By Aida Salazar
A Mexican and Puerto Rican girl in Oakland dreads the big moon ceremony her mother wants to throw for her first period, all while her closest friend is discovering they're neither girl nor boy.
Celi Rivera is eleven and mortified. Her first period is coming, and her mother, proudly and lovingly, wants to mark it with a 'moon ceremony,' a circle of women celebrating Celi becoming a young woman. Celi would rather disappear. On top of that she's got a first crush on a drummer named Ivan, and her closest friend, once Magda, is becoming Mar, a xochihuah, a person who is both flower and neither girl nor boy, now going by he. When other children turn cruel about Mar, Celi has to figure out where she stands: with the boy she likes, or with the friend she loves. It's told in tender, rushing free verse.
It's a rare middle-grade book that treats a first period as something to celebrate instead of something to whisper about, and it does it in verse, so even a reluctant reader can move through it fast. Celi's voice is real, embarrassed and loving and jealous and brave by turns. Mar's story runs right alongside hers without taking it over. This stays Celi's coming-of-age, with a friend's gender journey woven honestly through it.