4.0
Aniana del Mar Jumps In
ByPublisher Description
Pura Belpré Author Honor Award
** Four starred reviews!**
A powerful and expertly told novel in verse, by an award-winning poet, about a twelve-year-old Dominican American swimmer who is diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis.
Aniana del Mar belongs in the water like a dolphin belongs to the sea. But she and Papi keep her swim practices and meets hidden from Mami, who has never recovered from losing someone she loves to the water years ago. That is, until the day Ani’s stiffness and swollen joints mean she can no longer get out of bed, and Ani is forced to reveal just how important swimming is to her. Mami forbids her from returning to the water, but Ani and her doctor believe that swimming, along with medication, will help Ani manage her disease. What follows is the journey of a girl who must grieve who she once was in order to rise like the tide and become the young woman she is meant to be. Aniana del Mar Jumps In is a poignant story about chronic illness and disability, the secrets between mothers and daughters, the harm we do to the ones we love the most—and all the triumphs, big and small, that keep us afloat.
"Beautiful in its honesty and vulnerability, this is a powerful story about dreams and bodily agency that sings from the heart.”—Natalia Sylvester, award-winning author of Breathe and Count Back From Ten
** Four starred reviews!**
A powerful and expertly told novel in verse, by an award-winning poet, about a twelve-year-old Dominican American swimmer who is diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis.
Aniana del Mar belongs in the water like a dolphin belongs to the sea. But she and Papi keep her swim practices and meets hidden from Mami, who has never recovered from losing someone she loves to the water years ago. That is, until the day Ani’s stiffness and swollen joints mean she can no longer get out of bed, and Ani is forced to reveal just how important swimming is to her. Mami forbids her from returning to the water, but Ani and her doctor believe that swimming, along with medication, will help Ani manage her disease. What follows is the journey of a girl who must grieve who she once was in order to rise like the tide and become the young woman she is meant to be. Aniana del Mar Jumps In is a poignant story about chronic illness and disability, the secrets between mothers and daughters, the harm we do to the ones we love the most—and all the triumphs, big and small, that keep us afloat.
"Beautiful in its honesty and vulnerability, this is a powerful story about dreams and bodily agency that sings from the heart.”—Natalia Sylvester, award-winning author of Breathe and Count Back From Ten
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities47 Reviews
4.0
Tyen
Created 1 day agoShare
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Mrs-B-Reads
Created 18 days agoShare
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“A quick read novel-in-verse with intersectionality as a young Dominican American girl who loves to swim is diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis. While struggling as she learns to live without something she loves, she is also struggling with the intense parental control her traditional mother exerts on her. This coming of age novel could have used a bit more medical info about JIA, but is a great example of different styles of poetry and loafs of figurative language which makes it great for an English classroom!”Caleb Johnson
Created about 2 months agoShare
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beepboops
Created 4 months agoShare
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“a wonderful read! this middle grade novel in verse follows Aniana, a tween girl who starts to deal with chronic pain and is eventually diagnosed with JIA. I loved following her story and seeing the depth and breadth of the feelings she felt while grappling with chronic pain and complicated family relationships. this book didn't gloss over how hard things could be for Aniana and her relationship with her Mom, but also wasn't depressing! great disability & Dominican American representation, & side characters provide queer rep!”
About Jasminne Mendez
Jasminne Mendez is a best-selling Dominican-American poet, educator, translator, playwright and award winning author of several books for children and adults. She has had poetry and essays published in numerous journals and anthologies and she is the author of two multi-genre collections including Island of Dreams (Floricanto Press, 2013) which won an International Latino Book Award. Her debut poetry collection City Without Altar was a finalist for the Noemi Press poetry prize and was released in August 2022(Noemi Press) and her debut picture book Josefina’s Habichuelas (Arte Publico Press, 2021) was the Writer’s League of Texas Children’s Book Discovery Prize Winner. She has translated the work of NYT Best Selling authors Amanda Gorman, Nikole Hannah-Jones, René Watson and Calribel Ortega. She is an MFA graduate of the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a University of Houston alumni. She is the Program Director for the literary arts non-profit Tintero Projects and she lives and works in Houston, TX.
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