Today’s interview is a little extra special for me. I’ve had the honor of working with Jackie Garcia-Morales as her marketing and publicity assistant, and along the way, we’ve become friends. Getting to celebrate her debut here at From the Mixed-Up Files makes me so happy.

Jackie is a former Writers House intern and currently an Associate Literary Agent and Foreign Rights Agent at Storm Literary Agency. Now she’s adding debut middle grade author to that list with Pesky Roots / Raíces fastidiosas, coming October 31 from Piñata Books, an imprint of Arte Público Press.

The story follows twelve-year-old Izzy as she moves from the Bronx to suburban New Jersey and starts navigating new friendships, questions about her Puerto Rican identity, and some complicated feelings about her hair. Being the new kid is already a lot. Figuring out who you are while everyone else seems ready to tell you? That’s even more.

And there’s something especially cool about this book: readers can read the full story in English, flip it over, and read it in Spanish.

Let’s talk with Jackie about Izzy, belonging, and why finding yourself doesn’t have to come with a tidy answer.

Welcome, Jackie! Why did middle grade feel like the right age category for Pesky Roots / Raíces fastidiosas and Izzy’s story?

Twelve felt like the perfect age for Izzy because it was the age when I went through so much of this myself.

It is a pivotal coming-of-age time. You are going through puberty and beginning to transition into your teenage years, but you are also becoming much more aware of yourself in relation to everyone around you. Peer comparison starts kicking in. Things you may never have questioned before, like how you look, where you fit, or how other people see you, can suddenly feel enormous.

That is exactly where Izzy is. She’s the new kid in school who’s ready to shine amongst her classmates. But when she gets there, she is surrounded by new people and new ideas, including five other blonde kids with the same name in her class, which completely ruins her attempts to feel unique. It’s a blow to her self-worth.

From an adult perspective, many of her concerns seem small or even funny. But for her, at twelve, they feel nearly insurmountable.

That is why middle grade felt like such a natural home for this story. Kids this age are beginning to ask complicated questions about culture, beauty standards, community, and identity, sometimes for the very first time.

What made you want to center this Puerto Rican coming-of-age story around hair?

To me, this is really a two-part question: Why Puerto Rican, and why hair?

Why Puerto Rican? At the heart of it, I wanted to write the kind of book I did not have as a kid for all the kids like me out there.

I am Puerto Rican, and I never really saw a character like me in a children’s book. I did not have that mirror in literature. Representation has grown, but Puerto Rican kids still do not get a huge spotlight in U.S. children’s literature. That saddens me because Puerto Ricans are Americans too. Our stories are part of the American story, and yet we are often pushed to the margins. I wanted to center one Boricua experience and hopefully provide a mirror for other kids who have been looking for one too.

And why hair? Hair gave me a very tangible way to explore all of this. Hair can carry ideas about culture, self-expression, and how other people perceive us before we have even said anything. There are also deeply rooted ideas about what is considered “good” or “bad” hair within Puerto Rican and broader Latine culture.

Izzy goes through a journey in which her hair affects her confidence at home while also becoming this strange vessel through which other people make assumptions about what someone Puerto Rican is “supposed” to look like. It is a strange experience, but it is also a very real one.

Those questions resonate more widely across Latino communities and with kids in general. Hair texture, skin tone, appearance, assimilation, and belonging can carry a lot of weight. But so can the simple childhood experience of suddenly noticing something about yourself and wondering if everyone else notices it too.

Friendship plays a big role in Izzy’s journey, especially through Paddy and Laser. What did you want their friendships to bring to the story?

I wanted Paddy and Laser to show that Izzy is much more supported than she sometimes realizes.

When you are in the middle of something affecting you emotionally, it can be very easy to get stuck inside your own head and convince yourself that you have to solve everything alone. Paddy and Laser give Izzy somewhere to land. They listen to her, make her laugh, contradict some of the things she has convinced herself are true, offer perspective, and remind her that she is still herself even when she feels uncertain.

That was important to me because we talk a lot about independence and confidence in coming-of-age stories, but learning to lean on other people is part of growing up too.

Paddy and Laser also bring their own ways of thinking and experiencing the world into the friendship. They are ASD- and ADHD-coded, but I never wanted that to become the sole point of either character. They get to be funny, loyal, awkward, insightful, and fully themselves. Their differences are simply part of the friendship, just as Izzy’s are.

Family is central to Izzy’s understanding of herself. How did you approach writing the family relationships in Pesky Roots, particularly between Izzy and her mother?

I wanted family to be the foundation Izzy can return to while she figures things out for herself.

She has what some people might call a nontraditional family, but really, it is a structure many kids will recognize. Her parents are separated, she lives with her mom, she has an adult brother who is not home very often, a father who is present but not central to her daily life, and a tía who carries cultural knowledge and family wisdom.

Her relationship with her mom is really the anchor. They are incredibly close. Her mom gives advice and guidance, but she does not pretend to have every answer. When Izzy brings her questions about what it means to be called a “minority” to her, her mom becomes a sounding board rather than someone who simply tells her what to think.

I wanted that because sometimes the most loving thing an adult can do is admit that something is complicated and give a child room to think through it. Izzy’s family gives her a network to lean into, but they also give her the freedom to decide what the things she is learning mean to her, even if she feels cultural pressure.

Despite some of the complicated subjects Izzy is navigating, Pesky Roots has plenty of humor, friendship, and tween awkwardness. How did you find the right balance in tone?

The biggest thing was remembering to think like a kid.

