2018 Pura Belpré Award Winners

Today the American Library Association just announced the top youth books and media of 2018, including the Pura Belpré Award. Since 1996, the Pura Belpré Award is presented annually to a Latinx writer and a Latinx illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in a work of literature for children and young adults. For a full list of this year's winners, see the ALA website.

2018 Pura Belpré Award Winner (Text)

Lucky broken girl by Ruth Behar

In 1960s New York, fifth-grader Ruthie, a Cuban-Jewish immigrant, must rely on books, art, her family, and friends in her multicultural neighborhood when an accident puts her in a body cast.

2018 Pura Belpré Honor Books (Text)

Also available in: e-book

Arturo's Miami summer is marked by the arrival of poetry enthusiast Carmen, who helps him use the power of protest to fight the plans of a land developer who wants to demolish his Abuela's restaurant.

The first rule of punk by Celia C. Pérez
Also available in: e-book

Twelve-year-old María Luisa O'Neill-Morales (who really prefers to be called Malú) reluctantly moves with her Mexican-American mother to Chicago and starts seventh grade with a bang--violating the dress code with her punk rock aesthetic and spurning the middle school's most popular girl in favor of starting a band with a group of like-minded weirdos.

2018 Pura Belpré Award Winner (Illustration)

La princesa and the pea by Susan Middleton Elya

"A rhyming twist on a classic fairy tale in which a queen places a pea under a young lady's mattress to see if she is truly a princess. Incorporates Spanish words and Includes a glossary"--.

2018 Pura Belpré Honor Books (Illustration)

A look at the relationship Frida Kahlo shared with her pets explores how her personal stuggles and the animals influenced her art.

All around us by Xelena Gonzalez

Finding circles everywhere, a grandfather and his granddaughter meditate on the cycles of life and nature.