Mexican WhiteBoy

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

Finding Beauty and Hope in Unexpected Places in Mexican WhiteBoy

In 2016, Matt de la Peña became the first Latino to ever win the prestigious Newbery Award for his children’s book The Last Stop on Market Street. In this NPR article about his Newbery Award, de la Peña said that the message of the book was quite simple:

The main characters in Last Stop on Market Street happen to be African American, but De La Peña says the book is not about race. It has a simple lesson: "You can feel like you have been slighted if you are growing up without, if you have less money, or you can see the beauty in that. And I feel like the most important thing that's ever happened to me is growing up without money. It's one of the things I'm most proud of."

Though The Last Stop on Market Street is a book for children, its core theme – finding beauty and appreciating the world for what it is –also pervades Mexican WhiteBoy. The two books have other similarities too. In this activity, you will analyze the two works looking for deeper connections.

• Watch this read-aloud YouTube video of The Last Stop on Market Street.
• Next, draw a T-chart in your notebook, and list the core themes and symbols/motifs related to hope and optimism in The Last Stop on Market Street in one column and those from Mexican WhiteBoy in the other. Come up with at least 5-7 themes for each work. Circle the themes that are similar in both works.
• Select two of the strongest similarities, and write 2-3 paragraphs further describing those similarities.
• Finally, follow the style of The Last Stop on Market Street to sketch a scene from Mexican WhiteBoy that best represents a message of hope/optimism/endurance.

Teaching Suggestion: Using stills from the YouTube clip, you can also have students analyze the Christian Robinson’s illustrations in The Last Stop on Market Street to find “hidden clues” that might help them compare and contrast the two books. For example, draw students’ attention to the graffiti on the various buildings in The Last Stop on Market Street, suggesting that the area in which it is set might be a community afflicted by vandalism and other crime.