Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass

Meg Medina is the author of the young adult novel The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind and the 2012 recipient of the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award for her picture book, Tía Isa Wants a Car, illustrated by Claudio Muñoz. About Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, she says, “Years ago, when I was in school, a girl in a rabbit-fur jacket cornered me in the school yard and announced that one of our school bullies, a Latina girl named Jackie, was going to beat me up. What I remember most from that time was loneliness and all the risky choices I made as I embarked on the search for a tough-girl shell that could withstand any attack. But as I struggled against the dread of being in school, I became someone else entirely. I hid every talent and interest I had in the hope of appearing fierce and untouchable to Jackie and the rest of the world. It was a struggle to find my identity and inner strength — as a student, as a young woman, as a Latina. I was in a fight for my dignity.” The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Meg Medina grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in Richmond, Virginia.