Virtual Pachanga: The Middle-Grade Fantasy Edition

Claribel A. Ortega is a former reporter who writes middle-grade and young adult fantasy inspired by her Dominican heritage. In her debut novel, Ghost Squad (Scholastic Inc.) – an NPR Best Book of 2020 selection – Lucely and her BFF Syd accidentally cast a spell that awakens malicious spirits, wreaking havoc throughout their sleepy town of St. Augustine. Teaming up with Syd’s witch grandmother, Babette, and her tubby tabby, Chunk, they rush to reverse the curse and save the town before it’s too late. Kirkus noted that “while it’s undeniably a ghost story, Lucely’s love for her family, both corporeal and spirit, carries the narrative, giving it warmth and depth.” In Witchlings (Scholastic Press), 12-year-old Seven Salazar is devastated when she isn’t chosen to join a coven during the Black Moon Ceremony. Forever doomed to Witchling status, she’ll never get to perform powerful magic – unless she and the other “Spares” who didn’t make the cut complete the impossible task. But the last ones who attempted it and failed ended up being turned into toads, forever. Kwame Mbalia, New York Times bestselling author of the Tristan Strong series, described the book as “Magic, friendship, and downright funny – Witchlings has all the ingredients for an enchanting read.”

Donna Barba Higuera has spent her entire life blending folklore with her experiences into stories that fill her imagination. Her first book, Lupe Wong Won’t Dance, won a PNBA Book Award and a Pura Belpré Honor. The Last Cuentista (Levine Querido) is her second novel. In it we meet Petra Peña. She’s always wanted to be a storyteller, like her abuelita. But Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children – among them Petra and her family – have been chosen to journey to a new planet to carry on the human race. Unbeknownst to them, a sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity’s past by systematically reprogramming the children and purging the memories of the adults. When Petra wakes to her new life hundreds of years later, she discovers that she is the only person who remembers Earth. She becomes the lone bringer of Earth’s now forbidden stories and her grandmother’s Mexican folklore, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again? Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, celebrated the book as “the work of a true cuentista: gripping, euphonious (“The wind carried it off far away into the stars”), and full of storytelling magic.”

Carmen A. Baker is a library services specialist with the Miami-Dade Public Library System. She has more than 20 years of experience in youth services, programming, and general librarianship, and manages the MDPLS local author series and fair, which won a 2020 National Association of Counties (NACo) achievement award. Baker has also received the SEFLIN Summit award for developing programming for infants and the visually impaired, and has represented MDPLS internationally by hosting early literacy workshops at libraries in Medellin, Colombia, and Madrid.

Born and raised in Mexico City and with ancestry spanning back to Ireland, Spain, and the Indigenous people of Mexico, Karla Arenas Valenti writes stories for and about kids, taking readers on journeys steeped in magical realism and philosophical questions. She is the creator of the My Super Science Heroes series and the picture book Maria Mariposa. Lotería (Knopf Books for Young Readers) is her debut middle-grade novel. During the hottest hour of the hottest day of the year, a fateful wind blows into Oaxaca City, whistling down cobbled streets and rustling the jacaranda trees before slipping into 11-year-old Clara’s window. Clara doesn’t know it, but she’s been marked for la Lotería. Life and Death deal the Lotería cards once a year. If Life wins, Clara will live to old age. If Death prevails, she’ll flicker out like a candle. But Clara knows none of this. What she does know is that her young cousin, Esteban, has vanished, and she’ll do whatever it takes to save him. And though it seems her grim fate is sealed, Clara may have what it takes to shatter the game and choose a new path. Said Kirkus, “Life and Death’s annual game leaves a girl’s life in the balance as magical realism meets other-world fantasy in this novel set in Oaxaca … Exquisite illustrations greatly enhance the text.”v

Chantel Acevedo is the chair of the creative writing department in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami, and the author of Love and Ghost Letters: A Novel, A Falling Star: A Novel, The Distant Marvels: A Novel, and The Living Infinite: A Novel, hailed by Booklist as a “vivid and enthralling tale of love and redemption.” Muse Squad: The Cassandra Curse was her debut middle-grade novel; Muse Squad: The Mystery of the Tenth (Balzer + Bray) is its sequel and the finale of the duology. Here we find that Callie Martinez-Silva, the young Cuban American girl who discovered she’s one of the nine muses of Greek mythology, is finally getting the hang of this whole “goddess within” thing. Six months have passed, and she and the other junior muses are ready for new adventures. But first, Callie must go to New York City for the summer to visit her dad, stepmom, and new baby brother. Then the muses get startling news: An unprecedented tenth muse has woken up somewhere in Queens! Now Callie and her friends have to choose: Follow orders and find the tenth muse or trust that sometimes fate has other plans? School Library Journal found that “this riveting, suspenseful book presents a unique blend of Greek mythology and Cuban culture. … Perfect for readers of mythology-based adventures, fantasy fans, and anyone who enjoys a suspenseful action book.”