Friday, August 8, 2025

Middle Grade Reads By Latine Authors

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covers of four middle grade books by Latine authors

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Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves mysteries, gothic lit, mythology/folklore, and all things witchy. Vanessa can be found on Instagram at @BuenosDiazSD or taking pictures of pretty trees in Portland, OR, where she now resides.

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A phrase I say way too often when perusing kidlit and YA catalogues is, “I wish I had that book growing up!” What I would have given to see a little Latine child sleuth or science nerd, or a witch or sorcerer, or just a regular middle schooler navigating family and friendship. It’s nice to see yourself in stories, and that was much harder to manage when I was a fledgling reader.

Whether it’s a magical adventure story or contemporary fiction with Latine characters, it makes me so happy to see stories with Latine representation more widely available these days. Below you’ll find a mix of backlist middle grade reads by Latine authors and new releases from 2025 that I would have absolutely devoured as a kid. These books include magical realism at a panaderia, space-loving kids on the run from La Llorona, a star athlete confronting tragedy in a novel in verse, a mystery on a (maybe) haunted ranch, and more. Give these to the young readers in your life, or read them as a treat for your inner child.

Backlist Middle Grade Reads by Latine Authors

Paola Santiago and the River of Tears

Paola Santiago and the River of Tears (Paola Santiago #1) by Tehlor Kay Mejia

I’m a big fan of the Rick Riordan Presents imprint, which publishes middle grade adventure stories, usually drawing on myth or folklore, by middle grade authors from underrepresented cultures and backgrounds. I cannot tell you how quickly I read this book when I realized this one was about space-loving kids trying to avoid capture by La Llorona! I love how it plays with this urban legend and brings it into a modern setting, but also how it explores the tension between science and cultural superstitions via Paola’s relationship with her mom. The second book in this series takes on the chupacabra, so there’s even more to love here.

Love, Sugar, Magic: A Dash of Trouble by Anna Meriano book cover

Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble (Love Sugar Magic #1) by Anna Meriano and Mirelle Ortega

Leonora “Leo” Logroño’s family owns Amor y Azucar, a beloved bakery in Rose Hill, Texas. All Leo wants is help with the preparations for the big Día de los Muertos festival, but she’s told she still isn’t old enough. She goes down to the bakery to plead her case and makes a shocking discovery: the women in her family are brujas! Leo wants to be part of the family business more than ever, and realizes she must have powers of her own. When her best friend has a sticky problem that needs solving, Leo sees it as the perfect opportunity to prove herself to her family. Never mind that she’s never actually done magic before—what’s the worst that could happen? This sweet book perfectly captures the special soul-healing magic in a perfect piece of pan dulce and the love of a true friend.

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Witchlings by Claribel A. Ortega book cover

Witchlings (Witchlings #1) by Claribel A. Ortega

Twelve-year-old Seven Salazar lives in a magical town where young Witchlings are sealed into covens at a special annual ceremony. Five Witchlings are selected for each of the five magical houses, and three leftover Witchlings become (gasp!) Spares. Sev hopes to join House Hyacinth with her bestie, but any house will do so long as she isn’t a Spare. But a Spare is exactly what she ends up as, and the other two Witchlings in her Spare coven are an awkward new girl and Sev’s worst enemy. That was bad enough, but now the ritual to seal their coven has failed. The only option left is something called “the impossible task.” Sounds promising!

New and Recent Middle Grade Reads by Latine Authors

cover of Graciela in the Abyss by Meg Medina

Graciela in the Abyss by Meg Medina

Graciela has lived at the bottom of the ocean for over a hundred years. She was once an ordinary girl, but now she makes sea glass and welcomes newly awakened sea ghosts from their deathly slumber, as one does. Twelve-year-old Jorge is a regular ol’ mortal boy living up on land, one who’s terrified of the ocean and the supernatural spirits therein. Fear aside, when he stumbles across a harpoon with the power to kill sea ghosts, he knows it has to be destroyed. Graciela and Jorge team up to get the job done, but the harpoon is back in the hands of its vengeful creator. This is a high-stakes, magical adventure under the sea, and it’s one of my favorite Meg Medina reads yet.

The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto cover

The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto by Adrianna Cuevas

This mystery is perfect for readers who like a light ghostly quality in their mysteries. Cuban American Rafa has a very strict father and a mother with a worsening illness, so he retreats further and further into his favorite role-playing game to escape. When he and his friends take the game into real life and steal the slushie machine from their school cafeteria, Rafa’s dad sends him to New Mexico to spend a month working on a ranch as punishment. It’s not all that bad, though: Rancho Espanto may be far from the Miami life he knows, but it’s actually kind of fine thanks to a new friend, Jennie, and the barn manager, Marcus. But then a strange man in a green sweater is seen on the ranch several times, and Rafa suspects this man (or ghost!?) is sabotaging his work. Rafa and Jennie band together to figure out who—or what—is behind these shenanigans in a story that’s as much about the mystery as it is about loss, grief, and identity.

Danilo Was Here by Tamika Burgess

Danilo Osorio Jr. was a baseball star in his hometown of El Chorrillo, Panamá, but these days he couldn’t care less about the sport. Ever since the US military invasion of his country in 1989 and his father’s relocation to the states, he has been more concerned with taking care of his mother and sister and keeping their family from having to move to a refugee camp. But then Danilo is offered the chance to play baseball in California, and the opportunity is too good to pass up. It would mean possibly reuniting with his father and the means to provide for his family. It’s a huge risk, but one he’s willing to take. I love that this book doesn’t sugarcoat this story as just a pursuit of the American dream, but calls out this sort of displacement as the direct result of US intervention.

cover of It’s All or Nothing, Vale by Andrea Beatriz Arango

It’s All or Nothing, Vale by Andrea Beatriz Arango

In this novel in verse, seventh grader Valentina Camacho is a fencing star. She’s at the top of her game and the sport is her entire world. Then she and her papi are in a terrible motorbike accident that changes everything, forcing her to undergo two major leg surgeries that leave her with chronic pain. After a difficult recovery, she tries to jump back into the sport, but finds her body doesn’t move like it used to. She pushes herself harder and harder, but it isn’t just the injury that’s holding her back. I’m excited to spend time with this exploration of identity and disability, which the author says she was inspired to write based on her husband’s experience with chronic pain.

cover of Chloe Vega and the Agents of Magic by Leslie Adame

Chloe Vega and the Agents of Magic by Leslie Adame (Sept 16)

Twelve-year-old Chloe Vega lives in fear that her undocumented parents will be deported, and then that nightmare comes true. Chloe’s parents are taken by what she assumes are immigration officers, and that’s when she learns her parents are part of a secret magical society. And those officers? They’re henchmen for a powerful, evil sorcerer with a decades-old grudge against her parents, whose reasons for leaving Mexico many years ago are far more complex than Chloe knows. She soon discovers that she has powers too, and she’ll need to train at an elite academy if she wants to hone them and rescue her parents. But that school is run by the entity that exiled her parents from the magical world. This had me at “secret magic school plus evil sorcerer,” but really drew me in once I saw these magical themes used to explore immigration and identity issues. Mark your calendars for this one!

For more Latine lit for younger readers, here are some of last year’s Latine YA releases and these picture books for Latine history month. Be sure to check the Latine Lit archives, too.

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