Celebrate Lantine & Hispanic Heritage Month
- 09/27/2024
- 16:20
- maureen
Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated each year from September 15 to October 15. Originally, it began as a week-long celebration in 1968, and twenty years later it was expanded to a month, but it does not cover one single month. Instead, it starts in the middle of September, because many Central American countries celebrate their independence days around these dates. For example, beginning on September 15, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua all celebrate their independence.
Seymour Library invites you to join the celebration and to learn more about the Latine and Hispanic culture by checking out a book from our shelves! Don’t know where to start? Check out this list of books available at Seymour Library:
Adult Fiction
Afterlife by Julia Alvarez (2020)
Description: Reeling from her beloved husband’s sudden death in the wake of her retirement, an immigrant writer is further derailed by the reappearance of her unstable sister and an entreaty for help by a pregnant undocumented teen.
Genre: Literary fiction; Adult books for young adults; Book club best bets
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende (2017)
Description: A minor traffic accident becomes a catalyst for an unexpected bond among a human rights scholar, his Chilean lecturer tenant, and an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, who explore firsthand the difficulties of immigrants and refugees in today’s world.
Genre: Literary fiction; Love stories
Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (2018)
Description: Follows a sheltered girl and a teen maid, who forge an unlikely friendship that threatens to undo them both amid the violence of 1990s Columbia.
Genre: Literary fiction; Adult books for young adults
Big Familia by Tomas Moniz (2019)
Description: Follows Juan Gutierrez, a self-employed single father, as he navigates a tumultuous year of inescapable change.
Genre: Psychological fiction
Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia (2021)
Description: A sweeping, masterful debut about a daughter’s fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them was born.
Genre: Family sagas; Book club best bets; Debut title
You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria (2020)
Description: Rendered the subject of tabloid gossip by a messy public breakup, soap star Jasmine takes a part in a new bilingual comedy at the side of a telenovela costar who would revitalize his career.
Genre: Romantic comedies
The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2024)
Description: A young woman wins the role of a lifetime in a film about a legendary heroine — but the real drama is behind the scenes in this sumptuous historical epic from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.
Genre: Historical fiction; Canadian fiction; Book club best bets
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas (2022)
Description: Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches.
Genre: Gothic fiction; Historical fiction; Book club best bets; Debut title
Adult Nonfiction:
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz (2018)
Description: An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights.
Genre: History writing; History writing; Society and culture; Antiracist literature
Solito by Javier Zamora (2022)
Description: A young poet tells the unforgettable story of his harrowing migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this moving, page-turning memoir hailed as “the mythic journey of our era” (Sandra Cisneros). Solito is Javier Zamora’s story, but it’s also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.
Genre: biography, memoir
Teen
Someone Like Me by Julissa Arce (2018)
Description: A remarkable true story from social justice advocate and national bestselling author Julissa Arce about her journey to belong in America while growing up undocumented in Texas.
Genre: YA memoir, life stories; Life stories; Society and culture
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L Sanchez (2017)
Description: When the sister who delighted their parents by her faithful embrace of Mexican culture dies in a tragic accident, Julia, who longs to go to college and move into a home of her own, discovers from mutual friends that her sister may not have been as perfect as believed.
Genre: Realistic fiction
Youth (ages 9-12)
Something Like Home by Andrea Beatriz Arango (2024)
Description: Desperate to return home while staying with her aunt, Laura finds a puppy and decides that if she can train the puppy to become a therapy dog, she might be allowed to visit her parents – and then maybe things will go back to the way they should be.
Genre: Realistic fiction; Novels in verse
Mexikid by Pedro Martin (2023)
Description: Pedro Martin’s grown up in the U.S. hearing stories about his legendary abuelito, but during a family road trip to Mexico, he connects with his grandfather and learns more about his own Mexican identity in this moving and hilarious graphic memoir.
Genre: Autobiographical comics; Comics and graphic novels; Biographies