David Bowles

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About David Bowles
David Bowles is a Mexican American author and translator from south Texas. He has written several award-winning titles, most notably THEY CALL ME GÜERO and MY TWO BORDER TOWNS. His work has also been published in multiple anthologies, plus venues such as The New York Times, School Library Journal, Strange Horizons, English Journal, Rattle, Translation Review, and the Journal of Children's Literature. David presently serves as vice president of the Texas Institute of Letters.
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Blog postEpisode 12 of the K-drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo features a powerful poem about putting others first, from author Ahn Do-hyun’s 2004 collection Lonely High Solitary (외롭고 높고 쓸쓸한). I couldn’t get the powerful imagery off my mind: in Korea even today, people fight off the winter cold with charcoal briquettes. Charcoal dust and ash is sprinkled on ice (like salt) to make walking less treacherous. The poet takes this simple reality and uses it as a metaphor for the selflessness that can be so4 days ago Read more
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Blog postI’ve been watching the Korean drama 기상청 사람들: 사내연애 잔혹사 편, known in English as Forecasting Love and Weather. In episode six, there’s a lovely scene in which the two leads (who work for the Korea Meteorological Administration and therefore know a lot about the weather) are reading a lovely poem about clouds colliding as a metaphor for love. I immediately looked up the poem (titled “비오는 날” or “Rainy Day”) and found that it was written by a famous South Korean poet, 마종기 (Ma Jonggi, usually transli1 week ago Read more
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Blog postKirkus has given They Call Her Fregona a starred review!!!
Among the many praises they heap on my upcoming novel-in-verse are these snippets:
“Superb.”“A real delight.”“Rich in scope.”“Sublime.” Thanks to Joanna Cárdenas at Kokila and my agent Taylor Martindale Kean for believing in this one!
posted by David Bowles on July, 153 weeks ago Read more -
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Blog postI’m very excited that The Witch Owl Parliament is one of five Eisner Award nominees in the category Best Publication for Teens.
I must give a huge thanks to illustrator / co-creator Raúl the Third, colorist Stacey Robinson, letterer Damian Duffy, and editor Stacy Whitman at Tu Books!
“The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, considered the ‘Oscars’ of the comic book industry, are handed out each year in a gala ceremony at Comic-Con International: San Diego. Named for renow3 months ago Read more -
Blog postMy Two Border Towns has won the Américas Award, alongside Gloria Amescua’s fabulous Child of the Flower-Song People!
From the CLASP website:
The Américas Award is given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non- fiction (from picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean or the Latinx community in the United States3 months ago Read more -
Blog postAvailable now! My translation of ‘Twas the Night Before Pride—written by Joanna McClintick and illustrated by Juana Medina—into [non-binary] Spanish: LA VÍSPERA DE ORGULLO. A lovely picture book that depicts a queer family preparing for an important holiday. A necessary text in these fraught and often hateful times.
posted by David Bowles on May, 063 months ago Read more -
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Blog postMy translation of The Immortal boy (by the incredible Colombian author Francisco Montaña Ibáñez) has been named the 2022 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Honor Title.
The Global Literature in Libraries Initiative (GLLI) focuses on making world literature more visible for kids and adults. Here’s what they say about themselves:
“We intend to do so by facilitating close and direct collaboration between translators, librarians, publishers, editors, and educators,4 months ago Read more -
Blog postI’m delighted to see that My Two Border Towns is one of the books selected for the 2022 NCTE/CLA Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts Award!
Check out the entire list on the Children’s Literature Assembly website.
posted by David Bowles on April, 024 months ago Read more -
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Blog postTWO (2) of my books just won awards from the Texas Institute of Letters: The Sea-Ringed World: Sacred Stories of the Americas for Best Translation and The Witch Owl Parliament (Clockwork Curandera #1) for Best YA Book (which I wrote with my cool carnal and collaborator Raúl the Third).
I believe this is only the second time in TIL history that a single author has won two of the book awards.
The first time was in 2019, when I won both the middle-grade and young-adult award5 months ago Read more -
Blog postMy Two Border Towns has won the 2022 Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award!
