Books as Reading Promotion Tools for Young Adults in Mexico
by Claudia Excaret Santos
Abstract: In Young Adult literature, there is a longstanding tradition of books promoting reading. This research argues that there are Young Adult books that accomplish the didactic function of promoting literature by creating a connection between the audience and unread literature through the use of first-person narrators who are readers and recognize the importance of reading, focusing on two examples from Mexico: Persona Normal (2011), by Benito Taibo, and El Libro de los Libros (2023), by Rodrigo Unda. These contrast with current governmental reading promotion strategies by prioritizing creating a connection between the audience and the books being promoted through the use of fiction and non-fiction literature.
Keywords: Reading Promotion, Books about Books, Young Adult Readers, Cultural Policies in Mexico
Books as Reading Promotion Tools for Young Adults in Mexico
In Mexico, there is a constant effort for young adults¹ to read more or, at least, a concern about it. While Paco Ignacio Taibo II, General Director of the Fondo de Cultura Económica, stated in May 2025 that there is an incalculable loss of young adult readers because young adults are focusing on simpler and more immediate forms of entertainment (Muñoz and Urrutia, 2025), Jardinéz Hernandez affirms that there is a rebirth for the interest of young adults in reading, as he could notice in the FIL Guadalajara 2025 (2025). The FIL Guadalajara is the most important book fair in Iberoamerica (FIL, 2025), which serves as a place for authors and publishing houses to present their books, connect with readers of all ages, for booktokers and booktubers to create content and connect with their audiences and other content creators, and hosts dozens of different activities that place books and reading at its core. Paco Ignacio Taibo also has a proposal for reading promotion: “25 para el 25,” which involves gifting 2.5 million books to young adults in Latin America. This strategy has been widely criticized since 2023, when he announced that he had gifted around 5 million books during López Obrador’s presidency, and there is no evidence that this made young adults read more (Ochoa, 2023).
These are just two examples of different reading promotion strategies that respond either to a problem (like Ignacio Taibo’s proposal) or to the literary community's demands and interests (as FIL GDL). Both of these have an effect in other countries in Latin America and beyond, and they serve as well-known reading promotion strategies from Mexico. Nevertheless, in this essay, I want to focus on a strategy for reading promotion that contrasts with the other two: books.
I would like to state my positionality: I approach this topic as a Mexican woman who grew up in Mexico and has been part of the children or young adult audience of these three reading promotion strategies: receiving free books from the government, attending the FIL Guadalajara (both as audience and as creator), and reading books that promote other books. These experiences have helped shape my thoughts and approaches to the three strategies. From these three, reading books that promote books has been the one that contributed the most to making me catch interest in literature.
There are books that promote books, and for Young Adult literature, this is a longstanding tradition. The Catcher in the Rye (1951), by J. D. Salinger, and The Outsiders (1967), by S.E. Hinton, are two of the first Young Adult books (Ramdarshan, 2025): both of them have main characters that are the narrators of their books, who are storytellers in their diegesis, and who are readers. And one could argue that both promote other literature. For example, The Outsiders serves as a book promoter for Gone with the Wind (1936), by Margaret Mitchell, or for Robert Frost’s poetry. In the story, the narrator, Ponyboy, and his friend Johnny approach these texts together. For Johnny, who was not an usual reader, it made him ask for literature: “He wants a copy of Gone with the Wind so I can read it to him” (Hinton, 1967, ch. 8). And for Jorge777, a Reddit user, it also worked: he read Gone with the Wind because of The Outsiders² (2018). More recently, in the second Golden Age of YA (Ramdarshan, 2025), Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), Charlie is also a reader and the storyteller. This book mentions The Catcher in the Rye and Walt Whitman's poetry. From this case, I know about Free_Swordfish2306, a Reddit user who read The Perks of Being a Wallflower and discovered The Catcher in the Rye because of it; then, he read The Catcher in the Rye in one sitting and asked for recommendations similar to this title (Free_Swordfish2306, 2025). Thus, there is a long-standing tradition of YA books that present other books as interesting for young adults. There is also a sense that readers respond to this phenomenon by reading the books featured in these YA titles. This research argues that there are Young Adult books that accomplish the didactic function of promoting literature by creating a connection between the audience and unread literature through the use of first-person narrators who are readers and recognize the importance of reading, focusing on two examples from Mexico: Persona Normal (2011), by Benito Taibo, and El Libro de los Libros (2023), by Rodrigo Unda.
