January 2019 Book of the Month
A Dream Called Home: A Memoir
by Reyna Grande
Published by: Atria Books
ISBN-10: 9781501171420
ISBN-13: 978-1501171420
SYNOPSIS:
The Distance Between Us. The memoir tells the story of her pursuit to become the first in her family to earn a college degree and to find her place in her adoptive country. At UC, Santa Cruz, on her own for the first time, Grande faced new struggles and was forced to forge ahead toward her dreams in spite of the estrangement from her family and alienation from her new community. She vividly describes her initial feeling of foreignness among her largely white classmates and how she found the beginning of a sense of connection to UCSC upon joining an on-campus rally protesting Prop 209, abolishing affirmative action. She expresses her frustration over the difficulty in getting some of her professors to take her writing seriously, as well as her gratitude to others who encouraged her to write about the country of her birth. She discovered that writing about the people she knew—describing their plight—was how she could honor their difficult experiences and keep them in her heart. She also delves into the important life lessons she learned by taking in her challenging younger sister and from the group of friends who helped her embrace both her Mexican and American heritage.
Back in Los Angeles after graduation, Grande describes her attempts to parlay her creative writing degree into a full-time job only to discover she knew nothing about the publishing business. Jobless, broke, and with student loans to repay, she found herself drifting further and further away from her writing as she struggled with loneliness and feelings of inadequacy. She persevered, however, and made the impossible possible—she went from being an undocumented immigrant to an award-winning and bestselling author. Her dreams of being the first in her family to graduate from college and to break the cycle of poverty that had trapped her family for generations took her along a difficult path, but led her to finding the one thing she had desperately longed for ever since her parents left her behind in Mexico—a home.
A DREAM CALLED HOME is the inspiring account of one young woman’s journey to find her place in America as a first-generation university graduate, a Latina, and a writer determined to change the course of
her family forever. Reyna Grande is a powerful and skillful storyteller, and her latest memoir is a vital narrative that gives voice to the millions of immigrants who have come to the U.S. to find a better future. It should not be missed.
BIO:
Reyna Grande is the recipient of the 2015 Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. Her first novel, Across a Hundred Mountains (Atria, 2006), received a 2006 El Premio Aztlan Literary Award, a 2007 American Book Award, and a 2010 Latino Books Into Movies Award. Her second novel, Dancing with Butterflies (Washington Square Press, 2009) was critically acclaimed and was the recipient of a 2010 International Latino Book Award, Best Women’s Issues, and a 2010 Las Comadres & Friends National Latino Book Club Selection. She was also a 2003 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow. The Distance Between Us was a 2012 National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalist and has been selected by numerous city-wide read programs, including Rochester Reads 2018, MacReads 2018, One Book/One Michiana 2018, All Henrico Reads 2018, Timberland Reads Together 2017, Telluride One Book/One Canyon 2017, Estes Park One Book/One Valley 2017, Saginaw One Book/One Community 2016, Camarillo Reads 2016, Roswell Reads 2015, and One Maryland/One Book 2014, among others. To learn more about Reyna Grande and her work, visit www.reynagrande.com.
Author webpage: www.reynagrande.com.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/reynagrande
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reyna-Grande-197164353642216/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/reynagrande
January 2019 Conversations Book
Eat Less Water: The solution to worldwide water shortages is in our kitchens
by Florencia Ramirez
Published by: Red Hen Press
ISBN-10: 1507206623
ISBN-13: 978-1507206621
SYNOPSIS:
By 2030, experts predict two-thirds of people living on this planet will not have enough water, a situation expected to result in the deaths of millions and an unprecedented rise in military conflicts. Can we as individuals hope to reverse these dire predictions? Award-winning author and water activist, Florencia Ramirez, believes we can if our conservation efforts focus on the 70 percent of freshwater flowing to the fields and ranches that grow our food. Eat Less Water takes the reader on a journey to meet America’s food producers growing food with less water. Florencia exposes the seldom-seen connection between dwindling water resources and the choices we make when shopping for groceries for our families and offers us the solution that begins in the kitchen.
BIO:
Florencia Ramirez is a trained researcher at the University of Chicago’s School of Public Policy. She won the sixth Gift of Freedom Creative Nonfiction Award from the A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO). Her articles appear in Edible Communities Magazine, the San Jose Mercury News, among others, and her popular blog. She lives in Oxnard, California, an agricultural town on the Pacific coast that smells of celery, strawberries and fertilizers with her husband and three young children.
Author webpage: www.florenciaramirez.com
