about the book
When the stairway in their apartment building literally collapses under her mother’s feet, teenager Piddy Sanchez finds herself moving to another side of Queens and entering a new school.
Piddy is quite fair skinned for a Latina. She gets good grades and has hardly any accent. For these reasons, a fellow Latina at her new school named Yaqui Delgado, wants to beat her up.
Why? Well, with good grades, no accent, and good looks, how dare Piddy call herself a Latina?
At first Piddy is somewhat bemused by Yaqui’s stance on these matters, but as the new school year goes on she begins to realize Yaqui is serious.
And Piddy cannot hide from her forever.
about the author
For over fifteen years, Meg Medina has been an author of stories and poems for both adults and children, usually featuring strong girls, cultural situations, and tough circumstances that have to be overcome.
Meg grew up in Queens, New York, but today she lives with her family and Noche, their black mutt, in Richmond, Virginia.
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : Pop.Edit.Lit
Also by Meg Medina:
The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind. Candlewick Press. 2012.
read more!
Blank Confession by Pete Hautman
Shayne sits in the police station, telling the detective about the day he roared up to school on his motorcycle. Shayne explains how he befriended Mikey and tried to protect him when Mikey threw out the drugs that his sister’s boyfriend forced him to hold. The notorious drug dealer went after the small guy. Someone ended up dead…but was it murder?
Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia
Leticia overhears bad-girl Dominique say she is going to jump Trina for walking between Dominique and her girls in the hall. Should she tell the clueless Trina that she is going to be pounded? Each girl gets to tell her story as their intertwined lives connect during one violent day of high school.
The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind by Meg Medina
The night of her birth saw the worst storm in her village’s history, but almost as soon as Sonia came into the world, the destructive winds stopped. Now sixteen, Sonia has been like a good-luck charm for the villagers, who believe she has special powers. Sonia knows better and wants only to leave her past behind her—until she realizes that is a very hard thing to do.