I compare the work of two Mexican authors who dedicate their lives and their books to reading promotion: Benito Taibo and Rodrigo Unda. Benito Taibo was born in Mexico City in 1960. He is the director of Radio UNAM, and he reads poetry on his Instagram every Thursday. He is also the speaker of a TED talk with more than a million views on YouTube called “Reading is resisting” (Taibo, 2015). He has collaborated with many Mexican YA booktubers on their videos, such as Claudia Ramirez, Fa Orozco, “Rainbook,” and Rodrigo Unda, who is known online as “Cartas de un lector,” Letters from a reader, and who is also the author of the second book I explore in this essay.
Rodrigo Unda is a booktoker and booktuber with around half a million followers throughout his different platforms. He is the author of two books: Cuando Vi a la Muerte Prestar su Sombrero (2025) and El Libro de los Libros (2023), the latter of which I will focus on in this essay. He was born in 1998 and started his online community in 2020 (Unda, 2025).
Benito Taibo’s book, Persona Normal (2011), presents a story narrated in first person by Sebastian, a kid who lost both of his parents when he was twelve and was adopted by his uncle, Paco. Sebastian and his uncle become best friends, and through Paco, books become Sebastian’s guides in life. Throughout their adventure together, Paco teaches Sebastian about literature and how it can guide him through life's complexities.
There are around a hundred books mentioned or alluded to in this book; these recommendations occupy a section of the novel. The last section of the book is called “La biblioteca de Sebastian,” Sebastian’s library. This section reminds the reader of each book mentioned and states a bit about what some of them are about or in what part of the novel they were mentioned. Lists themselves are a reading promotion strategy.³ Nevertheless, this “list” or library, as the author calls it, is doing something for the audience that not all other lists do and that Paco Ignacio Taibo II does not do for the books he gives away: to first, have a reader promotion strategy that connects the audience with the literature being promoted. This connection and interest in the books mentioned is created when the audience reads the novel and connects with the story, the characters, and their interests.
Sebastian’s library explains that “[the] book mentions many other books. These are the books that, with the help of Uncle Paco, made Sebastian what he is today, simply a good person. Most probably, they can help you as well to become the person you want to be. [...] That is why Sebastian wants to share the books that are mentioned or alluded to in this book” (Taibo, 2011, ch. “La biblioteca de Sebastian,” para. 1-3).⁴ The narrator⁵ is aware of how reading was beneficial for Sebastian’s growing up, and they want these benefits for the book’s audience. Thus, there is an awareness of the importance of reading and the intention of reading promotion. There is also awareness of the importance of a reading promoter figure: “the books [...] with the help of uncle Paco, made Sebastian [...] a good person” (Taibo, 2011, ch. “La biblioteca de Sebastian,” para. 2). Uncle Paco reading recommendations are part of his didactic strategy: he is making a good person out of Sebastian, and he does it without imposing the books. He suggests each reading to Sebastian and respects his agency:
Books as Reading Promotion Tools for Young Adults in Mexico
In Mexico, there is a constant effort for young adults¹ to read more or, at least, a concern about it. While Paco Ignacio Taibo II, General Director of the Fondo de Cultura Económica, stated in May 2025 that there is an incalculable loss of young adult readers because young adults are focusing on simpler and more immediate forms of entertainment (Muñoz and Urrutia, 2025), Jardinéz Hernandez affirms that there is a rebirth for the interest of young adults in reading, as he could notice in the FIL Guadalajara 2025 (2025). The FIL Guadalajara is the most important book fair in Iberoamerica (FIL, 2025), which serves as a place for authors and publishing houses to present their books, connect with readers of all ages, for booktokers and booktubers to create content and connect with their audiences and other content creators, and hosts dozens of different activities that place books and reading at its core. Paco Ignacio Taibo also has a proposal for reading promotion: “25 para el 25,” which involves gifting 2.5 million books to young adults in Latin America. This strategy has been widely criticized since 2023, when he announced that he had gifted around 5 million books during López Obrador’s presidency, and there is no evidence that this made young adults read more (Ochoa, 2023).
