Abuela, don't forget me

A Finalist for the 2023 YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award.

Rex OgleÕs companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humor, heartbreak, and hope into life-affirming poems that honor his grandmotherÕs legacy.

In his award-winning memoir Free Lunch, Rex OgleÕs 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, AbuelaÕs red-brick house in Abilene, Texas, offered Rex the possibility of home, and Abuela herself the possibility for a better life.

Abuela, DonÕt Forget Me is a lyrical portrait of the transformative and towering woman who believed in Rex even when he didnÕt yet know how to believe in himself.