Chicanonautica: Help Lucy Veloz Fly

by Ernest Hogan

Alex Hernandez is a Cuban-American science fiction writer based in South Florida, author of the novel, Tooth and Talon. and story collection, Transhuman Mambo. He is also the father of two daughters, and had noticed some things while looking for books for them:

Based on 2018 Amazon data, only 18% of the bestselling children’s books had a female protagonist and according to Time’s 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time, just 19% of the most critically acclaimed children’s books had female protagonists.

To compound things, a mere 5% of books published in 2018 depicted a Latinx character, as found by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

5%!!! In 2018! And that’s both male and female. If you look at only Latina characters, the percentage becomes almost insignificant.

So he’s decided to do something about it. He wrote Lucy Veloz, The High-Flying Princess, “the story of a smart, brave girl who uses her marvelous inventions to become a superhero when the conquering Drood arrive on her planet.” 

It’s a chapter book for ages 6 to 8, with illustrations by artist Patrick Lugo. There’s science, adventure, and all kinds of stuff that will entertain kids of all ethnicities, but especially let Latinx girls (and boys) see characters like themselves do the world-saving for a change.

He’s doing a crowdfunding to get it published (yeah, yeah, do I have to explain that the mainstream publishers, even of kid’s books are still hesitant about this sort of thing even in this day and age?), which gives you a chance to help.

So go here and donate, (I did), and tell your friends and family.

Kids will have fun, learn a few things, and maybe go on to invent things and do some world saving of their own.

Ernest Hogan will be the judge of the Second Annual Somo en escrito Extra-Fiction Contest, for which the deadline has been extended to October 14th.