Hispanic Heritage Month Reading Recommendations from The Bookworm

October 1st, 2025

National Hispanic Heritage Month, observed from September 15 to October 15, recognizes the contributions and influence of Hispanic culture on the nation’s achievements and history. Carl Erickson, event and community outreach coordinator at The Bookworm bookstore, shares his favorite reads by Latino authors for the celebration.

Loca by Alejandro Heredia

This powerful debut follows best friends Sal and Charo as they strive to hold on to their dreams in 1999 New York. Sal is a book-loving science nerd trying to grow beyond his dead-end job in a new city. Charo finds herself a mother at twenty-five, partnered with a controlling man.

When Sal finds love at a gay club one night, both his and Charo’s worlds unexpectedly open up to a vibrant social circle that pushes them to reckon with what they owe to themselves, their pasts, their futures, and each other. The novel follows one daring year in the lives of young people living at the edge of their own patience and desires.

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

For October readers seeking something spooky, Erickson recommends acclaimed horror author Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s most recent release. Graduate student Minerva worries she has plateaued in her studies and plans for her thesis to spotlight novelist Beatrice Tremblay by examining the claim that one of her novels was based on a true story.

When Minerva gains access to Tremblay’s personal diary, she suspects that the same malign force that haunted Tremblay and her mysteriously disappeared roommate still lurks at Stoneridge College. It may be the same witchcraft Minerva’s great-grandmother, Nana Alba, spoke of in tales of her youth in Mexico. An eerie multigenerational horror saga bridges past and present in this atmospheric novel.

The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s collection explores interconnectedness and what it means to be sensitive to both the world’s pain and joys. The poems examine the meanings that bend between the natural world and the human world.

Whether readers are seasoned poetry enthusiasts or looking to try something new, Limón’s accessible work offers something to cherish. While the collection glimpses loss, it is filled above all with connection and the delight of being in the world.

The Line Becomes the River by Francisco Cantú

For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood. His mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Haunted by the landscape of his youth, Cantú joins the Border Patrol.

He and his partners haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Cantú tries not to think where the stories go from there. Plagued by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantú discovers that the border has migrated with him, and now he must know the whole story.

Going behind the headlines, the memoir makes the violence the border wreaks on both sides of the line urgent and personal.

More information about these books and upcoming events for kids and adults is available at The Bookworm at 90th and Center streets in Omaha. Visit the bookstore’s website or stop by to discover these titles and more from Latino authors.

This segment originally aired on KVNO’s Arts Today as part of the “Between Two Covers” series with Carl Erickson from The Bookworm.