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AWARDS: ECHOES OF GRACE
AWARDS: 2023 Jean Flynn Award for Best Young Adult Book – Texas Institute of Letters (TIL) 2023 Spirit of Texas Reading List (SPOT) – Young Adult Round Table (YART) at the Texas Library Association (TLA) JLG Gold Standard Selection – Junior Library Guild Kirkus Best Young Adult Books of the Year – Kirkus Reviews, 2022 Kirkus Best Teen and YA Books About Family of 2022 – Kirkus Reviews 2022 Blue Ribbons list, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (BCCB) The 23 Best Books of 2022 (So Far), Seventeen Magazine REVIEWS: “…a breathtaking story of sisterhood, familia, fighting the demons of generational trauma and femicide, and moving forward with fresh…
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ECHOES OF GRACE
ECHOES OF GRACE Teacher’s Guide A tragic accident in the young lives of sisters, Graciela (Grace) and Mercedes (Mercy) Torres, sets off a chain of events in which Grace flounders to restore her relationship with her sister while swimming against a current of strange, bewildering echoes. Flashbacks, premonitions, and visitations from the other side all weave a mysterious tapestry that weighs heavily on Grace’s shoulders as she tries to navigate memories of a time three years earlier when she ran away from home and lost a week of her life. In the present—amidst the mundanities of college homework and dating—Grace tries to figure out if the things happening in her…
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El verano de las mariposas
El verano de las mariposas ¡Ahora, ésta odisea se ofrece en español! Odilia and her four sisters rival the mythical Odysseus in cleverness and courage as they embark on their own hero’s journey. After finding a drowned man floating in their secret swimming hole along the Rio Grande, the sisters trekacross the border to bring the body to the man’s family in Mexico. But returning home turns into an odyssey of their own. Outsmarting mythical creatures, and with the supernatural aid of spectral La Llorona via a magical earring, Odilia and her little sisters make their way along a road of trials to make it to their long-lost grandmother’s house.…
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THE KEEPER
THE KEEPER Inspired by a terrifying true story, acclaimed author Guadalupe Garcia McCall creates a twisty tale about a boy desperately trying to survive in a new town with a history of disappearing children. No sooner have he and his family arrived in their “perfect” new home in their “perfect” new town than he starts getting mysterious letters from someone called the Keeper. Someone who claims to be watching him. Someone who is looking for “young blood.” James and his sister, Ava, are obviously in danger. But the problem with having a history of playing practical jokes is that no one believes James—not even his parents. Now James and Ava need…
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AWARDS: ALL THE STARS DENIED
AWARDS: 2019 Writers League of Texas Book Award Finalist, Writers’ League of Texas, Austin, TX 2019 Best Young Adult Book Finalist, Texas Institute of Letters Best Multicultural Children’s Books Of 2018, Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature, Inglewood, CA REVIEWS: A harrowing account of a lesser known episode in the United States’ unseemly history of discriminatory immigration policies. Estrella del Toro is witnessing change all around her Monteseco, TX, community… Samples from Estrella’s notebook, including poems, in the form of eco-poetry, newspaper clippings, telegrams, and unsent letters are featured between chapters…The treatment of Mexicanos and Depression-era rhetoric will ring disturbingly familiar to readers mindful of today’s headlines. –School Library Journal, Starred…
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AWARDS: SHAME THE STARS
AWARDS: JLG Gold Standard Selection, Junior Library Guild Américas Book Award-Commended List, Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs Texas’ Great Reads 2018 – The Texas Center for the Book, Texas State Library and Archives Commission representing Texas at the National Book Festival at the Library of Congress Tayshas List – Texas Library Association REVIEWS: Far beyond a love story, the novel successfully tackles all kinds of hardship, including sexual violence and lynching; the historical conflict between the Rangers and the Tejanos feels uncannily contemporary. Women are the hidden heroes, because they must be, the hearts of both the revolution and the novel. Pura Belpré winner McCall delivers an ambitious, sardonically relevant historical…
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ALL THE STARS DENIED
ALL THE STARS DENIED Teacher’s Guide In the heart of the Great Depression, Rancho Las Moras, like everywhere else in Texas, is gripped by the drought of the Dust Bowl, and resentment is building among white farmers against Mexican Americans. All around town, signs go up proclaiming No Dogs or Mexicans and No Mexicans Allowed. When Estrella organizes a protest against the treatment of tejanos in their town of Monteseco, Texas, her whole family becomes a target of repatriation efforts to send Mexicans back to Mexico whether they were ever Mexican citizens or not. Dumped across the border and separated from half her family, Estrella must figure out a way…
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SHAME THE STARS
SHAME THE STARS Teacher’s Guide In this reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, eighteen-year-old Joaquín del Toro’s future looks bright. With his older brother in the priesthood, he’s set to inherit his family’s Texas ranch. He’s in love with Dulceña—and she’s in love with him. But it’s 1915, and trouble has been brewing along the US-Mexico border. On one side, the Mexican Revolution is taking hold; on the other, Texas Rangers fight Tejano insurgents, and ordinary citizens are caught in the middle. As tensions grow, Joaquín is torn away from Dulceña, whose father’s critical reporting on the Rangers in the local newspaper has driven a wedge between their families. Joaquín’s own…
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AWARDS: SUMMER OF THE MARIPOSAS
AWARDS: Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award – Westchester Fiction Award Committee Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Finalist – Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America 2013 Amelia Bloomer Project List – Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the (ALA) Best Children’s Books of the Year Outstanding Merit – Bank Street College Children’s Book Committee 2014 Texas Lone Star Reading List – TLA Young Adult Round Table Best Books of the Year – School Library Journal REVIEWS: Written in the style of magic realism, this is an enchanting look at Mexican mysticism, coupled with the realistic celebration of the true meaning of…
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AWARDS: UNDER THE MESQUITE
AWARDS: Pura Belpre Author Award – ALSC/ReformaWilliam C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist – Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)2013 Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award – Texas State University Américas Award Honorable Mention – Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP)Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Finalist – Assembly on Literature for Adolescents2012 International Latino Book Awards – Honorable Mention – ILBA2013 International Literacy Association’s Promising Poet Award – IRA REVIEWS: With poignant imagery and well-placed Spanish, the author effectively captures the complex lives of teenagers in many Latino and/or immigrant families. A promising, deeply felt debut.–Kirkus, Starred Review This stunning debut novel in verse chronicles the teenage years of…
