The author/publisher, who will be at the Latino Book & Family Festival, has also made her dreams come true as a TV anchor
By Melanie Slone
“Why doesn’t anyone on TV look like me?” Leticia Ordaz asked her parents. “I was that five-year-old little Latina girl who grew up in a small town in California.”
Leticia’s parents, farmworkers from Michoacán, Mexico, watched NBC News in Sacramento. “My parents used the news as kind of an introduction to learning English,” she says.
Her mom would tell her, “Don’t worry, one day when you grow up, you’re going to go to college and be one of those girls on the news. You too can have this dream.”
Today, Leticia is an Emmy-winning anchor and reporter with KCRA 3 and My58 in Sacramento and the author of a book called That Girl on TV Could Be Me, among other award-winning children’s stories.
Publishing Bilingual Books
“I didn’t exactly know that I wanted to write children’s books or get into publishing until I became a mother,” says Leticia.
She wanted her children to learn Spanish, like she had. Looking for bilingual books for her kids, she realized “there weren’t many quality books out there.” One day, her husband told her, “Don’t just talk about it. Create it.”
Leticia’s first bilingual children’s book, The Adventures of Mr. Macaw, was based on an adventure with her two sons. “They had this kite that they said was magical. They named him Mr. Macaw.” The family took Mr. Macaw on trips to Mexico, and on one trip, the kite, Mr. Macaw, blew away in a storm.
“It was very devastating for them,” she says. “But what was so cool was that the whole village came together as they were filling sandbags and boarding up the windows. They stopped what they were doing to help these two little boys.”
For Leticia, it was a message of inspiration that a village facing a hurricane would take the time to support two young children. “I wanted to tell a story about how the Mexican village came together to help my children.”
Taking shelter at a children’s center, Leticia used crayons to write The Adventures of Mr. Macaw. Thankfully, there was no major damage from the storm, and Leticia had time to finish writing the story, in English and Spanish.
A lot of publishers loved it, she says, but they didn’t agree that it should be published in Spanish. “They didn’t feel like there was a market for it. They actually said, ‘Do you really want to publish this? Because Latinos don’t read.’”
She didn’t give up, instead launching her own company, Cielito Lindo Books, and publishing the story herself.
The Adventures of Mr. Macaw is a four-time award winner at the International Latino Book Awards. During the pandemic, Leticia couldn’t promote it by making appearances. That didn’t stop her. “Through the Zoom world, I was able to bring my book to schools, hospitals, and communities around the world.”
She says children would be in tears talking about the book. “Those kids look like me,” they said. “And you could tell that they felt very important…And for the kids who weren’t Latino, they thought it was really cool to see someone that didn’t look like them in a book.” She knew she had to write more titles.
Leticia didn’t do it alone. Having found inspiration in others, like Patty Rodriguez, who launched Lil’ Libros, she says it’s important to support each other. When she talks with her mentors, she makes sure to read their books and share her experience with them as well. “I think those kinds of partnerships are very important…I feel like we all have to be willing to support each other.”
She also helps migrant children in Los Angeles County write their stories. “It’s great for other kids to see themselves as writers and to be able to graduate high school knowing that they’re now published authors,” she says.
Literacy Movement
If people think their kids don’t know how to read, it’s probably because they haven’t found the right books, says Leticia. “Let your kids pick the books they want to pick.”
She believes books should be culturally relevant. “When kids see themselves in books, they’re more likely to pick it up and read it… Don’t present me a book in Spanish and just assume that I’m going to want to read it. Does it reflect that community…or did you just get this book translated and think it’s somehow going to fit in a box?”
Leticia promotes giveaways and teams up with organizations to get books into homes. “It’s about creating literacy in our community, getting kids excited about reading, and in turn, their grades improve, and they’re doing better in school. It’s a literacy movement for me.”
She believes the Latino community loves reading, as the Latino Book & Family Festivals have shown. “Every author at the Sacramento Festival sold out of books,” she says. “Our community is hungry for these books. But we’re looking for quality books.”
Cielito Lindo has distributed more than 200,000 books to communities worldwide. “It’s not so much about the dollar amount,” Leticia says. “It’s about getting these books into homes that need them.”
A Family Mission
Leticia’s sons Maxton, 13, and Bronx, 10, are following in her footsteps. First, they were characters in the Adventures of Mr. Macaw. Now, “They love going with me to events and handing out free books to kids.”
When he was only five, Bronx was being bullied at school, so he created a story where kids would be more kind, Super Peanut and the Big Bully, which won three medals at the International Latino Book Awards. Schools have used it for anti-bullying lessons. “His whole goal was to start a kindness movement, and I think that’s what he’s done.”
Maxton was Leticia’s inspiration for The Carousel King and the Space Mission. He then worked on a sensory version of the story with a rocket that goes up and a little workshop that opens. “He wrote the version for the board book and helped create all the parts.” Maxton is now taking it to schools and is being asked to be a keynote speaker at events.
What It Takes to Succeed
Dream big and believe in yourselves, says Leticia. “My parents were farmworkers… they never told me that I couldn’t do something,” she says.
Leticia pursued a degree in journalism and communication at Cal State Sacramento, where she interned at the station she grew up watching as a kid, working with anchors Lois Hart and Dave Walker. “It was really cool for me to have watched someone as a kid and then be able to work alongside these legends…they still support me to this day.”
After graduating, she worked her way back to Sacramento. “Often, we have an idea stuck in our head” she says, “but we’re afraid to reveal our dreams because we think we’ll be laughed at. We think that it’s not achievable…Whatever you want to be, just throwing it out there into existence and working hard to make it a reality will help your dreams come true.”
Leticia encourages college. “Find a support system that can get you there. I’m not saying that it’s easy for dreams to come true, but with determination, with grit, with resilience, you can make anything happen…Don’t undermine yourself and think that you can’t do it, that you’re not smart enough. We’re all smart enough, and we all have what it takes to succeed.”
Come meet Leticia Ordaz, a keynote speaker at the April 5th Latino Book & Family Festival at MiraCosta College.
