merci suarez changes gears by meg medina

How difficult was it to write about Alzheimer’s for a young audience and what was the message you wanted to send across? It’s a very warm and special relationship.

Of all her relationships, the one with her grandfather Lolo really stands out in the way that it’s written. She matures the way kids actually do, by necessity, and in spurts, and sometimes in very messy ways. She has to sit side by side with very, very large problems and figure them out. I think the experience with her grandfather as his illness deepens matures her. She has figured out the beginnings of real friendship and the dramas that happen in there. She is a more confident person in the second book. But I do see her gaining more confidence in herself, even as she’s asking questions about her friends and family and things like that. She’s not the first one out of the gate in romantic things or in anything like that. Merci is still not necessarily a fast bloomer.

But I had to age the character in a way that was still relatable to them, to the readers. We have students from the fourth grade to maybe seventh grade reading the book. I think that was the big trick in writing this book, because the audience, essentially, stays the same. She used to talk about everything with her grandfather, Lolo, but with his Alzheimer’s getting worse each day, whom can she trust to help her make sense of all the new things happening in her life? The Suárez family is back in a touching, funny story about growing up and discovering love’s many forms, including how we learn to love and believe in ourselves.įrom Merci Suárez Changes Gears to Merci Suárez Can’t Dance, how has Merci grown and evolved? Unfortunately, Merci can’t seem to avoid love or dance for very long. Dancing makes her almost as queasy as love does, especially now that Tía Inés, her merengue-teaching aunt, has a new man in her life. One thing is for sure, though: Merci Suárez can’t dance-not at the Heart Ball or anywhere else. And she’s tangling again with classmate Edna Santos, who is bossier and more obnoxious than ever now that she is in charge of the annual Heart Ball. She’s been assigned to co-manage the tiny school store with Wilson Bellevue, a boy she barely knows, but whom she might actually like. Ellis, who expects her to be a smart as her brother, Roli. Seventh grade is going to be a real trial for Merci Suárez. In Meg Medina’s follow-up to her Newbery Medal–winning novel, Merci takes on seventh grade, with all its travails of friendship, family, love-and finding your rhythm.

Today we’re pleased to welcome Meg Medina to the WNDB blog to discuss her middle grade novel Merci Suárez Can’t Dance.

Merci suarez changes gears by meg medina