2014 Pura Belpré Award Winner
A 2014 Top Ten Quick Pick for Young Adults
"Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass."
Those are the words that greet Piddy Sanchez one morning before school begins. New to Daniel Jones High School, Piddy is smart, with an aptitude for physics and a dream to study biology and work with elephants. She has no clue who Yaqui Delgado is, but it doesn't take long for Piddy to find out and to also get an idea of just how much trouble she might be in. Caught between her growing fear of Yaqui and what she might do, and telling a teacher and seeing her reputation tank even more, she retreats into herself, finding ways to skip school and deflect the growing concern of her mother and the other adults in her life. Will Piddy be able to confront her fears and Yaqui, or will it change her into someone she's not?
With a title like that, I knew I had to read this. Meg Medina wrote a really great story about bullying that feels real and true to how young people feel when they have a bully. Piddy's reticence to open up to all the adults who recognize that something's wrong especially rings true to life, as does the fact that we and Piddy never get a solid reason as to why Yaqui wants to kick her ass. While this might sound odd (also, spoiler alert), I also liked that Medina didn't write an ending where everything was finally perfect after Piddy told everyone what was going on, where Yaqui gets her comeuppance and Piddy never has to worry about her again. Bullying is one of those problems where there is no real solution. That's not to say that we shouldn't teach kids to be kind to each other, or to tell someone in charge when they or someone else is being bullied, but we also need to be realistic about what we actually can do to stop bullies. Regardless, Piddy's journey is enlightening to anyone who has never dealt with a bully, and familiar to those who have.
(Read as part of YALSA's Hub Reading Challenge.)
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