Stef Soto, Taco Queen

Estefania "Stef" Soto wants nothing more than for her parents to stop treating her like she's a little kid. That means letting her walk home from school alone instead of having her dad pick her up in her family's unsightly food truck, Tía Perla (which ex-best friend Julia Sandoval has convinced her makes her smell like tacos). It also means allowing her to go to the Viviana Vega concert that everyone in the entire world is attending. When new regulations threaten to shut down her father's business, Stef thinks it isn't the worst thing in the world. No Tía Perla means no food truck waiting for her after school and maybe even some freedom from her overprotective parents. But when a power failure almost ruins the school's fundraiser, Stef realizes that Tía Perla might not put such a cramp in her style after all. Torres perfectly captures what it's like to be a young person seeking independence and learning about responsibility. She breathes life into the old food truck, which becomes another character. We meet her in the school parking lot: "Tía Perla, huffing and wheezing and looking a little bit grubby no matter how clean she actually is." Young readers will feel a kinship with Stef as she struggles to spread her wings in this engaging and relatable middle-grade novel about growing up. celia c. pérez