Meg Medina

From ALSC: "Eleven-year-old Cuban American Merci Suárez balances the demands of her multi-generational family with the challenges of being a scholarship student at a private school in Florida." From Kirkus: "Medina delivers another stellar and deeply moving story."

K-Gr 4—Part friendship tale, part meditation on grief, but, mostly, a love story—two BIPOC girls face the unbearable
loss of one of them moving away. The storytelling has the spare emotional weight of Ezra Jack Keats's work, and
the details affirm the depth of feelings they share.

Been reading my way through the Newberrys and this one really hit home. Spoiler alert…. The book deals with Alzheimer’s and the family fails to share the diagnosis with the twelve year old protagonist. I lived with my grandmother when she succumbed to Alzheimer’s, and can attest to the authenticity of the incidents related, small things that are horrific. Still very sensitively dealt with. An excellent book

Book was great for high schoolers, not for middle schoolers! I'm guessing it received Sequoyah nomination as Intermediate because of reading level, but should have received for HS Level in my opinion. Great book to discuss bullying, diversity, socioeconomic levels. Really shows the mind set of an unhappy teenage girl.