Children's author Meg Medina finds inspiration in the family stories she heard as a child, which "opened inside of me a sense of cultural history that wasn’t reflected in any book I was reading in school or seeing on any of my favorite television shows."

In an article from the January/February 2016 issue of the Horn Book Magazine, she talks about how her family's emigration from Cuba shaped her and her writing, much of which is rooted in her experience as the child of Cuban immigrants:

"My parents came to the United States during the mass political exodus of the Cuban upper and middle class in the early 1960s. All these years later, I still find joy in writing about families grappling with transition and about how children fit into that dynamic over time. That’s an experience familiar to fifty-four million people — seventeen percent of our population — who identify as Latino in the U.S. today. So it’s fair to say that I’m writing about the American family."

It's critical to see ourselves, our families, and our communities reflected in books; as members of the human family, it's equally critical for kids to read about families from differing backgrounds and cultures.

For more on National Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15-October 15, 2016, visit The Horn Book's resource page.