These are just two examples of different reading promotion strategies that respond either to a problem (like Ignacio Taibo’s proposal) or to the literary community's demands and interests (as FIL GDL). Both of these have an effect in other countries in Latin America and beyond, and they serve as well-known reading promotion strategies from Mexico. Nevertheless, in this essay, I want to focus on a strategy for reading promotion that contrasts with the other two: books.
I would like to state my positionality: I approach this topic as a Mexican woman who grew up in Mexico and has been part of the children or young adult audience of these three reading promotion strategies: receiving free books from the government, attending the FIL Guadalajara (both as audience and as creator), and reading books that promote other books. These experiences have helped shape my thoughts and approaches to the three strategies. From these three, reading books that promote books has been the one that contributed the most to making me catch interest in literature.
There are books that promote books, and for Young Adult literature, this is a longstanding tradition. The Catcher in the Rye (1951), by J. D. Salinger, and The Outsiders (1967), by S.E. Hinton, are two of the first Young Adult books (Ramdarshan, 2025): both of them have main characters that are the narrators of their books, who are storytellers in their diegesis, and who are readers. And one could argue that both promote other literature. For example, The Outsiders serves as a book promoter for Gone with the Wind (1936), by Margaret Mitchell, or for Robert Frost’s poetry. In the story, the narrator, Ponyboy, and his friend Johnny approach these texts together. For Johnny, who was not an usual reader, it made him ask for literature: “He wants a copy of Gone with the Wind so I can read it to him” (Hinton, 1967, ch. 8). And for Jorge777, a Reddit user, it also worked: he read Gone with the Wind because of The Outsiders² (2018). More recently, in the second Golden Age of YA (Ramdarshan, 2025), Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), Charlie is also a reader and the storyteller. This book mentions The Catcher in the Rye and Walt Whitman's poetry. From this case, I know about Free_Swordfish2306, a Reddit user who read The Perks of Being a Wallflower and discovered The Catcher in the Rye because of it; then, he read The Catcher in the Rye in one sitting and asked for recommendations similar to this title (Free_Swordfish2306, 2025). Thus, there is a long-standing tradition of YA books that present other books as interesting for young adults. There is also a sense that readers respond to this phenomenon by reading the books featured in these YA titles. This research argues that there are Young Adult books that accomplish the didactic function of promoting literature by creating a connection between the audience and unread literature through the use of first-person narrators who are readers and recognize the importance of reading, focusing on two examples from Mexico: Persona Normal (2011), by Benito Taibo, and El Libro de los Libros (2023), by Rodrigo Unda.
I compare the work of two Mexican authors who dedicate their lives and their books to reading promotion: Benito Taibo and Rodrigo Unda. Benito Taibo was born in Mexico City in 1960. He is the director of Radio UNAM, and he reads poetry on his Instagram every Thursday. He is also the speaker of a TED talk with more than a million views on YouTube called “Reading is resisting” (Taibo, 2015). He has collaborated with many Mexican YA booktubers on their videos, such as Claudia Ramirez, Fa Orozco, “Rainbook,” and Rodrigo Unda, who is known online as “Cartas de un lector,” Letters from a reader, and who is also the author of the second book I explore in this essay.
Rodrigo Unda is a booktoker and booktuber with around half a million followers throughout his different platforms. He is the author of two books: Cuando Vi a la Muerte Prestar su Sombrero (2025) and El Libro de los Libros (2023), the latter of which I will focus on in this essay. He was born in 1998 and started his online community in 2020 (Unda, 2025).
