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Sometimes, All I Need Is Me
by Juliana Perdomo
What it's about: One little girl who cherishes the people and places that support her — such as her cozy home, her caring friendships, and her grandma's warm hugs — while also cherishing her own inner strength.
Want a taste? "I become my own home, where I feel calm... I can be my own company and make my own magic."
Art alert: Buoyant colors and folk-art flair add even more charm to this sweetly empowering tale.
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Solimar: The Sword of the Monarchs
by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Great power: Just before her quinceañera and coronation as princess of San Gregorio, Solimar Guadalupe has a magical encounter that gives her the power to predict the near future.
Great responsibility: With her new ability, Solimar is also tasked with protecting her kingdom's fragile monarch butterflies... and, when a neighboring king invades, with protecting the kingdom itself.
Read it for: A page-turning adventure; a setting inspired by Mexican culture; and a heroine who's smart, loyal, and brave.
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Falling Short
by Ernesto Cisneros
Starring: Unlikely best friends Isaac, a star basketball player with bad grades, and Marco, a straight-A student who's terrible at sports.
What happens: As they start 6th grade, the boys try to measure up to expectations — Marco joins the basketball team and Isaac actually does his homework — and hope to make their families proud.
How it's told: From the funny, honest points of view of both friends.
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Witchlings
by Claribel A. Ortega
What it's about: Feeling angry and disappointed when they're deemed Spare witches without a coven, 12-year-old Seven Salazar and her fellow Spares agree to take on an "impossible task." If they succeed, they'll get their full witch power. If they fail? They could be turned into toads — permanently.
For fans of: Emma Steinkellner's The Okay Witch, TV's The Owl House, and other modern fantasies about kids who challenge unfairness in magical societies.
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Pilar Ramirez and the Escape from Zafa
by Julian Randall
Starring: 12-year-old filmmaker Pilar, who's planning a documentary about her cousin Natasha's disappearance in the Dominican Republic 50 years ago, when Trujillo was dictator.
What happens: While researching Natasha's case, Pilar opens a folder that transports her to Zafa, a supernatural island where Pilar might find answers — if she can face down the Dominican boogeyman, El Cuco.
Series alert: This is the first in a two-book series filled with breathless adventure and new takes on old tales.
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The Last Beekeeper
by Pablo Cartaya
In a world... broken by climate change and protected by the System, Yoly Cicerón will do whatever it takes to escape her family's farm for an education in the high-tech city.
What happens: Yoly's determination puts her in unexpected danger, leading her to shocking truths about the System and a discovery that could change everything: a hive of honeybees, long thought extinct.
For fans of: Futuristic stories that make you think, like Donna Barba Higuera's The Last Cuentista.
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Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America
by Margarita Longoria, editor
What it is: A wide-ranging anthology by and about Mexican Americans, showcasing the diverse talents and experiences of 20 different creators.
Featuring: Short stories, poems, comics, and non-fiction by authors such as Guadalupe García McCall, Anna Meriano, David Bowles, and Francisco X. Stork.
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A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow
by Laura Taylor Namey
The cookie crumbles: Lila Reyes is a baker whose long-term plans are dashed when her boyfriend breaks up with her, her best friend lets her down, and her abuela passes away.
Tea for two: Lila's family sends her to England for the summer for a change of scenery. She'd rather be back in Miami, but tea seller Orion Maxwell might help her appreciate England's charms.
Will it hit the spot? This upbeat story balances self-discovery and romance with enticing foodie details.
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Heartbreak Symphony
by Laekan Zea Kemp
Starring: Aarón, experiencing hallucinations of his favorite musician in the wake of his mother's death; and Mia, raised in a violent household and mourning the loss of her father.
Their pact: To not give up on auditioning for the Acadia School of Music even as they fight for the soul of their San Antonio community, threatened by ICE raids, gentrification, and police brutality.
Read it for: A moving and lyrical account of healing from trauma.
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Fat Chance, Charlie Vega
by Crystal Maldonado
What it's about: Classic rom-com tropes get an update in this story about a young woman trying to balance many identities, friendship, her mother's body-shaming, and first love.
Why you might like it: Anyone who's ever struggled with feeling different will relate to Charlie Vega's life as a brown girl in a white Connecticut town.
Who it's for: Author Crystal Maldonado says this book is "for all who are still learning to be kind to themselves, for those who dream."
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Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World
by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
What it is: A lyrical and thought-provoking exploration of what "happily ever after" looks like for two Mexican American boys in a relationship during the final year of high school.
The setting: 1980s El Paso, a border town where few understand Ari and Dante and the AIDS epidemic is a looming threat.
Series alert: This is the second novel in the Aristotle and Dante series, following Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.
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Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in Between Worlds
by Sergio Troncoso, editor
What it is: This anthology contains mostly never-before-published works by thirty Mexican American writers woven together by the common thread of "nepantla," a Nahuatl word that means "mutual place" or the "in-between." The essays, poems and short stories explore the in-between moments in Mexican American life: the family dynamics of living between traditional and contemporary worlds, between Spanish and English, between cultures with traditional and shifting identities.
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Decoding "Despacito": An Oral History of Latin Music
by Leila Cobo
What it is: An inside look at the stories behind the biggest Latin hits of the past fifty years, from the salsa born and bred in the streets of New York City to Puerto Rican reggaetón and bilingual chart-toppers, this rich oral history is a veritable treasure trove of never-before-heard anecdotes and insights from a who's who of Latin music artists, executives, observers and players.
