Review and a Pairing: A Hero’s Guide to Summer Vacation

Title: A Hero’s Guide to Summer Vacation
By Pablo Cartaya
Date: 6 May 2025, Kokila
Main character: Gonzalo Alberto Sanchez Garcia
Middle grade road trip book

Pura Belpré honor book author of The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora, Pablo Cartaya, is back to start summer reading with A Hero’s Guide to Summer Vacation. Cartaya is a Cuban American who writes to provide visibility to young readers. A Hero’s Guide to Summer Vacation, like his other books, incorporates stories of his abuelita and abuelito, his way of paying honor and respect to them.

Abuelito, Alberto William Garcia, is an important part of A Hero’s Guide. He’s a renowned children’s author whose grandson, Gonzalo, is about to spend the summer in a road trip with him driving a 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass S convertible across the country to promote the final book in Alberto’s hugely successful series. The two haven’t spent a lot of time together before, so they begin the trip isolating themselves through their grumpiness and introvertedness. But, that doesn’t last. The two begin to warm to each other and Gonzalo’s first-person narrative voice guides us on this journey with his abuelito with humor and curiosity.

There’s an omniscient first-person narrator who weaves into the story to inform readers of literary devices used in the storytelling. The book is a quite a work of craftsmanship as it also uses Alberto’s voice to tell stories of his past in Cuba. Stories in stories in stories. Does it sound like a lot? Craftsmanship! This intergenerational book spins each characters’ grief together and then, gives them a hero.

Gonzalo’s mom, Veronica, handled all the marketing for Alberto’s books. She’s done quite a job promoting this highly successful series and now that it’s coming to an end, she hopes to really sell this final book. Social networking is an important part of her work, although her son and her father tend to shy away from it. Social networking can be an important way for readers to connect with authors who they don’t get to meet in real life, or to discuss books with other readers. It can also help to make readers feel as if they’re being seen.

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