Donna Barba Higuera is an American children's book author. Her debut novel, '' Lupe Wong Won't Dance'', was a Pura Belpré Award honor book and PNBA winner in 2021. Her middle grade dystopian novel, ''

The Last Cuentista ''The Last Cuentista'' is a middle-grade dystopian novel by Donna Barba Higuera, published October 12, 2021 by Levine Querido. The story follows Petra Peña who, along with her family and a few hundred others, leave Earth to continue the human ...

'', won the 2022 Newbery Medal and the Pura Belpré Medal.

Life

Higuera grew up in central California in a mixed race family and now lives in Washington with her family, three dogs, and two frogs. Outside of writing, Higuera works in healthcare.

Selected works

''Lupe Wong Won't Dance'' (2020)

''Lupe Wong Won't Dance,'' a middle-grade sports novel that is a Junior Library Guild selection, a Pura Belpré Award honor book, and PNBA Book Award winner. The book's cover was illustrated by Mason London, and the Spanish translation was done by Libia Brenda and published September 8, 2020 by Levine Querido.

''The Last Cuentista'' (2021)

''The Last Cuentista'' was published by Levine Querido and edited by Nick Thomas. In Barba Higuera's novel, 12 year-old Petra Peña and her family are among those chosen to escape Earth before Halley's comet collides with the planet; however, after waking up from a 400-year sleep, everyone's memories had been erased except Petra's. Previous

Newbery Newbery is a surname. People *Chantelle Newbery (born 1977), Australian Olympic diver *David Newbery (born 1943), British economist *Eduardo Newbery (1878–1908), Argentine odontologist and aerostat pilot *Francis Newbery (disambiguation), sev ...

winner

Tae Keller Tae Keller is an American children's book author. Her book, ''When You Trap a Tiger'', won the 2021 Newbery Medal. The book tells the story of Lily and her relationship with her aging and ill Korean grandmother, wrapped around the Korean folktale ...

said ''The Last Cuentista'' : “certainly veers into the dark end of middle-grade fiction, with brainwashing, ‘purging’, and, yes, the destruction of our entire planet ... but it doesn’t dwell in the darkness, preferring to give its readers healthy doses of hope, wonder and page-turning action.” The inspiration for ''The Last Cuentista'' came from a writing exercise involving the fairy tale ''The Princess and the Pea''. In 2022, the book won the Newbery Medal and Pura Belpré Award.

Bibliography

* '' Lupe Wong Won't Dance'' (2020) * ''El Cucuy Is Scared, Too!'' (2021) * ''

'' (2021)

References

External links

Official websiteTwitter account
Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American children's writers Newbery Medal winners 21st-century American women writers Year of birth unknown {{US-child-writer-stub