Good news to share

Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over, the second book in the Quinceañera Club series (July 2010) has been included in the Recommended Reading List for this year's Children's Day/Books Day, El día de los niños/El día de los libros, April 30, 2010. My book is among the Young Adult titles. The Association of Library Service to Children (a division of the American Library Association) assembles the list, along with REFORMA (the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking) and the Association of American Publishers Publishing Latino Voices for America Task Force.

While my book was not originally conceived as a Young Adult novel, I'm honored to be recognized by librarians. They were among the most important people in my early reading and writing life, and I still harbor the idea of going back to school to become a librarian. As if this honor weren't enough, I am equally thrilled to be included with authors like Oscar Hijuelos, Pat Mora, and Carlos Ruiz Safron.

Along with this good news, I received the Latino Books Month Recommended Reading List. That list, I'm pleased to say, includes some friends and colleagues: Amelia Montes (who wrote the introduction to Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton's Who Would Have Thought It?), and John Phillip Santos. Amelia, John Phillip and I are members of the Macondo Writers' Collective. Other notable writers on the adult list include: Reyna Grande, Roberto Bolaño, Jorge Luis Borges, and Helen Thorpe. All this news is "hot off the press." When an active link to a website is available, I'll be sure to post so you can read both the Día and the Latino Books Month lists in their entirety.

Recognition for Sisters.... came earlier when Las Comadres selected it for their September 2010 book club read. I will also participate in their teleconference, which should be interesting. This newspaper writer is not used to being interviewed. I guess there's a first time for everything!