Hispanic Heritage Month Book Picks for 2023

Throughout the year, themed months offer us an opportunity to focus on specific communities of people. While it is important to celebrate diversity throughout the calendar year, I find that these months (e.g., Black History Month, Jewish Heritage Month, Disability Pride Month) serve as a welcome time to inventory my personal reading so that I can both work towards my goal of broadening my perspective, and help patrons of all backgrounds find books that represent them. 

If you are someone who wants to celebrate the backgrounds of your neighbors, friends, and possibly family, themed months can prompt the focus on doing so. Here, at the Mercer County Library System, we offer programming devoted to an expanding assortment of important cultural dates and themed months. The next nationally themed month is Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15). Keep on reading for book suggestions to help you celebrate the diverse and rich global Hispanic and Latine community! 

Picture Books

La Princesa and the Pea by Susan Middleton Elya provides “a rhyming twist on a classic fairy tale in which a queen places a pea under a young lady's mattress to see if she is truly a princess.” With Spanish words (and a glossary) interwoven into the English text, this book is perfect for a family reading event or a beginner student of Spanish. With Juana Martinez-Neal’s stunning and award-winning illustrations inspired by Peruvian culture, this is a book that will find a special place in your heart.

Green Is a Chile Pepper: A Book of Colors is a bilingual picture book by Roseanne Thong in which “a little girl discovers all the bright colors in her Hispanic American neighborhood.” Illustrator John Parra won a Pura Belpré Award Illustrator Honor for this book.

The Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle and illustrated by Rafael López received a Pura Belpré Award. The story “follows a girl in the 1920s as she strives to become a drummer, despite being continually reminded that only boys play the drums, and that there has never been a female drummer in Cuba. Includes a note about Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, who inspired the story, and Anacaona, the all-girl dance band she formed with her sisters.” The Drum Dream Girl offers readers an opportunity to learn about lived experiences. 

Juvenile Books

Speaking of books inspired by real people, Pam Muñoz Ryan’s The Dreamer is a fictionalized account of poet Pablo Neruda’s childhood. This Pura Belpré Award winning book is a great pick for middle grade readers of all ages. While this is my pick, you really cannot go wrong with any of Pam Muñoz Ryan’s books.

Another award-winning book for all our reading lists is Frizzy. “New York Times-bestselling author Claribel A. Ortega and star debut artist Rose Bousamra's Frizzy is about Marlene, a young Dominican girl whose greatest enemy is the hair salon! Through her struggles and triumphs, this heartwarming and gorgeous middle-grade graphic novel shows the radical power of accepting yourself as you are, frizzy curls and all.”

In Sal and Gabi Break the Universe “best-selling author Rick Riordan presents a brilliant sci-fi romp with Cuban influence by Carlos Hernandez, winner of the 2020 Pura Belpré Award.” This funny, bittersweet, and fantastical tale offers the unique premise of: “What would you do if you had the power to reach through time and space and retrieve anything you want, including your mother, who is no longer living (in this universe, anyway)?”

Next up is Donna Barba Higuera’s The Last Cuentista, a Pura Belpré Award and Newbery Medal winning novel. “Relocating to a new planet after Earth is destroyed, 12‑year-old Petra Peña’s suspended animation fails during the 370-year journey, so when all the other children are mysteriously reprogrammed and the adults purged, Petra becomes the lone bringer of Earth's now-forbidden stories and her grandmother's Mexican folklore to a changing humanity.”

Young Adult Books

Aiden Thomas’ The Sunbearer Trials was named one of School Library Journal’s Best Books of the Year (2022), and is a personal favorite of mine. “Welcome to The Sunbearer Trials, where teen semidioses compete in a series of challenges with the highest of stakes, in this electric new Mexican-inspired fantasy from Aiden Thomas, the New York Times bestselling author of Cemetery Boys.” If you enjoy fantasy and mythology books that explore social issues, this is the book for you.

Reclaim the Stars: 17 Tales Across Realms & Space, edited by Zoraida Córdova, features short stories by both new and established Latine voices. Anthologies are a fantastic way to discover new authors, and this one does not disappoint. “Reclaim the Stars is a collection of bestselling and acclaimed YA authors that take the Latin American diaspora to places fantastical and out of this world. Follow princesses warring in space, haunting ghost stories in Argentina, mermaids off the coast of the Caribbean, swamps that whisper secrets, and many more realms explored and unexplored; this stunning collection of seventeen short stories breaks borders and realms to prove that stories are truly universal.”

Laekan Zea Kemp’s An Appetite for Miracles “follows two teens who must come together to heal the pain from their pasts. . . When Danna and Raúl meet, sparks fly immediately and they embark on a mission to heal her grandfather...and themselves. Because healing is something best done together—even if it doesn’t always look the way we want it to.” If you enjoy novels-in-verse, romance, mouth-watering descriptions of food, and a lot of heart, this could be the book for you.

In Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera, “Juliet, a self-identified queer, Bronx-born, Puerto Rican American, comes out to her family to disastrous results the night before flying to Portland to intern with her feminist author icon—whom Juliet soon realizes has a problematic definition of feminism that excludes women of color.” New York Times bestselling author, this book has become a priority on my reading list.

This is hardly a comprehensive list, so make sure to chat with your local librarians the next time you are in one of our branches for more recommendations. 

What other books would you recommend be added? 

- by Bekka, Twin Rivers Branch