Celia C. Pérez

A story about a 12-year-old Mexican American, Malu, who is trying to find her identity in punk rock while her Mexican mother attempts to make her follow a more traditional path. I enjoyed the novel's discussions on various themes, cultural pride and expectations, and music. Therefore, teachers may use this novel among multiple contents, including math as well, for music often follows a certain rhythm that learners can follow mathematically. Additionally, Malu's personal growth can be documented graphically as students explore these concepts! All in all, this is a great novel that can teach about the Mexican American culture, narrative structure, character development, and resilience.… (more)

Transcends the motifs gloriously.
You can be, as Betsy says, burned out on awkward new kid MG stories & mean girls, and so tired of lunchroom scenes that you never want to see another one. Still, read this. It's got zines and a kid who actually *does* know who she is... it's the problem of making others accept her that is the challenge.

#OwnVoices represent.
Universal appeal. You don't have to like punk music, you don't have to be the kind of parent who encourages their child to drink coffee, you don't have to be second-gen immigrant struggling with new ways of defining an identity, to love this story and (most of) these (mostly) unique characters.

So much for me, who is white and was 12 in rural Wisconsin back in 70s, to learn... fascinating. But even if I skipped over the parts that I've been looking up, I'd think it was a cool book.

How sad that 'coconut' (and 'oreo') are still insults. One would think that a youngster could manage to see that having influences of different cultures would be a good thing, make them a more interesting person.

It doesn't help to have a mom who is such a slow learner. You know, especially from the ending, that she's been trying ever since her pregnancy, to try to figure out how to raise her half-Irish daughter. But as she finally admits, of course she has her own issues of identity, too.

I do take issue with her asking "What's wrong with you?" instead of "What's the matter?" (or "What's going on?" or "Is there something you want to talk about?") because the first question, taken literally, as children do, implies that something is broken and needs to be fixed.

I still need to look up La Chilindrina and el Chavo del Ocho.

And Teresa Covarrubias of The Brat for her voice, "thick and warm and strong... hot chocolate."… (more)