Author Q&A: ‘Pockets of Love’ by Yamile Saied Méndez

Yamile Saied Méndez’s forthcoming picture book, Pockets of Love, begins with a flood of memories. “Grandma Monona used to visit her children and grandchildren all over the world. She would bring special candy, a new recipe or two, but most of all her laughter and love.”

Sebi and Star, the book’s young protagonists, are keenly aware that things are different now. Their maternal grandmother isn’t coming to visit them for Mami’s birthday. Méndez writes, “Heaven is just too far away.”

But the brother-sister duo are determined to cheer up their mother. They try different things like bringing Mami breakfast in bed, and flowers. Then, when she leaves for work, the siblings devise a plan. They’re going to make empanadas just like Monona used to. 

But there’s one problem. They don’t know the secret ingredient in Monona’s recipe.

Will Star and Sebi be able to lift their Mami’s spirits on her special day, the way Monona did? And what is this secretive special ingredient?

Pockets of Love is a heartfelt story about the ways in which we express affection to our loved ones, and the ways in which we carry on the legacy of our departed. Illustrator Sara Palacios adds extra warmth and heart to the story with her signature style of expressive and diverse characters. There’s also incredible detail into the different “pockets of love,” among them egg rolls, tamales, dumplings, and more.

Writers Mentorship Program mentee Amaris Castillo sat down with Méndez, her 2023 middle grade mentor, to discuss Pockets of Love – out on Sept. 3 from HarperCollins.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on Pockets of Love. What inspired you to write this story?

Yamile Saied Méndez (YSM): I was in the grandparents mode when I was writing it, because What Will You Be? had just come out. I was talking to my brother about some recipes my mom used to make that we thought she had never written down. We learned them by standing next to her while she was cooking. And so I just had this idea.

I’ve had Star and Sebi, my two siblings (in the book), as little characters in my mind for a long, long time – but I didn’t have a story for them. Then everything kind of fell together like a puzzle. I thought about empanadas, because they’re one of my favorite things to make and that my mom used to make. It’s one of those magical things where I had the characters, I had a premise. I was missing my mom. And then in the meantime, we’d also lost another grandma – my husband’s mom – and so all these things were fresh in my mind. And the story just came together. 

I was also reading reports about how many people we’ve lost during the pandemic, and that one in five children had lost a loved one that they lived with, or somebody from their immediate family. I was thinking about these children and how they were coping and processing the loss of a loved one.

AC: Your story follows Star and Sebi, siblings who decide to make their Grandma Monona’s empanadas for their mami’s birthday. You write that their abuela is in heaven. Obviously death is a delicate subject. Can you talk about your approach on the page for young readers?

YSM: It is a very complicated subject because it’s not fun. This is part of life and it’s something that we need to talk about with our children, whether they’ve experienced the loss of a pet hamster or a beloved cat or a dog. When it comes to a beloved family member, those can make for very difficult conversations. But at the same time, I believe that we need to be open so that our children can process these losses in a safe and loving environment. 

I’m hoping that reading my book will bring families together, and open the door for these conversations in a way that each family can fill in the blanks for what they believe is next. Whether they’re religious or not, I hope that the story will, again, give families the space and opportunity for these loving conversations… We all have different beliefs. But at least one thing we can all agree on is that, even if we don’t know what happens next, we know what happened while we shared that time together with our loved ones in this life. And we can go back and reminisce on those times, and not forget them.

AC: Star and Sebi worry about not knowing their grandma’s secret ingredient. I felt like that was deeply resonant; many families have relatives who keep certain ingredients closely guarded, or whose measurements are vague and, instead, instinctual. There was also this innocence you capture when children place so much emphasis on something. In Star and Sebi’s eyes, what is at stake if they don’t get the ingredients right?

YSM: They just want to make their mom feel special on her birthday. Since making food was the way that the grandma made their mom feel special, they’re just scared that their mom won’t have a special day because she’s missing the grandma’s empanadas. 

I think that’s a way that children show love, and that they care. Even when they’re little. The stakes are super high because, when you’re a little child and you’re scared that you’re not going to have those answers like what the special ingredient is, it makes for a very stressful situation. But when they learn that the special ingredient is love – and they do love their mom – that’s something that they can give. Even if it was a different kind of love from Monona, they do love their mom and, again, that’s an ingredient that they do have in their power to share.

“I’m hoping that reading my book will bring families together, and open the door for these conversations in a way that each family can fill in the blanks for what they believe is next. Whether they’re religious or not, I hope that the story will, again, give families the space and opportunity for these loving conversations…”

AC: In the book, Star learns what pockets of love are, and how every country has its own version of them. Why was it important for you to highlight that?

YSM: Because I wanted to make the story accessible for children that are not Latine, also. We call them empanadas, but it is true that versions of these little savory or sweet turnovers exist in pretty much every culture. I wanted to open the book for people that are not from my background, to also feel seen in the story.

AC: You dedicate this book to your late parents, and I saw in your author’s note you mention your mom’s famous empanadas. What was it like to work on this book with your parents in mind?

YSM: It was very emotional. In fact, I really don’t know how I’m going to get through a reading of this book without getting choked up. It was also a little bittersweet. One of the most magical things happened to me while I was going through a box of things that I brought from Argentina. I’m an immigrant. You know how it is; for immigrant families, you can’t bring everything from home. You have to pick and choose. Among the things that I brought, and that I was able to keep all these years, were some old journals of mine. And mixed in these old journals was a spiral notebook in which my mom had written recipes by hand. She dedicated it to my dad and my siblings and me. It was such a special thing to actually have the recipes in her handwriting. Like we say in Spanish – “puño y letra.”

It was like a gift. My mom’s been gone for 10 years now. I didn’t ever remember having this notebook in my possession, but since then I’ve made copies for my siblings to give to them. It’s very special that, even though I didn’t think that she’d written the recipes for these dishes, she had. I also found this notebook after this book was written, so it was like a little present from my mom from beyond.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from Pockets of Love?

YSM: In my family and in my culture, food is one of the ways in which we show love. With my busy lifestyle and having teenagers and kids that are in college, it gets difficult to get together for a meal. But nothing makes me happier than when we’re all together and my kids eat my food, or the food that I provided. 

I hope that when families read the book, they can find the ways in which each family shows love. Maybe it is through food. Maybe it is through playing a game together, or sharing stories of the people that are not here anymore… Hopefully families will identify their own particular ways in which they share love.

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Yamile Saied Méndez is the author of many books for young readers and adults, including the award-winning picture books Where Are You From? and What Will You Be? She was born and raised in Rosario, Argentina, and now lives in a lovely valley surrounded by mountains in Utah with her husband, five children, two dogs, and a majestic cat. She’s a graduate of Voices of Our Nations (VONA) and the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA writing for children and young adults program. She’s always trying new empanada recipes. Connect with her at yamilesmendez.com.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family.

Author Q&A: ‘Vega’s Piece of the Sky’ by Jennifer Torres

There’s a lot weighing on Vega Lucero’s mind these days. She’s worried about her abuelo, Tata, after his fall. She’s also stressed about the prospect of her mom selling their family business, the Lone Star Market. Situated in Vega’s rest-stop desert hometown of Date City, the small store sells mostly snack food and necessities like sunblock and cold medicine. It’s been in the family for generations.

“What would happen to the Lone Star if we went away?” Vega wonders. “What would happen to all of our stories?”

One day, as these intrusive thoughts take over, something flashes at the edge of Vega’s vision. A fireball blazes in the sky over her family store and disappears into the wilderness. Vega will soon find out it was a meteorite. And she’ll also learn just how much it could be worth. So Vega devises a plan: If she could only find the meteorite and sell it, then she could take care of Tata’s medical expenses and save the store.

Vega’s Piece of the Sky by Jennifer Torres is an engrossing and heartfelt middle grade novel about three middle schoolers whose lives intersect when a meteorite crashes down in California’s Imperial Valley. The book’s chapters alternate between the first-person voice of Vega, and the third-person narration over Vega’s very anxious cousin, Mila, and an out-of-towner named Jasper – the son of a zealous meteorite hunter. Both Vega and Jasper have their own motives for wanting to find the meteorite, and Torres does an effective job at concealing them from the other characters. Readers may also find Mila’s story intriguing, as we don’t initially know the reason her parents sent her to stay with Vega for the summer.

Vega, Mila, and Jasper embark on an overnight adventure and a treasure hunt that feels very urgent – as urgent as anything can feel for the middle schoolers. Out now from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Vega’s Piece of the Sky has just the right amount of knowledge tidbits about meteorites and space, and plenty of heart. This is a wonderful book for readers who want a story that is both touching and filled with excitement.

Torres spoke with Latinx in Publishing about the inspiration behind Vega’s Piece of the Sky, her research process, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on Vega's Piece of the Sky! I understand the Lone Star Market in the book was inspired by a real market in California that belonged to your great-grandparents. Can you tell us more about the real Lone Star Market, and what made you want to center a fictionalized version of it for this story?

Jennifer Torres (JT): Thank you so much. That was a really special detail for me in this book. My great-grandparents, Albert and Clara Sandoval, opened the Lone Star Market in 1936 near Calexico, California – so very, very near the California-Mexico border. This was how they established themselves in California, created a new life for their family, and built a community. Calexico is in the Imperial Valley, so it’s a desert, and it was a very diverse place then. The market was a gas station and a little convenience store, and then also grew into a dance hall. My great-grandmother would throw big parties with bands and decorations and things. But after a while, they closed it up and moved up to the Los Angeles area, where they had some more family – and where I’m from.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing left of the Lone Star; just some newspaper clippings I was able to find from old newspaper archives and one single picture of my nana, my grandmother, sitting in front of it on a summer day. 

