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Cover Reveal and Excerpt: Shaking Up the House by Yamile Mendez

6/12/2020

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Las Musas is thrilled to announce the cover reveal of Yamile Mendez's Shaking Up the House!

But first, a little about Shaking Up the House...

Ingrid and Winnie Lopez have lived there for eight years, but a new family is moving in, and the Lopez girls are determined to combine Ingrid’s comedic timing and Winnie’s quick thinking to give the new First Kids a proper White House welcome.
​
Skylar and Zora know a lot of things about the White House—Zora loves history, and Skylar’s thrilled to begin her new A-list lifestyle. What the sisters don’t know is that incoming presidents’ families are often pranked by the folks they’re replacing, and Ingrid and Winnie take that tradition very seriously. 
When what is meant to be a friendly goof sets off an epic prank war, though, it’s only a matter of time before things spiral out of control. Can the four girls call a truce before an innocent trick sparks an international incident? Or will their battle go down in American history? 
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Book cover illustrator: Kat Fajardo Designer: Christopher Kwon
From acclaimed author Yamile Saied Mendez comes a laugh-a-minute friendship story full of hijinks, misunderstandings, and loads of glitter.

Coming January 5, 2021! Pre-order now!
And now, read an excerpt...

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Cover Reveal: ON THESE MAGIC SHORES by Yamile Saied Méndez

12/2/2019

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We are so excited to reveal the cover of Yamile's upcoming book: ON THESE MAGIC SHORES!

​But first... a little bit about the book:

Twelve-year-old Minerva Soledad Miranda is determined to reach her goals, despite shouldering more responsibility than the other kids at school--like caring for her two sisters while her mom works two jobs. But one night, Minerva's mom doesn't come home, and Minerva has to figure out what to do. Was Mamá snapped up by ICE? Will the girls be sent to foster homes or holding centers for migrant kids? Minerva and her sisters can't let anyone know Mamá has disappeared. They'll just pretend everything is normal until she comes back.

​Minerva's plan falls apart the first afternoon, when her baby sister throws a tantrum during Minerva's audition for Peter Pan. But as the days pass and Minerva grows ever more worried about her mother, something magical seems to be watching out for them: leaving them cupcakes, helping her find money, even steering them to friends and distant family who can help. Eventually, Minerva must make the hardest choice of her life. And when she does, she'll be prepared to face life's challenges--with friendship, hope, and a little bit of fairy magic.

ON THESE MAGIC SHORES is coming from Lee and Low/Tu Books on April 21, 2020.
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Illustrator: Sarah Coleman Designer: Sheila Smallwood

add to goodreads
amazon

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Yamile (sha-MEE-lay) Saied Méndez is a fútbol-obsessed Argentine American author who loves meteor showers, summer, astrology, and pizza.

​She lives in Utah with her Puerto Rican husband and their five kids, two adorable dogs, and one majestic cat. She's an alumna of Voices of Our Nations (VONA) and the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She’s also a founding member of Las Musas, a marketing collective of women and non-binary Latinx children’s authors.

www.yamilesmendez.com
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Cover Reveal: MUSE SQUAD by Chantel Acevedo

10/9/2019

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We have been blessed with beautiful Musa covers this month and this one is no exception. So happy to share the cover for Chantel Acevedo's MUSE SQUAD: THE CASSANDRA CURSE coming in 7.7.2020!
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Art by Jonathan Stroh (http://jonathanstroh.com/) and art direction by Joel Tippie (Balzer + Bray).
More about MUSE SQUAD...

Callie Martinez-Silva didn’t mean to turn her best friend into a pop star. But when a simple
pep talk leads to miraculous results, Callie learns she’s the newest muse of epic poetry, one of
the nine muses of Greek mythology, tasked with protecting humanity’s fate in secret.

Whisked away to muse headquarters, she joins three recruits her age, who call themselves the
Muse Squad. Together, the junior muses use their magic to inspire and empower—not an easy
feat when you’re eleven and still figuring out the goddess within.

When their first assignment turns out to be Callie’s exceptionally nerdy classmate Maya
Rivero, the squad comes to Miami to stay with Callie and her Cuban family. There, they discover
that Maya doesn’t just need inspiration, she needs saving from vicious Sirens out to unleash a
curse that will corrupt her destiny.

