By Faran Fagen
Acclaimed author Matt De La Pena’s newest picture book, Home, is coming out in March. However, his little-kept secret is that he’s working on his first middle grade novel in many years that comes out in 2026. Matt zoomed in with the Mixed-Up-Files to tell us about his dive into middle grade amid the release of his latest picture book and other adventures.
Q: Where did your travels take you just before this interview?
A: Well, I just visited the Galapagos Islands on family vacation. Just before that, however, I was in author mode at the Juvenile Detention Center in Fresno, California. I had some powerful interactions with young children there. What I found most interesting about that visit was that the children on the inside are even deeper into the reading world than children on the outside. One kid said to me, ‘When I’m in my cell and reading one of your books it’s like I have a TV on inside my head.’ I’ll never forget that.
Q: What’s happening with your latest project, Home, which comes out March 11?
A: My newest picture book, Home, is a follow-up to LOVE, which is also illustrated by Loren Long. I set out to write this book during the pandemic. One of the things I was curious about during this time was what’s important to you when you’re stuck at home. The natural world relates what is ours. Home is the place we live. But the Earth is our home too. Home contemplates the idea that family is home. That’s how we connect to love. The spiritual aspect of home is what’s most important. Over the course of time, love is interrupted by adversity. But home is safe.
Q: Your books are full of metaphors for love and other key elements of our lives. Can you point out a powerful metaphor in Home?
A: A lot of people encounter the possibility of losing their home, whether it’s a natural disaster or losing a job, or other things. Probably the most important metaphor in Home is a big tree just outside the house. The tree is damaged in a severe storm. The neighborhood is rebuilt, but the injured tree remains among new plants and continues to grow. The tree is a symbol of resilience – the resilience of the human population. Home is the intersection of the natural world and the human world.
Q: You have such strong themes in your books, whether it’s love, home or resilience. Even going back to your YA books such as Sticky’s resilience in Ball Don’t Lie. Do you write with the intention of exploring these themes?
A: It’s an accident. Basically, I write each book by thinking ‘what am I most curious about’, and then go on that journey with my character. The ultimate crime in fiction is to let the message outpace the story. It’s more along the lines that my books are the things I’m curious about. This goes back to the idea that authors write about the same things in a different way.
Q: I’m sure our Mixed-Up-Files readers would love to hear about your Middle Grade book coming out in 2026. Can you talk about it?
A: I spent the last one-and-a-half years on this middle grade, and I probably had more fun writing it than any other book. It’s about an eighth-grader whose basketball skills get noticed by a powerhouse program in a distant neighborhood. They want him as the starting point guard, but he has to move in with a new family, away from his rough neighborhood. He has to choose at a young age whether to follow ambition or family, and every chapter explores that decision. The book is about the father and son relationship as well as what it means to be a boy/man. Just about all my books are about class and what it means to be a man, and this is no different.
Q: What’s it like writing middle grade after spending so much time with picture books?
A: I feel like a rookie. I’m learning so much about Middle Grade. What I love is there’s so much depth in Middle Grade even though at times it’s not as edgy as YA.
Q: Speaking of picture books, what was it like promoting Milo Imagines the World on Good Morning America?
A: It was amazing. The coolest thing about it was that I got messages from people outside of the book world. People who knew nothing about the book sent me all sorts of emails.
Q: I know you can’t pick a favorite book of yours, but which one of your books is speaking to you right now?
A: We Were Here is probably my favorite YA of mine right now. Everything I learned in writing Mexican Whiteboy I applied to We Were Here. A couple of moments hit me hard just thinking about them. Like when Mong walks into the water and we see him disappear. Mong wants to be in control of how he dies. It’s so sad. He leaves the message ‘We Were Here’. ‘We Were Here’ explores marginal people and how they want the world to know they exist.
Q: What’s the biggest difference writing Middle Grader as opposed to Young Adult and Picture Book?
A: When you first become an author, some people survive by reading. I wasn’t a huge reader. I came into this world as a writer
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first. I often experience books in the world I’m writing for the first time. I’m blown away by the Middle Grade books I’m reading while writing my own Middle Grade. These books make me feel so lucky that I can do this too.
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