2023 Pura Belpré Award honor book and a Schneider Family Award honor book
VERÓNICA, A PERUVIAN AMERICAN TEEN WITH HIP DYSPLASIA, AUDITIONS TO BECOME A MERMAID AT A CENTRAL FLORIDA THEME PARK IN THE SUMMER BEFORE HER SENIOR YEAR, ALL WHILE FIGURING OUT HER FIRST REAL BOYFRIEND AND HOW TO FEEL SAFE IN HER OWN BODY.
Verónica has had many surgeries to manage her disability. The best form of rehabilitation is swimming, so she spends hours in the pool, but not just to strengthen her body. Her Florida town is home to Mermaid Cove, a kitschy underwater attraction where professional mermaids perform in giant tanks . . . and Verónica wants to audition.
But her conservative Peruvian parents would never go for it. And they definitely would never let her be with Alex, her cute new neighbor. She decides it’s time to seize control of her life, but her plans come crashing down when she learns her parents have been hiding the truth from her—the truth about her own body.
Rooted in the author's lived experience, BREATHE AND COUNT BACK FROM TEN unapologetically explores themes of immigration, disability rights, coming of age into your sexuality, and bodily agency.
"A poignant and powerful story of a girl navigating tense family dynamics, the boundaries of a body she fights for, and a watery dream where everything collides. Root for Verónica as she grows in courage to rise from the surface of adversity, and to live inside the most authentic expression of herself. Real and beautifully relevant." — Laura Taylor Namey, author of A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow and When We Were Them
“A gorgeous, heartfelt exploration of what it means to know and love the body that you have. Natalia Sylvester has written the book I wish I had been able to read as a teen. A shimmering triumph of a book.” — Amanda Leduc, author of The Centaur’s Wife and Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space
"Breathtaking and utterly original…a beautiful tribute to disabled bodies and a vital addition to YA literature." — Lillie Lainoff, author of One for All
“For all of us who, as Natalia Sylvester so thoughtfully puts it, ‘desire to […] be seen as we truly are.’ Breathe and Count Back from Ten, with its deep honesty, hope, emotion, and tenderness, is a beautifully powerful coming-of-age story I will forever hold close to my heart.” — Jonny Garza Villa, author of Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Natalia Sylvester
Born in Lima, Peru, Natalia Sylvester is an award-winning writer of novels, essays, and poetry. CHASING THE SUN was named the Best Debut Book of 2014 by Latinidad Magazine and EVERYONE KNOWS YOU GO HOME won an International Latino Book Award and the 2019 Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. Her debut YA novel, RUNNING, was a 2020 Junior Library Guild Selection and her sophomore YA, BREATHE AND COUNT BACK FROM TEN, is a 2023 Pura Belpré Award honor book and a Schneider Family Award honor book. Her first picture book, A MALETA FULL OF TREASURES, illustrated by Juana Medina, will be out in 2024 from Penguin Random House. Sylvester's essays have appeared in the New York Times, Bustle, Catapult, Latina magazine, and McSweeney’s Publishing, and have been widely anthologized. She received a BA in creative writing from the University of Miami and now lives in South Florida.
Represented by Laura Dail.