As chaos erupts, will the Muse Squad be able to master their newfound powers in time to
thwart the Cassandra Curse . . . or will it undo them all?

MUSE SQUAD  is forthcoming from Balzer + Bray in 7.7.2020! 
goodreads
author website
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Cover Reveal: WHAT IF A FISH by Anika Fajardo

10/1/2019

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We are so excited to host the cover reveal for Anika Fajardo's WHAT IF A FISH! Check out the gorgeous cover below (designed by Paola Escobar) and read a little more about Anika's middle grade debut!
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Cover Artist: Paola Escobar
About WHAT IF A FISH... 
 

Half-Colombian Eddie Aguado has never really felt Colombian. Especially after Papa died. And since Mama keeps her memories of Papa locked up where Eddie can’t get to them, he only has Papa’s third-place fishing tournament medal to remember him by. He’ll have to figure out how to be more Colombian on his own.

As if by magic, the perfect opportunity arises. Eddie – who’s never left Minnesota – is invited to spend the summer in Colombia with his older half-brother. But as his adventure unfolds, he feels more and more like a fish out of water. Figuring out how to be a true Colombiano might be more difficult than he thought.
​
Whimsical and unflinchingly honest, What if a Fish is a generational story of family and identity where hats turn into leeches, ghosts blow kisses from lemon trees, and the things you find at the end of your fishing line might not be a fish at all.

What if a Fish is coming Summer 2020!
ADD TO GOODREADS
whatifafish.com
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Cover & Excerpt Reveal: THE WATER BEARS by Kim Baker

7/31/2019

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 We are so excited to reveal to you the DELIGHTFUL cover of Kim Baker's THE WATER BEARS! 

But that's not all! In addition to revealing this lovely cover we are also sharing the first chapter AND doing an ARC GIVEAWAY!

​To enter leave a comment at the end of this blog post! (Open until August 15th)
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Cover artist: Luisa Uribe (luisauribe.com) Cover design: Michelle Cunningham

ABOUT WATER BEARS...

Newt Gomez has a thing with bears.

Last year, he survived a bear attack. Now he finds an unusual bear statue that just might grant wishes. Newt’s best friend, Ethan, notices a wishbone on the statue and decides to make a wish. When it comes true, Newt thinks it’s a coincidence. Even as more people’s wishes come true, Newt is not convinced.

But Newt has a wish too: while he loves his home on eccentric Murphy Island, he wants to go to middle school on the mainland where his extended family lives. There, he’s not the only Latinx kid, he won’t have to drive the former food truck— a gift from his parents— and he won’t have to perform in the vaudeville festival. Most importantly, on the mainland, he can escape memories of the attack. Newt is almost ready to make a secret wish when everything changes.

Tackling themes of survival and self-acceptance, Newt’s story illuminates the magic in our world, where reality is often uncertain but always full of salvageable wonders.
​
The Water Bears is a quirky, empowering story arriving April 21, 2020 from Wendy Lamb Books, Random House Children’s Books.

Read the 1st chapter...

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CHAPTER 1

​I turned thirteen the day after a storm came in with a king tide.
High tides climb up part of the shore, but a king tide can make the whole beach disappear. It squeezed Murphy Island until seawater rose and salted the trees. The smell of waves pushed through the woods, through the cracks around my bedroom window, and washed away the dregs of a bad dream.

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Exclusive Cover Reveal and Excerpt: INTO THE TALL, TALL GRASS by Loriel Ryon

7/11/2019

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Las Musas are thrilled to host the exclusive first look at the cover of Loriel Ryon's debut INTO THE TALL, TALL GRASS!

INTO THE TALL, TALL GRASS comes out April 7, 2020 from Margaret K. McElderry Books. Learn more about this gorgeous debut and cover below!
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Cover Artist: Victo Ngai. Cover Design: Debra Sfetsios-Conover
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Loriel Ryon
ABOUT INTO THE TALL, TALL GRASS...
 

Yolanda Rodríguez-O’Connell has a secret. All the members of her family have a magical gift—all, that is, except for Yolanda. Still, it’s something she can never talk about, or the townsfolk will call her family brujas—witches. When her abuela, Wela, falls into an unexplained sleep, Yolanda is scared. Her father is off fighting in a faraway war, her mother died long ago, and Yolanda has isolated herself from her best friend and twin sister. If she loses her abuela, who will she have left?
 
