Week!

Cuba Pearl Cuba has been very much on our minds during this year of momentous change and emotional headlines. In a gesture of love and great hope for the Cuban people on both sides of the Straits of Florida, we invited beloved Cuban American children’s writers to speak from their hearts about anything relating to cubanismo. Lucky us: eight authors responded to our invitation with ¡claro que sí!

Guest posts begin tomorrow and continue through next Monday. To whet your appetite, here are some details. You will hear about immigration journeys, life across two cultures, racial identity, remembrances of the Cuba left behind, and the books that sprang from these experiences. Get ready for gorgeous prose from Enrique Flores Galbis; a fresh challenge to publishers from Nancy Osa; nostalgia mixed with humor and biting reality from Guinevere Thomas, Meg Medina, Laura Lacámara, and Christina Díaz González; as well as stirring insights from award-winning poets Alma Flor Ada and Margarita Engle. These authors’ books have enriched young people’s reading lives. For that, and for the perspectives they’ve shared with us, we want to say ¡gracias de todo corazón!

Before we get started on the guest posts, here’s a visual reminder of some glorious children’s books that star Cuban characters and/or settings. Space prevents us from featuring a comprehensive list, but we urge you to add your recommendations in the comments section. To learn more about individual books, click on their cover mages.

Picture Books

Middle-Grade

Young Adult

Oct 12 2015

Las Comadres y Compadres 4th Annual Writers Conference

By Yadhira Gonzalez-Taylor

What a joy to return for a third year to see all my comadres and compadres in one place, the 4^th Annual Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference.

This time, the conference was hosted at the New School on 13^th Street in Manhattan.

Comadres Nora de Hoyos Comstock, Adriana Domínguez, and Marcela Landres, welcomed us to another year of fellowship and creative encouragement in the Latin@ literary scene. We were met with a full day of information panels, craft workshops for adult and children’s literature, and one-on-one sessions with influential members of the publishing world.

Author Cristina García

This year’s conference included panels with kid lit authors Meg Medina, Angela Dominguez, and Daniel José Older, literary agent Linda Camacho, Nikki Garcia, an editorial assistant at Little Brown Children’s Books, and Leticia Gomez of Savvy Literary Services. The keynote speaker was Cristina García, author of Dreaming in Cuban, King of Cuba, and these books for younger readers: The Dog Who Loved the Moon, I Wanna Be Your Shoebox, and Dreams of Significant Girls.

For me, attending the conference over the last three years has become my personal mark to the start of the back to writing season. Since it takes place just after summer and shortly before NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), it provides me with the jump-start I need to tap into my creativity.

I left the conference energized to continue to edit the manuscript I wrote during NaNoWriMo, especially since I shared my work during a one-on-one with Leticia Gomez, CEO of Savvy Literary Service and left the session with a million dollars’ worth of suggestions and ideas on how to tighten my manuscript.

I even had the joy of celebrating a fellow comadre’s recent publication. Eleanor Parker Sapia was one of the first people I met the first time I attended at Medgars Evers College. I was happy to have an autographed copy of her debut novel, A Decent Woman, published by Booktrope and she was equally enthused by updates on my adventures with La Cucarachita Martina, reinvented in my Children’s books. And just for a day in New York City, in early fall, we were two Latina writers and comadres chatting over café con leche.

I am already looking forward to attending next year’s event.

Photos below are courtesy of Eleanor Parker Sapia. From left to right in the second photo are: Eleanor Parker Sapia, Charlie Vázquez, Director of the Bronx Writers Center, and Yadhira Gonzalez-Taylor.

FullSizeRender Yadhira Gonzalez-Taylor is a public service attorney working with at-risk youth in NYC. Before working with young people she worked as prosecutor for Bronx County. She has published two children’s books, Martina Finds a Shiny Coin and Martina and the Wondrous Waterfall. Both books were illustrated by Alba Escayo, a Spanish Artist who has ancestral roots in Cuba. Yadhira lives with her family in New York. Follow her on twitter at @gothamesq or Martina the character on twitter at @martinascoin.

Oct 8 2015

Book Review: Becoming Maria by Sonia Manzano

Acting Out Transformative Possibilities: A Review of Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx

By Marilisa Jiménez García, Ph.D.

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK: This is the remarkable true story of a girl plunged into a world she never expected. It’s the story of dreams—some of them nightmares, others visions of romance and escape. It’s the tale of a family that is loving and troubled, and of the child who grew up to become a television star.

Set in the 1950’s in the Bronx, this is the beautifully wrought coming-of-age memoir of Emmy Award-winning actress and writer Sonia Manzano, who defined the role of Maria on the acclaimed children’s television series Sesame Street.

