A Mexican-American teen girl dreams of winning an athletic scholarship against all odds in a Texas border town. This true story of survival, strength, and triumph is perfect for fans of Educated and Athlete A.

Twenty-four hours: that's how long fourteen-year-old Elvira Gonzalez is given to come up with the $40,000 she needs to save her kidnapped mother from a drug cartel. It's 2006 and Elvira's hometown of Laredo, Texas, has become engulfed by the Mexican Drug War. Elvira's life is unraveling around her--setting her on a harrowing path that leads her to being locked up in one of South Texas's worst juvenile detention centers.

After Elvira's released from juvie, she's resolved to never go back. That's when her unexpected salvation arrives in the form of 33-inch-high plastic hurdles. Determined to win a track scholarship out of Laredo, Elvira begins breaking into the school, alone, at 5:30 in the morning to practice hurdling. Soon, she catches the attention of a renowned high school coach, an adult man in his 30s. As they train, their coach-student relationship begins to change, becoming sexual. At just seventeen years old, Elvira experiences the dangers many young athletes face, especially those who are marginalized. In spite of these towering obstacles, Elvira eventually propels herself to become one of the top ranked hurdlers in the USA and the first in her family to go to college.

This inspiring true story of grit, tenacity, and hope traces Elvira's path as she overcomes impossible hurdles in her race to freedom.

Edited by The Bronx Is Reading founder Saraciea J. Fennell and featuring an all-star cast of Latinx contributors, Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed is a ground-breaking anthology that will spark dialogue and inspire hope

In Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed, bestselling and award-winning authors as well as up-and-coming voices interrogate the different myths and stereotypes about the Latinx diaspora. These fifteen original pieces delve into everything from ghost stories and superheroes, to memories in the kitchen and travels around the world, to addiction and grief, to identity and anti-Blackness, to finding love and speaking your truth. Full of both sorrow and joy, Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed is an essential celebration of this rich and diverse community.

The bestselling and award-winning contributors include Elizabeth Acevedo, Cristina Arreola, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Naima Coster, Natasha Diaz, Saraciea J. Fennell, Kahlil Haywood, Zakiya Jamal, Janel Martinez, Jasminne Mendez, Meg Medina, Mark Oshiro, Julian Randall, Lilliam Rivera, and Ibi Zoboi.

In this Pura Belpr Honor-winning memoir, sequel to best-selling The Circuit, Francisco Jimenez tells his timely story about immigrant prejudice, keeping hope alive when there is none and his family's journey to achieving their American dream.

At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jim nez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home in California, the entire family travels all night for twenty hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona.

In the months and years that follow during the late 1950s-early 1960s, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice. How they sustain their hope, their good-heartedness, and tenacity is revealed in this moving, Pura Belpr Honor-winning sequel to The Circuit. Without bitterness or sentimentality, Francisco Jim nez finishes telling the story of his youth.

On her first day of middle school Spanish class, Marcela thought she'd excel--after all, she'd grown up speaking Spanish at home and on visits to family in Colombia. Instead, she quickly felt like a confused imposter, unsure how a language that was part of her heritage and identity could so elude her. And so, at age thirteen, with the help of her Spanish teacher Doña Maribel, Marcela began her formal journey studying Spanish. She never anticipated how much she'd discover about learning a language and what it means to be a heritage speaker--someone who grows up using a language at home but often lacks more formal knowledge of it. In this charming graphic memoir that captures a little-discussed aspect of growing up multicultural, Marcela recounts her earliest Spanish teachers: Colombian street vendors, family members who shouted or whispered words, and her beloved Doña Maribel, who helped her connect the Spanish of her youth with what she was learning in the classroom. Childhood memories from trips to Colombia intertwine with her adolescence, when Marcela resolves to study the language for herself, not because people correct her or expect her to speak it well but because she wants to learn. This comic, drawn by Marcela's brother Andrés, shows the complicated path of language and identity that Marcela travels as a heritage speaker.

Award-winning Mexican author Juan Pablo Villalobos explores illegal immigration with this emotionally raw and timely nonfiction book about ten Central American teens and their journeys to the United States.

You can't really tell what time it is when you're in the freezer.

