Best Children's Hispanic & Latino Stories

When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it. Told in a lyrical, fairy tale - like style, Ryan's (riding Freedom) robust novel set in 1930 captures a Mexican girl's fall from riches, her immigration to California and her growing awareness of class and ethnic tensions. Readers will be swept up by vivid descriptions of California dust storms or by the police crackdown on a labor strike ("The picket signs lay on the ground, discarded, and like a mass of marbles that had already been hit, the strikers scattered?"). (Oct.). Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Grade 6-9-Ryan uses the experiences of her own Mexican grandmother as the basis for this compelling story of immigration and assimilation, not only to a new country but also into a different social class. Set against the multiethnic, labor-organizing era of the Depression, the story of Esperanza remaking herself is satisfyingly complete, including dire illness and a difficult romance.

Even though her house is crammed full of books (her dad's a bibliophile), she's having trouble figuring out some very big questions, like why her dad seems to care about books more than her, why her best friend's divorced mom is obsessed with making cascarones (hollowed eggshells filled with colorful confetti), and, most of all, why her mom died last year. Grade 4-8–Lina attends middle school in Corpus Cristi, TX, has a crush on classmate Luís, loves science and sports, and has a sock obsession as a result of her pants never being long enough for her tall body. The budding romance, and typical middle school events such as detention, lunchroom disasters, and reports, keep things moving. –Carol A. Edwards, Denver Public Library Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. If that's the case, then here's mine for this wonderful novel: Un libro sin abrir es una vida sin sabor (A book unread is a life unlived). "Although Confetti Girl takes on a serious subject matter, it's also about fun, a whole semester's worth, which includes confrontations with the school's most popular boy, a school festival, volleyball, friendship, boy craziness, a quinceañera and trips to the beach - and the counselor's office."

Francisco, a young Mexican-American boy, helps his grandfather find work as a gardener, even though the old man cannot speak English and knows nothing about gardening. Eager to earn the badly needed pay, Francisco assures Ben that his grandfather is a skilled gardener (Abuelo is in fact a carpenter). The shift in the boy's role quietly suggests not only the importance of a work ethic but also Francisco's need to be a child, guided by a caring adult. With expressive, gestural watercolors, Himler, who illustrated Bunting's Fly Away Home and Someday a Tree, conveys the boy's complex relationship with his grandfather and strongly invokes both the harsh and the tender landscapes of Francisco's world. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. Kindergarten-Grade 3 - Joe Fox wonderfully narrates Eve Bunting's (Clarion Books, 1994) tender story of Francisco and his abuelo, grandfather, looking for work as day laborers.

Stories of their great achievements spread throughout the region, and the combination of Old Dan’s brawn, Little Ann’s brains, and Billy’s sheer will seems unbeatable. Praise for Where the Red Fern Grows A Top 100 Children’s Novel, School Library Journal ' s A Fuse #8 Production. A Must-Read for Kids 9 to 14, NPR. Winner of Multiple State Awards. Over 7 million copies in print! Any child who doesn’t get to read this beloved and powerfully emotional book has missed out on an important piece of childhood for the last 40-plus years.” — Common Sense Media “An exciting tale of love and adventure you’ll never forget.” — School Library Journal “A book of unadorned naturalness.” — Kirkus Reviews “Written with so much feeling and sentiment that adults as well as children are drawn [in] with a passion.” — Arizona Daily Star “It’s a story about a young boy and his two hunting dogs and . When the victory over the mountain lion turns to tragedy, Billy grieves, but learns the beautiful old Native American legend of the sacred red fern that grows over the graves of his dogs. [with] careful, precise observation, all of it rightly phrased.” — The New York Times Book Review “One of the great classics of children’s literature . Any child who doesn’t get to read this beloved and powerfully emotional book has missed out on an important piece of childhood for the last 40-plus years.” — Common Sense Media “An exciting tale of love and adventure you’ll never forget.” — School Library Journal “A book of unadorned naturalness.” — Kirkus Reviews “Written with so much feeling and sentiment that adults as well as children are drawn [in] with a passion.” — Arizona Daily Star “It’s a story about a young boy and his two hunting dogs and .

When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it. Told in a lyrical, fairy tale - like style, Ryan's (riding Freedom) robust novel set in 1930 captures a Mexican girl's fall from riches, her immigration to California and her growing awareness of class and ethnic tensions. Readers will be swept up by vivid descriptions of California dust storms or by the police crackdown on a labor strike ("The picket signs lay on the ground, discarded, and like a mass of marbles that had already been hit, the strikers scattered?"). (Oct.). Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Grade 6-9-Ryan uses the experiences of her own Mexican grandmother as the basis for this compelling story of immigration and assimilation, not only to a new country but also into a different social class. Set against the multiethnic, labor-organizing era of the Depression, the story of Esperanza remaking herself is satisfyingly complete, including dire illness and a difficult romance.

Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He expects disaster when he transfers from the reservation school to the rich, white school in Reardan, but soon finds himself making friends with both geeky and popular students and starting on the basketball team. Arnold Spirit, a goofy-looking dork with a decent jumpshot, spends his time lamenting life on the "poor-ass" Spokane Indian reservation, drawing cartoons (which accompany, and often provide more insight than, the narrative), and, along with his aptly named pal Rowdy, laughing those laughs over anything and nothing that affix best friends so intricately together. He weathers the typical teenage indignations and triumphs like a champ but soon faces far more trying ordeals as his home life begins to crumble and decay amidst the suffocating mire of alcoholism on the reservation.

The Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning classic about a boy who decides to hit the road to find his father—from Christopher Paul Curtis, author of The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963 , a Newbery and Coretta Scott King Honoree. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him: AN ALA BEST BOOK FOR YOUNG ADULTS. AN ALA NOTABLE CHILDREN'S BOOK. AN IRA CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD WINNER. NAMED TO 14 STATE AWARD LISTS. “The book is a gem, of value to all ages, not just the young people to whom it is aimed.” — The Christian Science Monitor “Will keep readers engrossed from first page to last.” — Publishers Weekly , Starred. “Curtis writes with a razor-sharp intelligence that grabs the reader by the heart and never lets go. And, being 10, Bud-not-Buddy gets into all sorts of trouble along the way, barely escaping a monster-infested woodshed, stealing a vampire's car, and even getting tricked into "busting slob with a real live girl." As in his Newbery Honor-winning debut, The Watsons Go to BirminghamA1963, Curtis draws on a remarkable and disarming mix of comedy and pathos, this time to describe the travails and adventures of a 10-year-old African-American orphan in Depression-era Michigan. And even when he sets up a daunting scenario, he makes readers laughAfor example, mopping floors for the rejecting Calloway, Bud pretends the mop is "that underwater boat in the book Momma read to me, Twenty Thousand Leaks Under the Sea."

This moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing received four starred reviews, including one from Kirkus which proclaimed it "enlightening, poignant, and unexpectedly funny." Written in accessible, short free-verse poems, Hà’s immediate narrative describes her mistakes—both humorous and heartbreaking—with grammar, customs, and dress (she wears a flannel nightgown to school, for example); and readers will be moved by Hà’s sorrow as they recognize the anguish of being the outcast who spends lunchtime hiding in the bathroom. Eventually, Hà does get back at the sneering kids who bully her at school, and she finds help adjusting to her new life from a kind teacher who lost a son in Vietnam.