Benito Taibo’s book, Persona Normal (2011), presents a story narrated in first person by Sebastian, a kid who lost both of his parents when he was twelve and was adopted by his uncle, Paco. Sebastian and his uncle become best friends, and through Paco, books become Sebastian’s guides in life. Throughout their adventure together, Paco teaches Sebastian about literature and how it can guide him through life's complexities.
There are around a hundred books mentioned or alluded to in this book; these recommendations occupy a section of the novel. The last section of the book is called “La biblioteca de Sebastian,” Sebastian’s library. This section reminds the reader of each book mentioned and states a bit about what some of them are about or in what part of the novel they were mentioned. Lists themselves are a reading promotion strategy.³ Nevertheless, this “list” or library, as the author calls it, is doing something for the audience that not all other lists do and that Paco Ignacio Taibo II does not do for the books he gives away: to first, have a reader promotion strategy that connects the audience with the literature being promoted. This connection and interest in the books mentioned is created when the audience reads the novel and connects with the story, the characters, and their interests.
Sebastian’s library explains that “[the] book mentions many other books. These are the books that, with the help of Uncle Paco, made Sebastian what he is today, simply a good person. Most probably, they can help you as well to become the person you want to be. [...] That is why Sebastian wants to share the books that are mentioned or alluded to in this book” (Taibo, 2011, ch. “La biblioteca de Sebastian,” para. 1-3).⁴ The narrator⁵ is aware of how reading was beneficial for Sebastian’s growing up, and they want these benefits for the book’s audience. Thus, there is an awareness of the importance of reading and the intention of reading promotion. There is also awareness of the importance of a reading promoter figure: “the books [...] with the help of uncle Paco, made Sebastian [...] a good person” (Taibo, 2011, ch. “La biblioteca de Sebastian,” para. 2). Uncle Paco reading recommendations are part of his didactic strategy: he is making a good person out of Sebastian, and he does it without imposing the books. He suggests each reading to Sebastian and respects his agency:
“What are you reading?” I ask.
“Giuseppe Ungaretti, an Italian poet born in Egypt. The Life of a Man, his collected poetry. A gem!” he says, turning the page.
I file Giuseppe Ungaretti away in my little mental box labeled ‘poets.’ (Taibo 2011 Ch. “De la Velocidad del Pensamiento”)
For example, in this extract, Sebastian learns about a new author just by watching his uncle read his book; he learns out of his own curiosity and interaction. In Persona Normal, books are the tool, but the reader promoter is just as crucial to connect the literature with the audience.
The book's didactic intention of teaching something, of helping the reader “become the person [they] want to be” (Taibo, 2011, ch. “La biblioteca de Sebastian,” para. 3) is explicit. In her essay “Didactic,” Clémentine Beauvais explains that calling a children’s book “didactic” today is considered negative and “often synonymous with moralizing, authoritarian, totalitarian, propagandist” (2021). Nevertheless, Benito Taibo does not hide the book’s didactic intentions: this book presents the audience with a literary story, but it also tries to present the audience with many other stories and to promote reading.
The reception of the book has been great; I would say this is the book that catapulted Taibo’s career as a writer. Five years later, he added Corazonadas (2016) to this series, and during the pandemic, he added a novella called Fin de los tiempos (2020). All of them were published by one of the most important publishing houses in Mexico, Editorial Planeta. There have been some negative reviews that implicitly criticize the didacticism in this book,⁶ but from the 31,385 ratings it currently has on Goodreads, only 3 percent are one or two stars. Regarding whether the book is working as a reading-promotion tool itself and bringing readers to the books it mentions, there are four lists for Sebastian’s Library on Goodreads. While there is no information on how many people save books from this list or the whole list, as a comparison, there are ninety-six lists about books mentioned in Gilmore Girls⁷ on Goodreads, and Gilmore Girls is an international phenomenon over a decade older, while Persona Normal has not even been translated to other languages. So, four may not be a bad number: it shows it is working on a smaller scale. There are also countless testimonies throughout the internet sharing that this book helped members of the audience to know or read other books, some even claim it made them fall in love with reading.⁸ Thus, even without the means to do quantitative research at the moment, I dare to state that yes, Persona Normal works as a book that promotes literature, and according to the reader-response I can sense from the reviews and comments across media platforms, it is accomplishing this.
