Undercover Latina

Written by Aya de León
Published by Candlewick Press

Andréa Gutierrez-Baldoquín has always been homeschooled, because her family works for an international spy organization. At fourteen it’s time for her first solo mission. She presses her hair straight and changes her name to Andrea Burke, ANN-dree-yuh, the mispronunciation she’s always had to correct.

Now she’ll have to face high school for the first time, deflecting mean girls, slogging through cafeteria food, and trying not to get distracted by the cute Latino boy. Although she’s Puerto Rican and Mexican, she’ll be undercover as a gringa, because her mission is to befriend the geeky estranged son of a white nationalist. Her organization has intel that the father is planning an act of terrorism but they don’t know the target. Andréa’s assignment requires a deep dive into the son’s interests: comic books and gaming. She’ll need to add everything she learns about superheroes to her extensive training in order to outwit the terrorist and stop the attack. . . all while remembering not to blow her family’s cover by speaking Spanish.