Every year, thousands of migrant children and teens cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The journey is treacherous and sometimes deadly, but worth the risk for migrants who are escaping gang violence and poverty in their home countries. And for those refugees who do succeed? They face an immigration process that is as winding and multi-tiered as the journey that brought them here.

In this book, award-winning Mexican author Juan Pablo Villalobos strings together the diverse experiences of eleven real migrant teenagers, offering readers a beginning road map to issues facing the region. These timely accounts of courage, sacrifice, and survival--including two fourteen-year-old girls forming a tenuous friendship as they wait in a frigid holding cell, a boy in Chicago beginning to craft his future while piecing together his past in El Salvador, and cousins learning to lift each other up through angry waters--offer a rare and invaluable window into the U.S.-Central American refugee crisis.

In turns optimistic and heartbreaking, The Other Side balances the boundless hope at the center of immigration with the weight of its risks and repercussions. Here is a necessary read for young people on both sides of the issue.

Echando Cuentos de Venezuela is a beautiful and nostalgic journey told in Spanish by children who share the stories of their emigrant father. Through their tales, we travel across the country: landscapes, cities, flavors, songs, and the warmth of its people, celebrating what makes Venezuela unique and unforgettable. With playful rhymes in Spanish and endearing references, this book is a tribute to those who carry their homeland in their hearts.

Echando Cuentos de Venezuela es un viaje hermoso y nostálgico contado por niños que comparten los cuentos de su papá emigrante. A través de sus relatos, recorremos el país: paisajes, ciudades, sabores, canciones y la calidez de su gente, celebrando lo que hace a Venezuela única e inolvidable. Con rimas divertidas y referencias entrañables, este libro es un homenaje a quienes llevan su tierra en el corazón.

Chapters define stages in life, but it doesn't work like that. It isn't a line. It isn't a straight path. In this book, you'll witness that there is order in chaos by accepting it. With poems and self-reflections, you will come across female rage, sensitivity, strengths and weaknesses, growth and set-backs, and essentially, me-- you.

This book explores the contorted rollercoaster that is life, in the hands of a person who could not verbally express it. As you read, there will be moments in which you will find a piece of you within the pages. Notice that they are not numbered. Not meant to be found again, as it is meant to be lived in the moment with you, as you read it for the first time.

Bring Back the Late 90s and Early 2000s describes a time with the coolest music and movies ever made. The clothing was baggy, the girls were raw, and the boys were hard-core. Brace for impact, these next pages are a wild ride down memory lane, baby.

Hell/a Mexican is an appreciation of the tragicomedy that is existing on American soil with foreign roots. These stories shed light on the boundless experience of living and learning through your identity. This collection, much like us, reaches for hope; Sometimes we find it, sometimes we don't.

Known to millions as J.Lo, Jennifer Lopez is one of the most prominent Latin American performers in the world. She has been called the most influential Hispanic entertainer in the United States by People en Español. As an actress, singer, songwriter, dancer, and fashion designer, Lopez has a reputation for being a perfectionist and a demanding diva. But this dedication has paid off financially. According to Forbes, she is one of the richest Latino performers in the United States and ranked thirteenth on Forbes's 2019 list of the highest-paid women in entertainment. Read about this one-woman entertainment powerhouse in this full-color biography.

Have you ever asked yourself the questions: Who am I? What makes me happy? Questions that we dare not even ask because we don't deem ourselves worthy or deserving. Maybe we were waiting for someone else's permission to do so-spouse, significant other, friend or family member. I was guilty! Those were questions I never really asked myself. I didn't know who I was, much less what I wanted. You only know what you know. Right? At some point in our lives those two questions often come at the lowest moments in our lives. Incidentally, they are the questions that MUST be answered. In this Memoir, Mary E. Gonzalez shares her story of transitioning into the woman she is today. Claiming My Soul is a retailing of her experiences as a woman seeking to survive the day to day of living. She takes us a on a journey of self-acceptance, overcoming trials and tribulation, and holding on to her faith in God in the midst of adversity. The book is a memoir that will enlighten, encourage, inspire, and provide nuggets of wisdom for all ages. It is truly a memoir filled with message of love, hope, faith, and perseverance.