“LUCI SOARS”

by Lulu Delacre 

Amazon Recommended Grade Level: Preschool – 3

Publisher: Philomel Books

ISBN-13: 978-1984812889

Luci was born without something that everyone usually has: a shadow. Mamá says no one notices. But Luci does. And despite what Mamá says sometimes others do too. This can be difficult for Luci because sometimes they stare, sometimes they tease her and sometimes they make her cry. But when Luci learns to look at what makes her different as a strength, she realizes she has more power than she ever thought. And that her differences can even be a superpower. Lulu Delacre’s heartfelt and uplifting story has a timeless message: what sets you apart is often what makes you great.

“SALSA STORIES”

by Lulu Delacre  

Amazon Recommended Grade Level: 2 – 5

Publisher: Scholastic Press

ISBN-13: 978-0545430982

Carmen Teresa’s house rocks to the beat of Salsa music as grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors from all over Latin America arrive in their Maryland home for a New Year’s Day celebration. When Carmen Teresa receives a blank notebook, the guests suggest that she fill it with stories from their own childhoods, which they share with her. But since she loves to cook, and each storyteller has mentioned foods, she decides to create a cookbook and write down all of their recipes. The stories and recipes represent five Latin American countries, including Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Guatemala and Peru.

“US, IN PROGRESS: SHORT STORIES ABOUT YOUNG LATINOS” 

by Lulu Delacre

Amazon Recommended Grade Level: 3 – 7

Publisher: HarperCollins

ISBN-13: 978-0062392145

Author Lulu Delacre wrote on her website “…while we Latinos are an integral part of the American fabric and provide texture and richness to it, we remain elusive in children’s books. So I set about creating a collection of stories that portray coming-of-age experiences in the context of current events that affect young Latinos in the United States.”  From a young girl whose day at her father’s burrito truck surprises her to two sisters working together to change the older sister’s immigration status, “US, IN PROGRESS” is a groundbreaking look at the diverse Latinos who live in the United States.

“HOW FAR DO YOU LOVE ME?” 

by Lulu Delacre  

Amazon Recommended Grade Level: Preschool – 3

Publisher: Lee & Low Books

ISBN-13: 978-1600608827

Based on a bedtime game author/illustrator Lulu Delacre played with her young daughters, “HOW FAR DO YOU LOVE ME?” is an “I love you” book with a twist. “I used to play ‘How far do you love me?’ with my daughters,” Delacre writes in this book. “That game was the inspiration for this book’s journey to the seven continents on Earth.”  With every expression of love, readers visit one of thirteen different locations around the world, each a beautifully illustrated scene of adults and children in a place of natural beauty.  This book also includes a map of the world.

Higher Education

“THE SOCIAL ORIGINS OF HUMAN RIGHTS: PROTESTING POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN COLOMBIA’S OIL CAPITAL, 1919–2010”

by Luis van Isschot

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

ISBN-13: 978-0299299842

Human rights activism is often associated with international organizations that try to affect the behavior of abusive states around the globe. Luis van Isschot argues that in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, the struggle for rights has emerged more organically and locally, out of a long history of civil and social organizing. In the midst of a dirty war, urban and rural social movements from Barrancabermeja and the surrounding area came together to establish a human rights movement. These frontline activists called upon the Colombian state to protect basic human rights and denounced the deeper socioeconomic inequalities they saw as sources of conflict.

“BEYOND DISPLACEMENT: CAMPESINOS, REFUGEES, AND COLLECTIVE ACTION IN THE SALVADORAN CIVIL WAR”

by Molly Todd

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

ISBN-13: 978-0299250041

During the civil war that wracked El Salvador from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, the Salvadoran military tried to stamp out dissidence and insurgency through an aggressive campaign of crop-burning, kidnapping, rape, killing, torture and gruesome bodily mutilations. Even as human rights violations drew world attention, repression and war displaced more than a quarter of El Salvador’s population, both inside the country and beyond its borders. “BEYOND DISPLACEMENT” examines how the peasant campesinos of war-torn northern El Salvador responded to violence by taking to the hills. Molly Todd demonstrates that their flight was strategic rather than hasty and chaotic.

“ENDLESS EMPIRE: SPAIN’S RETREAT, EUROPE’S ECLIPSE, AMERICA’S DECLINE”

edited by Alfred W. McCoy, Josep M. Fradera, and Stephen Jacobson

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

ISBN-13: 978-0299290245

Throughout four millennia of recorded history there has been an endless succession of empires. After five centuries of sustained expansion, the half-dozen European powers that ruled half of humanity collapsed with stunning speed after World War II, creating a hundred emerging nations in Asia and Africa. Amid this imperial transition, the United States became the new global hegemon, dominating this world order with an array of power that closely resembled that of its European predecessors. As Brazil, Russia, India, China and the European Union now rise in global influence, twenty leading historians take a timely look backward, as well as forward.

“THE MEXICO CITY READER”

edited by Rubén Gallo

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

ISBN-13: 978-0299197148

Mexico City is one of the most vibrant urban spaces in the world. This book is an anthology of “Cronicas” – short, hybrid texts that are part literary essay, part urban reportage – about life in the capital. This is not the “City of Palaces” of yesteryear, but the vibrant, chaotic, anarchic urban space of the 1980s and 1990s – the city of garbage mafias, necrophiliac artists and kitschy millionaires. Like the visitor wandering through the city streets, the reader will encounter a textual space brimming with life and crowded with flâneurs, flirtatious students, Indian dancers, food vendors, fortune tellers, political activists, and peasant protesters.