Showing results by narrator "Victoria Villarreal" in All Categories

Twelve-year-old Salva Sanchez has always been a lifelong fan of Celia Cruz, also known as "the queen of salsa." Her love of Celia stems from her mother, who leaves Salva without explanation one awful day. Now Salva is stuck with her investigative journalist father in a trailer park. In the middle of nowhere. As Salva acclimates to her new environment and desperately tries to figure out why her mother left, she befriends a posse of campground kids who have started a band. When the kids discover that Salva has an amazing singing voice, they convince her to join their group.

1836, Wisconsin. Catalina lives with her pa and brother in a ramshackle cabin on the edge of the wilderness. Harsh winters have brought the family to the brink of starvation, and Catalina has replaced her poet's soul with an unyielding determination to keep Pa and her brother alive. When a sudden illness claims Pa, a strange man appears—a man covered in bark, leaves growing from his head, and sap dripping from his eyes.

Barrio Logan, one of San Diego’s oldest Chicane neighborhoods, once brimmed with families and stretched all the way to the glorious San Diego Bay. But in the decades after WWII, the community lost their beach and bayfront to factories, junkyards, and an interstate that divided the neighborhood and forced around 5,000 people out of their homes. Then on April 22, 1970, residents discovered that the construction crew they believed was building a park—one the city had promised them years ago—was actually breaking ground for a police station.

There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school—you can’t fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle School’s queen bee, violates the school’s dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better as long as she remembers the first rule of punk: be yourself.

She had been nervous about starting fifth grade after spending all summer with her little brother and baby cousins. So when her fifth-grade teacher announces a district-wide robotics competition, she jumps at the opportunity to be the class’s leader. Being in charge is better and cooler than playing make-believe, right? Many people doubt her, especially the boys in her class, but with the support of her friends and Girl Scout troop, Maven is determined to prove them wrong.

Lola Reyes doesn’t want to leave Guatemala, a place full of warmth and sun, laughter and music—where her abuela and prima and tíos and tías surround her with love. Back in Sunnyside, it’s cold. There’s schoolwork and chores. And her mama transforms into Lola’s super-serious school principal, Dr. Reyes. Back at home...Lola can see, crystal clear, the empty place where Pop used to be. So Lola decides to bring a little bit of Guatemala—and Pop—back with her. She discovers his box of childhood worry dolls and sneaks them into her luggage, ignoring the warnings on the box not to use them.

Frenemies Whit and Zay have been at odds for years (ever since he broke up with her in, like, the most embarrassing way imaginable), so when they’re forced to organize the fall formal together, it's a literal disaster. Sparks fly as Whitney—type-A, passionate, a perfectionist, and a certified sweater-weather fanatic—butts heads with Zay, a dry, relaxed skater boy who takes everything in stride. But not all of those sparks are bad....

Lucía loves to watch the monarchs' migration from her home in Mexico with Papá. But this year, the monarchs' journey north holds extra weight; Papá is heading north, too, to look for work. He promises her that when "the weather turns cold and the monarcas return, our winged ancestors will guide me home." So while he spends the summer months harvesting produce on faraway farms, Lucía watches the skies for signs of the monarchs'—and her papá's—return.

A heartwarming tale of a girl waiting for her beloved Papá to return when the monarchs fly south to their home in Mexico. Lucía loves to watch the monarchs' migration from her home in Mexico with Papá. But this year, the monarchs' journey north holds extra weight; Papá is heading north, too, to look for work. He promises her that when "the weather turns cold and the monarcas return, our winged ancestors will guide me home." So while he spends the summer months harvesting produce on faraway farms, Lucía watches the skies for signs of the monarchs'—and her papá's—return.

Last year, Maggie and Nora didn’t exactly get the summer of their dreams. Instead, they had to survive a camp run by a covert clan of vampires. But this year, Camp Sylvania is back and under new management—gentle, hippie-dippie Luna Lupowski. So the girls are convinced to give camp another try.

Emilia and Gregorio spent their childhood following their grandmother through the mountains of central México, gathering the ingredients she used for curandera work and learning about the supernatural world. When she passes away, the siblings are left alone. So they scrape together their money and pay coyotes to smuggle them to their father in the United States. The siblings are exhausted before they even reach the border, where the coyotes seize Emilia for their own harsh ends.

Luz Veliz is a soccer star—or rather, she was a soccer star. With her serious knee injury, it's unlikely she'll be back on the field anytime soon. But without soccer, who is she? Even her dad treats her differently now—like he doesn't know her or, worse, like he doesn't even like her. When Luz discovers she has a knack for coding, it feels like a lifeline to a better self. If she can just ace the May Showcase, she'll not only skip a level in her coding courses and impress Ms. Freeman and intriguing, brilliant Trevor—she'll have her parents cheering her on from the sidelines.

Some days, ten-year-old Margarita Sandoval feels as if the wind might blow her away. The country has been gripped by the Great Depression, so times are hard everywhere. Then she has to leave her familia in New Mexico—especially her beloved Abuelita—to move to Fort Steele, Wyoming, where her father has taken a job on the railroad. When Margarita meets Caroline, she's excited to have a friend her own age in Wyoming. But it often seems like Caroline, like many other people in town, doesn't understand or appreciate the Sandovals' Hispanic heritage.

Until now, you've only heard one side of the story, about migrants crossing borders, drawn to the promise of a better life. In reality, Mexicans were on this land long before any borders existed. Here's the true story of America, from the Mexican American perspective.

What Elisa, Lucia, and Alice see–and judge–of each other from the outside is drastically different from how each girl feels inside. They attend the same classes in the same New York City middle school, but no one knows that Elisa is trying to navigate the bewildering asylum process having just arrived from El Salvador; or that Lucia, who also speaks Spanish and brims with self-confidence, is caught in the middle of her parents’ heartbreaking divorce; or that Alice, who appears to be a rebel in combat boots, carries the burden of her mother’s progressing cancer.