El Libro de los Libros is also a book that promotes other books. Nevertheless, the major difference from Persona Normal is that mostly, El Libro de los Libros is a non-fiction book. It includes some short stories by the author. However, for most of its content, each chapter focuses on creating new readers or improving the audience’s reading habits. Some of the chapter titles include “Take the Book,” “Reading Habits,” “Reading Block and Other Reasons that Keep Us from reading.” Unda is the narrator of the chapters, in which he shares his experience becoming a reader and recommends some of the books that have accompanied him through his life and the tips that improved his own reading habits. He speaks directly to the audience and asks questions such as “What was the first book you read?” (Unda, 2023, ch. 1, para. 1). As Taibo, he does not hide his didactic intentions: he intends to help (and accompany) the audience through their reading journey.
Aidan Chambers stated that to promote books to children, one must first know them (1997, p. 5). In the third chapter of El Libro de los Libros, Rodrigo Unda questions the school and government's reading promotion strategies of prioritizing classic or canonical books for young adults. Most probably, he, like most Mexicans from our generation (myself included), received free books like El Periquillo Sarniento (1816), by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, during his elementary school education. It is from growing up as the audience of these strategies (the same strategies that Paco Ignacio Taibo II is still using, as most of the books in the “25 para el 25” collection are canonical or classical books) that Rodrigo Unda identifies that they do not work: “How can we expect [young readers] to find enjoyment in books […] if the readings proposed by educational institutions are not intended for them, or at the very least are not approached in a critical way that helps them appreciate each work?” (2023, chap. 3). He argues it would be better if each teacher allowed each student to select books that catch their attention instead of imposing the same books for everyone in the country, as if assuming all readers are the same. His book, on the other hand, recommends many books, but it also has some journaling sections in which the audience can interact and write their own recommendations and lists of books. In this way, he is criticizing a reading promotion strategy, but also offering a solution and practicing this solution.
Aidan Chambers, at his conference for the 25th IBBY World Congress, suggests a similar strategy to Unda’s:
The book's didactic intention of teaching something, of helping the reader “become the person [they] want to be” (Taibo, 2011, ch. “La biblioteca de Sebastian,” para. 3) is explicit. In her essay “Didactic,” Clémentine Beauvais explains that calling a children’s book “didactic” today is considered negative and “often synonymous with moralizing, authoritarian, totalitarian, propagandist” (2021). Nevertheless, Benito Taibo does not hide the book’s didactic intentions: this book presents the audience with a literary story, but it also tries to present the audience with many other stories and to promote reading.
The reception of the book has been great; I would say this is the book that catapulted Taibo’s career as a writer. Five years later, he added Corazonadas (2016) to this series, and during the pandemic, he added a novella called Fin de los tiempos (2020). All of them were published by one of the most important publishing houses in Mexico, Editorial Planeta. There have been some negative reviews that implicitly criticize the didacticism in this book,⁶ but from the 31,385 ratings it currently has on Goodreads, only 3 percent are one or two stars. Regarding whether the book is working as a reading-promotion tool itself and bringing readers to the books it mentions, there are four lists for Sebastian’s Library on Goodreads. While there is no information on how many people save books from this list or the whole list, as a comparison, there are ninety-six lists about books mentioned in Gilmore Girls⁷ on Goodreads, and Gilmore Girls is an international phenomenon over a decade older, while Persona Normal has not even been translated to other languages. So, four may not be a bad number: it shows it is working on a smaller scale. There are also countless testimonies throughout the internet sharing that this book helped members of the audience to know or read other books, some even claim it made them fall in love with reading.⁸ Thus, even without the means to do quantitative research at the moment, I dare to state that yes, Persona Normal works as a book that promotes literature, and according to the reader-response I can sense from the reviews and comments across media platforms, it is accomplishing this.