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Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity
by Paola Ramos
What it's about: Vice journalist Paola Ramos' travels throughout the United States to amplify "the voices that are often neglected in the back of the room."
What's inside: Profiles and photographs of diverse Hispanic and Latino/a people who have embraced the inclusivity of the term "Latinx," including queer and trans people, Muslim Latinx, "Blaxicans" (Black Mexicans), and undocumented immigrants.
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Treasures of the Mexican Table: Classic Recipes, Local Secrets
by Pati Jinich
What's inside: The star of the three-time James Beard Award-winning PBS series Pati's Mexican Table presents more than 150 classic recipes that are heirlooms passed down from generations and paint a vivid picture of the richness of Mexico.
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Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands
by Linda Ronstadt and Lawrence Downes
What it is: Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Ronstadt presents an illustrated memoir that focuses on the Sonoran Desert where she came of age as the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants.
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Solito: A Memoir
by Javier Zamora
What it is: A young poet reflects on his 3,000-mile journey from El Salvador to the United States when he was nine years old, during which he was faced with perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions during two life-altering months alongside a group of strangers who became an unexpected family.
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A House of My Own: Stories from My Life
by Sandra Cisneros
What it is: A collection of true stories and nonfiction pieces spanning nearly three decades that read together paint an intimate portrait of a literary legend's life and career.
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Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs
by Camilla Townsend
What it is: This new history of the Aztecs based solely on the texts written by the people themselves presents the story of a people who had a history of their own long before the Europeans arrived, and who used their talents to survive when the worst of times came upon them. They realigned political allegiances, accommodated new obligations, adopted new technologies, and carried on.
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An African American and Latinx History of the United States
by Paul Ortiz
What it is: An intersectional history that investigates the role American imperialism has played in marginalizing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples.
Why you might like it: Historian Paul Ortiz's concise and accessible account incorporates oral histories and other primary sources to illuminate the overlapping struggles for emancipation among denizens of the Global South (Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean).
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Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
by Juan González
What it is: A sweeping history of the Latinx experience in the United States. This first new edition in ten years of this important study of Latinos in U.S. history spans five centuries from the European colonization of the Americas to the 2020 election. With family portraits of real-life immigrant Latino pioneers as well as accounts of the events and conditions that compelled them to leave their homelands.
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A Ballad of Love and Glory
by Reyna Grande
What it is: A Long Petal of the Sea meets Cold Mountain in this sweeping historical saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight, at first for their survival and then for their love, amidst the atrocity of the Mexican-American War.
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West Side Love Story
by Priscilla Oliveras
The plot: Determined to win the Battle of the Mariachi Bands to solve her adoptive parents' financial problems, Mariana escalates a decades-old feud with her father's enemy Hugo Montero, especially when she embarks on a forbidden affair with Hugo's son Angelo, who wants to bring peace between their families.
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The Hacienda
by Isabel Cañas
What it's about: Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in Cañas’s stunning debut. In the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence and the execution of her father, Beatriz accepts Don Rodolfo Solórzano's proposal of marriage and is whisked away to his remote country estate where she is faced with a malevolent presence linked to his first wife's death.
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Monkey Boy
by Francisco Goldman
**2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Fiction**
What it's about: Francisco Goldberg, grappling with his heritage, career and growing up Jewish and Guatemalan in America, returns to his childhood home outside Boston where he explores the pressures of living between worlds all his life.
Critics say: “Full of rebellious comedy and vitality… Goldman’s autobiographical immersion answers the urgent cry of memory… [He] is a natural storyteller―funny, intimate, sarcastic, all-noticing.”―James Wood, The New Yorker
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The Headless Woman
What it's about: When a local boy goes missing, an upper-class woman believes she might have hit him with her car.
What sets it apart: It was ranked #89 on the BBC's list of the 100 greatest films of the 21st century.
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Marry Me
What it's about: When a pop star plans to marry her fiancé onstage during one of her performances, she instead decides to marry a stranger from the audience.
Starring: Jennifer Lopez and Maluma
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Encanto
What it's about: When a magical hidden town in the Colombian mountains is in danger of losing its magic, Mirabel Madrigal, the only member of her family without a magical gift, sets out to save her family and their home.
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West Side Story
What it's about: Love at first sight strikes when young Tony spots Maria at a high school dance in 1957 New York City. Their burgeoning romance helps to fuel the fire between the warring Jets and Sharks -- two rival gangs vying for control of the streets.
Critics say: "Ariana DeBose, as Anita, is the dynamo who powers the whole show" (The Wall Street Journal).
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Parallel Mothers
What it's about: The lives of two single women become intertwined when they share a hospital room giving birth to their daughters on the same day.
Starring: Penelope Cruz and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
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Sergio Mendes: In the Key of Joy
What it's about: Profiles one of the most internationally successful Brazilian musicians, pianist, composer, and bandleader, Sergio Mendes.
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Mala Mala
What it's about: Features trans-identifying people, drag queens, and other people who defy typical gender identities in Puerto Rico.
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My Name Is Lopez
What it's about: Tells the life story of Latino musician, actor, and son of undocumented Mexican immigrants, Trini Lopez.
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Song Without a Name
What it's about: Based on true events, after an indigenous Andean woman gives birth in a downtown Lima clinic and her baby is taken from her, she approaches a journalist who uncovers a web of fake clinics and abductions.
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Fresno County Public Library 2420 Mariposa St. Fresno, California 93721 559-600-READ (7323)www.fresnolibrary.org |
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