Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish

Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish, first published by Viking in 2018, is the second novel by award-winning author Pablo Cartaya. This middle-grade novel won the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) notable book of the year award. In 2018, Cartaya also won the Pura Belpré Author Honor for his first novel, The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora. His middle-grade novel Each Tiny Spark was awarded the 2020 Schneider Family Book Award Honor. Cartaya is an actor, speaker, and educator who has worked with Disney, Apple+, and Sesame Street on adaptations of their film and television projects. He holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is on the faculty of the MLA in Creative Writing at University of Nevada, Reno. Cartaya identifies as Cuban American and lives in Miami.

Content Warning: The book includes a character who uses a slur toward a character who has Down syndrome.

Plot Summary

Marcus Vega is a biracial 14-year-old boy who goes to Montgomery Middle School in a suburb of Philadelphia. He lives with his mother, Melissa, and his younger brother, Charlie, who is 12 and has Down syndrome. Marcus’s father, who is Puerto Rican, left Melissa and the boys 10 years ago.