El Libro de los Libros is also a book that promotes other books. Nevertheless, the major difference from Persona Normal is that mostly, El Libro de los Libros is a non-fiction book. It includes some short stories by the author. However, for most of its content, each chapter focuses on creating new readers or improving the audience’s reading habits. Some of the chapter titles include “Take the Book,” “Reading Habits,” “Reading Block and Other Reasons that Keep Us from reading.” Unda is the narrator of the chapters, in which he shares his experience becoming a reader and recommends some of the books that have accompanied him through his life and the tips that improved his own reading habits. He speaks directly to the audience and asks questions such as “What was the first book you read?” (Unda, 2023, ch. 1, para. 1). As Taibo, he does not hide his didactic intentions: he intends to help (and accompany) the audience through their reading journey.
Aidan Chambers stated that to promote books to children, one must first know them (1997, p. 5). In the third chapter of El Libro de los Libros, Rodrigo Unda questions the school and government's reading promotion strategies of prioritizing classic or canonical books for young adults. Most probably, he, like most Mexicans from our generation (myself included), received free books like El Periquillo Sarniento (1816), by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, during his elementary school education. It is from growing up as the audience of these strategies (the same strategies that Paco Ignacio Taibo II is still using, as most of the books in the “25 para el 25” collection are canonical or classical books) that Rodrigo Unda identifies that they do not work: “How can we expect [young readers] to find enjoyment in books […] if the readings proposed by educational institutions are not intended for them, or at the very least are not approached in a critical way that helps them appreciate each work?” (2023, chap. 3). He argues it would be better if each teacher allowed each student to select books that catch their attention instead of imposing the same books for everyone in the country, as if assuming all readers are the same. His book, on the other hand, recommends many books, but it also has some journaling sections in which the audience can interact and write their own recommendations and lists of books. In this way, he is criticizing a reading promotion strategy, but also offering a solution and practicing this solution.
Aidan Chambers, at his conference for the 25th IBBY World Congress, suggests a similar strategy to Unda’s:
The best thing any government can do, if it truly wants to help improve its nation’s reading skills, is to pass legislation that not only encourages but requires schools to provide an appropriate period of time every school day during which everyone [...] reads for themselves. The books read by the students will be chosen by them, but in consultation with their teachers. (1997, p. 5)
In his strategy, Chambers considers an aspect that Unda mentions in the second chapter of his book: reading is about making and having the time to read. And providing this time may be a better reading promotion strategy from the government’s side than the ones currently being implemented through Paco Ignacio Taibo’s and criticized by Unda and Ochoa.
The reception of El Libro de los Libros has been positive. In goodreads, 75% of its 610 ratings are four and five stars. Jaime Alfonso Sandoval called it a “compass book” (Sandoval in Unda, 2023, ch. Prologue) because it guides the way to other books, and it teaches the way for other readers. Sandoval also called it “a love letter to literature and the processes around reading” (Sandoval in Unda, 2023, ch. Prologue). Through these comments, it is possible to understand that the book is working as a reading promoter on itself; that readers are connecting with it, connecting with Unda’s first-person narration and his own love for literature, and following his compass.
Both of the books have a didactic intention towards their young adult audiences⁹. And both of them have been (mostly) liked and praised by this, contrary to what Clémentine Beauvais’s essay may have led us to expect¹⁰. In her essay “Audience,” Beverly Lyon Clark states the usual duality of the way different adults and texts may approach children as an audience. She states that “if adults construct children as beings to be molded for the future, then children’s literature may be conceived as an important part of this molding—and therefore as necessarily didactic and needing to be monitored or censored (2021, p. 65); on the other hand, “others, following a Romantic construction of childhood, feel that children’s literature should provide wings for the imagination” (2021, p. 65). I consider that one of the reasons that may make both Taibo’s and Unda’s books well-received is that they approach their audience in both these ways; the books are both didactic and provide wings for the imagination. Taibo provides wings to the imagination through the novel and didacticism through the novel and the book recommendations. Unda provides wings to the imagination through the short story and didacticism through the short story and all the reading recommendations¹¹. Thus, young adults are not perceived as an audience that chooses between learning and being entertained, but as an audience that learns through entertainment, which is part of what makes both novels successful reading promoters.
