Showing results by narrator "Kyla Garcia" in All Categories

Of the approximately twelve million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, as many as two million came as children. They grow up here, going to elementary, middle, and high school, and then the country they call home won’t—in most states—offer financial aid for college and they’re unable to be legally employed. In 2001, US senator Dick Durbin introduced the DREAM Act to Congress, an initiative that would allow these young people to become legal residents if they met certain requirements.

The Sisters of the Crescent Empress is the second book in Leena Likitalo's Waning Moon Duology, a fabulous historical fantasy based on the lives of the Romanov sisters. We all think we know how the story ends...with the Crescent Empress dead, a civil war has torn the empire asunder. No one seems able to stop the ruthless Gagargi Prataslav. The five Daughters of the Moon are where he wants them to be, held captive in an isolated house in the far north.

The Living Infinite is based on the true story of the Spanish princess Eulalia, an outspoken firebrand at the Bourbon court during the troubled and decadent final years of her family's reign. After her cloistered childhood at the Spanish court, her youth spent in exile, and a loveless marriage, Eulalia gladly departs Europe for the New World. In the company of a small-town bookseller with a thirst for adventure, she travels by ship, first to a Cuba bubbling with revolutionary fervor then on to the 1893 Chicago World Fair.

Luisa is ready for her life to start. Five minutes ago. And she could be on her way, as her extraordinary coding skills have landed her a finalist spot for a fellowship sponsored by Thomas Bell, the world's most brilliant and mercurial tech entrepreneur. Being chosen means funding, mentorship, and freedom from her overbearing mother. Maybe Lu will even figure out how to control the rare condition that plagues her: whenever her emotions run high, her physical senses kick into overload, with waves of color, sound, taste, and touch flooding her body.

In Savannah Espinoza's small New Mexico hometown, kids either flee after graduation or they're trapped there forever. Vanni never planned to get stuck - but that was before her father was diagnosed with Huntington's disease, leaving her and her mother to care for him. Now she doesn't have much of a plan at all: living at home, working as a performing mermaid at a second-rate water park, distracting herself with one boy after another. That changes the day she meets Leigh.

Maddie is beyond done with her cousin Genesis' entitled and shallow entourage. Genesis is so over Miami's predictable social scene, with its velvet ropes, petty power plays, and backstabbing boyfriends. While Maddie craves family time for spring break, Genesis seeks novelty - like a last-minute getaway to an untouched beach in Colombia. And when Genesis wants something, it happens. But paradise has its price.

It's 2004 in Muriga, a quiet town in Spain's northern Basque Country, a place with more secrets than inhabitants. Five years have passed since the kidnapping and murder of a young local politician - a family man and father - and the town's rhythms have almost returned to normal. But in the aftermath of the Atocha train bombings in Madrid, an act of terrorism that rocked the nation and the world, the townspeople want a reckoning of Muriga's own troubled past.

Cat, Magda, Gabi, and Luz have helped each other up the ladder with unshakable encouragement - and raw honesty - since forever. But lately, trouble is throwing everything these formidable women thought they knew into doubt. Now all four women will have to face the truths that make them vulnerable and the failings that give them strength to discover who they really are - and what real happiness means.

Who ever said being nice would get you to the top? Certainly not Alexandra Miles. She isn't nice, but she's more than skilled at playing the part. She floats through the halls of Spencer High, effortlessly orchestrating the actions of everyone around her, making people bend to her whim without even noticing they're doing it. She is the queen of Spencer High - and it's time to make it official.

My mother named me Gabriella, after my grandmother who, coincidentally, didn't want to meet me when I was born because my mother was unmarried, and therefore living in sin. My mom has told me the story many, many, many, times of how, when she confessed to my grandmother that she was pregnant with me, her mother beat her. BEAT HER! She was 25. That story is the basis of my sexual education and has reiterated why it's important to wait until you're married to give it up.

