Can love break your heart – literally?

For Elio, eighth grade fizzes with change. In his body. With his pops, who makes them join a father-son group to talk about puberty and manly stuff and being Mexican. And especially around Camelia, his first girlfriend, whose golden aura distorts his vision.

When Elio finds out Camelia has been hanging out with Chava, and that he’s been pressuring her into kissing him, Elio’s emotions spiral and he craves revenge. Little does he know a fight with Chava will land him in the hospital with a real heart condition, and that Camelia isn’t looking for a savior. What will it take for Elio to learn what it really means to be a man, a true friend, and an ally?

In poems that radiate color and crackle with comedy and candor, Ultraviolet digs deep into themes of consent, toxic masculinity, and the emotional lives of boys as it challenges stereotypes about how they are socialized to behave. This vibrant, authentic story, centering an irresistible Chicano hero struggling to figure out who he wants to be, is the highly relatable coming of age story every tween and young teen needs.

Derived from Mexican Indigenous wisdom, this is the second title in a series of poetic board books centering around establishing an authentic, heartfelt connection with nature.

Using Mexican concepts, this poignantly lyrical series invites young children to pay witness to nature, to value it, and to become a steward of the planet. Water is essential to all life on earth—it helps us grow, it feeds us, it cleanses us, and it heals us. Its fluidity touches and gives life to every being, showcasing the power of universal interconnectedness. Acclaimed middle-grade author Aida Salazar lovingly turns her attention to the youngest readers, bringing her signature lyrical text – in English with a few Spanish words interwoven. With vibrant, mystical art, this book is a truly meaningful and formative experience for all young readers.

WHEN MOON BLOOMS
(February 2024, Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House, 26 pp)
 The moon’s phases – new, waxing, full, and waning – are seamlessly intertwined with our own natural cadences, showcasing the power and beauty of universal interconnectedness. Acclaimed middle-grade author Aida Salazar lovingly turns her attention to the youngest readers, bringing her signature lyrical text, in English with a few Spanish words interwoven. With vibrant, mystical art, this book is a truly meaningful and formative experience for all young readers.

A farm working girl with big dreams meets activist Dolores Huerta and joins the 1965 protest for migrant workers’ rights in this tender-hearted middle grade novel in verse, perfect for fans of Rita Williams-Garcia and Pam Muñoz Ryan.

Lula Viramontes dreams of one day becoming someone whom no one can ignore: a daring ringleader in a Mexican traveling carpa, despite her father’s traditional views of what girls should be. When her family arrives for the grape harvest in Delano, California, Lula meets activist Dolores Huerta and el Teatro Campesino (the official theater company of the United Farm Workers). She discovers an even more pressing reason to raise her voice: the upcoming farm workers’ strike, an event that will determine her family’s future—for better or worse.

This free verse middle grade novel, inspired in part by the author’s own childhood as an undocumented immigrant, tells the story of 9-year-old Betita, who believes that she and other migrants follow an Aztec prophecy to fly as free as cranes. When her father is deported to Mexico and she and her mother are detained by ICE, she turns to writing picture poems as her own way to fly above the deplorable conditions that she and other cranes experience while they are caged. Betita ends up leading other detainees in a picture poem campaign that goes viral on social media and helps to bring improved change to the conditions inside the detention center and the release of some of the cranes.

This free verse middle grade novel tells the story of 11-year-old Cely, whose life swirls with questions about her changing body, her first attraction to a boy, her best friend’s exploration of what it means to be genderfluid, and her mother’s insistence she have a Chicana moon ceremony for her first menses.