Huge congratulations to my collaborator, illustrator Érika Meza, and the other winners, Yuyi Morales and Daniel Alemán!
posted by David Bowles on March, 015 months ago Read more -
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Titles By David Bowles
It’s an ordinary assignment, nothing more. The cargo? Fifty boxes filled with Transylvanian soil. The route? From Varna to Whitby. The Demeter has made many trips like this. The captain has handled dozens of crews.
He dreams familiar dreams: to taste the salt on the skin of his men, to run his hands across their chests. He longs for the warmth of a lover he cannot have, fantasizes about flesh and frenzied embraces. All this he’s done before, it’s routine, a constant, like the tides.
Yet there’s something different, something wrong. There are odd nightmares, unsettling omens and fear. For there is something in the air, something in the night, someone stalking the ship.
The cult vampire novella by Mexican author José Luis Zárate is available for the first time in English. Translated by David Bowles and with an accompanying essay by noted horror author Poppy Z. Brite, it reveals an unknown corner of Latin American literature.
A new adventure begins for Elliot and Uchenna when Professor Fauna bursts into their classroom with
a frightening report from the Texas-Mexico border: something has completely drained the blood from
a cow’s body! The team must fly to Laredo, where tempers are running high.
Teaming up with local kids Lupita and Mateo—plus their brilliant mother, Dr. Alejandra Cervantes, and her curandero husband, Israel—can the Unicorn Rescue Society save the region’s animals and help bring a divided community together once more? And what is that spiny, bloodsucking, adorable little creature?
A new silly and spooky highly illustrated series that’s perfect for fans of Eerie Elementary and Notebooks of Doom, featuring art on every page and fun activities at the end of each book. It's a Halloween chapter book treat!
Cousins Malia, Ivan, and Dante are visiting their aunt Lucy for the summer. But on their way to Gulf City’s water park, they get lost on 13th Street. Only it’s not a street at all. It’s a strange world filled with dangerous beasts! Will the cousins find their way back to Aunt Lucy’s?
Each story in this hilarious and scary new series from award-winning author David Bowles is designed to set independent readers up for success—with short, fast-paced chapters, art on every page, and progress bars at the end of each chapter!
They call him Güero because of his red hair, pale skin, and freckles. Sometimes people only go off of what they see. Like the Mexican boxer Canelo Álvarez, twelve-year-old Güero is puro mexicano. He feels at home on both sides of the river, speaking Spanish or English. Güero is also a reader, gamer, and musician who runs with a squad of misfits called Los Bobbys. Together, they joke around and talk about their expanding world, which now includes girls. (Don’t cross Joanna—she's tough as nails.)
Güero faces the start of seventh grade with heart and smarts, his family’s traditions, and his trusty accordion. And when life gets tough for this Mexican American border kid, he knows what to do: He writes poetry.
Honoring multiple poetic traditions, They Call Me Güero is a classic in the making and the recipient of a Pura Belpré Honor, a Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award, a Claudia Lewis Award for Excellence in Poetry, and a Walter Dean Myers Honor.
“You can be my boyfriend.” It only takes five words to change Güero’s life at the end of seventh grade. The summer becomes extra busy as he learns to balance new band practice with his old crew, Los Bobbys, and being Joanna Padilla’s boyfriend. They call her “fregona” because she’s tough, always sticking up for her family and keeping the school bully in check. But Güero sees her softness. Together they cook dollar-store spaghetti and hold hands in the orange grove, learning more about themselves and each other than they could have imagined. But when they start eighth grade, Joanna faces a tragedy that requires Güero to reconsider what it means to show up for someone you love.
Honoring multiple poetic traditions, They Call Her Fregona is a bittersweet first-love story in verse and the highly anticipated follow-up to They Call Me Güero.
Readers of Norse and Greek mythologies will delight in this rich retelling of stories less explored. These tales hold a touch of magical realism while holding true to their meanings and their Indigenous roots. The stories in Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky trace the history of the world from its beginnings in the dreams of the dual god, Ometeotl, to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico and the fall of the great city Tenochtitlan. In this book's beautiful language, we learn the history of the Creator Twins―Feathered Serpent and Dark Heart of Sky―and how they built the world on a leviathan's back; of the shape-shifting nahualli; and the aluxes, elfish beings known to help out the occasional wanderer. And finally, we read Aztec tales about the arrival of the blonde strangers from across the sea, the strangers who seek to upend the rule of Moctezuma and destroy the very stories we are reading.
