Amalia deals with loss while learning about love and her cultural heritage in this tender tale from acclaimed authors Alma Flor Ada and Gabriel M. Zubizarreta. Amalia’s best friend Martha is moving away, and Amalia is feeling sad and angry. And yet, even when life seems unfair, the loving, wise words of Amalia’s abuelita have a way of making everything a little bit brighter. Amalia finds great comfort in times shared with her grandmother: cooking, listening to stories and music, learning, and looking through her treasured box of family cards. But when another loss racks Amalia’s life, nothing makes sense anymore. In her sorrow, will Amalia realize just how special she is, even when the ones she loves are no longer near? From leading voices in Hispanic literature, this thoughtful and touching depiction of one girl’s transition through loss and love is available in both English and Spanish.

Eighth-grader Amalia is excited when she and James, an eleventh-grader, start to get serious, but when he gets jealous whenever she talks to other guys and tells her he'll die without her, she gets scared.

The cultural milieu in the “Age of Goethe” of eighteenth-century Germany is given fresh context in this art historical study of the noted writers’ patroness: Anna Amalia, Duchess of Weimar-Sachsen-Eisenach. An important noblewoman and patron of the arts, Anna Amalia transformed her court into one of the most intellectually and culturally brilliant in Europe; this book reveals the full scope of her impact on the history of art of this time and place. More than just biography or a patronage study, this book closely examines the art produced by German-speaking artists and the figure of Anna Amalia herself. Her portraits demonstrate the importance of social networks that enabled her to construct scholarly, intellectual identities not only for herself, but for the region she represented. By investigating ways in which the duchess navigated within male-dominated institutions as a means of advancing her own self-cultivation – or Bildung – this book demonstrates the role accorded to women in the public sphere, cultural politics, and historical memory. Cumulatively, Christina K. Lindeman traces how Anna Amalia, a woman from a small German principality, was represented as an active participant in enlightened discourses. The author presents a novel and original argument concerned with how a powerful woman used art to shape her identity, how that identity changed over time, and how people around her shaped it – an approach that elucidates the power of portraiture in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe.

Teenager Amalia Vargas finds the courage to be true to herself in this spin-off from the Newbery Award–winning author’s Baby-sitters Club series. When you’re thirteen, having a boyfriend in a band is basically the coolest thing ever. But Amalia is starting to feel trapped by her relationship with James, who’s jealous when she spends time with anyone but him—even her family and friends. Amalia knows standing up for yourself is important, but every time she takes a step forward something else happens to make her doubt everything—including the place she calls home. Luckily, her friends are there to help her through the hard times . . . The next chapter following Ann M. Martin’s bestselling Baby-sitters Club series, the California Diaries are the first-person journals of Dawn, Sunny, Maggie, Amalia, and Ducky—five teenagers dealing with the ups and downs of growing up. This collection includes the complete set of Amalia’s three California Diaries.

Award-winning author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh tells the story of Amalia Hernández, dancer and founder of El Ballet Folklórico de México. Published in time for the 100th anniversary of Hernández’s birth, Danza! is the first picture book about the famous dancer and choreographer. Danza! is a celebration of Hernández’s life and of the rich history of dance in Mexico. As a child, Amalia always thought she would grow up to be a teacher, until she saw a performance of dancers in her town square. She was fascinated by the way the dancers twirled and swayed, and she knew that someday she would be a dancer, too. She began to study many different types of dance, including ballet and modern, under some of the best teachers in the world. Hernández traveled throughout Mexico studying and learning regional dances. Soon she founded her own dance company, El Ballet Folklórico de México, where she integrated her knowledge of ballet and modern dance with folkloric dances. The group began to perform all over the country and soon all over the world, becoming an international sensation that still tours today. Duncan Tonatiuh’s picture books have been honored with many awards and accolades, including the Pura Belpré Award, the Robert F. Sibert Award, and the New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award. With Tonatiuh’s distinctive Mixtec-inspired artwork and colorful drawings that seem to leap off the page, Danza! will enthrall and inspire young readers with the fascinating story of this important dancer and choreographer.

A Los Angeles Latina woman living in poverty and hoping for miracles “comes to stunning and heartbreaking life” in this novel from an award-winning author (Newsday). On a hot, still day in May, Amalia Gómez sees—or thinks she sees—a large silver cross in the sky. Does this vision foretell a miracle? The pragmatic, twice-divorced Amalia is doubtful . . . Amalia’s neighborhood—a decaying area near a shabby part of Hollywood Boulevard—is under attack from gang wars and the police. Her live-in boyfriend is behaving suspiciously, her “fast” teenage daughter Gloria has become too much to handle, and her teenage son is hinting he’s in serious trouble. Most of all, Amalia is haunted by thoughts of her past and her first-born, dead in jail under mysterious circumstances. As the epiphanies and small omens of Amalia’s day build to a climax as wondrous as it is shattering, PEN Center USA’s Lifetime Achievement Award–winning author John Rechy takes us into the complicated life of a Chicano family living in Los Angeles—in all its spirited, gritty reality, giving us “a novel with more truth in it than a carload of best-sellers” (The Washington Post). “A fierce book . . . [told in] tough, uninhibited prose.” —Hartford Courant “A vivid and touching novel . . . Rough, heartbreaking . . . Rechy is masterful.” —San Antonio Express-News “A triumph, a sad, beautiful and loving book rooted in cultural experience as well as deep intuition.” —Newsday “[An] ardently feminist piece of writing. By portraying her abusive past, the poverty and the narrow choices facing Amalia G[ó]mez, Rechy illuminates the plight of certain minority women who remain locked in the dark ages of female emancipation, shut off from any help . . . Amalia G[ó]mez may be the main character, but poverty and ignorance, injustice and fear, are the real subjects of this engaging novel.” —Los Angeles Times