In Meg Medina’s follow-up to her Newbery Medal–winning novel, Merci takes on seventh grade, with all its travails of friendship, family, love—and finding your rhythm.

Seventh grade is going to be tough for Merci Suárez. Her no-nonsense science teacher expects her to be a smart as her brother, Roli. She’s been assigned to co-manage the school store with Wilson Bellevue, a boy she barely knows but might actually like. And then there’s Edna Santos, who is more obnoxious than ever now that she’s in charge of the annual Heart Ball. One thing is for sure, though: Merci Suárez can’t dance, not even at the Heart Ball. Dancing makes her almost as queasy as love does, especially now that merengue-teaching Tía Inés has a new man in her life. Merci used to confide in her grandfather, Lolo, but with his Alzheimer’s getting worse, whom can she trust to help her make sense of all the changes in her life? The Suárez family is back in a touching, funny story about growing up and discovering love’s many forms, including how we learn to love and believe in ourselves. Now in a Spanish edition.

Meg Medina is the 2019 Newbery Medalist for Merci Suárez Changes Gears. The recipient of the Pura Belpré Author Award for her young adult novel Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, Meg Medina is also the author of the novels Burn Baby Burn and The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind and the picture books Mango, Abuela, and Me and Tía Isa Wants a Car, for which she received an Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. Meg Medina lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her family.