MY TWO CENTS: Sonia “Maria” Manzano held a prominent place in American culture for over 40 years, both as a writer and actor on Sesame Street. While many Latino/a readers have struggled to find characters reflecting their experiences in books, Manzano filled this void on one of the most beloved American television franchises in history. Manzano’s performances shaped the way viewers understood Latino/a culture by breaking stereotypes through an expansive repertoire: from friendly neighbor, to comical mime, to new mother, to glamorous leading lady a’ la Ginger Rogers. Indeed, when she announced her retirement this summer, the outpouring of public tributes and reflections on her legendary career underlined just how closely audiences over a generation identified with Manzano’s evolution into a television icon. Now, as a novelist, she continues to respond to the need for Latino/a protagonists. Her newest book, a memoir, highlights the transformative capacity of theatre and performance for young people.

Becoming Maria provides generations of readers with an opportunity to experience Manzano’s evolution from a young Latina, a puertorriqueña, in the Bronx into a promising performer. It is a journey Manzano also reveals as a struggle to reconcile the love and abuse she witnessed in her family life. Becoming Maria is truly the portrait of an artist, as an early passage in the text demonstrates how, even in moments of distress, a young Sonia developed a gift for observation and imagination:

I run to our fourth-floor window, looking for anything, when I see Uncle Eddie’s car pull up. Out spills his wife, Bon Bon; my uncle Frank; his wife, Iris; and my beautiful mother. She is dressed in a soft-colored yellow dress with pleats down the front that she made herself. My father enters my line of vision as he lunges for her. Her brothers restrain him, and I can tell even from the fourth floor that Ma would rip his face off if she could.

There is something beautiful in the picture they make jerking around in the streetlight. And when the Third Avenue El comes swishing through, right in front of our window so suddenly, I feel like I am in the center of the universe and I am happy that they have had this fight because it has introduced me to the wonderful window. And that’s where I go every day, all the time between assaults when there is nervous calm (Manzano 8-9).

Young Sonia’s ability to both observe and “see beyond,” to borrow a phrase from The Giver, her surroundings and circumstances allows her distance and a space to imagine other possibilities. Through this “window,” young Sonia is able reinvent moments in her life. As children’s literature scholar Rudine Sims Bishop has established, a “window” can also function as a metaphor for literature which gives audiences insight to other worlds and cultures.[1] In this moment, young Sonia’s decision to frame her circumstances also signals Manzano’s own expertise providing access into the literary and theatrical worlds she has created for years.

Becoming Maria adds to Manzano’s titles of works marketed for young people. The closest to this text’s breadth and maturity might be her recent young adult novel, The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (2013), which also features a strong, Latina protagonist coming into her own as a young woman—though the major plot points and struggles emphasized in Evelyn Serrano concern the collective plight of Puerto Ricans in the late 1960s in East Harlem and the rise of the Young Lord’s Party. As in Evelyn Serrano, Becoming Maria includes moments where the young Sonia contemplates the conditions of Puerto Ricans in the New York community and the island, particularly the treatment of Puerto Rican woman by the men in the community. In particular, a young Sonia is frustrated with the realities of internal sexism in a patriarchal culture:

Down with Puerto Rico! Revenge on the island! Screw those people!” becomes my internal battle cry as I vow to shun and reject the place I’ve never been to, where kids drown in sewage, the place of dead mothers, of negligent fathers, of starvation and poverty, of macho men throwing coconuts at their wives’ heads for fun! I know all the horrors even beautiful songs written about the island can’t cover up and will not be fooled by it! (177)

Young Sonia’s struggle to reconcile her views about her home life as both nurturing and abusive parallels with her feelings about her native land. As a writer, Manzano carefully demonstrates how Latino/a authors can both affirm their respective cultures while still encouraging readers to think critically. In fact, the tone and style of Becoming Maria underlines a sense of maturity and confidence in Manzano’s own voice as a novelist.

Overall, Manzano’s work fits into a tradition of Puerto Rican writers including Pura Belpré, Nicholasa Mohr, Piri Thomas, Judith Ortiz-Cofer, and Eric Velasquez who have also written for younger audiences. These writers also demonstrate the power of the creative arts as transformative practices for young Latino/as. Manzano’s position in acting and screenwriting, however, highlights the importance of cultivating spaces in media and performance arts as part of narrating Latino/a histories and counter-narratives.

TEACHING TIPS:

Women’s Studies/History: Consider having students read Manzano’s Becoming Maria alongside Mohr’s Nilda (1973) which also emphasizes the evolution of a young female artist. In terms of Latina women’s history, have student compare the differences between the experiences Mohr describes to that of Manzano. Similarly, Becoming Maria might be read in comparison to Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican (1993) in which Santiago narrates her journey into performance and New York City’s High School for the Performing Arts, a school which Manzano also attends and describes in the book. How is the journey into performance different/similar in Manzano and Santiago versus the journey into visual arts in Mohr?
The Wonderful Window: Young Sonia’s fourth-floor window functions as a kind of retreat which underlines the importance of creating private spaces of reflection and observation for young people. Ask students to reflect on the spaces they retreat to as a means of gaining perspective.
Dramatic Arts/Reader’s Theatre: Becoming Maria greatly emphasizes the dramatic arts as a kind of transformative pedagogy for the young Sonia who finds a sense of voice through drama. Consider following up this novel with a play referenced in the book such as Shakespeare’s works and/or Godspell.