I wanted to set the book in the Imperial Valley near Calexico because it’s a place that’s important to my family. The book involves meteors and I talk about how meteors carry with them the story of our early solar system. And just like those meteors, we carry around so much history with us. So even though I never personally stepped foot in the Lone Star, it is a part of me and a part of my story, and a part of how I got to be who I am today – that struggle, that dedication, all of that. Even though the physical proof of it is gone, it still lives on in me and in my family. So by bringing the story back to life, I got to honor that part of my own personal history.

“ The book involves meteors and I talk about how meteors carry with them the story of our early solar system. And just like those meteors, we carry around so much history with us.”

AC: Your book is about three middle graders who are united over a search for a meteorite. I love how your story is compelling and, interspersed throughout, are details on these rare rocks from outer space. What was the research into meteorites like for you?

JT: In 2012, a meteorite fell in Northern California, where I was living at the time. It landed in Sutter’s Mill. If you grew up in California, you would know that it’s where settlers found gold and sparked the Gold Rush. So I thought that was really interesting, especially because after the meteor fell, that area was just swarmed with all kinds of people coming to look for a piece of it. There were scientists, there were rock enthusiasts, there were curious neighbors and everyone working together to try to find this piece of the sky, really. That was just so intriguing to me. What would inspire someone to drop everything and just try to search for a rock on the ground?

As I learned more about meteors and what they are, and where they come from, I found it so fascinating and really awe-inspiring that something that could be orbiting Earth for millions, maybe billions of years, and [how] one day, something tugs it out of orbit and it can land at your feet. So that inspired a lot of meteorite research. I read lots of accounts from meteorite hunters – people who drop everything and will go anywhere in the world where a meteorite is found – to try to get a feel for the passion that drives them and some of the personalities. NASA has wonderful resources on meteorites, as does the University of Arizona. 

As I finally got down to writing it [the book], I got to talk to actual scientists who have searched for meteorites and studied them, to help me make sure that what I was writing about was sound. I learned so much in writing this book. I didn’t want to slow down the story at all, or make it a distracting amount of science, but I do think that those little details are enriching and make the experience of reading the book a little deeper.

AC: How were you able to make meteorites digestible for young readers?

JT: I think it helps that I was coming to it not as a scientist, either. I’m coming to it as a novice and someone who is learning. And so I figured if I could write about it in a way that was understandable to me, then it would be understandable and engaging to young readers. One of the exciting things about writing for middle grade audiences is that readers will always surprise and inspire you by how much they know, or how much they perceive. I’ve gotten to share the book with a couple of classrooms, and there are students who are already meteorite enthusiasts or into astronomy. It’s really fun to see that spark of recognition in them. It was a balance; you want to make it understandable and engaging, but you never want to talk down to the reader. So that was the balance I was hoping to strike.

AC: You do a great job of tapping into the voice of young people and how they sometimes try to solve problems on their own. Vega, for example, believes with all her heart that finding the meteorite will stop her mother from selling the family store. What message were you hoping to send about young people when they place too much on their shoulders?

JT: That is a really great question. I think part of the middle grade years is figuring out who are you outside of your home? And who are you in your community, and what powers [do] you have on your own? I would like readers to take away that they are problem-solvers, and they do have responsibility to themselves and to their communities. But of course, she took on too much, right? And so I also think it’s important to recognize when to seek help. It’s always OK to reach out when you don’t have the understanding or don’t have the resources to solve a problem. There’s nothing wrong with that. And to realize that it’s not all on you. That this problem that Vega thinks she created really wasn’t her fault, and that it’s just a thing that happened – and that her family and community can pull together – and they do – to try to make things better.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from Vega’s Piece of the Sky?

JT: So much. I love this book so much. First of all, a sense of wonder at the natural world and at the universe. I included details about the stars and the meteorites, and even fossils and rocks. There’s so much out there that is inspiring to learn about and to be a part of. I grew up camping and being outside. It’s getting better for sure, but you don’t see a lot of Latine children portrayed outdoors in literature and being a part of the sciences. So I definitely wanted to show some representation there. 

I hope that readers take away that courage can look like many different things. You can have courage that looks like Vega’s. That’s what we think of when we think of bravery; she’s going to march out into the night and she’s going to find this meteorite. But courage also looks like Mila’s courage – Vega’s anxious cousin. I think she’s probably the bravest of the three. She has to overcome so much of what she thinks about herself, and the very real anxieties that she faces. And the kind of courage that Jasper shows in standing up to his dad is also a really brave act. So courage can look like all of these different things. It doesn’t always look the way you expect it to. 

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Jennifer Torres is the author of Stef Soto, Taco Queen; The Fresh New Face of Griselda; and other books for young readers. She writes stories about home, friendship, and unexpected courage inspired by her Mexican American heritage. Jennifer started her career as a newspaper reporter, and even though she writes fiction now, she hopes her stories still have some truth in them. She lives with her family in Southern California.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family.

Author Interview: ‘The Best That You Can Do’ by Amina Gautier

The Best That You Can Do brims with life, sorrow, joy, and nostalgia. Winner of the 2023 Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize, Amina Gautier’s short story collection brings readers across time to the present day with stops that include Chicago, Philadelphia, Lisbon, and the author’s own native Brooklyn. The stories are compact yet potent, exploring relationships, the connection and rights to one’s own heritage, and complexities embedded in one’s identity.

This collection, in many ways, feels like a master study on the richness of everyday lives. In “Rerun,” Black and Puerto Rican siblings are desperate for Boricua representation on their television screen. “We’ve got the Evans family – Florida, James, Michael, Thelma, and J.J. a.k.a. Kid Dy-no-mite – but we have to work to find the Boricuas,” Gautier writes. “We collect Puerto Rican actors the way other kids collect comics, valued all the more because they’re so rare.” In “Why Not?” a Black woman struggles with the low dating standards others expect her to accept, and the subsequent fallout after a date with an acquaintance. In “Housegirl,” an elderly woman grapples with loneliness in the space of time between visits from her personal home-care attendant.

Gautier spoke with Latinx in Publishing recently about the inspiration behind The Best That You Can Do (out now from Soft Skull Press), re-exploring Puerto Rican identity, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on your stunning book, The Best That You Can Do. Your collection is lyrical and bursts with many themes, including identity, Blackness, and womanhood. I felt like I was right beside your characters as their stories unfolded. You were the inaugural winner of the Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize, which is how The Best That You Can Do came to be in readers’ hands. What has winning this prize meant to you?

Amina Gautier (AG): I love winning prizes, first of all [Laughs]. Who doesn’t? The Kimbilio Prize, specifically, is important to me because Kimbilio means ‘safe haven,’ and it is an organization that nurtures and promotes the work of writers from all across the Black diaspora. So it’s a very important award. 

Many of the awards for short story collections are typically attached to university presses, which tend to be small independent presses. Having this contest be attached to Soft Skull Press, which is distributed by Penguin Random House and is connected to Catapult, I think, makes the contest even more significant and more visible because it’s a larger press. It’s not one of the Big Six, but it is larger than an independent press which means that it has the power to get the work distributed widely.

But specifically as a writer of short fiction, it’s important to win contests because short fiction or short story collections tend to not be publicized or promoted as widely as novels are. So having a contest win attached to your book is an extra layer of publicity that will make people pay attention to it. All four of my short story collections have been published through contest wins. 

AC: You center complexities within the Puerto Rican diaspora in the first section of your book. In “Buen Provecho,” siblings keep their desire to learn their father’s language hidden from their mother so as not to wound her. In “Quarter Rican,” a teenage girl visiting family on the island is made to feel not fully Puerto Rican by a relative. As a writer with Puerto Rican ancestry yourself, I know you have been writing about your community for years. For this collection in particular, though, what truths were you hoping to unearth in re-exploring Boricua identity?

AG: Some of the things that I’m always interested in promoting and exploring with Boricua identity and Latino identity is 1) Constantly reminding people that Puerto Ricans are not immigrants. People seem to keep forgetting that. When I’m writing about Latinx diaspora experiences, I’m interested in pushing the boundaries and reminding readers that there are so many different ways to be Latino or Hispanic. 

Even with the narrative that is frequently pushed about languages – like, ‘OK, you know how to speak Spanish because you learned it at home, or because you learned it in school because of exposure.’ But there are plenty of other reasons why a person could decide to forgo speaking the language, or decide to be interested in it. At a certain point in your life, or development, or age, it can become a conscious choice. 

In “Buen Provecho,” we have a mother who makes a decision not to learn Spanish because she associates with her father. And we have kids who are not exposed to it in the house because the mothers isn’t exposing it to them. But then they go see their Titi on the weekends, and they can get exposure in other ways and make the choice for themselves. 

I want to remind people that that language is not only just a process of education and exposure, but has an emotional and psychological component to it as well… There’s so many different choices that people are making when they are choosing to adopt a language or adapt a language. And I want to remind readers that all of these possibilities are valid and valuable. That we are expansive.

