Each Tiny Spark

Emilia Rosa Torres (not Emi Rose) is a sixth-grader who has ADHD. She is from Cuba and has a mix of Yoruba and Spanish ancestry. Emilia is quite a tomboy who loves tech and mechanical stuff. She lives in Merryville with her Abuela and occasionally mom and/or dad. The thing is her Mami is an app developer who has to go in business meeting out in San Francisco and her Papi is in deployment so he isn't often at home for months! Her mom is very caring, overprotective, and anxious and always helps her daughter with school work and organizations. Emilia likes hanging out with Guz and sometimes with Clarissa even tho they eventually don't stay as friends anymore... SpoilerTo be honest she is a total brat and even tho her dad died and stuff, her actions aren't that excused. I mean she just hates Latinos somehow!!! The story occurs when Emilia's mom goes to a business place while her dad just comes back from the military and looks different (I bet he is suffering from PTSD). Emilia doesn't understand him and misses his old self. She goes through tough stuff at school too, with the new tourism guide project she has and her kinda annoying Abuela who won't stop telling her to be a senorita and prepare for Quicheniera, which Emilia doesn't like at all... Emilia's ADHD-related stuff was so relatable and real... Her sensory issues, difficulty with hyperfocus, and lack of focus, her anger issues... very REAL!!! This book is a Middle-Grade novel and I really enjoyed it. We had quite some stuff in common excluding military father and ethnicity... I highly recommend this realistic fiction novel on the everyday lives of a struggling tween at home, school, and throughout who kinda gets in together by the end!

One of the jobs of a good librarian is to advocate for her people. I feel the need to advocate for my people today.

I'm Hispanic. Not by birth, but by a somewhat precarious adoption into the tribe. I've worked hard to gain this admission by studying Spanish for thirty years and working and living with children, friends, and family who have close ties to Hispanic cultures.

So please trust me when I say that children are not often able to find their Hispanic cultures represented in books. And that is very sad.



But today I have good news. I present to you Each Tiny Spark by Pablo Cartaya.

Each Tiny Spark is the delightful story of young Emilia Torres, a girl who has difficulty keeping focused in school, who has a wonderful mom who helps her stay on track, a loving dad who has just returned from a deployment overseas, an assertive grandma who would like to guide her toward a traditional female Hispanic path, and a huge assortment of teachers and friends who tug her and prod her and encourage her and hinder her in the life she is creating for herself.

It's the conversations I love most in this book, the conversations with a generous mix of English and Spanish, the kind of conversations I hear all the time when I am among my friends and family.

If you speak Spanish, you are going to love Each Tiny Spark. If you don't, I urge you to give it a try. And to help you, I've created A Little Guide to Spanish, using words from this book. If you are like me, and you'd like to become just a bit more Hispanic or to simply connect with others a little better, you might try inserting these words into your everyday conversations and see what happens.



Full disclosure: I don't know every word in Spanish, so please bear with me if I've a few boo-boos here.