The word "parent" is not just a noun. It's also a verb.
It’s easy to read Paola Santiago and the River of Tears as the spellbinding story of the supernatural that it is, but just as Pao learns that there’s more going on beneath the surface of the Gila River, the reader discovers there’s more depth in the book too. Themes of place and belonging are brought into sharp relief as Pao chafes at what she sees as her mother’s backwards beliefs.
I would steer the book away from Middle Grade readers and put it squarely in the hands of a Young Adult audience and above. The themes are strong, the writing is strong, and although very funny at times, things can get pretty intense:
In her book, The Heart of Mi Familia, Lara seamlessly weaves a story of what it is like to be not only bilingual, but also bicultural, and she does so in a sweet story of a little girl that effortlessly moves between two cultures.
In Jorge Argueta’s haunting novel in verse, Caravan to the North: Misael’s Long Walk, Misael and his family can no longer live in their home, El Salvador, which they love.
Through extrapolation, Accordionly, touches upon the obstacle many children face when going to school for the first time in a new country: the inability to communicate with children who do not speak a common language.
Sili Recio’s description of how her color was used as both a source of joy and encouragement and a weapon to cause pain is both poignant and inspirational. Her message to boys and girls with skin that is “a ribbon of different shades of brown” is especially important under the current climate our country and the world is experiencing.
Character development, for example, is strong– and Higuera manages to find just the right balance between two internally competing cultures within our heroine not only by using humor, but also through a strong balance of both ethos and pathos.
Unger’s straightforward prose and Velez Aguilera’s black and white illustrations present an incomprehensible subject – war – in a simple way. And although the topic is serious and scary, Davico finds solace in the embrace of his family, and we the readers do too.
Beautifully illustrated, and clearly written, Proud to be Latino: Food/Comida reads like a food encyclopedia for the Paw Patrol set. Each colorful page has English text on one side, and Spanish text on the other.