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Latino Voices

Abel, Jessica . La perdida.
Fiction Abel (2006)
Carla Olivares, a Mexican-American who speaks no Spanish, travels to Mexico City to explore her roots but finds Mexico more violent than she had imagined.
Alegría, Mal. Estrella's quinceañera.
Fiction Alegria (2006)
Estrella struggles to find a balance between her home life in the barrio where her mother is getting carried away planning a gaudy quinceañera, and her school life in a private school where her friends drop designer names and money at the bat of an eye.
Alegría, Mal. Sofi Mendoza's guide to getting lost in Mexico.
Fiction Alegria (2007)
When Southern California high school senior Sofi Mendoza lies to her parents and crosses the border for a weekend party, she has no idea that she will get stuck in a Mexican village with family she has never met before, unable to return to the United States and the easy life she knew.
Alvarez, Julia. Once upon a quinceañera: coming of age in the USA.
395.24 Al866o 2007
Alvarez weaves in interviews with quince girls, her own memories of coming of age as an immigrant, and the history of the custom itself-how it originated and what has changed as Latinas become accustomed to a super-size American culture.
Anaya, Rudolfo A. Curse of the ChupaCabra.
Fiction Anaya (2006)
Professor Rosa Medina, a folklorist researching the ChupaCabra, goes to Mexico to track down recent sightings of the creature which kills its victims, particularly goats, by sucking their brains out.
Bernier-Grand, Carmen T. Frida: viva la vida = long live life.
811.54 B4578f 2007
Frida Kahlo, a native of Mexico, is described here in biographical poems accompanied by her own artwork. Both text and images reveal the anguish and joy of her two marriages to muralist Diego Rivera, her life-long suffering from a crippling bus accident, and her thirst for life, even as she tasted death.
Darraj, Susan Muaddi. Oscar De la Hoya.
92 D3314d 2008 (2007)
The great Hispanic heritage biography series.
Engle, Margarita. The poet slave of Cuba: a biography of Juan Francisco Manzano .
811.6 En35p 2006
Told in verse, the story recounts the boyhood of the nineteenth-century Cuban slave Juan Francisco Manzano, who secretly learned to read and wrote poetry about beauty and courage in his world of unspeakable brutality.
Ferrer, Caridad.Adios to my old life.
Fiction Ferrer (2006)
As a talented singer-guitarist with a dream of going pro, Alegria Montero is getting fed up with the endless, boring parade of quinceañeras and other family party gigs. She's longing for something bigger, and Oye Mi Canto -- a new reality TV show that's searching for the next Latin superstar -- is definitely that. Ali figures she'll never make the cut, but auditioning seems like a good way to get her overprotective father to take her ambitions seriously.
Hernandez, David. Suckerpunch.
Fiction Hernandez (2008)
Shy, seventeen-year-old Marcus and his sixteen-year-old brother, Enrique, accompanied by two friends, drive from their home in southern California to Monterey to confront the abusive father who walked out a year earlier, and who now wants to return home.
Hoffman, Alice. Incantation.
Fiction Hoffman (2006)
In 1500 Spain, Estrella must grow up quickly when it is discovered that her family are Marranos -- Spanish Jews who secretly practice their religion for fear of retribution.
Jaramillo, Ann. La línea.
Fiction Jaramillo (2006)
Miguel is set to leave his Mexican village to join his parents in California, but his little sister is determined to join him.
Ostow, Micol. Emily Goldberg learns to salsa.
Fiction Ostow (2008)
Forced to stay with her mother in Puerto Rico for weeks after her grandmother's funeral, half-Jewish Emily, who has just graduated from a Westchester, New York, high school, does not find it easy to connect with her Puerto Rican heritage and relatives she had never met.
Resau, Laura. What the moon saw: a novel.
Fiction Resau (2006)
Clara Luna is a fourteen-year-old growing up in the suburbs of Maryland. Her father immigrated to the U.S. as a young man from a tiny village in Oaxaca, Mexico. In this summer before high school, Clara is invited to spend the summer with her Oaxacan grandparents whom she has never met. Clara is a typical American teen of that age and, while she flirts, gossips, and shops with her friends, she feels a restlessness that she cannot explain. She, reluctantly, sets out for Oaxaca imagining her grandparents in a Mexican-style adobe house with bright blooming flowers in a window box to discover that they actually live in an extremely remote, unmodernized village where they "live off the land." As this summer unfolds, Clara comes to know her grandfather, her grandmother-the village's healer, their young goat-herding neighbor Pedro, the story of her ancestors, and, ultimately, herself.
Saldana, Rene. The whole sky full of stars.
Fiction Saldana (2007)
Eighteen-year-old Barry competes in a non-sanctioned boxing match in hopes of helping his recently-widowed mother, unaware that his best friend and manager, Alby, has his own desperate need for a share of the purse that may put their friendship on the line.
Sanchez, Alex. Getting it.
Fiction Sanchez (2006)
Hoping to impress a sexy female classmate, fifteen-year-old Carlos secretly hires gay student Sal to give him an image makeover, in exchange for Carlos's help in forming a Gay-Straight Alliance at their Texas high school.
Soto, Gary. Accidental love.
Fiction Soto (2006)
After unexpectedly falling in love with a "nerdy" boy, fourteen-year-old Marisa works to change her life by transferring to another school, altering some of her behavior, and losing weight.
Soto, Gary. Facts of Life: Stories.
Fiction Soto (2008)
A collection of short stories about siblings, difficult parents, and first loves.
Soto, Gary. Mercy on these teenage chimps.
Fiction Soto (2008)
At age thirteen, best friends Ronnie and Joey suddenly feel like chimps -- long armed, big eared, and gangly -- and when the coach humiliates Joey in front of a girl, he climbs up a tree and refuses to come down.

Updated May 2008.

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