Book Review: Bold, Brilliant, and Latine

If you’re looking for new books for your classroom for Hispanic Heritage Month or want some more pioneers of color to talk about at home or in class, check out Bold, Brilliant, and Latine by Alyssa Reynoso-Morris and illustrated by Sol Cotti.

This book features the stories of 52 Hispanic and Latine history makers past and present, complete with cute and colorful illustrations and a brief story about what makes them noteworthy.

It’s in chronological order so it starts with people your students (and you!) may not have heard of, like Victoria Montou, born Abdaraya Toya, who was abducted and enslaved in Haiti and helped train and fight along with other enslaved people in the Haitian Revolution. Or José Francisco Morazán Quesada, a military commander who helped liberate Honduras and was later president of the Federal Republic of Central America.

There are also more familiar names like Frida Kahlo, Celia Cruz, Gabríel Garcia Márquez, Cesar Chavez, Oscar de la Renta and Sonia Sotomayor. You’ll learn about the first Latina in space (Ellen Ochoa), a fighter for indigenous rights in Guatemala (Rigoberta Menchú), a three-time world surfing champion from Peru (Sofía Mulánovich) and a transgender woman who fought for justice for LGBTQ+ folks in New York (Sylvia Rivera).

The book includes musicians like Selena and Gloria Estefan, athletes like Lionel Messi and Roberto Clemente, entertainers like Guillermo del Toro and Lin Manuel Miranda, and actors like Salma Hayek and Jenna Ortega. You’ll also find scientists, politicians, activists and others who have made a mark in their field and on history.

Most of the people are presented in a single page with a drawing and a few paragraphs of biography. It’s enough to get people interested in learning more without going on for too long (this is a book for grades 2-5, after all). It might serve as inspiration to get kids to learn more about some of these figures and will definitely give you some people to talk about in history and other fields who are Latine and Hispanic.

About the book: 64 pages, hardcover. Published 2025 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail price $24.99.

My brother went through a phase where he was obsessed with maps. He loved to look at maps and he would draw maps of places real and imagined. He even drew maps that followed our route when we’d go to visit our grandparents in another state!

I assume there are still kids who go through map phases, and kids with an interest in history and how things got to be the way they are. Both kinds of kids will enjoy the book Borders: Understanding the Lines that Unite and Separate Us by Karim Ressouni-Demigneux, with illustrations by Karine Maincent.

The book describes how the original borders were natural, such as oceans, rivers, mountains and deserts, and while some of those borders are still in use today, many borders are human made, decided by treaties or carved out by colonizers. It covers the history of people congregating in one place and how city-states evolved into empires, how maps are drawn and how human conflicts can reshape borders.

There are stories about walls that reinforce borders, how borders work in the air and at sea, how people cross borders with passports or as refugees and how climate change is altering the borders of some countries.

You’ll also learn some fun border facts like the fact that if you stand in the middle of the bridge over the Zambezi River you can be in four countries at once because that’s where the borders of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe meet. Or how there is only one border crossing between India and Pakistan that’s closed each night in an elaborate ceremony.

The book talks about time zones, border towns and places where countries and parts of countries are inside other countries and places where borders are less important such as the European Union.

While there are serious subjects in the book, it’s still a fun read that’s sure to interest those kids around ages 8-12 who like travel, maps and weird but true facts.

About the book: 72 pages, hardcover, published 2026 by Blue Dot Kids Press. Suggested retail price $21.95.

Have you read?

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