Confetti Girl

Apolonia "Lina" Flores is a sock enthusiast, a volleyball player, a science lover, and a girl who's just looking for answers. Even though her house is crammed full of books (her dad's a bibliophile), she's having trouble figuring out some very big questions, like why her dad seems to care about books more than her, why her best friend's divorced mom is obsessed with makingcascarones(hollowed eggshells filled with colorful confetti), and, most of all, why her mom died last year. Like colors incascarones, Lina's life is a rainbow of people, interests, and unexpected changes. In her first novel for young readers, Diana López creates a clever and honest story about a young Latina girl navigating growing pains in her South Texan city.

Diana (pronounced DEE-ANNA) L+¦pez is a native of Corpus Christi, Texas. Her adult novel, Sofia's Saints, was published by Bilingual Review Press in 2002, and she is a contributing author to Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature. Other works include short stories published in Chicago Quarterly Review, The Sycamore Review, and New Texas. She now teaches English at St. Philip's College in San Antonio. This is her first middle grade novel.