Susan Morée talked to three children's book authors and illustrators who will be reading this Saturday, February 21, 2026, at 10 a.m. at the El Paso Museum of History. They talked about the books they'll be reading from on Saturday. This is a transcript of their conversation.
Xelena González:
Child of the sun, you've been blessed since birth. Your skin is akin to our brown Mother Earth.
Susan Morée:
That was Xelena González (of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation) reading from her latest book, Of the Sun, an award-winning book. It's a poem for the land's first peoples. It's a book primarily for children, but Xelena says it's really for all ages. It was a New York Public Library's best book of 2025. Xelena is one of three authors and illustrators coming to El Paso on Saturday morning, and one thing they all have in common is a belief that representation matters. Xelena, talk to me about why that's important.
Xelena Gonzalez:
I think it's definitely important. You know, we didn't see books like this growing up, and there were very few when I had my daughter, and she's now 19. So much has changed in recent years.
Susan Morée:
Zeke Peña, who calls himself a Chicano storyteller and professional doodler from El Paso, will also be at the reading on Saturday morning with his latest, Sundust, about two siblings who during a walk through the desert, chase a fallen piece of sundust. Pena said local kids who read his book will recognize the landscape.
Zeke Peña:
I wrote this book with kids that live in desert region like El Paso, Juarez, and Las Cruces. You know, it has all of our plants. I even call out some of the names for some of the plants. My hope is that it feels like you're going on a walk there in our area.
Susan Morée:
Peña said he doesn't remember reading a book with the desert in it. When he was a kid, he wanted to change that.
Zeke Peña:
I would say that the desert in this book is a character. And I think that it's important, that we start fostering a sense of respect in the places that we live, for the land, for the water, right, and for the relatives that we have around us.
Susan Morée:
Illustrator Andrés Vera Martínez will also be appearing Saturday morning with his latest, Monster Locker, which is about a 6th grader who is afraid of the unknown, as many of us were when we were in 6th grade. But Monster Locker does more than explore pre-teen angst. The main character, Pablo, discovers his Aztec culture.
Andrés Vera Martínez:
We had decided that the lead character, Pablo, was Mexican-American. We thought we would connect his heritage to the actual fantasy in the book. And we came out with this fantastic goddess that's misinterpreted as a monster, really. But she does have creatures that come out that are pretty vicious, and it terrorizes Columbus, Ohio. And he's got to figure out a way to understand her. Even though it's not familiar. That side of his culture and that side of his heritage is not familiar to him and his family, but he figures out a way to deal with that, with the help of his abuela, of course.
Susan Morée:
For KRWG Public Media, I'm Susan Morée
You can learn more about the events hosted by the Texas Book Festival and El Paso Community Foundation right here.
