Aida Salazar

"For Elio Solis, eighth grade fizzes with change--his body teeming with hormones. His feelings that flow like lava. His relationship with Pops, who's always telling him to man up, the Solis way. And especially Camelia, his first girlfriend. But when betrayal and heartbreak send Elio spiraling toward revenge, he doesn't anticipate that a fight to prove his manhood and defend Camelia's honor will lead to dire consequences--or that Camelia's not looking...

Eleven-year-old (nearly twelve) Celi Rivera, who is a mix of Black-Puerto Rican-Mexican Indian is uncomfortable about her approaching period, and the changes that are happening to her body; she is horrified that her mother wants to hold a traditional public moon ceremony to celebrate the occasion--until she finds out that her best friend Magda is contemplating an even more profound change of life.

Nine-year-old Betita and her parents fled Mexico after her uncle was killed by the cartels, and settled in Los Angeles seeking political asylum and safety in what her father calls Aztlan, the land of the cranes; but now they have been swept up by by the government's Immigration Customs Enforcement, her father deported back to Mexico, and Betita and her mother confined in a family detention camp--Betita finds heart in her imagination and the picture...

"¡Jovita soñaba con usar pantalones! Odiaba las faldas grandes que la abuela le hacía usar. ¡Quería escalar el árbol de mezquite más alto de su rancho, montar a caballo y sentir el viento curvar su rostro en una sonrisa! Cuando su padre y sus hermanos se unieron a la Guerra Cristera para luchar por la libertad religiosa, Jovita quiso ir también. Prohibida, desafió las reglas de su padre "y las de la sociedad" y encontró una manera inteligente...

Publisher Annotation: An essential, highly relatable collection of short fiction and poems around the topic of menstruation, written exclusively by authors who are Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color.

"Un cuento oportuno y conmovedor sobre la incertidumbre que siente una joven cuando deportan a su padre--y la empat̕a que crece cuando compartimos y nos escuchamos unos a los otros. Un cuento oportuno y conmovedor sobre la incertidumbre que siente una joven cuando deportan a su padre--y la empat̕a que crece cuando compartimos y nos escuchamos unos a los otros."--Provided by publisher.