Abuela, don't forget me
(Book)

This companion book to the writer's Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humor, heartbreak, and hope into life-affirming poems that honor his grandmother's legacy. In his award-winning memoir Free Lunch, the writer's abuela features as a source of love and support. In this companion-in-verse, he captures and celebrates the powerful presence a woman he could always count on - to give him warm hugs and ear kisses, to teach him precious words in Spanish, to bring him to the library where he could take out as many books as he wanted, and to offer safety when darkness closed in. Throughout a coming of age marked by violence and dysfunction, Abuela's red-brick house in Abilene, Texas, offered the writer the possibility of home, and Abuela herself the possibility for a better life. This is a lyrical portrait of the transformative and towering woman who believed in her grandson - even when he didn't yet know how to believe in himself. --,Provided by publisher.

Ages 13-18.,Norton Young Readers, An Imprint of W.W. Norton and Company.

School Library Journal Best Books 2022.

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults, finalist, 2023.