When a strange grass emerges in the desert behind their house, Wela miraculously wakes, begging Yolanda to take her to the lone pecan tree left on their land. Determined not to lose her, Yolanda sets out on this journey with her sister, her ex-best friend, and a boy who has a crush on her. But what is the mysterious box that Wela needs to find? And how will going to the pecan tree make everything all right? Along the way, Yolanda discovers long-buried secrets that have made their family gift a family curse. But she also finds the healing power of the magic all around her, which just might promise a new beginning.
​Read the dynamite first chapter...
​
Yolanda crept to the bedroom door, cracking it just so and peering inside. Her abuela, Wela, was lying in bed with a yellow serape tucked beneath her arms, her chest barely rising. Three orange-and-black butterflies nestled into her long white curls, their wings opening and closing ever so slightly as the morning sun flickered through the tree branches outside the window. It was exactly the same sight it had been for the past two weeks.

Yolanda sighed in disappointment and pushed open the door, letting it groan loudly on its hinges, hoping the sound would cause Wela to stir. Wake up. Wela, please wake up. But Wela didn’t move.
Was this all her fault? She sighed and walked over to the nightstand, twisting the vase of scarlet milkweed blossoms toward the light. Two butterflies sipped nectar from the wilting flowers. She brought the vase to Wela’s fingertips in hopes that her touch would liven the blossoms. But they remained wilted, and she made a mental note to switch them out before she left for school.

The way the light danced across the serape and the fine lines surrounding Wela’s closed pale lips made Yolanda’s heart sink even lower. She’d seen this before, less than a year ago.

Dying.

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Exclusive Cover Reveal and Excerpt: THE TRUTH IS by Nonieqa Ramos

5/9/2019

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Las Musas are thrilled to host the exclusive first look at the cover of THE TRUTH IS, the second book by our very own musa, the acclaimed writer of THE DISTURBED GIRL'S DICTIONARY, NONIEQA RAMOS. It hits shelves September 3, 2019 by Lerner/Carolrhoda Lab. Check out the synopsis below, and keep scrolling to read an excerpt from the novel!
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Cover Design by: Lindsey Owens    •    GIF Design by: Jose Padron 
Fifteen-year-old Verdad doesn't think she has time for love. She's still struggling to process the recent death of her best friend, Blanca; dealing with the high expectations of her hardworking Puerto Rican mother and the absence of her remarried father; and keeping everyone at a distance. But when she meets Danny, a new guy at school--who happens to be trans--all bets are off. Verdad suddenly has to deal with her mother's disapproval of her relationship with Danny as well as her own prejudices and questions about her identity, and Danny himself, who is comfortable in his skin but keeping plenty of other secrets.
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"A brilliant, beautiful, moving story of ecstasy and loss and tragedy and hope, The Truth Is demands to be read.  The fast-moving plot bristles with literary and classical references, but the deepest insights—and there are plenty—come from the observations and conclusions of its main character, Verdad de la Reyna, an unforgettably brave and complicated heroine who confronts profoundly disturbing, real-world challenges with the help of friends, both present and past.  Nonieqa Ramos follows up The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary with another superb novel guaranteed to break the reader’s heart before trying to mend it." - Tom Wilinsky & Jen Sternick, authors of the award-winning YA novel, Snowsisters

Read the dynamite first chapter of THE TRUTH IS:

