Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass

Medina, Meg. Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass. Candlewick, 2013.

Piddy isn't Latina enough for Yaqui Delgado.  Also, she's in honors classes, and she's new, so she's highly suspect.  Thus follows a year of school where Yaqui torments Piddy for no reason other than that she doesn't like her.  Piddy is trying to balance her classes, her job, and avoiding Yaqui and her thugs.  When the bullying escalates to a group assault outside Piddy's house, an assault which was recorded and posted online, Piddy finally realizes something has to give.

This was an okay book.  It's a very real story, and the resolution - Piddy going to a new school, and Yaqui and her gang being sort-of punished because the principal isn't sure how to deal with all of them - is quite realistic.  I am glad for the emphasis on Latino/a culture in this book, and I'm sure it would be popular at my library, but I just didn't enjoy the story.  I strongly dislike the fact that Piddy had to leave her school in order to solve this problem, although I can see that this was the easiest solution.  The only part I liked was that Piddy tried to clean graffiti off of another kid's locker, and that kid, in turn, was the one who reported the bullying situation.  Other than that, there's not much good in here to provide kids with hope against bullying.

Recommended for: teens
Red Flags: lots of bullying, language
Overall Rating: 2/5 stars