“When I’m writing about Latinx diaspora experiences, I’m interested in pushing the boundaries and reminding readers that there are so many different ways to be Latino or Hispanic. ”

AC: In that vein, your focus on Puerto Rican identity in this collection is deeper than, “Am I Puerto Rican enough?” You cover the complexities and relationships across generations, and also how, for example, that identity impacts a partner who is not Puerto Rican. As you worked on these stories, was there anything that surprised you about the expansiveness of what it means to be Puerto Rican?  

AG: All the stories surprised me. I don’t start out with any kind of organization or plan. For instance, “Making a Way” is one of the last stories that I wrote. The collection was accepted at the beginning of January 2023 but I felt that it needed just a few more stories, so I wrote a few more to round it out. In “Making a Way,” I have this wife who is resentful of her husband. I thought I was going to explore her keeping the kids and not letting them go to PR for the summer as a way to punish him, and realizing that this specific character can have one relationship with her husband – but still want an experience for her children. 

She would like to have been able to go to Puerto Rico to see her husband’s native land, but just because she can’t she’s not going to deny her children that experience. I didn’t know that that’s what I was going to have her do. Her story is where I started really thinking about language as a form of inheritance, as a form of birthright. That despite what’s happening with her and her husband, her kids have a right to spend time with him, to go to the island, to learn Spanish if they want to. And she’s not going to deny them that experience.

AC: Your collection drips in nostalgia. I loved the many TV show references in “Rerun” and appreciated you placing the reader in the post-summer break frenzy in “Summer Says.” Much of your book is inspired by the 70s and 80s. What was it like to place that time on the page in many of these stories?

AG: It was a lot of fun to go back and think about the cartoons and different shows I was watching, but also about how the pop culture that Gen X kids were exposed to helped shape our identity. Like watching all the cartoons with morals on the end of them… I wanted to make this a love letter to Gen X. I feel like my generation is constantly forgotten. I really wanted to infuse in deep references to that pop culture. We Gen X kids were forced to be immersed in our parents’ lives and music. We had to watch the TV shows that they did, so I also think that it’s one of the last cross-generational moments before people split off and everyone went to their own separate rooms to watch their own separate TV shows. 

AC: In the section titled “The Best That You Can Do,” we see more stories about women and their disillusionment with love and with men. We see disappointed women, tired women. The men in many of these stories, fall short of their promises to their partners. In “A Recipe for Curry,” a wife is stuck in a monotonous life – having to cook curry for her husband once a week. She hasn’t been able to realize her dreams, despite her husband’s promises to her. I’d love to learn more about your depiction of hetero-relationships in these stories. What do you want readers to take away from them? 

AG: As you know, this section is the longest one in the collection. There’s a whole cycle-of-life going on with the first two sections being about youth and childhood, and then this longer section being about adulthood and adult relationships. And then the next section is about our external lives politically, and the last section is about when we come to the end of our lives. 

In this long section about romantic relationships or about adult children’s relationships with their parents, I’m really exploring social pressures and social expectations that are on us when we’re adults. What happens in our relationships based on what our friends or our partners are expecting us to do? How are we navigating the goals and dreams that we have for ourselves as adults, in conjunction with our parents or our partners’ expectations?

In “A Recipe for Curry,” the dream was just to get out of Guyana and to make it to the U.S. That’s more tangible, even though there are other promises: a house, a car, all these moments of exploration. But just getting to the U.S. kind of becomes the focus. And once they’re there, they become stuck in this rut. What part do we play in becoming engineers of our own self-destruction? Because the wife plays a part in that – in continuing to make it for him once a week and not pushing back.

AC: Some of the stories are a few pages long – some only a couple. How do you know when a story is complete? Do you step away from it once you feel you’ve answered a question – or posed one to your reader?

AG: I don’t deliberately try to pose questions. Hopefully they come out organically. I don’t like to be a heavy-handed writer. I do focus on an image, or an issue, or a problem, and then try to follow it through to its natural conclusion. With this collection, I knew that it would all be very short fiction… That meant that I would have to compress a lot of the action, and condense it. I wouldn’t always have time for a scene, so I would have to use language and lyricism to create this sort of narrative pressure to push the story through. 

I would know that I was done when I couldn’t do anything else with the language to make the point. Which is a little different from my other collections, which have more traditional-length stories with multiple scenes and more dramatic action. But for this one, the focus is really on the language and the syntax. So once I get this feeling that everything sounds right, then I know that the story is done.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from The Best That You Can Do?

AG: Besides calling it like my Gen X love letter, I’m also calling it my pandemic book because it wasn’t the collection I was supposed to finish next. I had a whole research leave and I was going to write another collection. The pandemic hit, and I couldn’t focus on writing 25-page stories when the world was in such chaos. For months I didn’t write anything because I was depressed and isolated. I told myself, OK, you can’t write your usual 10-12 hours a day or five days a week, but maybe you can write two days a week. Maybe you can’t write a 25-page story. Maybe you can write a four-page story… I used that to kind of write myself out of the depressive environment of a pandemic. I was just thinking, nobody knows exactly what to do right now. We don’t have guidance. We’re just all trying to do the best that we can do – which is why that’s the title of the collection. 

In addition to hoping that readers enjoy the pop culture moments and think about the ways in which characters help undermine their own destinies, I want this book to be inspirational. Because I’ve told myself, OK, it doesn’t matter that I didn’t complete the project that I set out to complete. It just matters that I kept writing. And this is what came out of it. I hope that when readers or aspiring writers who get stuck in a project, they can remember that, ‘Maybe this project isn’t working right now. But as long as I just keep writing, I can write something else. I can change genres for a couple of months. As long as I keep writing, there’s hope and there's promise. And what I do is valuable.’ 

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Amina Gautier, Ph.D., is the author of three short story collections: At-Risk, Now We Will Be Happy, and The Loss of All Lost Things. Gautier is the recipient of the Blackwell Prize, the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, the International Latino Book Award,the Flannery O’Connor Award, and the Phillis Wheatley Award in Fiction. For her body of work, she has received the PEN/MALAMUD Award for Excellence in the Short Story.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family.

Author Q&A: ‘I Am La Chiva!: The Colorful Bus of the Andes’ by Karol Hernández

“On breathtaking mountains, where coffee beans grow, I carry my friends to the green hills below. I drive through the Andes, so windy and steep. Me llamo La Chiva. That’s me! Beep, beep, beep!”

With its vibrant opening, I Am La Chiva: The Colorful Bus of the Andes demands your attention. The joyful picture book by debut author Karol Hernández and illustrator Lorena Alvarez Gómez transports readers through the rugged Andes mountains on a chiva. La chiva is the name used for artisan rustic buses used widely for public transport in rural Colombia.

The idea to write about the iconic bus came to Hernández when her son mistook her ceramic miniature chiva for a school bus. She searched for picture books about it, but couldn’t find any. So she decided to write one.

Out on July 9 from Dial Books for Young Readers, I Am La Chiva is a cheerful rhyming book told from the perspective of la chiva. The bus picks up its passengers one by one – including people with produce, and even animals. Readers meet Doña Ines with her curious hen and warm arepas, and Don Ernesto with his pig named Chanchito. On the way to the town center, la chiva hits a small snag which makes for some added excitement to the story.

Alvarez Gómez, who is from Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, uses a rich color palette to illustrate the beauty of rural Colombia. Much like real-life chivas, the chiva centered in this book is intricately decorated in swoops of teal, purple, orange, and more. There is an incredible amount of detail in the spreads, which is sure to make young readers linger longer on each page.

The Spanish translation of the book, titled ¡Me llamo la Chiva!: El colorido bus de los Andes, will be released on Aug. 27.

In anticipation of her debut book’s release, Hernández spoke with Latinx in Publishing about revisiting la chiva for readers, the inspiration behind her characters, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on I Am La Chiva. I know you were born and raised in Colombia and I understand you were 13 when your family left. What inspired you to write this book?

Karol Hernández (KH): La Chiva is an answer to a question. During the pandemic, I was taking a picture of my little ceramic chiva, and my son – who was three years old at the time – approached me and said, “What a cute school bus.” And I was like, “No, this is not a school bus.” I tried to explain the role of chiva buses in Latin countries, but I didn’t feel that the concept quite clicked. So I went to look for a picture book on the topic. I didn’t find one, so I wrote the story originally for him. 

Because my kids were born in Tennessee, we were getting all these awesome picture books from the Imagination Library. And I just made the connection. I was like, This story kind of reads like something I would see in a book – like the ones I get from the Imagination Library. And that sparked the idea of turning the story that I wrote for him into a picture book for a broader audience.

AC: For those who don’t know, what is a chiva?

KH: A chiva bus kind of looks like the body of a school bus, if you will, except that it has pew-style seating, no buckles, no windows. This is like an open bus, and it’s used to transport people in rugged terrain. Our story takes place in Colombia, in the Andes Mountains, so that’s where our chiva travels in the story. 

The buses are very beautifully decorated. They’re painted by hand by artisans. And when you ride on a chiva, you could be riding next to people, produce, plantains, coffee, chickens, pigs, dogs, you name it. And people. Things are also put on top of la chiva, which you can appreciate in the illustrations. 

“Chiva” literally means “goat.” One of my kids said, “Oh, of course, because it’s the greatest of all time,” and I should have made that connection myself. But “chiva” means “goat,” and that is because back in the 1930s when chivas were first introduced to Colombia, their horns sounded like a goat. And so farmers would refer to it as la chiva. Nowadays you can also find chivas in touristic centers in Colombia and in some major cities in the US, as party buses.