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The Book of Love is blaring on my alarm radio app and I know
to turn that shit off before my moms hears it. Once upon a
time in a land ten years from divorce court, my parents danced
to it at their wedding. They had met during study hall when
they realized they were the only ones studying, and the rest is
history. Now it’s all math: who owes what to whom, an endless
game of long division. I’m still playing the song though,
because I don’t get it.
     Because seriously, who wrote the Book of Love? Who gets
to decide whom, and why, and when? I’m fifteen and I’m supposed
to fall in love like any minute now. It’s biology. My moms
is a nurse, so she knows this better than anyone.
     I don’t know what scares me more, falling in love with
someone or my mother finding out.
     The way I see it, love is just like your period. One day you’re
bleeding out of nowhere and it hurts, and that mess goes on for
mostly the rest of your life.
     My best friend, Blanca, didn’t see it that way though. Blanca
had been waiting to fall in love her whole life. If you can call
fourteen years of living “whole.”
     She always thought we’d get married at the same time in
Central Park. Honeymoon together in San Juan.
     My moms flicks the lights that are already on. “¡Despierta,
levántate y brilla! Thank God for a new day. Wakey-wakey,”
she sings, opening and shutting my bedroom door fast.
     I hurl my chancla at the door. Mornings to me are like holy
water to the devil.
     Standing up, I trip over the baseball bat that my mother
has always insisted I keep by my bed. What can a bat do against
a bullet?
     A holographic Jesus screensaver watches over me from
across the room. I gasp. “Ma! What the hell?”
     “You toss and turn so much,” my moms shouts from the
kitchen, where the rich aroma of coffee calls my name. “He’s
protecting you from bad dreams.”
      I scowl. Hurl my sheet over the computer, making Jesus a
ghost. Fling open the door. “So let me get this straight. Like
the white dude in the dress with the giant thorny bleeding heart
glowing out of his skin is going to get rid of my bad dreams?”
      I know Mami is signing the cross: “Forgive her smart-ass
mouth, Lord. She gets it from her father.”
      Anything that’s right with me comes from my mother’s
side, anything wrong from my dad’s.
      I lock myself in my bathroom and shed my favorite vintage
West Side Story T-shirt that I will wear until it disintegrates.
Ah—cough, gag—she’s been burning incense again. Patchouli.
To protect me from bad spirits. With all this protection, I’ll be
lucky if I don’t die of asphyxiation before I leave the house.
      Modern Christian music blares on the kitchen radio. Dudes
are full of uber emotion singing about Jesus. I wish I could feel
all pumped up like that about religion. But like how long has it
been since Jesus has been here? Two thousand years. I remember
waiting for my dad on the porch for hours when he didn’t
show up for a visit. Two thousand years is a long time to wait on
a porch. Yeah, I’m bitter a little bit.
      When the water is steaming hot, I step into the shower
stall full of lotions and creams Mami stocks in here so I will
smell like the botanical gardens. Because all girls are supposed
to want to smell like flowers. Be a flower. It’s true I got stems.
Like my moms, I got the mile-long legs. She had to wear flats
around my dad so she didn’t tower over him. But just like stems,
I’m hairy. I don’t like sharp, stabby, prickly legs. Blanca’s legs
always felt like a cheese grater if it got cold. Mami keeps threatening
to wax me, por que we girls can take natural too far,
she says.
      I lather up with my loofah, covering up the scar above my
knee with bubbles. I rub and rub, imagining the scar—the hole
torn in my leg and my life—has disappeared.
      I step out of the shower into the mist. I love looking in the
mirror and seeing me in the clouds, immaterial. They don’t got
homework in the clouds, do they?
      I picture my moms and me sitting on clouds after we both
die. “Pero, like, if you take one more class, you could be an
archangel.”
      Once my hair—which Blanca used to call The Entity, like
she was one to talk—is braided to my satisfaction, I head to the
kitchen, where my moms is waiting for me with cafe con leche.
She likes to have a convo with me before she’s off to work. She
always sits straight, rigid, like a beautiful statue that survived
the volcano but got left alone in the ruins.
     “Morning.”
     “Good morning, Verdad.”
     I pull out my chair—across from Mami’s and next to the
place that’s been set for Abuelo for the past three years—and
collapse in it. “Couldn’t God put morning later in the day?” I
prop my head on my right hand and stir my coffee with my left.
     “Did you get any sleep, mija?”
     “Couple of hours. Did you get any sleep?”
     “Verdad! This isn’t healthy for a young girl. You’re not
going to grow properly. You’re going to get acne.”
      This from the woman who hasn’t slept since 2000, who
works at three different hospitals and builds Habitat for
Humanity houses in her so-called spare time. “Mom, this isn’t
healthy for a grown-ass woman. You’re going to start shrinking.
You’re going to get wrinkles.”
