Books published by publisher Arte Publico Press

Named an “Outstanding Book of the Year” by The New York Times and one of the “Best Books of the Year” by the American Library Association in 1973 when it was first published, Nicholasa Mohr’s classic novel, NILDA, about life as an immigrant in New York City offers a poignant look at one young girl’s experiences. Issues of race, religion and machismo are movingly depicted in this groundbreaking coming-of-age novel that was one of the first by a Latina author to be hailed by the mainstream media.It’s the summer of 1941, and all ten-year-old Nilda wants to do is enjoy the cool water from an open fire hydrant with her friends. But policemen lash out at the Puerto Rican residents, ending their fun. The cops’ animosity is played out over and over again in Nilda’s life as she is repeatedly treated with contempt by adults in positions of authority: teachers, nurses and social workers. At home, though, Nilda is surrounded by a loving but eccentric family that—while experiencing financial hardship, the onset of World War II and the death of loves ones—supports and encourages her artistic abilities. This new edition contains a preface by the author and a foreword by children’s literature expert and author Alma Flor Ada.

Fiction. "Irene Beltran Hernandez's ACROSS THE GREAT RIVER, an adventure story, will capture the interest of young readers...the great river is the Rio Grande. This is the story of the Campos family's effort to cross the river from Mexico and find what father Carlos hopes will be a better life...A compelling portrait of people working against the odds to ensure a better life for themselves and their children" -The San Francisco Chronicle.

Jessie Medina knows the job of School Development Director won't be easy, given that she is a woman working for a boy's school and that she is proposing new projects in a school operating on antiquated fundraising ideas. Jessie attempts to stage a concert to benefit the school, with or without the support of the alumni association's president, Roland Tobias. Though he seems intent on making her life difficult, she finds that the very man who challenges her at every turn can be her biggest ally. Balancing the new job and a personal relationship may hit a little too close to home and a little too close to the fears in her own heart.

Have you ever been too scared to sleep with the lights off? Were you frightened by a scratching sound inside of your walls or the beady red eyes and knotted green fingers of a duende? In his first collection of scary stories, Xavier Garza asks us these questions. The stories in this collection curdle with the creepy and crawling characters of traditional folklore. These stories brim with the supernatural: the mysterious disappearance of children who made deals with duendes, evil trolls who live inside the walls of our houses; the ghostly specter of La Llorona who floats along the creek bed, howling, “¡Ay, mis hijos!”; witches that turn into great white owls; a severed hand that hurtles across floors and catches a death grip; and even the Devil himself harvesting wayward souls. These are all cucuys, supernatural beings who have come to haunt the imagination in these tales of wonder and warning. These delicious and frightful stories come down through generations of grandmas teaching children to respect the laws of nature and the All Powerful. These particular spooky cucuys are recounted and illustrated by master storyteller Xavier Garza, just the way he heard them at the knees of other masters when he was growing up in South Texas. Garza has preserved just the right gory detail and startling surprise to frighten the socks off you. And he always insists that you learn your lesson and take heed, or else …

Growing up, young Hank Aguirre rose every morning long before school to make and deliver tortillas as part of a small family business. In his free time, the teen-aged Hank played Legion baseball and in neighborhood pick-up games. After graduation, he signed on with the Cleveland Indians organization. Hank Aguirre enjoyed a successful, award-winning major-league career as a pitcher. Then, instead of basking in his popularity, he went on to found Mexican Industries in the burned-out heart of crime-ridden urban Detroit. His firm gave employment to more than a thousand people, bringing hope where there had once been only despair. Hank Aguirre was a man who pushed beyond mere celebrity to become a genuine hero.

The spitfire heroine Pepita has been given a school assignment to find out things about her parents or another older member of her family. But who wants to hear about her family? How can she make her report very, very important if no one has anything to say? In this, the fourth installment of the Pepita series, Pepita discovers that the love and car of a family is very, very important.

Meet the Silva kids, the Guerra boys, and the new Perez family who live on Ruiz Street. On a hot summer day, a new kid named David rides into the neighborhood. Gossip about the mysterious boy stretches longer than a wad of gum. The kids wonder why he rides a different bike everyday. Is he stealing them? He gets rough at the swimming pool, he scares the younger kids, and he spies over the fence. Why is he always so mean? Is it true that he eats a bee's nest for breakfast and sleeps on a bed of nails? What does he want from the kids who live on Ruiz Street and why in the world would they ever want to be friends with somebody like David? The young narrator, Joe Silva, introduces intermediate readers to both his friends and their common enemy on Ruiz Street. David doesn't have good people skills and doesn't know quite how to improve them. Can the other kids see beyond his faults and discover another side to the boy on the bike? Filled with humor and mystery, the Ruiz Street kids' adventures are sure to entertain as they try to understand the peculiar habits of the new boy named David. Like her previous books for intermediate readers, Alicia's Treasure and Upside Down and Backwards, Bertrand has written another book to get children talking about making new friends, sibling relationships, and the misconceptions of first impressions. Even the most reluctant readers will keep reading to discover what those Ruiz Street Kids plan to do about the newest kid on the block.

The syncopated prose of Nina Jaffe draws the reader to the island of Puerto Rico, back before the Spaniards arrived. The island was inhabited by the Taínos, and they called their beloved island, Boriquén. This is their story of how Boriquén came to be.In the beginning, there is only a giant mountain above a dry plain without water or plants. When a child walks over the flat land below the mountain, he finds seeds dancing in the wind. When he plants the seeds on the top of the mountain, a forest grows on the crest and in that forest, a large golden flower appears. Soon, the boy and his community reap benefits that they had never before imagined.A joyful creation myth about the evolution of a beautiful island habitat, this picture book, originally published by Simon & Schuster, is also a celebration of the young boy’s quest, which encourages young readers, ages 4-8, to respect the gifts of the winds and the cycle of nature that bears fruit for the whole community.Jaffe’s adaptation of this traditional folktale common to indigenous peoples of South America and the Caribbean stemmed from her encounter with a Spanish-language text by Carmen Puigdollers, “Como se formó la bella isla de Boriquén,” and research in Puerto Rico.

Fiction. Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Young Adult. "Returning to the territory covered in An Island Like You and SILENT DANCING, Cofer further heightens her descriptions of barrio life with a pervasive current of sensuality and rebellion in this volume of poems and stories about growing up during the turbulent 1960s. Most of the stories are described in hindsight by narrator Mary Ellen, who is also known as Maria Elenita (however, readers may have trouble keeping track of the various narrators in the early stories--which are all told through first-person narration but from differing ages and perspectives). Caught between Hispanic and American lifestyles, and eager to break free of traditional Hispanic values, Mary Ellen is strongly attracted to things that are alien to her parents. Readers will likely relate to Mary Ellen's struggle for independence, her idealism and her need for answers, themes that Cofer carries through the entire collection. In "The Meaning of El Amor," for example, the narrator sneaks into a nightclub where her recently deceased father, "the Puerto Rican Romeo," moonlighted to find out why love causes so much suffering. Cofer's lyrical descriptions of how music and the Vietnam War fired Mary Ellen's youthful passions are affecting: "When she was deep into a song, Janis [Joplin] became beautiful. Her voice, hoarse and choked with pain, went right through my skin, and I began to understand the meaning of soul, el duende, in American music." Readers in the suggested age range may miss the most rewarding aspects of Cofer's work, but for mature teenagers, there is wisdom aplenty in this radiant collection. Ages 11-up"--Publishers Weekly.