Wrestling, Chronic Illness, And More!

Lucía loves dressing up as a superhero on the playground and leaping and flying off the monkey bars, but the boys tell her girls can’t be superheroes. At home, she tells Abu what happened at the playground, and her grandmother shows her pictures of when she was a luchadora, and gives her her old costume. Now when Lucía goes to the playground, she dresses in her Abu’s costume and shows she can be a luchadora and a superhero. I also recommend the second book in this series, Lucía the Luchadora and the Million Masks.

Pizza and Taco is a hilarious early reader graphic novel series. Wrestling Mania! is the seventh and most recent book in the series. At school, Pizza and Taco have to sign up for a sport, but they don’t really feel inspired by any of the options. But then they notice wrestling is an option. That would be fun! Do the two really have what it takes to excel at wrestling, however? My six-year-old loved this.

This is a lovely contemporary middle grade about a young girl, Addie, who decides to connect with her biological father — whom she knows nothing about — when her stepfather proposes adopting her. It turns out her biological father and family are famous luchadors, and she wants to learn how to be one, too. Meanwhile, Addie is starring in her school’s annual production of The Nutcracker, and it’s the first time a Brown girl has been chosen as Maria, the lead role.

This middle grade novel follows two sixth-grade wrestlers. Both of Mykala (Mickey) Delgado’s older brothers are wrestlers, and she wants to be one, too. But when she tries to join the same team they were members of, she’s told girls can’t compete. So, instead, she joins another nearby wrestling team, where the coach welcomes her. She’s paired with Lev Sofer because they’re in similar weight categories. He loves poetry and frequently writes poems to process his emotions. He also sometimes struggles with wrestling meetups and competitions occurring during Shabbat and other religious obligations he has.