Bøger af Jasminne Mendez

"A powerful and expertly told novel-in-verse by about a twelve-year-old Dominican American swimmer who is diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis by an award-winning poet."--

Pura Belpré Author Honor Award** Four starred reviews!**A powerful and expertly told novel-in-verse by about a 12-year-old Dominican American swimmer who is diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis by an award-winning poet.Aniana del Mar belongs in the water like a dolphin belongs to the sea. But she and Papi keep her swim practices and meets hidden from Mami, who has never recovered from losing someone she loves to the water years ago. That is, until the day Ani’s stiffness and swollen joints mean she can no longer get out of bed, and Ani is forced to reveal just how important swimming is to her. Mami forbids her from returning to the water but Ani and her doctor believe that swimming along with medication will help Ani manage her disease. What follows is the journey of a girl who must grieve who she once was in order to rise like the tide and become the young woman she is meant to be. Aniana Del Mar Jumps In is a poignant story about chronic illness and disability, the secrets between mothers and daughters, the harm we do to the ones we love the most—and all the triumphs, big and small, that keep us afloat."Beautiful in its honesty and vulnerability, this is a powerful story about dreams and bodily agency that sings from the heart.”—Natalia Sylvester, award-winning author of Breathe and Count Back From Ten

"Jasminne Mendez didn't speak English when she started kindergarten, and her young, white teacher thought the girl was deaf because in Louisiana, you were either Black or white. She had no idea that a Black girl could be a Spanish speaker. In this memoir for teens about growing up Afro Latina in the Deep South, Jasminne writes about feeling torn between her Dominican, Spanish-speaking culture at home and and American, English-speaking one around her. She desperately wanted to fit in, to be seen as American, and she realized early on that language mattered. Learning to read and write English well was the road to acceptance. Mendez shares typical childhood experiences such as having an imaginatry friend, boys and puberty, but she also exposes the anti-Black racism within her own family and the conflict created by her family's conservative traditions. She was not allowed to do things other girls could, like date boys, shave her legs or wear heels. 'I wanted us to find some common ground,' she writes about her parents, 'but it seemed like we were from two different worlds, and our islands kept drifting farther and farther apart.'"