[Many thanks to Lawrence “Larry” LaFountain-Stokes for bringing this item to our attention.] This new children’s book by Ruth Behar and Gabriel Frye-Behar (illustrated by Erika Rodríguez Medina), Picadillo for Paulina (Norton Young Readers, August 2026), is described asan accessible, delightful picture book celebration of young eaters’ connections to family, food, and culture. The tagline makes me want to read it, too: “A young girl must navigate her promise to be a vegetarian without sacrificing her family’s delicious, traditional Cuban food.” Read the full description below.
Description: Paulina has had the birthday of her dreams with the gift of a visit to an animal sanctuary, and to make it even better, her whole family gathers for a celebratory dinner at Cocina de Nana. But when Nana starts passing around her famed Cuban picadillo, Paulina turns it down. It’s made from animalitos, like the ones Paulina was visiting earlier in the day. She’d made a promise to those animals and is determined to keep it: she’s become a vegetarian. With a bit of trepidation and ultimately mucho, mucho amor, Paulina discovers what it means to practice your own beliefs while still honoring your family’s history and traditions. Picadillo for Paulina is an accessible, delightful picture book celebration of young eaters’ connections to family, food, and culture.
Ruth Behar, the Pura Belpré Award–winning author of Lucky Broken Girl, was born in Havana, Cuba, grew up in New York, and has also lived in Spain and Mexico. In addition to writing for young people, her work includes poetry, memoir, and the acclaimed travel books An Island Called Home and Traveling Heavy, which explore her return journeys to Cuba and her search for home. She was the first Latina to win a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, and other honors include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and being named a “Great Immigrant” by the Carnegie Corporation. She is an anthropology professor at the University of Michigan and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Gabriel Frye-Behar is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker and photographer. He has a BFA in Film & TV Production from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. He currently teaches in the Drama Department at NYU/Tisch. This is his first picture book, and he and his wife can’t wait to share it with their own lovely pepita and bebita.
For more information, see https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/830243/picadillo-for-paulina-by-ruth-behar-illustrated-by-erika-rodriguez-medina/9781324052418