NECC Campus Read

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people... In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal's office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance--and Papi's secrets--the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead, and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they've lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.

Author Elizabeth Acevedo tells the story of one Dominican American family through the voices of its women. Flor has a gift: she can predict when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake--a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she's led--her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her death or someone else's? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila. But Flor isn't the only person with secrets: her sisters are hiding things, too. And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face their tumult. Spanning the three days before the wake, Family Lore  traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City.

They tell me to "fix" my hair. And by fix, they mean straighten, they mean whiten, but how do you fix this shipwrecked history of hair? In her most famous spoken-word poem, author of the Pura Belpré-winning novel-in-verse The Poet X Elizabeth Acevedo embraces all the complexities of Black hair and Afro-Latinidad--the history, pain, pride, and powerful love of that inheritance.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers--especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami's determination to force her daughter to obey the church's laws, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, she doesn't know how to attend without her mami finding out. But she still can't stop thinking about performing her poems. Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago's life has been about making the tough decisions--doing what has to be done for her daughter and her Abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into goodness. Even though she dreams of working as a chef after graduation, Emoni knows it's not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.