     My moms stirs her coffee into a whirlpool that would suck
in the Titanic. “Verdad! Listen.” She grabs my hand and holds
me prisoner with her eyes. “A lot has happened. That we can’t
control. But what we can control is ourselves.”
      That’s bullshit. I break free from her gaze and look away.
      There are certain things you want to be true. My moms
wants it to be true that if you work your ass off, you’re gonna
have this great life. You’ll have the house, the car, the vacations. I
mean, I know I have it good. Mami is a nurse, but everyone in the
family calls her doc and hits her up for advice when they so much
as have a sniffle. She bought us a house and made sure I had my
own room and bathroom. We’re the ones the family descends on
for barbecues because we’re the only ones with a yard. We got a
car that runs most of the time. We got a YMCA membership. But
like what’s the point of a house if you’re never in it? A bed if you
never freakin sleep in it? My moms works 24/7 to keep us in the
house we’re in. The only place the damn car takes her is to work.
     Mami sighs. She squeezes my hand and releases me. “You
know you need to play a sport . . .” I lift my eyebrows. This is
like telling an ostrich he should dance the tango.
     “No no no!” she clarifies, images of me attempting volleyball
flashing across her eyes. “I mean you should . . . run. With
those long legs. You know, your dad used to run—”
     “Used to?” He left us for another life. Got himself a new
house, a new wife, a stepdaughter. But most of the time it feels
like he’s still fleeing the scene of his earlier crimes. My dad’s
present does not have room for his past. I haven’t seen him
in weeks.
     “Verdad! I’m just saying. You run after school. Do your
homework. That’ll get you tired. Get you to sleep.”
     What my mother fails to comprehend is that I’m tired all
the time. Of everything. Tired isn’t the problem.
     I nod. So she’ll stop talking and also because I’m falling
asleep.
     “Okay!” She slams her hands on the table.
     My eyes pop open. I droop from one side to the other like
a rag doll.
     “So I got to get to work. Give me the highlights from
last night.”
     She got no time for details. I don’t have any details anyway.
I don’t have no problems. I have no friends. Anymore. I don’t
want any. I have nothing to do except school and nowhere to
be except home. That’s fine with me. The real problem is my
moms will lecture me for the above lack of problems.
     I shrug. “Violin practice was fine.” I have a school recital
tomorrow—my first without Blanca. “And yes, I aced my history
test.”
     “Music to my ears!” My moms slaps the table again, making
the coffee cups dance.
     “But I almost wish I hadn’t.”
     “Excuse me?”
     “Well, this girl Nelly who’s in my class calls it the history
of propaganda. Yesterday she went off about how all we ever
learn about is Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Rattled off
a bunch of names of African Americans I never heard of.”
     My moms walks her coffee cup to the sink and rinses it.
“What does this have to do with your grade?”
     “Nothing? It’s just. I mean think about it. What about
us? All we ever learn about is Cesar Chavez. And no offense,
but . . .”
     “We ain’t Mexican.”
     “Word. There’s over a million Puerto Ricans in New York
alone, but they ain’t one single one who did anything worth
writing about in any textbook?”
     “What about that Sonia Sotomayor?”
     “That’s one, Ma. White people get a thousand. We get one?”
     She turns, leans against the counter, and folds her arms.
“Well, after you get your college education you could rewrite
all the textbooks if you like. And if you took another class, you
could get to college faster. Today could be the day you change
everything. Make a decision to move in the right direction.”
     “Right.” Rewrite history. If only.
     I stand up and push my chair in, careful not to scrape
against the wood. My moms is super proud of taking out the
nasty linoleum and installing the wood herself.
     “All I’m saying,” my moms says, grabbing my hand, “is
have a good day. Okay?”
     “Okay.” I wash our mugs and set them in the dishwasher,
our industrial-sized drying rack. I tie up the bread and reach up
onto the fridge. Hurling the bread into the microwave on top,
I expertly catch the bag of chips that falls out and toss it into
my backpack. Time to catch the bus. On my way out the door,
my moms sticks a piece of buttered toast in my mouth. And
I head to school wishing I could go back in time, to this day
a year ago, before what happened—happened. Back to when
everything made sense. I made sense.

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Raised in the Boogie Down Bronx, NoNieqa Ramos is an educator, literary activist, and writer of “intense” literature. She wrote the THE DISTURBED GIRL’S DICTIONARY, a  2018 New York Public Library Best Book for Teens, a 2019 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection, and a 2019 In the Margins Award Top Ten pick. THE TRUTH IS will be released September 3rd, 2019 and more to be announced! She believes Halloween is a lifestyle not a holiday, books are wings, and like Whitney said, the children are our future.  www.NonieqaRamos.com 

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