Hispanic Teen Fiction
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Accidental Love After unexpectedly falling in love with a "nerdy" boy, fourteen-year-old Marisa works to change her life by transferring to another school, altering some of her behavior, and losing weight.
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Amor and Summer Secrets Wallach introduces an unforgettable heroine who's learning all about friendship, family, rivalry, and secrets. Sequels: Amigas and School Scandals, Adios to All the Drama
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And Now Miguel The young son of a New Mexico sheep rancher longs to go with the men when they take the sheep to the Sangre de Christo Mountains.
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Araña Feisty teenager Anya Corazon is saved from death by a mysterious mage named Miguel. Now, Anya is pledged to fight alongside Miguel and the Spider Society. First, she must prove herself to the society--and go to school, and keep her father and her friends from discovering her new secret.
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Bless Me Última Set in a small New Mexican community during World War II, Antonio speaks of the dignity, traditions, and mythology of Chicano life.
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The Brothers Torres Sophomore Frankie finally finds the courage to ask his long-term friend, Julianne, to the Homecoming dance, which ultimately leads to a face-off between a tough senior whose family owns most of their small, New Mexico town, and Frankie's soccer-star older brother and his gang-member friends.
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Call Me Maria Fifteen-year-old Maria leaves her mother and their Puerto Rican home to live in the barrio of New York with her father, feeling torn between the two cultures in which she has been raised.
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Chasing the Jaguar After having unsettling dreams about the kidnapped daughter of her mother's employer, fifteen-year-old Martika learns that she is a descendant of a long line of curanderas—Mayan medicine women with special powers. Includes glossary of Spanish words.
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Cinnamon Girl: letters found inside a cereal box Yolanda, a Puerto Rican girl, tries to come to terms with her painful past as she waits to see if her uncle recovers from injuries he suffered when the towers collapsed on September 11, 2001.
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The Circuit: stories from the life of a migrant child Sequel: Breaking Through
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Crazy Loco: Stories This collection features nine stories about Mexican-American kids growing up in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas.
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Cuba 15 Violet Paz, a Chicago high school student, reluctantly prepares for her upcoming “quince,” a Spanish nickname for the celebration of an Hispanic girl’s fifteenth birthday.
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Cubanita Seventeen-year-old Isabel, eager to leave Miami to attend the University of Michigan and escape her overprotective Cuban mother, learns some truths about her family's past and makes important decisions about the type of person she wants to be.
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Dark Dude In the 1960s, Rico Fuentes, a pale-skinned Cuban American teenager, abandons drug-infested New York City for the picket fence and apple pie world of Wisconsin, only to discover that he still feels like an outsider and that violent and judgmental people can be found even in the wholesome Midwest.
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Drift At sixteen, Robert Lomos has lost his family. His father, a Latin jazz musician, has left San Antonio for life on the road as a cool-hand playboy. His mother, shattered by a complete emotional and psychological breakdown, has moved to Los Angeles and taken Robert’s little brother with her. Only his iron-willed grandmother, worn down by years of hard work, is left. But Robert’s got a plan: Duck trouble, save his money, and head to California to put the family back together. Trouble is, no one believes a delinquent Mexican American kid has a chance—least of all, Robert himself.
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Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa Forced to stay with her mother in Puerto Rico for weeks after her grandmother's funeral, half-Jewish Emily, who has just graduated from a Westchester, New York, high school, does not find it easy to connect with her Puerto Rican heritage and relatives she had never met.
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Esperanza Rising Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.
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Estrella's Quinceañera Estrella's mother and aunt are planning a gaudy, traditional quinceañera for her, even though it is the last thing she wants.
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Finding Miracles Fifteen-year-old Milly Kaufman is an average American teenager until Pablo, a new student at her school, inspires her to search for her birth family in his native country.
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Haters Having tried for years to deny her psychic abilities, high school sophomore Paski has disturbing visions about the popular girl at her new high school in Orange County, California.
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Heat Pitching prodigy Michael Arroyo is on the run from social services after being banned from playing Little League baseball because rival coaches doubt he is only twelve years old and he has no parents to offer them proof.
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Honey Blonde Chica Evie Gomez, while trying to form her own identity, must decide if she wants to be a fun-loving, high-heeled, blonde-streaked Sangro, or a laid-back surfer chick Flojo, which are two very different worlds. Sequel: Scandalosa! : a honey blonde chica novel
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The House on Mango Street Esperanza Cordero is a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago with all its hard realities of life. She captures her thoughts and emotions in poems and stories in order to rise above the hopelessness and create a space for herself.
