Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month Book Recommendations
To celebrate Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month, we’re excited to share with you some book recommendations for patrons of all ages! Let us know if you pick up any of these books by leaving a review in the “Awesome Box” at the ground floor checkout desk or fill out a review form. Need help reserving one of these title? You can place a request in the online catalog, fill out a request form, or call the reference desk at 978-674-4121.
Picture Books
by Alyssa Reynoso-Morris; illustrated by Mariyah Rahman
A young girl learns the cultural significance of plantains while cooking alongside her abuela
by Anika Aldamuy Denise; illustrated by Zara González Hoang
Laugh and count along with this lively cumulative romp told in a lyrical blend of Spanish and English. Nine kittens follow Gato Guapo around, but when it’s time to count them, one by one, they go missing, along with a piece of Gato Guapo’s clothes!
by Jackie Azúa Kramer & Jonah Kramer; illustrated by Zach Manbeck
Despite being teased by his classmates, Manolo continues to believe in unicorns and meets one of the magical creatures on his way home from school.
Jovita Wore Pants: The story of a Mexican freedom fighter
by Aida Salazar; art by Molly Mendoza.
Jovita didn’t want to cook and clean like her sisters, and she especially didn’t want to wear the skirts her abuela gave her. When her father and brothers joined the Cristeros War to fight for the right to practice religion, she wanted to help. When tragedy struck, she did the only thing that felt right to her–cut her hair, donned a pair of pants, and continued the fight, commanding a battalion who followed her without question.
Middle Grade
by Diana López
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, which lies on the Mexican-American border.
by Tamika Burgess
Sixth-grader Sicily Jordan learns to use her voice and to find joy in who she is–a Black Panamanian fashionista who rocks her braids with pride–while confronting prejudice both in the classroom and at home.
Pilar Ramirez and the Escape from Zafa
by Julian Randall
While doing research for her documentary about her cousin Natasha–who disappeared in the Dominican Republic fifty years ago during the Trujillato–twelve-year-old Pilar Violeta Ramirez is transported to Zafa, an island where Dominican myths and legends come to life and where her cousin is being held captive in a sinister magical prison, and Pilar must defeat the Dominican bogeyman if she hopes to free Natasha and return home to Chicago.
Saving Chupie [Interlibrary loan, for assistance, please speak to a librarian]
by Amparo Ortiz and illustrated by Ronnie Garcia
Violeta Rubio and her friends are on a mission to protect their local chupacabra from international smugglers and monster hunters in this supernatural island adventure.
Young Adult
by Lauren Yero
When rebels infect his father with a fatal virus, sixteen-year-old Rumi ventures beyond his city’s protected walls and meets Paz, who offers to guide him on his search for a cure, but may have an agenda of her own.
by Federico Erebia
Growing up in 1970s Ohio, Mexican American brothers Pedro and Daniel, who are not like other boys, manage an abusive home life, school, coming out, first loves, first jobs, and the AIDS epidemic, leaning on each other always and forever.
by Jonny Garza Villa
Nonbinary teen Ander is ready to leave their family’s taquería and focus on their art, but when Santi, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, begins to work at the restaurant, the two teens spark a romance made complicated by immigration police.
by Ari Tison
When brothers Max and Jay help a classmate in trouble, they struggle with the consequences of their violent actions and worry they may be more like their abusive father than they thought, so the brothers turn to their Bribri [Indigenous Costa Rican] roots to find their way forward.
Honorable Mention: Heartstopper by Alice Oseman
Shy and softhearted Charlie Spring sits next to rugby player Nick Nelson in class one morning. A warm and intimate friendship follows, and that soon develops into something more for Charlie, who doesn’t think he has a chance. But Nick is struggling with feelings of his own, and as the two grow closer and take on the ups and downs of high school, they come to understand the surprising and delightful ways in which love works. Charlie Spring is Hispanic, as his father is Spanish!
Adult
by E.G. Condé
After a hurricane decimates the island of Puerto Rico and is abandoned by the United States, Vero (a trans man) leaves his home to petition the centralized government for aid and seek the truth about new colonists arriving on the island. But in the Yucatan, Vero finds a landscape ravaged by an ecological disaster of humanity’s own making—the Hydrophage, a climate technology warped into a weapon of war and released onto the land by the dictator Caudillo.
by Elizabeth Acevedo
From the bestselling, National Book Award–winning author Elizabeth Acevedo comes her first novel for adults, the story of one Dominican American family told through the voices of its women as they await a gathering that will forever change their lives.
by V. Castro
A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona as she unravels the dark secrets of her family history in this ravishing and provocative horror novel
by Mariely Lares
Mexican history and Mesoamerican mythology meet in this thrilling historical fantasy with magic, intrigue, treachery, romance, and adventure.
Non-Fiction
Asada: the art of Mexican-style grilling
by Bricia Lopez with Javier Cabral
Oaxaca authors Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral are back with the first major cookbook about how to create asada-Mexican-style grilled meat-at home
Wealth Warrior: 8 steps for communities of color to conquer the stock market
by Linda García
As a proud Latina, García understands that building wealth can mean more than stepping into financial arenas historically kept from communities of color. In this investing playbook, she guides you on how to establish a budget, create your “opportunity fund,” and pay yourself first. She shows you how to analyze a company, choose the right stocks for you, and create a plan to multiply your money
The Soul of a Woman: On impatient love, long life, and good witches
by Isabel Allende
The author describes her lifelong commitment to feminism in a meditation on what it means to be a woman, discussing progress within the movement in her lifetime, what remains to be done, and how to move forward in the future
Promises of Gold = Promesas de oro
by José Olivarez ; traducción al español de David Ruano González
A groundbreaking collection of poems addressing how every kind of love–self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural–is birthed, shaped, and complicated by the invisible forces of gender, capitalism, religion, migration, and so on. Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano, Promises of Gold explores many forms of love and how “a promise made isn’t always a promise kept,” as Olivarez grapples with the contradictions of the American Dream laying bare the ways in which “love is complicated by forces larger than our hearts.