As her world swirls with life-changing occasions, Lola Reyes discovers her deceased father’s field of fear dolls whereas visiting her household in Guatemala. A word cautions her of a curse however, not like her relations, Lola isn’t superstitious. With amusing, she defies the warning—awakening a sacred fable.
Plainville-based Writer Cindy L. Rodriguez explores themes of cultural identification, altering household and friendship dynamics, and dealing with huge feelings, in her writing. Launched on September 17, “Lola Reyes Is So Not Worried” dives into the Latinx American expertise, the ability of friendship, and the significance of validating younger individuals’s issues.
“[Lola] and her buddies are all coping with actual worries,” stated Rodriguez. As Lola feels the absence of her father and the shifting of friendships, one among her buddies offers with the strain to be an elite athlete, whereas one other good friend experiences meals insecurity. “For all of them…they’ve to simply accept that your worries, whether or not small or giant, are legitimate.”
With humor and pleasure, Rodriguez explores the position that tradition and relationships can play in our emotional well-being, irrespective of our age.
“On the floor, it’s a enjoyable story, very fast-paced…however beneath is a really critical story about younger individuals having huge worries,” she stated. “They must be validated by their adults they usually must be talked about or else they simply develop larger and greater just like the dolls do within the story.”
This coming-of-age story additionally highlights how significant folklore and spirituality are in sure cultures to today. As a scientific-minded particular person, Lola doesn’t imagine in folklore or something paranormal. When she discovers these fear dolls in her father’s issues, she doesn’t take them significantly and ignores the clear warning of a curse.
In each Latinx tradition, there are individuals who absolutely imagine in sure non secular or paranormal concepts and there are others who view it much less significantly however have accepted and revered these concepts as part of their tradition, shared Rodriguez.
“Lola has to come back to that center floor the place it’s like, okay, she’s not going to turn into a full-on spiritualist…however she has to at the least respect [those ideas] when grandma talks about it, or mommy talks about it,” stated Rodriguez. “She finally involves imagine that she has to at the least respect the historical past, respect that these folklores and legends affect the tradition…So, she turns into extra linked to her Guatemalan neighborhood in that method, versus simply brushing it off.”
Rodriguez’s writing showcases Latinx American experiences and appears to precisely replicate these realities; how variations in cultures and generations may cause pressure, problem people, and result in private development and stronger relationships. She emphasizes the necessity for open discussions to embrace completely different views and experiences than our personal.
At occasions, guardians and older relations grew up with completely different social pressures or expectations than what younger individuals face now, defined Rodriguez.
“That may turn into an actual second of battle inside the home: attempting to be who you’re as an American Latinx versus honoring their expectations and their values of being from one other nation,” she stated. “I believe there’s at all times that push and pull—particularly should you develop up within the U.S.—of wanting to maintain your roots and…connections, but in addition, you do have this different expertise.”
In 2023, about seven % of youngsters’s books acquired by the Cooperative Kids’s E book Heart (CCBC) had been about Latinx communities and 11% had at the least one Latinx creator, in keeping with knowledge collected by CCBC at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Once I was a lot youthful, [in] most of the books I learn virtually the entire Latinx illustration was inside metropolis, individuals had been poor and struggling—and that clearly nonetheless exists—however I additionally need to have the ability to kind of broaden individuals’s view of like, we’re not a monoculture,” stated Rodriguez.
This 12 months, Rodriguez’s first-ever image guide, “Three Pockets Full: A Story of Love, Household, and Custom”, was chosen to signify Connecticut’s literary heritage on the 2024 Nationwide E book Pageant in Washington, D.C., which noticed about 150,000 attendees. The story facilities round Beto, whose mom is remarrying and needs for him to put on a Guayabera—a standard and formal shirt usually worn in Latin America—to the marriage. Nevertheless, Beto protests in opposition to attending the marriage and carrying the shirt, which represents his heritage.
Rodriguez stated she has been stunned and humbled by the constructive public recognition that the youngsters’s guide has continued to obtain since its publication in 2022.
“The objective with the guide was twofold: to have Latinx audiences see that illustration but in addition, past that, a narrative nearly household…there are various kids who reside in households which have completely different dynamics,” stated Rodriguez. “That type of transcends the concept a guide that facilities Latinx tradition, can’t enchantment to a broader viewers.”
The guide appears to be like to encourage conversations about how kids can steadiness completely different cultures they’re uncovered to, be taught to specific themselves, and suppose exterior of themselves to simply accept constructive adjustments.
“When children at that age have these huge feelings, generally they don’t actually fairly know what to do with it. So, that’s when [Beto] begins placing the shirt on the canine…and writing notes as a substitute of truly speaking,” stated Rodriguez. “I’ve had lecturers say, ‘What else may Beto have achieved on this second? And so they begin to suppose, ‘Okay, if I’m ever on this second the place I’m feeling uncomfortable or I disagree with my mother or dad,’—they use it for problem-solving.”
Originally of the guide, there are dialogue questions to assist kids make connections to the story “in a method that mainly says ‘You don’t must be Latinx as a way to perceive or to connect with this specific story.’”
Rodriguez stated it was additionally essential to her that the story was equally accessible to each English and Spanish audio system. The guide is on the market in each languages, whereas the English model features a few widespread phrases in Spanish.
“As a result of it does heart Latinx tradition, it’s simply practical that even should you’re not fluent in Spanish you employ some phrases right here and there on a regular basis,” shared Rodriguez. “So, it was essential for me to have some Spanish within the guide however I additionally wished to place it in a context that college students would have the ability to get it and never really feel pulled out of the story.”