Izzy is dealing with some complicated subjects, but she is not an adult sitting down to analyze identity. She is a tween. Kids can be going through something that feels absolutely world-ending and then five minutes later be laughing with their best friend about hot sauce and meatballs.

So I leaned into banter, silly dialogue, metaphors, awkward situations, and comic relief. Even when Izzy encounters tough topics, like being called a “minority” by an adult, she does not approach them academically. To her, the word sounds almost like an insult, or at the very least wildly inaccurate. Her reaction is much closer to, “Wait. What does that mean, and why does everyone suddenly seem to know something about me that I don’t?”

Even the five blonde kids with the same name in her class work that way. It is funny, but for Izzy it also feeds into everything she is noticing about comparison, appearance, and fitting in. The Halloween party toward the end gave me another kid-centered setting to explore appearance and belonging without losing the fun of being twelve.

I never wanted PESKY ROOTS to feel like an “issue book.”

Izzy is not a lesson. She is a kid.

The humor lets readers know her as a whole person first. Then the heavier questions have room to exist alongside everything else that makes up a tween life.

Labels come up again and again in Izzy’s story: the ones she gives herself, the ones she inherits, and the ones other people give her. Why did you want to explore that idea?

I wanted to explore labels because they can both help us understand ourselves and make us feel confined, depending on who is using them and why.

Izzy begins the story with one understanding of herself, shaped by being Puerto Rican, by her family, and by growing up in the Bronx. Then she moves to suburban New Jersey and encounters a different set of words and assumptions.

What interested me is that Izzy has not changed overnight. Her surroundings have. But with a new community come different labels, and the question becomes: How do we navigate that?

I did not want the answer to be that labels are simply bad. Labels can connect us to culture, history, family, and community. Sometimes having language for an experience can be incredibly freeing.

What I wanted Izzy to learn was to investigate the labels she encounters instead of automatically accepting or rejecting them. Where did this word come from? What does it mean? Does it help me understand myself, or is someone else using it to put me into a box?

I hope that gives teachers, librarians, parents, and kids room for conversation too. The goal is not one correct answer. It is learning that we are allowed to think critically about the words we use for ourselves and the words others give us.

Readers can flip Pesky Roots / Raíces fastidiosas over and read Izzy’s story in either English or Spanish. What does having your debut published as a bilingual tête-bêche novel mean to you?

It means so much to me because my own relationship with Spanish has taught me how important access can be.

My spoken Spanish is not nearly as strong these days as I wish it were. In fact, it’s pretty much gone! I lost a lot of it simply through not using it enough, so I think often about how easily language can fade when we do not have opportunities to practice it.

There are so many kids living somewhere in that in-between space. Some speak Spanish at home. Some are completely bilingual. Some understand far more than they speak. Some are heritage-language learners, and others are learning Spanish at school. I want all of those kids to feel like this book can belong to them.

That is what I love about the tête-bêche format. A reader can read the entire story in English, flip the book over, and find the full story in Spanish. They can stay completely within the language that feels comfortable or explore the other side when they are ready. It does not have to feel like homework.

There is also a very personal reason that matters to me. My mom was completely bilingual growing up in New York City, but she did not realize she could really read Spanish until someone put a Spanish-language book in front of her. She could already do it. She simply needed access to discover that she could.

I think about that all the time.

I have also heard from nonprofits and literacy organizations about the need for more bilingual English-Spanish middle grade books. There are wonderful options for younger readers, but those choices become much thinner as kids age up.

My hope is that PESKY ROOTS / RAÍCES FASTIDIOSAS gives bilingual, multilingual, heritage-language, English-learning, and Spanish-learning readers another place to experiment with language without pressure.

There is no wrong way into the book.

What do you hope middle grade readers take away from Izzy’s journey?

More than anything, I hope they understand that finding yourself is a process, not a problem you are supposed to solve all at once.

One thing that was very important to me was not giving Izzy a perfectly tidy answer at the end. She can feel confident one day and uncertain the next. She can learn something new and rethink something she believed before.

Identity can hold complexity.

I hope adults take something from that too. We do not always have to rush in and solve every identity question for a child. Sometimes we can give them stories, language, and a safe place to think out loud.

That is one reason books can be so powerful. A child does not have to begin by talking about themselves. They can begin with Izzy.

And, if they want to, they can find their way from her story back to their own.

Finding yourself happens little by little, through questions, relationships, mistakes, changes, and new experiences. It is okay if you keep changing along the way.

Thank you, Jackie! I love that reminder that finding yourself isn’t something you have to figure out all at once. There’s so much pressure at twelve to know who you are and where you fit. Giving kids room to keep asking questions feels like a pretty wonderful place to start.

Pesky Roots / Raíces fastidiosas arrives October 31, 2026—yes, Halloween!—from Piñata Books, an imprint of nonprofit publisher Arte Público Press. The bilingual English-Spanish novel is 272 pages, with a list price of $12.95. ISBN: 979-8-89375-045-4.

Photo credit: P Studios.

About Jackie

Jackie Garcia-Morales is a Puerto Rican author, literary agent, and publishing professional. A former Writers House intern, she currently serves as an Associate Literary Agent and Foreign Rights Agent at Storm Literary Agency. Pesky Roots / Raíces fastidiosas is her debut novel.

Jackie is also the founder of the Catalyst Creators Scholarship for underrepresented student authors and co-founder/director of The Storytellers Foundation. A longtime advocate for representation in children’s literature, she founded the USBBY Latido Honor List for Latino children’s literature.

Connect with Jackie on her website, Instagram, or Substack.

Readers, what middle grade book helped you feel seen—or helped you understand someone else a little better? Let us know in the comments!