Matt de la Peña, author portrait
© Heather Waraksa

Matt de la Peña

Matt de la Peña is the Newbery Medal–winning author of Last Stop on Market Street. He is also the author of the award-winning picture books Carmela Full of Wishes, Love, and A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis, and seven critically acclaimed young adult novels. Matt teaches creative writing and visits schools and colleges throughout the country. You can visit Matt at mattdelapena.com, or follow him on Twitter and Instagram @mattdelapena.

Carmela Full of Wishes - Read Aloud Picture Book | Brightly Storytime

Books

Flying Lessons & Other Stories
Last Stop on Market Street
Mexican WhiteBoy

Media

Carmela Full of Wishes - Read Aloud Picture Book | Brightly Storytime

Register for the 2026 Penguin Random House First-Year Experience® Conference Author Events!

Penguin Random House Author Events at the 45th Annual First-Year Experience® Conference February 15-18, 2026 Seattle, Washington Hyatt Regency Seattle Click Here to RSVP A complimentary meal and a limited number of books will be available to attendees. Each event will also be followed by an author signing. Interested in hosting one of these authors at

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What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2025-26

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2025-26 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 284 programs and their title selections from publicly available sources, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2025-26. We will continue to update this

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2026 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2026! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about the environment, current events, history, public health, science, social justice, student success, and technology, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through

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Hope Wins Community Book Club

By Courtney Walker, Campus Librarian at Skaggs Elementary School in Plano ISD When times are tough, we must continue to find and spread HOPE. I am the campus librarian at Skaggs Elementary School in Plano ISD, and this year I hosted my campus’ first after school book club. When selecting a book, I knew that

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