[1] Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3), ix–xi.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx, check your local public library, your local bookstore or IndieBound. Also, check out Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

Marilisa_Jimenez-Garcia Marilisa Jiménez García is a research associate at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, CUNY. She works at the intersections of Latino/a Studies and childhood and children’s literature studies. She attended a performing arts middle school for theater and is currently working on a book manuscript on the history of Latino/a children’s and young adult literature and an essay on the Latino/a “YA” tradition. One of the chapters in her manuscripts is about Sonia Manzano’s work. She is also conducting a survey of NYC teachers on teacher education and the use of diverse lit. in the classroom.

Oct 7 2015

Guest Post by Derek Taylor Kent: My Ravenous Latino Fans

By Derek Taylor Kent

In the process of promoting my series for middle-grade kids, Scary School, I’ve discovered that at least half of my readership has turned out to be Latino kids and parents. I think Latino youth are the most voracious readers out there and yet remain under-represented in the works themselves.

I’ll start off by confessing I am not of any Latino heritage, but growing up in Los Angeles, it has always felt like a part of my culture. My mother was an art teacher at the mostly Latino San Fernando High School for over ten years, where she founded LA Mural Project and helped get hundreds of students into college on art scholarships. I studied Spanish in school and later dated a lovely Nicaraguan girl, who ended up becoming the translator for my picture book El Perro Con Sombrero.

The beginning of my journey takes place when the first Scary School book was released in 2011. I was eager to spread the word about it. I formed a fantastic partnership with a Barnes and Noble in Redlands, California, who hosted book fairs at almost every school in the San Bernardino region. Most of these schools were predominantly Latino or dual immersion.

I also worked with After-School All-Stars and performed my Scary School show for dozens of schools all over Southern California in low-income areas, where book sales were never part of the agenda. It was purely about inspiring the kids to love reading and writing and give them a chance to meet a real author.

I cannot begin to describe the enthusiasm and joy from the kids when I made these visits. Perhaps a big part of the reason they were so enthralled was because I was a children’s horror author and they were already fans of books like Goosebumps. During my shows, kids got to scream and make monster noises, as well as ask me questions.

The response of the kids in the Latino-populated schools was always the most enthusiastic and joyful. They LOVED scary stories and monsters! At other schools, just the mention of werewolves, ghosts, and vampires might send nine-year-olds scurrying out of the room in fear, but my Latino audiences challenged me to scare them every time and I had a great time doing it.

One of my most memorable experiences was when a class of students started peppering me with questions about what monsters they would find in the books. One kid named Pedro asked if there was a Cyclops in the book. When I told him there wasn’t, he put on the saddest expression I’d ever seen. He really loved Cyclopes! I assured him that I would write a Cyclops into Scary School #3 if he promised to read the series. He became so happy he screamed “YES!” and we both fulfilled our ends of the bargain.

Over the last five years, I estimate that at least 50% of my readership is from the Latino audience. One of the main characters of the Scary School series is named Ramon the zombie kid. I don’t make a big deal about his background in the books or even during the shows, but I always notice smiles from the kids when, just because of the name, they know there’s a character they can relate to. (He’s the zombie on the cover of Book 1.)

In Scary School #4, which will release this fall, Ramon plays his biggest part yet, which fits with the title Scary School #4: Zillions of Zombies.

Despite the enthusiastic Latino audiences that I’ve witnessed, there are still relatively few U.S. published books that focus on the Latino experience or have Latino main characters, especially in the middle-grade and YA categories.

I want to encourage Latino writers to consider writing stories designed for 7-12 year olds and teens. While it’s easy for young kids to become excited about books, grabbing the attention of older kids is more challenging. Books centered on their experiences would go a long way toward increasing readership.

Parents can encourage their kids’ reading by making regular and fun-filled trips to the bookstore or library. Allowing kids to find books that excite them means they’ll be more likely to read them. For reluctant readers, setting up a reward system at home can be very beneficial, especially if this includes not only the books they read on their own, but also those that parents read with them. Reading is like exercise for the brain, and just like with sports, the more practice the brain gets, the more success kids will have in school and throughout their lives.

Derek Taylor Kent is also known as Derek the Ghost. He is the author of the middle-grade book series Scary School. His bilingual picture book El Perro Con Sombrero is new this year. It’s about a street dog named Pepe who happens upon a lucky sombrero that turns his life around. For more information about Derek’s books and projects, please visit DerekTaylorKent.com. At a special site for kids, ScarySchool.com, visitors can tour Scary School, read a secret chapter, and play video games.

Latinxs in Kid Lit

Exploring the world of Latinx YA, MG, & children's literature

Category Latinx Literature

Growing Up Cuban: Laura Lacámara and Meg Medina

My Cuban Evolution

Cheeseburger by Day, Guayaba by Night

Alma Flor Ada: Always Cuban

Welcome to Cuba Week!

Las Comadres y Compadres 4th Annual Writers Conference

Book Review: Becoming Maria by Sonia Manzano

Guest Post by Derek Taylor Kent: My Ravenous Latino Fans

My Cuban Evolution

Cheeseburger by Day, Guayaba by Night

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