Celebrate Latinx & Hispanic Heritage with Caseyville Library! This month check out books by Latin-American Authors and about Latinx characters. Explore the rich and diverse cultures and experiences within these stories.
Violeta by Isabel Allende, master of magical realism, depicts the life of a 100 year-old Chilean woman born in 1920. Violeta tells her story through a series of letters she writes to someone she loves. These letters take us through the Spanish Influenza, military coups, wartime struggles, discrimination, love, loss, and survival. Allende’s historical knowledge shines through creating an historical fiction story interwoven with real events and situations people like Violeta lived through. Violeta immerses readers in a rich and colorful life charged with emotion at its turning point to come full circle.
Nineteen year-old Juliet is a self-described closeted Puerto-Rican lesbian living in the Bronx, and after coming out to her family, she leaves for Portland unsure if her mom will ever speak to her again. Juliet is to to work at her dream internship for her favorite author, feminist writer, Harlowe Brisbane, whom Juliet thinks the voice for modern feminism and LGBT rights. As Juliet gets to know Brisbane, the perfect image of her shatters and Juliet begins to understand the importance of her own intersectional views and identity and the importance of her own voice. Told in stream of consciousness, the story weaves Puerto-Rican and New York slang and terminology into Juliet’s narration, granting readers access to who she is and how she thinks.
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Xiomara Batista, our Afro-Latina heroine, feels unheard. At fifteen years old, men are objectifying her body and Xiomara could just disappear, but she feels anything but invisible. She channels all her anger and frustration into poetry, becoming a slam poet. This story is told in the form of poetry and we learn about Xiomara’s life, questioning religion, her interfamily relationships, and her struggles growing up in Harlem.
Mexican Whiteboy by Matt de la Peña
Danny is half Mexican and knows the white kids at school see his skin and think he’s brown, but Danny also feels like Latinx people just see his whiteness. Part of him even wonders if his dad left because he turned out so white. Over the summer, Danny travels to San Diego to visit his father and tries to make sense of his interracial identity, explore new friendships and relationships, and find acceptance in himself.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Cemetery Boys follows Yadriel, a boy from a traditional Cuban/Mexican family of brujos. When his family has trouble accepting his true gender and status as a real brujo, Yadriel sets out to prove it by freeing the ghost of his murdered cousin. Instead, he summons the ghost of Julian, a reckless and troublesome but also loyal and endearing boy from school. Now that Julian is here, he does not seem to want to go away anytime soon. The story explores intergenerational relationships and intersectional identities through gender and culture.
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