“ I tried to explain the role of chiva buses in Latin countries, but I didn’t feel that the concept quite clicked. So I went to look for a picture book on the topic. I didn’t find one, so I wrote the story originally for him. ”

AC: You begin the book by saying “On breathtaking mountains, where coffee beans grow, I carry my friends to the green hills below. I drive through the Andes, so windy and steep. Me llamo La Chiva. That’s me! Beep, beep, beep!” I love that the entire book is told from the perspective of la chiva. How did you decide to tell the story this way?

KH: When I sat down to write the story, I closed my eyes and started recalling vignettes from my childhood, and vignettes from my landscapes and experiences I had as a kid in Colombia… Two stanzas in, I realized that I was la chiva. And so, “I am La Chiva. It’s me.” 

I don’t know why it felt so natural to write it that way, but a lot of the characters that we meet along the way represent real people in my childhood. I didn’t live in a small rural town. I lived in a city, but we would go to a small rural town to get together with our family in la finca. And so I did these journeys, and it felt so natural to narrate it in first person as if I were the bus.

AC: La Chiva plays an important role in this book. Here is where Doña Ines boards with her curious hen, and Don Ernesto arrives with his pig, Chanchito. How did you come up with all these characters? 

KH: In Colombia, we call it la cuadra – the block. So in the block where I grew up, we had Nancy, who was the lady who made arepas. Nancy was a fixture in my childhood, so I thought, Well, I need to include the lady who makes arepas because she was part of my childhood. Nancy didn’t work (for the book) because of the meters, so I went with Doña Ines. And I wanted to introduce the word “Doña.” 

Funny enough, Nancy’s family had a pig. We would all bring our scraps throughout the year, and they’d feed the pig. You can imagine what happened with that pig at the end of the year, for Christmas time. But I wanted to include a pig (in the book), although Chanchito does not meet that fate in the story. That was decided by my children… These were just people who made an impression in my life as a young kid because of what they did. What they did was relevant to my experience of people and culture, and they did it with such joy and pride. I wanted to communicate that these people, everything they did, they did with joy and with pride in service of their community.

AC: I want to ask you about the illustrations by Lorena Alvarez Gómez. They were just so beautiful. I love the color choices. Was there any collaboration with her for this project?

KH: There was incredible collaboration between Nancy Mercado, our editor at Dial, Lorena, and myself. I think that what made this very natural and easy is the fact that Lorena is Colombian as well. She actually lives in Colombia. When Nancy shared the manuscript with her, I think she immediately got the vision, made it her own, and she was graceful enough not just to do an incredible job, but she also included little Easter eggs for my kids, which was awesome because now they feel that the physical book is theirs. And they’re so proud to show people. She elevated this book to a place that I could not have imagined. 

The creative team behind this book is all Colombian American, and I think it gives it incredible authenticity and a level of detail that you probably can’t get from just looking at pictures and doing research. I think it shows that the team behind the book has experienced the Colombian Andes, and knows the place and function of a chiva in Colombian society and culture.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from I Am La Chiva?

KH: I have a couple of big dreams for the book. One, I hope that this book serves as a gateway for people to want to learn more about the Andes. Not just Colombia, but the Andes Mountains; the Andes are the longest mountain range in the world, and they cross seven countries. And along the ridges of these mountains, there’s incredible diversity of culture, food, music, textiles, flora, fauna, Indigenous communities. Our story takes place in Colombia, but Colombia is one link in this chain of culture that crosses a continent.

Secondly, as a first-generation Colombian in the States, I remember when I moved here as a teenager and would tell people that I was Colombian, usually the first response I got was that I probably was related to Pablo Escobar. While I get that that was a joke, it was a painful joke. Because I was 13 years old and couldn’t understand how, at the time, the 32 million people in Colombia could be reduced to one story. As I mentioned earlier, I grew up surrounded by hardworking people who did what they did with joy, with pride. We weren’t perfect, but within our imperfection there was so much beauty. 

With time, I learned to redirect conversations by saying, ‘No, we make wonderful coffee. And have you heard of Shakira? Have you heard of Carlos Vives? And have you seen las gorditas de (Fernando) Botero?’ I was able to rely on people’s art to create a different narrative. Now I want to contribute to the stories that are told about Colombia abroad, because there’s so much to our countries – not just Colombia. And so I feel like it’s taking power back by telling a different story.

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Karol Hernández was born and raised in Colombia. She currently lives in Florida with her husband, three kids, two dogs, and a fish. https://karolitadotcom.wordpress.com/

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family.

Author-Illustrator Interview: ‘The Mango Tree’ by Edel Rodriguez

On an island lush with plants and small homes is a towering mango tree. Two boys grasp onto its branches. They spend a lot of time in and around this tree, flying kites from it and building a birdhouse within it. They even take naps here. The mango is their constant – their happy place.

Then one day, a storm tears through the island. It uproots the mango tree, and with it one of the boys. Soon he is forced on a journey into an unfamiliar land.

From internationally renowned artist Edel Rodriguez comes The Mango Tree, a wordless picture book that is largely inspired by his own childhood experience as a Cuban immigrant. Like the boys he features in his book, Rodriguez also has a best friend named Osledy who he spent days with in a mango tree they shared back in Cuba. “The tree’s large, shady canopy became our clubhouse,” Rodriguez writes in his author’s note.

The Mango Tree itself takes on a fantastical lens – complete with sea creatures and an intriguing new home for the boy who was swept away. It is an otherworldly, curious ride.

In anticipation of his recent book release from Abrams Books for Young Readers, Rodriguez spoke with Latinx in Publishing about his real childhood best friend, the symbolism behind the mango tree, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on The Mango Tree. I understand this story was largely inspired by your childhood and the times you spent with your best friend, Osledy. Can you tell us more?

Edel Rodriguez (ER): He was my next-door neighbor. We shared what’s called a solar in Spanish; the backyard was shared by my house, his house, and my grandmother’s house. We were just always in the backyard playing, climbing trees, going on the roof or around the fields in town. We had kind of a free-for-all as kids in Cuba. Parents, at that time, just let you roam around. So at a very young age, we were going all over the place, making toys out of whatever we found. I think it did help me become a creative person, because I was very inventive from a young age. 

The interesting thing between me and him is that I was always the more careful one – or not as crazy. And Osledy was always like, ‘Let’s do that. Let’s jump off that thing. Let’s do this.’ He almost got me in trouble a few times. We’re still friends. And he’s still like that. That’s his personality.

AC: In your book we meet two boys on a small island who spend their days in a mango tree. The tree is their constant. They eat the mangoes, fly kites from atop the tree and more. Does the mango tree symbolize anything to you in this story?

ER: It’s something that has roots, so it has that feel of the roots of our friendship. It’s something that grew with us, and then at some point I had to leave. So I floated away. [In the book] it’s a planter where the tree grew, but then it becomes a boat where I get pushed out to sea and I leave the country.

But it’s like our home. It’s the idea that you have to leave behind or be separated by things that are out of your control. Once I left Cuba, I tried to stay in touch with him as much as possible. He’s still my best friend. We didn’t see each other for 14 years, so we stayed in touch through letters. But it was this one time where we had sort of this idyllic place that we hung out in. And after that, it all kind of ended after I left. And after the storm happened [in the book], we never really had that again. 

So I was trying to encapsulate that feeling when you have a special place with your best friend. Sometimes it’s a very small window of time, and then you either grow up or you leave, or something happens that changes that. But for some time, it was like our own little private club where we could just have fun.

“Part of what I like about the idea that it’s wordless is that kids have to figure out the book as it goes along. And they themselves become active in figuring out the puzzle of what’s going to happen next as they’re looking at it.”

AC: One of the boys is swept away in a storm and lands in a place that’s unfamiliar to him. It made me think about how change arrives in a child’s life. But children are so resilient. What does this change mean to your character?

ER: Part of what I like about the idea that it’s wordless is that kids have to figure out the book as it goes along. And they themselves become active in figuring out the puzzle of what’s going to happen next as they’re looking at it. For me, when I left Cuba it was very abrupt. We were just having a regular day. Everything was fine. And then suddenly, my parents decided we gotta get out of here. And from one day to the next, I basically lost my best friend. So I wanted to get that across: change can happen very fast. 

But then once you arrive in a new place, you try to look around you and use the tools that you know to adapt to whatever that place is. Especially kids, as you said, are very good at that. I did it by drawing things when I arrived in the United States. I couldn’t speak, so I would just draw what I wanted or what I wanted to say. In the book, this boy arrives with this mango and he shares it with the other kids as, ‘This is what I know.’ And then you start conversations, and the other kids give you something of theirs. Here in the United States, a lot of times it was toys. Someone that was from here would give me a Superman figure and I would say, ‘What is this? I don’t know what this is.’ I’d never seen Superman until I arrived here. So kids have conversations in that way.

AC: I did want to ask about your book being wordless. What was it like to approach the story this way? 

ER: You know when you’re in a place with your best friend often, you don’t really talk? You’re just kind of doing things, and there’s sort of a conversation that happens just by activities. Especially when you’re a kid, you’re not having deep conversations. You’re just having fun. And especially when you’re up on a tree, or in a jungle, you’re of like living in that space. It’s actually a very quiet place. So I wanted to create a book that did that. 