On the morning of July 1, 1800, a surveyor and mapmaker named Cayetano Diaz opened the window of his study in Guatemala City to find a horrific sight: a pair of severed breasts. Offering a meticulously researched and evocative account of the quest to find the perpetrator and understand the motives behind such a brutal act, this volume pinpoints the sensational crime as a watershed moment in Guatemalan history that radically changed the nature of justice and the established social order.

Stand tall, believe in yourself, and stop apologizing for who you are with these simple, impactful lessons and exercises to empower yourself and become a stronger, more confident you!

My name is Neely, and I live among shape-shifters in the desert truck-stop town of Sundance, California. As a telepath-spiker, I can read a person's thoughts. I can also spike deadly power straight into their brain. I'm in an uneasy relation-friend-ship with Lucas Blacke, an enigmatic tiger alpha that I'm drawn to, but don't fully trust. When Xavier Malcolm, Lucas' abusive ex-alpha leader, asks me to spike into his brain to save his sanity, I sense a trap. Problem is, no one refuses Alpha Xavier Malcolm without paying for it in one way or another.

The autobiographical essays in The Girls in My Town create an unforgettable portrait of a family in Los Angeles. Reaching back to her grandmother's childhood and navigating through her own girlhood and on to the present, Angela Morales contemplates moments of loss and longing, truth and beauty, motherhood and daughterhood.

In her striking second collection, Natalie Scenters-Zapico sets her unflinching gaze once again on the borders of things. Lima :: Limon illuminates both the sweet and the sour of the immigrant experience, of life as a woman in the US and Mexico, and of the politics of the present day. Her lyrical poems focus on the often-tested resilience of women. Scenters-Zapico writes heartbreakingly about domestic violence and its toxic duality of macho versus hembra, of masculinity versus femininity, and throws into harsh relief the all-too-normalized pain that women endure.

Lupe Wong is going to be the first female pitcher in the Major Leagues. She's also championed causes her whole young life. Some worthy...like expanding the options for race on school tests beyond just a few bubbles. And some not so much...like complaining to the BBC about the length between Doctor Who seasons. Lupe needs an A in all her classes in order to meet her favorite pitcher, Fu Li Hernandez, who's Chinacan/Mexinese just like her. So when the horror that is square dancing rears its head in gym? Obviously she's not gonna let that slide.

Harper couldn't help it. Her first day at Westwood High, she saw Emerson Lopez sitting across the cafeteria and fell for him. Hard. The problem? Her friends insist he's bad news, and rumor has it he's NOT interested in relationships. But it's not like Emerson even knows she exists. Until summer unexpectedly brings both of them together. Harper may be the only person who can save Emerson from himself. But what if he doesn't want to be saved?

Seventh grader Estefania "Stef" Soto is itching to shake off the onion-and-cilantro embrace of Tia Perla, her family's taco truck. She wants nothing more than for her dad to get a normal job and for Tia Perla to be put out to pasture. It's no fun being known as the "Taco Queen" at school. But just when new city regulations are proposed, and her family's livelihood is threatened, she will have to become the truck's unlikely champion.

During Celeste Marconi's time in Maine, thoughts of the brightly colored cafes and salty air of Valparaiso, Chile, carried her through difficult, homesick days. Now, she's finally returned home to find the dictatorship has left its mark on her once beautiful and vibrant community. Celeste is determined to help her beloved Butterfly Hill get back to the way it was and to encourage her neighbors to fight to regain what they've lost. More than anything, Celeste wishes she could bring back her best friend, Lucilla, who was one of many to disappear during the dictatorship.

The Russos are headed to the Caribbean for a family vacation, and Alex is less than thrilled. And to top it off, her parents have decided that there will be no magic allowed on the trip! Alex is totally bored and decides to conjure up a little magic...with disastrous results. Her parents have now completely forgotten they ever met! Alex and her brothers, Justin and Max, have only 48 hours to find the magical Stone of Dreams, which has the power to reverse the spell. Will they find the stone and save their family in time?