Abuela, Don't Forget Me

Abuela, Don't Forget Me

A Finalist for the 2023 YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award. Rex Ogle’s companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humor, heartbreak, and hope into life-affirming poems that honor his grandmother’s legacy. In his award-winning memoir Free Lunch , Rex Ogle’s abuela features as a source of love and support. In this companion-in-verse, Rex captures and celebrates the powerful presence a woman he could always count on―to give him warm hugs and ear kisses, to teach him precious words in Spanish, to bring him to the library where he could take out as many books as he wanted, and to offer safety when darkness closed in. Throughout a coming of age marked by violence and dysfunction, Abuela’s red-brick house in Abilene, Texas, offered Rex the possibility of home, and Abuela herself the possibility for a better life. Abuela, Don’t Forget Me is a lyrical portrait of the transformative and towering woman who believed in Rex even when he didn’t yet know how to believe in himself. Gr 9 Up—Ogle's free verse memoir is a series of vignettes, chronologically capturing the soft and dark moments of his childhood through post-college as the shared memories with his maternal grandmother (abuela) dim because of her dementia. Ogle's readers will recognize events from his earlier works Free Lunch and Punching Bag, but this is a solid standalone reflecting on parental abuse, poverty, bullying, bigotry, coming out, trauma, and the vital impact one person can have on a life. Ogle's use of repetition, symbolism, and extended metaphor cuts sharply. The book is broken into seven sections; in the sections "To And From" and "There And Back Again," a young and then post-college Ogle reaches out to his abuela with collect calls. As a child, it's to let her know where his mom has moved them, always living with others and in poverty. When he's older, it's after living on the streets and contemplating suicide. His father kicks him out because he's gay, and he doesn't know if even his abuela will be okay with him. She accepts the calls without question, though, and "collects" him each time with unconditional love. Even if readers don't see the extended metaphors—for instance, they won't know what a collect call is—there is raw honesty in this work that is compelling. The magnitude of intergenerational relationships, deep connections, and acceptance shine in Ogle's foreword and poems, which are clearly love letters to his abuela, captured like fireflies in a jar. VERDICT A must-purchase for all YA nonfiction collections, Ogle's work speaks directly to what so many young people experience and offers them hope.—Rachel Zuffa "Ogle pays clear-eyed tribute to his maternal abuela while covering heavy topics such as child abuse, financial precarity, and racism in this searing verse memoir" ― Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The magnitude of intergenerational relationships, deep connections, and acceptance shine in Ogle’s foreword and poems, which are clearly love letters to his abuela, captured like fireflies in a jar. A must-purchase for all YA nonfiction collections, Ogle’s work speaks directly to what so many young people experience and offers them hope." ― School Library Journal (starred review) "A visceral window into a survivor’s childhood and a testament to the enduring influence of unconditional love." ― Kirkus Reviews "The humor, reflection, and heart present in these pages remind readers to cherish their bonds with their loved ones and that small moments can last a lifetime." ― Booklist Rex Ogle is the author of Free Lunch , which won the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award; Abuela Don’t Forget Me , a finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award; Punching Bag ; and the novel When We Ride . He lives in Los Angeles, California.