Growing up in Latin America compiles an excellent collection of essays addressing the pressing question of children and adolescents’ agency in Latin American novels, fictional films and documentaries. Together, the essays provide a cohesive and robust platform to understand the multiple and contrasting paths in which the representation of minors is not just a reflection of adults’ anxieties but also an effective approach to recognize those minors as active and critical members of society.

Omar Rodríguez, University of Lethbridge

Any child in a Latin American family knows the importance of oral tradition: adventures that mothers, fathers, grandparents, and caregivers had when they were young interweave into the fabric of the next generation’s knowledge of space, place, rules, resistance, and relationships. For Latin American and Latinx people, the legacy of memory found in the story is a central component of agency and growing up, which is rightfully at the forefront of Growing up in Latin America: Child and Youth Agency in Contemporary Popular Culture.

Ingrid E. Castro, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts