Becoming Kid Quixote: A True Story of Belonging in America

A young readers' companion to the adult memoir Kid Quixotes by Stephen Haff.

Narrated by one extraordinary ten-year-old girl, this inspiring memoir tells the story of a daughter of Mexican American immigrants who finds her voice through the power of words and performance of Cervantes' Don Quixote.

When a shy girl named Sarah Sierra first joins an after-school program in her neighborhood, she never expects to travel back in time and discover the words of Miguel de Cervantes. But at Still Waters in a Storm, a teacher named Stephen and a group of kids have pushed together tables piled high with books so they can gather round to talk about and translate Cervantes' classic, Don Quixote de La Mancha.

They begin to reimagine Don Quixote--the story of an idealistic dreamer from Spain who traveled around trying to right the world's wrongs--as the story of a group of modern-day kids from immigrant families in Brooklyn.

The stories the kids write in class become a musical play--expressing the plight of today's immigrants and using Quixote as inspiration. And Sarah, once very shy, soon will play the leading role as Kid Quixote.

Perfect for fans of I Am Malala, Dear America, and The Freedom Writers Diary, this stirring true story will inspire you to imagine, to speak up, and to sing out.

Sarah Sierra is a student, writer, and actor. In 2015, at the age of six, she joined an after-school program called Still Waters in a Storm. Sarah has been a founding member of the Kid Quixotes since 2016 and plays the lead role in The Traveling Serialized Adventures of Kid Quixote. She loves to tell imaginative and creative stories that will have you believe anything is possible.Stephen Haff is the founder and director of Still Waters in a Storm, a one-room schoolhouse for Hispanic and immigrant children in Brooklyn, New York, begun in 2007. He has taught English, mathematics, and theater at universities, including the City University of New York, high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools across North America for nearly three decades. He has also made a living directing plays and writing essays for the Village Voice, American Theater, Bomb, and other publications. Stephen earned his MFA in theater studies at Yale University. He lives in Queens, New York, with his wife, children's book author Tina Schneider, and their three children.Kyla Garcia is an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. Born and raised in Hoboken, New Jersey, she discovered acting at the age of eight when she played Lady Macbeth in a children's adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy. She made her off-Broadway debut at fifteen when she played Dorothy in Oz: A Twisted Musical. Eleven years after she discovered her passion for acting, she would go on to play Lady Macbeth once again in London at the Globe Theatre, where she studied Shakespeare during her third year at Mason Gross School of the Arts. She received her BFA in acting from Rutgers University.

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