Description:
Max Rodriguez (née Maxine) could read before they could talk, devouring comics, novels, and books on philosophy.
Brief description: Frederick Luis Aldama was born in Mexico City to a Guatemalan- and Irish-American mother from LA and a Mexican father from Mexico City. When he was a child, his mother moved the family to California. Today he is known as Professor Latinx and is an award-winning author and editor of over 50 books, including recently the comic book Pyroclast, the graphic fictions Through Fences and Labyrinths Borne, and children's books The Adventures of Chupacabra Charlie and Con Papá / With Papá. He is a National Cartoonists Society, Texas Institute of Letters and Ohio State University's ODI Hall of Fame inductee. He is founder and director of the UT Austin's Latinx Pop Lab where he holds the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities.
Review Quotes:
"She's one of those tough love grandmas, never going mushy on me and never sneaking in sideways at Maxine. She got it straight away when one Thanksgiving I told the family that I wanted to be referred to only as Max.' These lines from The Absolutely (Almost) True Adventures of Max Rodriguez offer a taste of why Aldama's new book is an absolute must read for 2024-and beyond. This beautifully written and illustrated book finally brings us a gender nonconforming teen set in a page- turning, socially radical universe. Roll call for all BIPOC and queer-identified folx; for all you weary-of-capitalist-lit, comic- book-loving, status-quo-critiquing fans of engaging writing and outsider identities of all stripes: I am happy to report that you now have a hero of your own!"
-Paloma Martínez-Cruz, author of Other Bombs and Food Fight!
"A must-read that fills the void for young, pop-culture-loving Latines who need to see themselves in the pages of fiction. Max's formative journey of discovery speaks to the hearts of every dreamer, thinker, and believer!"
-Terry Blas, author of Life Time Passes and Hotel Dare
"No one has done more to promote, celebrate, and bring critical attention to Latinx comix than Aldama, so it's no surprise that he's thrown his hat into the ring with a hilarious, literary, political, visual-textual mashup about a community of loveable eccentrics and rebels who live firmly in their time and yet point us toward a better, more compassionate future."
-Maceo Montoya, author of Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces
"Fourteen-year-old Max Rodriguez is an irrepressible 'tomboy' who finds where and how they belong through their familia. The Absolutely (Almost) True Adventures of Max Rodriguez is an engaging story that keeps the reader off-balance as Max discovers new adventures in the age-old quest to belong."
-Sergio Troncoso, author of Nobody's Pilgrims and A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son