Andrea Beatriz Arango

Iveliz Explains It All, a middle-grade novel told in verse with illustrations by Alyssa Bermudez, was Andrea Beatriz Arango's first book, published by Random House in September 2022. It reads as the diary of a twelve-year-old in seventh grade who is living with anxiety and depression, and whose grandmother, her memory going to Alzheimer's, moves in after Hurricane María wrecks her house in Puerto Rico and then questions the medication Iveliz has been prescribed. It took a Newbery Honor in 2023 and an honour in middle-grade fiction from the Golden Kite awards. Arango grew up in Puerto Rico and became a teacher there, spent about a decade in public schools and non-profits on the mainland, and has gone back to the island since. Something Like Home, in which a girl living at her aunt's house is set on getting home to her parents, followed in 2023 and took a Pura Belpré Honor. It's All or Nothing, Vale came in 2025.