Every Wednesday The Latina
Book Club features excerpts from exciting novels by Latino authors.
Happy Reading and Happy New
Year!
Disco is
making a comeback! And we are going to disco our way into the New Year with author
Meg Medina. She has provided a playlist
to get us started and an excerpt from her book, BURN BABY BURN. Enjoy!
Mini Interview with Meg:
Q: Your
book is set in the 1970s, so do you dance disco? What's your favorite disco
song to hustle to?
Meg Medina: Boogie Shoes
by K.C and the Sunshine Band. (The full playlist for the novel is listed after
the excerpt.)
Q: What is your heroine's (Nora's) favorite Latino food? What is yours?
Meg: More would probably love arroz con leche (rice pudding) because it’s sweet and cheap to make. But I like arroz con frijoles negros and a chunk of lechón. Don’t tell my doctor.
Q: Where do you plan to be when the bell drops on 2017?
Meg: I’ve been thinking
a lot about 2017, and what it might hold for all of us. If we’re ruling out
“under my bed,” I guess I want to be enjoying a nice glass of champagne with
Javier and our friends…right in our own living room.
Learn more about Meg Medina and her books at www.megmedina.com.
EXCERPT
By Meg Medina
Candlewick Press
I think
sheepishly of Mima, who always tells me not to walk this way alone, especially
not at night. A thousand times she’s warned me, and I always sneer at her
dramatic lectures about this patch of weeds and broken glass, about the dark
corners where a girl could be pushed, dragged off to the dead end, and then God
Knows What. It has always seemed so stupid, so Mima.
But now .
. .
I stare
ahead at the gaping shadows we’ll have to walk through and wish we had just
waited for the next bus. I think of the graffiti and the broken bottles in
there, the smell of urine that sometimes chokes you when you walk by. Suddenly
I think of the murder in Forest Hills.
“We just
need to get past the underpass. We’ll get close and run,” I whisper as Kathleen
and I link arms.
I
practice our sprint in my mind the way athletes do. We’ll race through that
patch and break through to the other side, victorious. It will take only a few
seconds, no more.
But as we
get closer, my feet slow down, and it feels as though I’m trying to walk
through molasses. Kathleen slows down, too. Each tree trunk we pass makes us
skittish. Anyone could be hiding behind there in the shadows.
I hear a
man’s voice in my head.
Hey, girls.
Click, click, click, like a gun cocking
over and over.
It’s just our boots, I tell myself,
closing my eyes. Move faster.
But
behind my eyelids, an ugly picture waits. Kathleen’s pretty white coat is
soaked with blood as she lies on the ground.
“I don’t
want to,” Kathleen whispers suddenly. “Let’s go back. We can call my mom from a
pay phone. She’ll be pissed, but she’ll get us.”
I pause,
unsure. Northern Boulevard seems so far behind us, and the shops are all closed
and dark. We’re already at the trestle. We’ll only have to run twenty, maybe
thirty steps. We’re practically adults, aren’t we? Nearly eighteen, as Kathleen
always says. Not scared little girls.
“We’re
almost there,” I say stubbornly. “We’re just psyched out from the stupid movie.”
And with
that, I pull us into the darkness.
The
temperature has dipped again for the night, and the spring chill makes me
shudder. “We’re fine,” I say.
“We’re
fine,” Kathleen repeats.
Click, click, click.
But
Kathleen stops again. This time, she raises her finger and points ahead without
a sound. A parked car has come into view. It’s up on the sidewalk, headlights
off. Why didn’t we see it before?
Someone
is definitely inside.
The door
opens, and I suck in my breath as a tall man slips out of the driver’s side and
faces us.
Everything
happens quickly after that. A bright light shines in our faces, blinding us. In
that fraction of a second, I see a gun at his waist, one of his arms
outstretched. I don’t even have time to scream. Instinctively I yank Kathleen
to the ground and cover my head, waiting for the blast.###
Excerpt published with permission. All rights
reserved by author.
Order
your copy of BURN BABY BURN by Meg Medina by clicking here.
Playlist
for BURN BABY BURN
provided by Meg
Medina
Dazz by
Brick
Give Up
the Funk by Parliament
Do What
You Wanna Do by the T-Connection
Boogie
Nights by Heatwave
Dance With Me by Orleans
Love to
Love You, Baby by Donna Summer
Don’t
Leave Me This Way by Thelma Houston
Car Wash by
Rose Royce
Disco
Inferno by the Trammps
Turn the
Beat Around by Vicki Sue Robinson
Sleepwalker
by The Kinks
Bohemian
Rhapsody by Queen
Hotel
California by the Eagles
The Wall by
Pink Floyd
God Save
the Queen by The Sex Pistols
I Don’t
Wanna Go Down to the Basement by The Ramones
Rock and
Roll by Led Zepplin (The Song Remains the Same)
Happy
Reading and Happy New Year
READ
LATINO!