I had just written a graphic novel and I wanted to do something different – totally the other way. At first I considered having text through the pages and I had some text throughout. At some point I took it off, and the book became more magical when I did that. So I called my editor and I said, ‘You know, I think this is better without words.’ It felt even more special because you almost feel like you’re looking into the lives of these two little children, rather than reading about them. 

Generally when you’re reading something, the book is telling you what’s going on. Here you feel like you’re hovering above the jungle, just looking into these little kids playing and trying to figure out what it is that they’re doing. And eventually, every time you flip the page, you go ‘Oh, that’s what’s going on.’ And it makes you want to keep on going to try to figure out what the puzzle is. Whereas when you have the words, it’s telling you. So what I decided to do is basically take a lot of the text I had written and put it as the afterword at the end, so people get a bit more context about what was happening.

AC: You are an artist whose work has been exhibited internationally. Can you talk about how you approached your art for young readers in The Mango Tree? What, if anything, did you do differently?

ER: I remember when I arrived in this country, one of the first books that I remember reading was James and the Giant Peach [by Roald Dahl]. I didn’t really speak that much English, but I learned from it. And one of the things I liked about that book was this idea of adventure. That this kid is on a peach floating around [Laughs]. I’m like, I want to make something that would give kids that feeling that I got from that book. That you don't know what's going to happen next. Something crazy could happen. And that the kids themselves are running the show without any parental figure telling them what to do. I really like that. Often in children’s books there’s a lot of the relationship between the parent and the kids. And in this book, there are no parents. So that’s kind of fun. I always felt that it would be fun for a kid to open a book and they just see themselves. 

Also, a book that would have no relation to what our reality is here in America, in New York City, or in American cities. I wanted to create a bit of a fantasy world, especially as you go through the book and you get towards the end. It’s a total different planet, almost. Right with the plants and exotic things and trees. So something that felt a bit otherworldly I wanted to create for the readers.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from The Mango Tree?

ER: It’s about friendship. It’s the idea that friendships are important – friendships that you develop at a very young age, not friendships on the internet or social media, but actual people you spend time with and grow up with and just stay connected to. I’ve been friends with Osledy since I was a little kid. All through our life together, whenever I needed something for my family back in Cuba, he resolved it. He figured it out for my grandmother, whoever was left behind. Whenever his family needed something, I would help him out with that. He’s now in Miami, actually, with his family. 

Those are the connections that help you get through life; this idea that you treasure the people that you know and the friendships that you have. That’s how we get through life and we move forward. And hopefully the book has a bit of that. And also to not be afraid of something new, of a new place.

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Image by Deborah Feingold

Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban American artist and author who has exhibited internationally with shows in Los Angeles, Toronto, New York, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Spain. He has received the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators and for many years was the art director of TIME magazine. Books he has illustrated include Song for Jimi: The Story of Guitar Legend Jimi Hendrix by Charles R. Smith Jr., Float Like a Butterfly by Ntozake Shange, Fascinating: The Life of Leonard Nimoy, and Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx/La juez que crecio en el Bronx by Jonah Winter. Throughout his career, Rodriguez has received commissions to create artwork for numerous clients, including The New York Times, TIME magazine, The New Yorker, and many other publications and book publishers. Rodriguez’s artwork is in the collections of a variety of institutions, including the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, as well as in numerous private collections. He lives with his wife and daughter in New Jersey.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family.

Author Q&A: Barrio Rising: The Protest That Built Chicano Park by María Dolores Águila

In Barrio Rising: The Protest That Built Chicano Park, a girl named Elena is walking with her mom to their local tiendita for some masa and corn husks. On the way, they bump into a neighbor who has sketched the Coronado Bridge stretching over the bay from Barrio Logan – one of San Diego’s older Mexican American communities. A diesel truck passing by leaves behind clouds of dust.

Later, as they pass by a junkyard and get barked at by dogs, Elena’s mother stops and says, “Be brave, Elena – sé valiente.”

It’s this bravery that Elena and her community must later channel when they discover that the park they had been promised by the city would instead become a California Highway Patrol station. Barrio Rising is a historical fiction picture book about one community’s twelve-day land occupation and resistance in April 1970 that led to the creation of a colorful park below criss-crossing freeway overpasses. Written by debut author María Dolores Águila and illustrated by Magdalena Mora, the duo beautifully captures the fight and tremendous heart of an often-ignored community. Barrio Rising will be released on June 18 from Dial Books for Young Readers. Its Spanish version – El barrio se levanta: La protesta que construyó el Parque Chicano – was translated by David Bowles and will be released simultaneously.

Águila, a Chicana poet and writer from San Diego, grew up a few miles from Chicano Park – which features Chicano murals, sculptures, picnic tables and playgrounds. “And I always passed by the murals (in the park), but I never connected how and why they got there,” she told Latinx in Publishing. “It just never occurred to me.”

Then one day, a mural caught Águila’s eye. What followed was a years-long obsession to learn everything she could about Chicano Park. The fruits of that research and curiosity would eventually form Barrio Rising: The Protest That Built Chicano Park.

Ahead of the book’s release, Latinx in Publishing spoke with Águila about the inspiration behind Barrio Rising, what it was like to portray an ignored community on the page, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on Barrio Rising. What inspired you to write this story?

María Dolores Águila (MDÁ): That’s one of the questions that I get the most and I think it’s one of the hardest to answer, because I can’t tell you a singular reason of why I wrote the story. The short answer would be that I live less than five miles away from Chicano Park and I’ve lived here for the majority of my life. I’ve driven by Chicano Park thousands of times. My father worked in the tuna canneries when they were there in Barrio Logan. I used to go to the community health center there. And I always passed by the murals, but I never connected how and why they got there. It just never occurred to me. 

My mother-in-law lives in Barrio Logan and one day we were driving by (the park). And for some reason, the mural of Laura Rodriguez caught my eye. I don’t know why. It sparked something. I looked up her story, which was incredible by the way. Her entire story is like a real-life Cinderella, mariposa del barrio story. After that, it became like an obsession. For close to half a decade, I chased down every scrap of information that I could find about Chicano Park by visiting the park, going to the events, listening to speakers, watching movies. When I finally had a full understanding, it was like, Oh, my God. I have to write about this. People should know what happened here.

In a lot of ways, I wrote it for myself, because I’m a Chicana kid that grew up next to Chicano Park that didn’t know how to get there. After I figured out what had transpired, I was like, No. This has to be a story. People have to know. The world has to know what happened. Because I feel so often, as Latinas in the United States, we’re made to seem like we don’t have a history – that we’re very recent arrivals. But that’s not true. We have a very long history, and there have been a lot of things in our community that people have fought for but they’ve been buried.

AC: In your book we meet two Barrio Logan residents -- a mother and daughter -- walking near the Coronado Bridge. Almost immediately, readers can detect that this area is neglected. What was it like to portray an ignored community on the page for young readers?

MDÁ: For me, it was just portraying my own lived experience. I live in National City, which is directly south of Barrio Logan, and we have many of the same issues. We have the same issues of air pollution and heavy industry mixed in with residential areas. And even though I live in a bayfront community and Barrio Logan is a bayfront community – we’re literally on the bay – we really don’t have beach access. So this is something that I’ve lived. It wasn’t something that I had to really dig deep to find.

“Our stories are still meaningful, still beautiful, and still worthy, even if the institutions around us have not been supporting us the way that they should have. ”

When I see other people that haven’t lived that kind of experience, they tend to portray those communities as just simply downtrodden – like there’s no glimmer of hope. The one thing that I did want to portray is that these communities have grown roses in concrete. Our stories are still meaningful, still beautiful, and still worthy, even if the institutions around us have not been supporting us the way that they should have. There’s still a lot of joy and beauty. Even though the area and the schools might not be great, there’s still a lot of really great things about where I live and about Barrio Logan. I think Magdalena did a lot of the heavy lifting with the illustrations in that aspect.

AC: You beautifully capture a close-knit Mexican American community throughout the book with your text with Spanish sprinkled in, and illustrator Magdalena Mora, like you just mentioned, with her gentle illustrations featuring parts of the culture like food. What was it like working with Magdalena? Were there specific suggestions you had for her to portray this time in the community’s history accurately?

MDÁ: I was actually really hands off because I wanted Magdalena to bring her own vision without me influencing it, as much as possible. I was beyond honored that Magdalena agreed to collaborate on Barrio Rising with me because her body of work is really incredible. I think the amazing thing about picture books is how two artistic mediums come together – the words and the art – to tell a singular story. My editor, Rosie Ahmed from Dial, did ask me if there were any particular images that I liked. And I did send her some. There was one of a girl holding a pickaxe. She was a young girl. And I don’t know why that image stuck with me. I sent it to Rosie, who sent it to Magdalena.

I just stayed hands off as much as possible because I wanted her to do her thing, and bring what she has to bring to the story. I pretty much wrote the story without outside influence, and I wanted Magdalena to have that freedom without me hovering around. When I finally saw the art, I knew that I had made the right decision because she brought in things that I hadn’t even thought of – things that would have never occurred to me because my brain doesn’t work that way. I was just so happy when I saw the illustrations.

AC: Even though this is a fictionalized account of the story behind San Diego's Chicano Park, you feature real residents and even a local councilman who played key roles in its creation. What was your research like while working on this book?

