By Jean B.

It’s time to celebrate libraries! We think every week is Library Week, but this annual event focuses attention on how libraries support and enrich our lives. Meg Medina observes:

“From book groups to lending sports equipment to providing a safe after-school hangout space and so much more, libraries support us wherever we find ourselves on the roadmap through life’s journey.”
In fact, libraries are there at life’s starting line, offering parents and caregivers of newborns, infants, and toddlers the opportunity to talk, sing, read, and play together in a positive environment. Early trips to the library may be a social lifeline for new parents as well as a fertile ground for growing confident, enthusiastic readers – it’s the very first chapter in a child’s educational experience!

“!Cuéntame!: Let’s talk books!” continues Medina, who is the Honorary Chairperson of National Library Week and National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and it’s the perfect way to celebrate National Library Week 2024.

Let’s talk about Medina’s award-winning books for kids. Merci Suárez Changes Gears, winner of the Newbery Award in 2019, opens a window into the lively world of a Cuban American family and the confusion of starting middle school. We can all can relate to the uncertainty and change that comes with middle school, but Merci Suárez experiences more than the usual bumps. As a scholarship student at Seaward Pines Academy, Merci finds herself on the outside. Her life at Las Casitas, the three little pink houses that sit side by side and hold her extended family together in a maelstrom of love and drama, is clearly different from that of her classmates. Her family shapes her life every day, whether she is playing soccer with her Papi’s team, hanging out with her grandparents, Lolo and Abuela, or babysitting her wild twin cousins. All that togetherness!  It’s a blessing and curse for a sixth grader trying to figure out how she fits in. On top of that, her beloved Lolo is behaving in strange and worrisome ways, and nobody wants to talk about it with Merci.   

In this book and the two books that follow it – Merci Suárez Can’t Dance and Merci Suárez Plays it Cool – Meg Medina opens a conversation about a universal theme – dealing with change – but immerses us in a specific setting that reflects her own experience as a Cuban American. With Spanish words and phrases sprinkled throughout the story and wonderful descriptions of foods, celebrations, and rituals familiar to this community, we see common problems from a new perspective, one that is infused with Florida heat and Cuban spice. Merci advances a grade with each book in the trilogy and learns to navigate the whole range of middle school challenges, from cliques to crushes, while adjusting to changes at home, too, as her brother goes to college and her grandfather’s health declines.  

Not into middle school drama? Medina portrays strong Latina girls in tough situations with honesty, humor, and heart for other age groups as well.  In the sweet picture book Evelyn Del Rey is Moving Away, her young heroine faces the loss of her best friend and neighbor, but the bond of friendship proves more powerful than distance.  In the award-winning YA novel Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, Medina takes on high school bullying as experienced by Piddy Sanchez, a girl stressed by school and family issues.   

Pick any of Medina’s books and you come away with a lot to talk about. The characters are real and their struggles and relationships are totally relatable. It’s everyday family life. At the same time, reading these stories told through a rich, cultural lens broadened my own experience and showed me something new in the everyday.    

“!Cuéntame!” Let’s have a conversation! Isn’t that what the Freedom to Read is all about?  

Merci Suarez Changes Gears is available in print, as an audiobook on CD, as a digital audiobook, and in e-book format.

Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away is available in print in English and Spanish and in e-book and e-audiobook formats, as well as in an animated adaptation on DVD.

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass is available in print.

Jean B. is a Children’s Instructor and Research Specialist at the Central Branch who loves reading books for all ages when she isn’t enjoying the outdoors.