Latino authors break through in children’s lit
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Images: Courtesy of Penguin Random House
A slew of new and upcoming books show the growing strength of works by and about Latinos in literature for children and teens.
Why it matters: Latinos and other people of color are finally breaking through various genres in the publishing industry while authentically portraying stories not given much weight before.
By the numbers: The proportion of children's and young adult books written by an author with Latino heritage grew from 6.3% in 2018 to 11.8% last year, according to data from the Cooperative Children's Book Center at University of Wisconsin's School of Education.
- Such books on average represented only 2.5% of those published between 2002 and 2017.
Zoom in: "Angélica and the Güira" is the first children's book from Angie Cruz, who's already had success with adult and young adult novels.
- With illustrations by Luz Batista, it tells the story of a young girl learning how to use her Dominican grandfather's percussion instrument and was published last week in both English and Spanish.
- That follows a trend of more books from Latino authors in the U.S. being released concurrently in both languages.
- Other upcoming or recent children's books include "Stella Díaz Leaps to the Future" and "Gabby Torres Gets a Billion Followers," both by Angela Dominguez; "Squawk of Spanish" by Gabriella Aldeman; and Karla Hernández's "I am La Chiva!"
What they're saying: Cruz says she was drawn to picture books because she remembers struggling to find "books that represented our culture, our music, our community" when her son was younger.
- When doing readings of her most recent books, "a lot of mothers brought their kids, and I thought maybe now's the time to have a book for them, too," Cruz tells Axios Latino.
- "I'm so grateful to all the activists who put so much time and work into making this moment happen, where we're seeing a lot more books by writers of color for children, teenagers, middle-graders," she adds.
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