MDÁ: I love to do research, so for me it’s always like the most enjoyable part of the process. I did the usual things: I hunted down newspaper articles, I read academic articles, I read books. I read the applications that they filled out to make Chicano Park a cultural heritage site. And Chicano Park themselves have a website, so I read all that. 

In my research, I had come across this thesis entitled “Singing the Great Depression: Mexican and Mexican American Perspectives Through Corridos” by Michelle Salinas, where she describes how Mexican and Mexican American communities have traditionally expressed information and history through alternative mediums like songs and art. So I did all the usual things, but I also listened to songs. There’s a song called “Chicano Park Samba” by Los Alacranes Mojados and they sing about the history of Chicano Park. There’s also two murals at the park called La Tierra Mia and Chicano Park Takeover, and that has the history in images. So I studied those as well.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from Barrio Rising?

MDÁ: More than anything, I want young readers to find power within themselves and their communities. I want them to know that Latine communities have a long history of resistance and resilience, and that together we can accomplish our wildest dreams. I want them to see themselves in Elena and I want them to be inspired to make the changes that we need in our communities.

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María Dolores Águila is a Chicana poet and writer from San Diego, California. Deeply inspired by Chicane history and art, she seeks to write empowering and inclusive stories about everything she learns. She also loves drinking coffee, browsing the bookshelves at her local library, and spending time with her family.

Magdalena Mora is an illustrator, designer, and art educator based in Minneapolis and Chicago. Her work has been recognized by The New York Times, The American Library Association, and The Chicago Public Library, among others.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family.

Author Interview: ‘Daughter of the Light-Footed People’ by Belen Medina

“From deep in the copper canyons of Mexico, her swift footsteps echo. Clip clap, clip clap.”

That’s the vivid opening of Daughter of the Light-Footed People, a forthcoming nonfiction picture book about Lorena Ramírez, a runner from Mexico’s Rarámuri Indigenous people (also known as Tarahumara). The clip-clap sounds come from the athlete’s well-worn huaraches cut from rubber tires. Ramírez, now 29, is internationally known for running in sandals and in a brightly colored skirt.

Written by Belen Medina and illustrated by Natalia Rojas Castro, Daughter of the Light-Footed People takes readers on a sixty-mile run with Ramírez. We learn that her strength comes from kicking balls across miles with her siblings, and that her patience is built from walking for hours. “Over hot, cracked earth and rocks, through cold, hard rain, she runs,” Medina beautifully writes. Castro’s illustrations are equally gorgeous, infusing rich colors and textures to the page. In one spread, Ramírez’s long, dark ponytail morphs into a memory bubble of her as a child, herding goats and cattle for her family.

Out on June 11 from Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Daughter of the Light-Footed People is not just centered around this one Mexican athlete, but offers a real-life lesson that you can persevere and achieve so much even if you don’t have as many resources as others.

Ahead of the book’s release, Medina spoke with Latinx in Publishing about the inspiration behind her debut picture book, what sets Ramírez from other runners, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on Daughter of the Light-Footed People. This book is about María Lorena Ramírez, an Indigenous long-distance runner belonging to Mexico’s Rarámuri ethnic group. What inspired you to write this story?

Belen Medina (BM): I have two kids, and during COVID I was home with them a lot. I found a Netflix documentary about her and we watched it. And I was just completely awestruck. We were all just dumbfounded by this woman who was running with just her huaraches and her Indigenous clothes. I was so profoundly moved by her grit and endurance, and her story. And so were my kids. And I just thought, Gosh, I feel every kid should know about her. Every person. And as a Mexican American, I just felt especially proud. 

I’ve written other books that haven’t come out yet, but I started to look to see if there had been any books about her. I wanted to know more, and realized that there hadn’t been. So that’s how that journey started for me. But mostly, I was just so incredibly inspired by her story and I thought: What an amazing person, and what a great example of just having so little and doing so much. I thought this is a great message for kids and for adults.

“What she was doing wasn’t just for her. It was for her family. It was for her people. She’s running as a community, which I felt was really moving and powerful. ”

AC: Your story beautifully follows María Lorena on a run and also touches on her background, such as her strength coming from herding goats and patience built from walking for hours to buy food. Can you describe your research process to be able to include these details?

BM: I basically scoured every available information I could find. I read some books about long-distance running and Tarahumara people. There wasn’t a lot, but as much as I could watch every interview she did, read every interview she did. I just did a lot of research that way. Then I synthesized the information, because in picture books you have very few words that you can use. And then the process was just whittling it down and trying to make it concise and moving for kids to be inspired by her in as few words as I could. 

As you know with editing, I have editors ask me where everything came from – and I had to go back. I have a bibliography of things, but it was fun. I really do like research. I love learning about the Tarahumara people. I didn’t know about them – from where they come from, which is this area that’s bigger than the Grand Canyon… I was blown away by so much that I didn’t know about Mexico.

AC: In your author’s note you write that María Lorena made international headlines when she won the Ultra Trail Cerro Rojo in 2017 – not just for her victory, but because she was wearing huaraches and a brightly colored skirt. There’s one part of the book where you write that she weaves to the front of the pack of runners without fancy gear or gadgets. It made me think about what distinguishes her from other runners. In telling this story, is there anything else you took away from what makes her unique in the running world?

BM: What stands out for me –  and not so much in terms of Lorena, but Lorena and her family and her people – is that they don’t just run for themselves. She’s running for her family and to make a better life for other people. I sometimes find that – and I’m generalizing – in America, in our culture, we tend to be very individualistic-minded. We do it for our own selves, or maybe for our ego or whatever we’re proving to ourselves. But we’re not running, or whatever we’re trying to do, because we’re bringing up everyone around us. And that’s what I felt like I learned from her: What she was doing wasn’t just for her. It was for her family. It was for her people. She’s running as a community, which I felt was really moving and powerful. That just gives her that extra motivation.

AC: Your prose is beautiful, and so are the illustrations by Natalia Rojas Castro. What do you think her illustrations add to your text?

BM: Oh my gosh. It brought the words to life. And it’s funny because I thought to myself, Maybe I could illustrate this [Laughs]. Because I do portrait illustration. I was laughing at myself because of the things that I tried to draw. And then I gave up pretty quickly. What she did just elevated the story – the movement, the color. I fell in love with the colors. They reminded me of the colors I think of, of Mexico: just a real richness and deepness and vibrancy to the colors, and the movement. I think she really made the book. I had really little feedback. I think she nailed it. And I’m so happy that she decided to take a chance on my words, and made it her own thing. I was so amazed by some of those spreads that incorporate and then add to my words. I was so thrilled.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from Daughter of the Light-Footed People?

BM: As I alluded before, I want people to be aware of Lorena and her community. A lot of people say you can do hard things, and you can. You don’t have to have all these resources to put limitations on yourself. Kids can see that you don’t need all the stuff to be successful and that, with grit and perseverance, you can accomplish amazing things. I think that’s a great message – not to make excuses for ourselves… But seeing a woman who is from a modest background able to achieve these amazing things against people with so many more resources – now they can also accomplish whatever it is that they want to do, even if they don’t have all the things that they think they need.

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Belen Medina, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, was born and raised in California’s Central Valley. She spent her childhood summers in Mexico with her grandparents and has been navigating two cultures her entire life. Still a Californian at heart, she now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two sons. Daughter of the Light-Footed People is her debut picture book.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family.

Author Q&A: ‘Abuelo's Flower Shop’ by Jackie Morera

In Abuelo’s Flower Shop, a young girl named Elena is holding a bunch of yellow tulips. She shouts to her grandfather that she’s almost done gathering flowers.

It’s Elena’s first day working with Abuelo in his shop. A short time later, a woman in a black dress approaches them. She looks sad and is dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

“Is she okay?” Elena asks after the woman leaves. Abuelo insists that she is. He tells Elena not to worry.

As the day continues, Elena meets more customers. And with each customer, she senses a heaviness she doesn’t quite understand.

Finally, Abuelo explains that they are headed to the garden across the way. It’s a sad place, but special because it’s where people visit their loved ones who have died.

Abuelo’s Flower Shop by debut author Jackie Morera is a tender and sensitive lesson on how to support those who are grieving. Morera’s gentle hand guides young readers through Elena’s journey to learning about the cemetery nearby. The illustrations by Deise Lino add an extra layer of warmth and inclusion to this story.

Morera drew from her own life to tell this fictitious tale that also celebrates intergenerational love. She recalled her grandparents selling flowers from their home in Miami. “They were street vendors, and they would sell flowers to any passerby,” she said. “They lived catty-corner from one of the bigger cemeteries down in Miami.”

Out on June 4 from Beaming Books, Abuelo’s Flower Shop is Morera’s quest to answer what it would look like if a child realizes that there’s something more to this garden across the way. This story is a softhearted lesson about grief.

Ahead of the book’s release, Morera spoke with Latinx in Publishing about the inspiration behind Abuelo’s Flower Shop, what she learned about grief while writing this story, and more.

Amaris Castillo (AC): What inspired you to write this story?

Jackie Morera (JM): I wanted to write picture books as a creative adventure because I was writing longer form and wanted to try something different. I was dredging up these ideas and these moments from the past to tell the story, so it’s loosely based on my own experience (of) growing up in Miami and visiting my abuelos who would sell flowers from buckets in front of their house. They were street vendors, and they would sell flowers to any passerby. They lived catty-corner from one of the bigger cemeteries down in Miami. 

