An endearing tale from an award-winning duo that speaks loud and clear about learning new things and the love that bonds family members.

Mia’s abuela leaves her sunny house with parrots and palm trees to live with Mia and her parents in the city. The night she arrives, Mia tries to share her favorite book with Abuela before they go to sleep and discovers that she can’t read the words inside. So while they cook, Mia helps Abuela learn English and Mia learns some Spanish too, but it’s still hard for Abuela to learn the words she needs to tell Mia all her stories. Then Mia sees a parrot in the pet-shop window and has the perfect idea for how to help them all communicate a little better.

Appropriate for children ages five through eight, Mango, Abuela, and Me is written by the award-winning Meg Medina, who has authored several books for young readers, including the highly acclaimed YA novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass and the picture book Tía Isa Wants a Car, for which she received an Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. Now living in Richmond, Virginia, Meg grew up in Queens, New York.

“I turned to writing because my family wouldn’t stop talking. Ever,” Meg says. “I’m part of a very ordinary Cuban family, which is to say, a meddling clan of aunts, uncles, and grandparents who are tireless storytellers. Stories are such a powerful way to remember and make sense of what happens to you in life—and plenty had happened to them by the time they arrived in the U.S. during the early 1960s. My parents left in the middle of a revolution in their country, and they arrived the way many immigrants do: with empty pockets, no language, and in shock. But they also knew the power of stories. Families need their own tales to survive hard times, and those stories are a rope that can attach even the youngest children to their roots. Stories help you learn all the things that really matter to the people who are trying to help you grow up.”

The book is illustrated by Angela Dominguez who lives in San Francisco and teaches art at the Academy of Art University.

Pura Belpré Author & Illustrator Awards

Both Meg and Angela are honored with the 2016 Pura Belpré Author and Illustrator Honor Book Award, named after the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library. Established in 1996, the awards are presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth. It is co-sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), and REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, an ALA affiliate.

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