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In the Shadow of the Alamo Conscripted into the Mexican Army, fifteen-year-old Lorenzo Bonifacio makes some unexpected alliances and learns some harsh truths about General Santa Ana as the troops move toward the Battle of the Alamo.
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The Indigo Notebook Fifteen-year-old Zeeta comes to terms with her flighty mother and their itinerant life when, soon after moving to Ecuador, she helps an American teenager find his birth father in a nearby village.
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It's Not About the Accent Caroline Darcy decides to explore--and exploit--her distant Cuban ancestry when she goes away to college, claiming to be half-Cuban, calling herself "Carolina," and dying her blond hair Havana Brown, but soon faces profound consequences.
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Keeper In an interview with a young journalist, World Cup hero, El Gato, describes his youth in the Brazilian rain forest and the events, experiences, and people that helped make him a great goalkeeper and renowned soccer star. awards: Texas: Lone Star Reading List-007, ALA Best Books for Young Adults-2006 subjects: Soccer, coming of age, Brazil |
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La Línea When fifteen-year-old Miguel's time finally comes to leave his poor Mexican village, cross the border illegally, and join his parents in California, his younger sister's determination to join him soon imperils them both. awards: Texas: Lone Star Reading List-2008, Booklist Editor's Choice-2006, ALA Best Books for Young Adults-2007 subjects: Brothers and sisters, Emigration and immigration, Survival, Mexicans, Mexico |
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Lorenzo's Secret Mission Two historical figures, Bernardo de Gálvez and George Gibson, appear prominently in the book. In 1776, fifteen-year-old Lorenzo Bannister leaves Texas and his father's new grave to carry a letter to the Virginia grandfather he has never known, and becomes involved with the struggle of the American Continental Army and its Spanish supporters.
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Marcelo in the Real World Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mail room of a corporate law firm.
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Mexican Whiteboy Sixteen-year-old Danny searches for his identity amidst the confusion of being half-Mexican and half-white while spending a summer with his cousin and new friends on the baseball fields and back alleys of San Diego County, California.
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No More Us for You Isabel and Carlos, both seventeen, find themselves growing closer after an unexpected accident forces them to confront both the harshness and the beauty of life.
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Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Mexican American family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone’s struggle.
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Raining Sardines The artistic Ernestina and the analytical Enriquito use their ingenuity to save a herd of wild horses and stop an evil landowner from spoiling their Cuban village.
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Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood As a Chicano boy living in the unglamorous town of Hollywood, New Mexico, and a member of the graduating class of 1969, Sammy Santos faces the challenges of “gringo” racism, unpopular dress codes, the Vietnam War, barrio violence, and poverty.
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The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez Tenth-grader Sonia reveals secrets about her life and her Hispanic family as she studies hard to become the first Rodriguez to finish high school.
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So Hard to Say Thirteen-year-old Xio, a Mexican American girl, and Frederick, who has just moved to California from Wisconsin, quickly become close friends, but when Xio starts thinking of Frederick as her boyfriend, he must confront his feelings of confusion and face the fear that he might be gay.
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Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico When Southern California high school senior Sofi Mendoza lies to her parents and crosses the border for a weekend party, she has no idea that she will get stuck in a Mexican village with family she has never met before, unable to return to the United States and the easy life she knew.
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The Tequila Worm Sofia grows up in the close-knit community of the barrio in McAllen, Texas, then finds that her experiences as a scholarship student at an Episcopal boarding school in Austin only strengthen her ties to family and her "comadres."
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Trino's Choice Frustrated by his poor financial situation and hoping to impress a smart girl, seventh grader Trino falls in with a bad crowd led by an older teen with a vicious streak. Sequel: Trino's Time
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White Tiger : a hero's compulsion Angela del Toro knows pain: Her uncle -- Hector Ayala, the former White Tiger -- killed. Her FBI partner, murdered. Her career, ruined. Her mentor, Matt Murdock, jailed. And the hurt is just beginning. The Yakuza's bloodthirsty Sano Orii returns, a genocidal shadow organization appears, and a new-but-old super-powered madman is looking to put the squeeze on White Tiger. Armed with mystical amulets-- and finally in costume-- White Tiger demands answers! But will she survive long enough to ask the right questions?
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The Whole Sky Full of Stars Eighteen-year-old Barry competes in a non-sanctioned boxing match in hopes of helping his recently-widowed mother, unaware that his best friend and manager, Alby, has his own desperate need for a share of the purse that may put their friendship on the line.
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List updated June 2010—Joanna Nigrelli