David Bowles stitches together the fragmented folklore and mythology of pre-Colombian Mexico into an exciting, unified narrative in the tradition of William Buck's Ramayana, Robert Fagles's Iliad, and Neil Gaiman's Norse Myths. Legends and myths captured David's imagination as a young Latino reader; he was fascinated with epics like the Iliad and the Odyssey. Despite growing up on the United States/Mexico border, he had never read a single Aztec or Mayan myth until he was in college. This experience inspired him to reconnect with that forgotten past.
Cover may vary.
Un sábado por la mañana, un niño se prepara para un viaje al Otro Lado / the Other Side. Está cerca, solo bajando la calle y pasando su escuela, el pueblo gemelo de la comunidad donde vive. Su padre maneja su camioneta sobre un puente para cruzar el Río Grande y llegar a México, donde son recibidos por la estatua gigante de un águila. Sus visitas siempre incluyen almuerzo en su restaurante favorito, una plática en la joyería del tío Mateo, una paleta bien fría, y una vuelta a la farmacia. En su parada final y más importante, pasan tiempo con amigos que buscan asilo y les entregan los suministros que tanto necesitan.
Mis dos pueblos fronterizos de David Bowles, con ilustraciones de Erika Meza, es la cariñosa historia del ritual semanal de un padre y su hijo, una demostración de atención comunitaria y un homenaje a la fluidez, complejidad y vitalidad de la vida en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México.
In pre-Colombian Mexico, song and dance were vital components of daily life. However, all that is left of this vast tradition of lyrical verse are fewer than 200 poems, most contained in three codices written just after the Spanish conquest. In this new translation, David Bowles employs the tools of English verse to craft accessible, powerful versions of selected songs from the Aztec and Mayan civilizations, striking a balance between the features of the original performance and the expectations of modern readers of poetry. With full-color illustrations, a thorough glossary and insightful introduction, 'Flower, Song, Dance' brings a neglected literary tradition to life for the 21st-century.
A silly and spooky new highly illustrated series that’s perfect for fans of Eerie Elementary and Notebooks of Doom, featuring art on every page and fun activities at the end of each book!
Cousins Dante, Malia, and Ivan are happy to be back in their home town. But then their school bus takes a wrong turn and they end up on 13th Street! There are new monsters to fight, but at least they have their friend Susana and their bus driver to help them. Will the gang ever make it to their first day of class?
Each story in this hilarious and scary new series from award-winning author David Bowles is designed to set independent readers up for success—with short, fast-paced chapters, art on every page, and progress bars at the end of each chapter!
A silly and spooky new highly illustrated series that’s perfect for fans of Eerie Elementary and Notebooks of Doom, featuring art on every page and fun activities at the end of each book!
Ivan, Malia, and Dante are excited about their ski trip. There’s no chance they’ll stumble onto 13th Street in the mountains, right? WRONG! After being sucked through a portal, the cousins come face-to-face with joke-telling cougars that are more dangerous than they seem. How will the kids get out of trouble this time?
Each story in this hilarious and scary new series from award-winning author David Bowles is designed to set independent readers up for success—with short, fast-paced chapters, art on every page, and progress bars at the end of each chapter!
A silly and spooky highly illustrated series that’s perfect for fans of Eerie Elementary and Notebooks of Doom, featuring art on every page and fun activities at the end of each book!
Cousins Malia, Dante, and Ivan must face off against the evil queen of 13th Street. But she has lots of monsters on her side, including birds that can freeze you with a look! Can the cousins defeat her and shut down 13th Street once and for all?
Each story in this hilarious and safely spooky series from award-winning author David Bowles is designed to set independent readers up for success.
HarperChapters build confident readers one chapter at a time! With short, fast-paced books, art on every page, and milestone markers at the end of every chapter, they're the perfect next step for fans of I Can Read!
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