
Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match / Marisol McDonald no combina
by Monica Brown
Marisol refuses to match, in two languages.
For you if
your kid gets told to pick one thing to be.
⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡
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$18 MSRP · Hardcover
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Marisol McDonald likes peanut butter and jelly burritos, polka dots with stripes, and her own mismatched self. Her Peruvian-Scottish-American family loves her, but everyone at school wants her to pick a lane. Told in English and Spanish, with Sara Palacios's collage-style art, it is a bright, funny story about not fitting the box someone brought for you.
Where This Book Lives
Pass. Ages 4-8. Gentle and hopeful; the pressure to match is shown through classmates and teachers, not through anything harsher. Bilingual edition. No documented concerns. Close relatives: Alma and How She Got Her Name, The Name Jar and Julian Is a Mermaid.
Related Viewing
Shares a topic or setting with this book, or several of its themes.

Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
dir. Gurinder Chadha
Same themes: Courage, Family Bonds
A Punjabi girl, a soccer ball, and a family wedding.
Jess is a British Punjabi eighteen-year-old in West London who plays soccer better than anyone in her park, and her parents want her to learn to cook a full Indian dinner. She joins a women's team behind their backs, falls for her coach, and has to find a way to be both daughters at once. It's a comedy with a wedding, an ugly sports bra and a lot of heart.
Why it’s here: The film makes a joke out of the fight between family expectations and a girl's ambition, and the girl wins on her own terms. What's punk is that Jess isn't asked to choose between her people and her game. What's pedagogical is how it handles racism, sexism and homophobia in a form a family can watch together. Pairs with Persepolis and Funny Boy.
Where to watch: Disney+; rent $3.99 on Amazon and Fandango At Home (JustWatch US)Letterboxd ↗

Harold and Maude(1971)
dir. Hal Ashby
Same themes: Courage, Family Bonds
A death-obsessed kid meets a woman who steals cars.
Harold is a death-obsessed rich kid who stages fake suicides to shock his mother. At funerals he meets Maude, a free-spirited woman nearly eighty who steals cars and replants trees. Their friendship, and then something more, turns a black comedy into a love story about being alive.
Why it’s here: The film laughs at the family, the church, the army and the psychiatrist, and takes the side of a boy who wants to feel something. What's punk is Maude, who refuses every authority and has the best lines in the film. What's pedagogical is the question it asks: what does it mean to live on purpose? Pairs with LAUGH & RESIST shelf books like Brain Droppings and Revolution for the Hell of It. Note: the romance between a teenager and a woman nearly eighty is played for comedy and puzzles some viewers, and some of Harold's fake deaths are dark.
Where to watch: Free: YouTube (with ads), Kanopy and Hoopla (library card); rent from $3.99 on Amazon, Apple TV and Fandango At Home (JustWatch US, checked 2026-10-23). Verify.Letterboxd ↗
Same pattern, different era
Different time, different place. The same thing keeps happening.
Number the Stars
Lois Lowry

The Nazis are rounding up Jews. Her family hides her best friend.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Piecing Me Together
Renée Watson

She earned the scholarship. She's tired of being the diversity program.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Different Pond
Bao Phi

A refugee dad, a fishing pole, and 4 a.m.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay
Susan Hood

A violin made from a landfill. A real orchestra.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
For the grown-up bookshelf
Same idea, written for a grown-up. Good for the adult in the room, too.
A Girl Is a Body of Water
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

A Ugandan girl asks who the women before her were.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
Christopher Alexander et al.

253 patterns for designing a place people can live in.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
Samantha Power

'Never again,' again and again.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Safiya Umoja Noble

Search isn't neutral. It's an ad business.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