The conversation between Elena and her abuelo – all of that is fiction. But the story, the place, and what could happen between a young child and their grown-up in those moments is what inspired this story of realizing when you’re young (that) there’s a reason why at least most of these people who are stopping by might be buying these flowers – and what that space across the street represents. And what that might look like when a child is inquisitive, or maybe isn’t inquisitive, and recognizes through various moments that there’s something more going on here and what the grown-up in that relationship might do. That’s what inspired this story: a little bit of real life, and then a little bit of speculation of what that conversation would play out as.

AC: In your book, Elena at first doesn't understand that the people who come to her abuelo's flower shop are grieving. How did you approach this lesson on how to support those who are grieving in order for it to be digestible to young readers?

JM: When I first wrote it, I wanted it to be a snapshot of a moment that could happen. Initially it wasn’t a book to help people understand what grief could look like. That wasn’t the motivation for putting the story together. It ends up feeling more that way, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful to have that story out there for children, and for caregivers who are looking to help children through those. But for me, I really wanted it to be an inquisitive child who is excited to be supporting or just being with her grandfather, and realizing a little bit more about what is happening around her. And then that led to a conversation about empathy and understanding how other people might be feeling and why.

(I also wanted it to touch on) the complicated relationship between young children and their caregivers or the grown-ups in their lives. In my experience, in the Latino community, the men are often head of household and maintain a lot of the more adult topics and the things that they try to keep children safe from understanding. So it was a little bit of all of these things. 

“Initially it wasn’t a book to help people understand what grief could look like. That wasn’t the motivation for putting the story together. It ends up feeling more that way, and I’m grateful for that.”

AC: Some adults try to protect the young people in their lives from harsh realities or sadness, which can be futile. In your book, these themes literally arrive at Abuelo's flower room. I notice, though, that Elena isn't aware at first what that garden across the road really is. Why did you choose to have Abuelo initially keep that fact from her?

JM: In my experience growing up in a Latino community, children are very protected. I think there’s a nice difference here from what I experienced growing up with a lot of the grown-ups in my life, to what I would love for children to experience with grown-ups in their life – which is more of a softness, sensitivity, and an openness to having these conversations. But that’s where it started. 

Obviously, we’re not a monolith. Not every community is this way, especially when it comes to grief. But the grown-ups and specifically the men like to protect the children as much as possible with these difficult topics, and keep them away from grief and loss and all of this. Elena is so excited to help her abuelo and be with him out there. This is a beautiful place with flowers and people, and there’s a garden across the street. She’s so little, so she doesn’t need to know these things. And I think sometimes adults wait until the very last minute to say something, to make something clear. In this instance, Elena is not experiencing grief herself. So it’s (about) recognizing the grief in other people. 

Even now, as a parent, you never know when is the right time to share something with your child. I think abuelo is doing a little bit of that: he’s trying to maintain her knowledge of what is happening until it is really in front of her – until the customers really start to approach and she’s realizing. As a grown-up he’s kind of struggling with that, from when to make that clear.

AC: While writing this book, did you learn anything new about grief?

JM: I think there’s been changes over the past couple of years in general with how open we should be or recommended to be with children, and how explicit we should be in our language. 

If I had written this story 10 years ago before having children, before working with children, before that educational awareness, maybe the language would have been a little bit softer. And now it says ‘people who died’ in the text because that’s something that is helpful for children anywhere, to have that very literal language of, this is what happens, and this is a way that you can keep the memories of that person alive. Whether that’s you as someone who has experienced loss and death, or you as someone who is helping somebody through that difficult time. That’s definitely something; how direct we have to be with our language with children. I feel like that’s a pretty big change. 

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from Abuelo’s Flower Shop?

JM: I hope that readers walk away feeling more able to be curious. Because I think that’s something that I love about Elena. She’s asking these questions out loud, and that leads her to understanding what is happening. And if she didn’t ask, she might have come to her own conclusions – and maybe those wouldn’t have been the correct conclusions, or she wouldn’t have realized and had this opportunity to learn what’s going on. 

I think recognizing that it’s OK to ask questions in uncomfortable moments helps you to be a more empathetic person. There are ways that you can help people who are going through difficult moments, even in small ways (like) helping them pick a flower or helping them remember their loved one… So that curiosity and that sense of, it’s OK to ask questions. And there are people around me who can help me better understand what’s happening.

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Jackie Morera is an author of books for young readers of all ages. Born and raised in Miami, Jackie now lives in Central Florida with her husband, son, and goofy pup. She enjoys telling stories, savoring pastelitos, and cozying up for a good nap.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog.

Review and Author Q&A: The Dream Catcher by Marcelo Verdad

In The Dream Catcher by author-illustrator Marcelo Verdad, a young boy is awakened by his grandfather who lets him know it’s time for work. Soon they will head out for the day to sell cold coconuts and macrame dream catchers along México’s Oaxaca coast.

“Look how many coins I have already, Abuelito,” Miguelito says, holding up a jar of coins to his white-haired abuelo. “Do you think this is enough to buy an airplane?”

His grandpa tells him they’re getting closer.

At home, Miguelito has been hard at work on his dream catchers. His mom taught him how to weave them. The knotted textile creations make him feel close to his parents, he confesses to his abuelo.

 The Dream Catcher (out on May 14 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) is a poignant story about a boy with a big dream: to make enough money to buy an airplane someday so he could reunite with his parents. Miguelito’s story is rooted in a photo Verdad saw years ago of a young boy selling dream catchers on a beach. The image stayed with him. “In a sense, I wanted to honor all of our kids living under unfavorable circumstances and create a space for them to feel seen,” said Verdad, who was born and raised in México and now resides in Los Angeles.

In his tender picture book, Verdad brings readers into the direct and deep conversations between Miguelito and his grandfather as they work, daring his audience to question what a dream means to them. At one point, the young boy peers up at his grandfather and asks if dreams come true. 

With themes of poverty and class, readers of The Dream Catcher may feel compelled to pause and reflect on the stark differences in the dreams held by people from different circumstances. This is done very effectively through Verdad’s text and illustrations, the latter of which include people of even lesser means than his young protagonist. Even with the heaviness that comes with realizing that not all dreams happen for everyone, there’s a ray of hope that emanates from Miguelito and Abuelito’s story.

Ahead of The Dream Catcher’s release, Verdad spoke with Latinx in Publishing about the inspiration behind his book, dreams, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): What inspired you to write this book?

Marcelo Verdad (MV): Years ago, I found this picture of a young kid selling his dream catchers on the beach, and that image just got stuck in my head. I felt the urge to draw it myself. And as soon as I finished the piece, I knew that this kid had a story to tell. It took me some years, but eventually I was able to listen to him and to write the story that he wanted to tell.

 AC: In your book, Miguelito has big dreams to sell enough art to buy an airplane and reunite his family. It is both beautiful yet heartbreaking to read this. How did you decide on this dream for him?

MV: I’m an art teacher, and I work with kids – which I love. What I value the most about being close to my kids is learning from their innocence and their imagination. They really help me reconnect with my inner child, and remember my own innocence and imagination. In this case, Miguelito’s wish needed to represent that innocence and imagination that I find so pure in kids, and that I love. 

Another key aspect about Miguelito was his background. I’m born and raised in México, and that’s exactly how I feel a lot of times when I think of my country. It’s beyond gorgeous. It’s so rich and so beautiful, but yet heartbreaking at times. But also life itself, in that it can be both beautiful yet heartbreaking. And that’s the story that I wanted to tell this time, about life on Earth. I’m not very into fairy tale happy endings, but I wanted to do something honest and full of life and heart.

AC: The entire book consists of direct quotes – conversations between Miguelito and his Abuelito. You don’t see that often in picture books. Why did you structure the story in this way?

MV: I’m both an author and illustrator, but I went to college to study art and design so I’m naturally more of a visual storyteller. I enjoy meaningful minimalism, so I heavily rely on my illustrations to tell the story. And anything that I can’t show visually, that’s when I tell. There’s this thing that authors and illustrators always say: “Show, don’t tell.” So that’s what I try to do first: show through my images. And anything that I can’t show, I just tell it.

I love, love, love keeping a text to a minimum. I’m a bit of an edit freak, so anytime me, my agent, or my editor suggests getting rid of lines and it works, I get really, really happy lowering the word count. In my first book, The Worst Teddy Ever, I used a mix of dialogue and an omnipresent narrator trying to play with the reader by giving them more information than what the main character knew as the story progressed. And that resulted in a fun and engaging tiny book. But this time, what I was trying to do with the dialogue in The Dream Catcher was to make it feel more intimate and personal. And the reader, in my mind, gets to experience a personal and deep conversation between a kid and his guide and protector, in his realm. And I wanted it to feel almost as a conversation with the universe, with life, or a caring and loving being from a higher realm – offering support, wisdom, and guidance throughout Miguelito’s consciousness and spiritual journey.

“...I see this book as an homage to their innocence, their resilience, and generosity in a beautiful and respectful way. ”

AC: There is so much you do visually in The Dream Catcher. We see the beauty of Oaxaca coast, and the harsh reality of people of lesser means. What was it like to bring this all to the page?

