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Informationen zum Autor Veronica Chambers is the editor for Narrative Projects at The New York Times . She is a prolific author, best known for the New York Times bestseller Finish the Fight! , as well as the critically acclaimed memoir Mama's Girl and picture book biographies Shirley Chisholm Is a Verb and Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa. Born in Panama and raised in Brooklyn, she writes often about her Afro-Latina heritage. She speaks, reads, and writes Spanish, but she is truly fluent in Spanglish. Sujean Rim is the author and illustrator of the beloved Birdie series, Zoogie Boogie Fever! , Chee-Kee: A Panda in Bearland , and more. She has worked as an illustrator for clients including Tiffany & Co., Target, and the website DailyCandy. Sujean lives in New York with her favorite artist and husband Bob, and their son, Charlie. Klappentext Ten-year-old larger-than-life Flora Violeta LeFevre uses humor and a little mischief to navigate her best friend moving away, her sister's overbearing and all-consuming quince preparations, and a surprising new friendship. Leseprobe Chapter 1 Chica, Chica, Chica Flora Violeta LeFevre despised a great many things, but few of them as much as Saturday Spanish school. They called it a school, but it was really just a classroom at the Westerly Education Center. The class was roughly a dozen students, all between the ages of seven and twelve. Like Flora, they all had Latine parents who wanted their kids to speak better Spanish but were too busy to teach them at home. Their teacher was an indefatigable young woman named Señorita María José who was so energetic that Flora suspected that her gold hoop earrings and jangly bracelets were actually solar panels. They were allowed to call her by her first name because it was Saturday school. They were not allowed to ask her why she had a girl’s name and a boy’s name. “It’s just one of those things,” she had said. Señorita María José, or Srta. MJ for short, had grown up in Puerto Rico and was now getting her master’s in teaching at Brown University. All of the parents in Westerly, the town where Flora lived, said Brown University in a hushed and reverent tone, the same way the priest said our Lord and Savior during Sunday service. Flora’s mother said, “We are so lucky to have María José teaching you Spanish. That woman is brilliant!” Flora didn’t have anything against her teacher. What she did have a problem with was spending practically half of one of her two days off doing extra school just because her parents were from Panama. But her parents made her go from nine a.m. to twelve noon, every Saturday no matter what excuse she could invent, from the time her eyesight “disappeared” to the violent stomachache that was really excellent acting for a ten--year--old, as anybody would tell you. It would have been the worst except for the girl sitting next to her, who was the very best. Flora, who was ten and in the fifth grade, looked over at her best friend, Clara. Clarita slowly and deliberately rolled both of her eyes to the center of her head. Flora tried, and failed, to stifle a giggle. The lesson that day was about reflexive verbs, which made no sense to Flora. Cállate la boca was the only reflexive phrase Flora could say with confidence. But if she ever told her big sister to shut her mouth, she would get into more trouble than she knew what to do with. “A verb is reflexive when the subject and the receiver are the same,” Señorita MJ told the class. “For example, I washed the plate, not reflexive. I took a shower, reflexive.” Flora laid her head on the table. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. She was hoping to settle in for a teeny--tiny nap when she felt a note come sliding across the table. Flora opened it up and grinned. It said: Perk up, buttercup. Flora...
