This road-tripping story has it all: the intergenerational love of a big, Mexican American family, laughter and tears, adventure, snot bubbles, and a heartfelt search for identity. Best of all, author Pedro Martín says his graphic memoir, Mexikid, is 100% true (okay, maybe 90%).

Years ago, Martín and his eight siblings piled into a Winnebago in California to pick up their grandpa in Mexico. He’d be living with them for the foreseeable future. In Martín’s imagination, Abuelito was an unimpeachably cool renegade – a veteran of the Mexican Revolution and a real-life crime-fighter – but still, to have him move into the family’s already crowded home felt like a bit too much.

In this conversation with the Library’s youth services manager Clare Hollander, Martin offers a behind-the-scenes look at his creative process and encourages students to be the authors of their own stories.

This year, Mexikid received a Newbery Honor and the Pura Belpré Author Award and Illustrator Award, honoring Latino authors and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in children’s books.