Books published by publisher Arte Publico Pr

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.

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.

HONOR, serving as your brother's keeper, getting back on the right path after having swayed -- these are just a few of the values that Beaver embodies as he tries to create a decent life for himself and his brother following his mother's death and his own stint in prison. Younger brother Cande, a teenager who has been left to fend for himself, has been abused by his father while big brother Beaver served time in the state penitentiary. When Beaver returns to the old barrio, various neighbors and friends pitch in to help him and Cande make lives for themselves. But some of the old pitfalls are still present as is the very danger of their abusive father.