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.

RSVP Now