MV: To me, it just feels honest. And me being born and raised in México and then coming to LA, where I live currently, that’s just a part of the reality that I experienced. In a sense, I wanted to honor all of our kids living under unfavorable circumstances and create a space for them to feel seen. And I see this book as an homage to their innocence, their resilience, and generosity in a beautiful and respectful way. I also wanted to share visually my favorite place from my country, and showcase all the magic, beauty, richness and culture that inspire me so much. It makes me feel extremely proud of being mexicano and Latino.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from The Dream Catcher?

MV: I think that it’s human to have dreams and plans and hopes for the future. I think that we all have them. But at the same time, I feel it’s really important not to get lost in those so we can stay present and be grateful for what’s already here and now. I believe the dream called ‘today’ is the one thing that’s real, and everything else is an illusion. I’d love (it) if The Dream Catcher worked as a tiny reminder to stay grateful in the present moment, and to always keep faith even under difficult circumstances.

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Photo: Ximena Verdad

Marcelo Verdad is an author and illustrator from México who likes to tell stories from unconventional perspectives. He graduated from ArtCenter College of Design, where he came upon the Children's Book Illustration class and immediately fell in love with kids' books. He is a member of SCBWI, and was one of the recipients of the Mentorship Award at SCBWI’s 2019 Summer Conference. The Worst Teddy Ever is his picture book debut. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog.

Review and Author Q&A: A Maleta Full of Treasures by Natalia Sylvester and Illustrated by Juana Medina

In A Maleta Full of Treasures, a young girl named Dulce is watching her abuela pack maletas through a screen. Her paternal grandmother is traveling from Peru soon to visit her in Miami. Dulce hasn’t seen her in three years.

Abuela wants to know: “What would you like me to bring you, mi dulce?” 

“Just you,” Dulce responds.

But Abuela promises a surprise. And soon, Dulce is reunited with her grandmother who arrives with suitcases piled high as mountains. They settle at home and begin to open the maletas. Inside them, Dulce finds all kinds of treasures and a sweet, earthy smell. Abuela tells her it’s the scent of home.

From award-winning author Natalia Sylvester and illustrator Juana Medina comes a tender story about cherished family visits and the connections we nurture with people and places dear to us. Reading it felt like a warm embrace. 

Out on April 16 from Dial Books for Young Readers, A Maleta Full of Treasures is Sylvester’s first picture book. It was inspired partly by the special visits from relatives who live in Peru and would come to the US to spend time with Sylvester and her family. “They’d bring these suitcases full of candies and letters from family members, and photographs and little trinkets – whatever small gifts they could bring,” the author recalled. “Nothing that was really, I would say, expensive. I treasured them because they were priceless.”

La Maleta De Tesoros – a Spanish version of the forthcoming children’s book – will be published simultaneously.

Sylvester recently spoke with Latinx in Publishing about what inspired her first picture book, what the maleta symbolizes to her, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on A Maleta Full of Treasures! This is your first picture book after years of writing for adults and teens. Reading it felt like a warm embrace. What inspired you to write this book?

Natalia Sylvester (NS): First of all, thank you for that. I’m so glad that it feels that way because that’s really what I had hoped it would feel. There’s two things that inspired this book. A) We had moved from Peru when I was four. And in the time between when I was four to around 12, we couldn’t go back until we sorted out (paperwork). As immigration, the system is so slow and full of many twists and turns, and ups and downs, that are different for everyone. In our case, it prevented us from going back to Peru for all those years, which was a huge portion of my childhood. And yet it never felt like Peru was absent from my sense of self and from my heart. That was really thanks to my relatives who would come visit. They’d bring these suitcases full of candies and letters from family members, and photographs and little trinkets – whatever small gifts they could bring. Nothing that was really, I would say, expensive. I treasured them because they were priceless. 

I remember my mom would ask relatives to bring Peruvian history books so that we could learn about our own history, since we weren’t learning it in US schools. And I wanted to capture that feeling and anticipation, but also the magic of having a relative visit you and all the ways that the home feels different. I remember the smells that they would bring with them. They would fill our house. It was like, that’s what Peru smells like. And I just wanted to celebrate that. 

B) It was actually very much inspired by the word ‘maleta.’ When I was writing Running, there was actually a line where one of the characters who is Peruvian-American is eating a candy and she offers it to my main character. I think she ends up saying something like, ‘I have a whole maleta-full back home.’ There was a point in the editing process when somebody asked, ‘Hey, why not just say a whole suitcase-full back home?’ And I thought, Well, no, because this is how we code switch. I don’t actually use the word ‘suitcase.’ Even if I’m speaking English, for me that word is one that’s full of emotion, and full of a specific emotion. It’s very much connected to those Latin American roots. And so I always code switch for that word. To me it’s a ‘maleta.’ And so I wanted to capture that sense of what it means that it’s not just a little literal word.

“...I wanted to capture that feeling and anticipation, but also the magic of having a relative visit you and all the ways that the home feels different. I remember the smells that they would bring with them. They would fill our house. It was like, that’s what Peru smells like. And I just wanted to celebrate that. ”

AC: I can see this story being deeply resonant to families with loved ones who still live in the countries they hail from. I myself remember the excitement of wondering what’s inside a maleta. To you, what does the maleta symbolize?

NS: To me, it symbolizes a sense of home no matter where you go… It symbolizes this connection and this sense of self that we carry with us when you’ve moved from one country to another, when you have loved ones moving between those places to visit you and vice versa, if you happen to be able to go back and visit them. It’s all the things that we carry, and the things that we hold close through that constant travel.

AC: There’s a precious moment in the book when Dulce begins to ration the sweets her abuela brought, basically savoring what’s left. She knows the visit is coming to an end. Tell us about that moment. What were you trying to show to readers?

NS: When my relatives would come over and they’d bring cookies and candies, each of us cousins had our favorites. And obviously, they can only bring so many. There’s always a concern about how much will your maleta weigh? Are you going to go over the weight limit and have to pay extra? And we would never pay extra, so of course we’re not going over the weight limit. You have a finite amount, like anything. It’s not the same as candies you would get here in the US. You can’t just go to the supermarket and get more.

To me, it seemed to also really reflect this idea of, I love that they’re visiting, but I know that they have to go back soon. So you start really trying to enjoy what’s there while it’s there. Los gozas. You try to savor them – not just the candies, but the moments that you have together.

AC: Dulce has never been to the country where her abuela is from, yet she longs for it. It made me think deeply about the ties some of us feel to certain countries and places. What do you make of that longing, and what was it like to put it on the page?

NS: I think it’s something that feels kind of innate. Like I said, I came here when I was four, so my first memories are actually here in the US. And yet the other thing that coexists alongside that is being an immigrant from a very young age, seeing how our family is not yet fitting in, is trying to adapt to this new country, the new language, the new customs, while also trying to stay connected and preserve our own cultures and traditions. Being aware of all that from a young age, I remember having this very distinct feeling of: Even though all I know is here in the US, I also know there’s so much more beyond that, that I left. And that is equally a part of me.  I missed Peru even though I didn’t remember it, because my family and parents kept it alive inside of me and through our language and the food we’d eat… I really did long for it. 

I remember the very first time we finally went back. And I say ‘first time,’ even though it wasn’t my first time there. But to me it felt like the first time going when I was 12. I was so affected by that, that I got a bag of soil from my mom’s childhood backyard. We were staying at my aunt and uncle’s house, which had been my mom’s childhood home. I went into their backyard and filled a bag with soil, and I took it home with me to the US because I wanted to take that piece of home with me. And I was 12. I didn’t know that you’re not supposed to do that. My mom found out later. She was like, ‘I can’t believe Customs didn’t stop you.’ It was so embedded in me, this idea of, Yes, the US is home and it’s where we’ve made our lives but our roots are also here. And that is equally a part of you. I didn’t feel as complete until I had those two pieces together.

AC: What are you hoping readers take away from A Maleta Full of Treasures?

NS: I do hope they’ll have that warmth and tenderness you spoke about. I would love it if it helps readers feel seen in the same ways that, for example, Juana made me feel seen when I saw her illustrations. In the same way that I felt like when I was younger, reading children’s books, and didn’t necessarily see my family and my home in those books. But when I started to see the spreads of this book, I was like, Oh my God, I didn’t know that could happen. It almost felt like it healed this inner child of mine. 

I hope it’ll inspire excitement and get children and their adults to talk about the things that they treasure, and why they treasure them. It was really important to me that these aren’t necessarily treasures of monetary value. They’re treasures that can be small and simple, but are very meaningful. There’s reasons for why they connect to specific people and places that a person loves or cares for, or maybe misses. So I hope it’ll inspire people to express that and value it. 

I see stories as comfort, and I hope that that will also bring comfort even to those who might also be missing that home country. Maybe they haven’t gone yet, either. I hope this gives them a sense of hope and helps them feel connected to those loved ones, despite that distance.

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Natalia Sylvester is an award-winning author of the young adult novels Breathe and Count Back from Ten and Running and the adult novels Everyone Knows You Go Home and Chasing the Sun. Born in Lima, Peru, she grew up in Miami, Central Florida, and South Texas, and received her BFA from the University of Miami. A Maleta Full of Treasures is her first picture book.

Juana Medina is the creator of the Pura Belpré award-winning chapter book Juana & Lucas and many other titles and has illustrated numerous picture books, including ‘Twas the Night Before Pride and Smick! Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Juana Medina now lives with her family in the Washington D.C. area.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog.