¡Buenos días a todos y todas! Continuing with our 2017 Latinx children’s and young adult literature award winner announcements, which included the Américas Award and Pura Belpré Award recipients, today I will be announcing the winners of the 2017 Tomás Rivera Book Award Winners. The Tomás Rivera Book Award was established in 1995 by Texas State University College of Education, and was developed to honor authors, illustrators and publishers depicting the Mexican American experience. It was named after Dr. Tomás Rivera, poet, author, educator, and alumnus of Texas State University.
The 2017 Tomás Rivera Book Award Winners include one children’s book and one young adult book. If interested, you can follow the Tomás Rivera Book Award on Facebook, and you can also check out past awards on Texas State University College of Education’s website. We hope some of these titles make it to your classroom bookshelves!
Saludos,
Kalyn
2017 Award Winners
Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood
written by Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell and illustrated by Rafael López. HMH Books for Young Readers, 2016. ISBN: 978-0544357693
Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood is the triumph of a community against the darker forces of social decay. What good can a splash of color do in a community of gray? As Mira and her neighbors discover, more than you might ever imagine!
Based on the true story of the Urban Art Trail in San Diego, California, Maybe Something Beautiful reveals how art can inspire transformation—and how even the smallest artists can accomplish something big.
The Memory of Light written by Francisco X. Stork. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2016. ISBN: 978-0545474320.
In The Memory of Light, Stork tells the story of 16-year-old Vicky Cruz and her experiences and recovery after an attempted suicide. When Vicky wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital, she knows one thing: After her suicide attempt, she shouldn’t be alive. But then she meets Mona, the live wire; Gabriel, the saint; E.M., always angry; and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance she’s never had. But Vicky’s newfound peace is as fragile as the roses that grow around the hospital. And when a crisis forces the group to split up, sending Vick back to the life that drove her to suicide, she must try to find her own courage and strength.
Inspired in part by the author’s own experience with depression, The Memory of Light is the rare young adult novel that focuses not on the events leading up to a suicide attempt, but the recovery from one – about living when life doesn’t seem worth it, and how we go on anyway.
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