Meg Medina is the winner of the 2019 Newbery Medal for Merci Suárez Changes Gears (read The Horn Book Magazine‘s starred review here). For our February issue of The Horn Book Herald: ALA Youth Media Awards Edition e-newsletter, Medina answered Five Questions posed by Horn Book reviewer, children’s librarian, REFORMA member, and ALSC board member […]
Review of Merci Suárez Changes Gears
Merci Suárez Changes Gears by Meg Medina Intermediate, Middle School Candlewick 361 pp. g 9/18 978-0-7636-9049-6 $16.99 Working-class Cuban American girl Mercedes “Merci” Suárez’s life in South Florida consists of spending time with her extended family and attending elite Seaward Pines Academy, where the sixth grader does community service to pay for her tuition. Now […]
Review of Burn Baby Burn
Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina High School Candlewick 308 pp. 3/16 978-0-7636-7467-0 $17.99 g This vividly evoked coming-of-age story is set against actual events in 1977 New York City, when tensions rose throughout a city enduring an oppressive heat wave, culminating in the historic blackout of July 13th. Seventeen-year-old Nora López faces an insecure […]
The Writer’s Page: On Writing the American Familia
I’ve always been fascinated by how people become part of the American tapestry. Some had ancestors who were enslaved. Others fled persecution, poverty, or violence. Their stories are often a potent mix of hope and tragedy. My parents came to the United States during the mass political exodus of the Cuban upper and middle class […]