The recipients of Texas State University's Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award for works published in 2021-22–Aida Salazar and Celia Pérez–will be honored Nov. 9 at Texas State and at the Texas Book Festival in Austin on Nov. 11.
The authors will give presentations from 9:30 a.m. to noon on Nov. 9 in the LBJ Student Center Grand Ballroom. Pérez will discuss her book, 'Tumble, 'from 9:3010 a.m. Salazar will discuss her book, 'A Seed in the Sun,' from 10 a.m. to noon. Books will be available for purchase.
The Rivera Award winners will also attend the Texas Book Festival Nov. 11 in Austin.
They will participate in a panel discussion from 1-1:45 p.m. in the Leamos Tent. For more information, visit www. texasbookfestival.org.
According to university officials, the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, established by the College of Education in 1995, is designed to encourage authors, illustrators and publishers to produce books that authentically reflect the lives of Mexican American children and young adults in the United States.
The Rivera Award also promotes literacy by promoting high quality children’s and young adult literature, in addition to encouraging authors to write about the Mexican American experience.
A Seed in the Sun
Lula Viramontes aches to one day become someone who can’t be ignored: a daring ringleader in a Mexican traveling circus. But between working the grape harvest with her older siblings under dangerous conditions; taking care of her younger siblings and Mamá, who has mysteriously fallen ill; and doing everything she can to avoid Papá’s volatile temper, it’s hard to hold on to those dreams.
Salazar is an award-winning author and arts activist whose writings for adults and children explore issues of identity and social justice.
She is the author of the critically acclaimed middle- grade verse novels The Moon Within and Land of the Cranes, as well as the picture book anthology In the Spirit of a Dream: 13 Stories of American Immigrants of Color. Salazar is a founding member of Las Musas—a Latinx kidlit debut author collective. She lives with her family of artists in a teal house in Oakland, Calif.
Tumble
Twelve-year-old Adela “Addie” Ramírez has a big decision to make when her stepfather proposes adoption. Addie loves Alex, the only father figure she’s ever known, but with a new half brother due in a few months and a big school theater performance on her mind, everything suddenly feels like it’s moving too fast.
She has a million questions, and the first is about the young man in the photo she found hidden away in her mother’s things.
Pérez is the daughter of a Mexican mother and a Cuban father.
Her debut book for young readers, The First Rule of Punk (Viking / Penguin), was a 2018 Pura Belpré Award Honor Book; a 2018 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards honor book; a winner of the 2018 Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award; and a Junior Library Guild selection.
It also made several bestof- the-year lists including the Amelia Bloomer List, NPR's Best Books of 2017, the Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best Books, the New York Public Library's Best Books for Kids, School Library Journal's Best of 2017, The Horn Book Magazine's Fanfare and ALSC's Notable Children's Books.
She is also the author of Strange Birds, a 2020 Rise: A Feminist Book Project List Selection. She lives in Chicago with her family, where in addition to writing books about lovable weirdos and outsiders, she works as a librarian.
The Tomás Rivera Award at Texas State celebrates authors and illustrators dedicated to depicting the values and culture of Mexican Americans.
Rivera, who died in 1984, graduated from Texas State with both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees before receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.
For more information on the Rivera Award, visit the Rivera Award website at www.education. txstate.edu/ci/riverabookaward.