As the reader-response evidence I could gather shows, readers connect with these books and often follow their recommendations. This happens because, contrary to other reading strategies used by the government in Mexico, these books prioritize connecting with the audience and explaining their connection to the books they mention. Unda speaks directly to the audience and invites them to interact with the book through asking questions or inviting them to journal in the book (Unda, 2023, ch. 1, para. 1). Taibo focuses on a novel in which the two main characters have the roles (among many others) of reading guide and learner; and if the audience connects with these characters and their story, they probably connect with the readings recommended in the story as well, as some of the reader-response evidence also shows. Both books are narrated in the first person by narrators who are readers (or are becoming readers, in Sebastian’s case) and constantly explain what reading means to them. In the case of Unda’s narrator, he states, “I’ll share with you a little bit of how I fell in love with reading” (2023, ch. 1); and in the case of Taibo’s narrator, Sebastian:
The reception of El Libro de los Libros has been positive. In goodreads, 75% of its 610 ratings are four and five stars. Jaime Alfonso Sandoval called it a “compass book” (Sandoval in Unda, 2023, ch. Prologue) because it guides the way to other books, and it teaches the way for other readers. Sandoval also called it “a love letter to literature and the processes around reading” (Sandoval in Unda, 2023, ch. Prologue). Through these comments, it is possible to understand that the book is working as a reading promoter on itself; that readers are connecting with it, connecting with Unda’s first-person narration and his own love for literature, and following his compass.
Both of the books have a didactic intention towards their young adult audiences⁹. And both of them have been (mostly) liked and praised by this, contrary to what Clémentine Beauvais’s essay may have led us to expect¹⁰. In her essay “Audience,” Beverly Lyon Clark states the usual duality of the way different adults and texts may approach children as an audience. She states that “if adults construct children as beings to be molded for the future, then children’s literature may be conceived as an important part of this molding—and therefore as necessarily didactic and needing to be monitored or censored (2021, p. 65); on the other hand, “others, following a Romantic construction of childhood, feel that children’s literature should provide wings for the imagination” (2021, p. 65). I consider that one of the reasons that may make both Taibo’s and Unda’s books well-received is that they approach their audience in both these ways; the books are both didactic and provide wings for the imagination. Taibo provides wings to the imagination through the novel and didacticism through the novel and the book recommendations. Unda provides wings to the imagination through the short story and didacticism through the short story and all the reading recommendations¹¹. Thus, young adults are not perceived as an audience that chooses between learning and being entertained, but as an audience that learns through entertainment, which is part of what makes both novels successful reading promoters.
As the reader-response evidence I could gather shows, readers connect with these books and often follow their recommendations. This happens because, contrary to other reading strategies used by the government in Mexico, these books prioritize connecting with the audience and explaining their connection to the books they mention. Unda speaks directly to the audience and invites them to interact with the book through asking questions or inviting them to journal in the book (Unda, 2023, ch. 1, para. 1). Taibo focuses on a novel in which the two main characters have the roles (among many others) of reading guide and learner; and if the audience connects with these characters and their story, they probably connect with the readings recommended in the story as well, as some of the reader-response evidence also shows. Both books are narrated in the first person by narrators who are readers (or are becoming readers, in Sebastian’s case) and constantly explain what reading means to them. In the case of Unda’s narrator, he states, “I’ll share with you a little bit of how I fell in love with reading” (2023, ch. 1); and in the case of Taibo’s narrator, Sebastian:
“It was my library. Now it’s yours. Only yours.”
I feel like crying, but I hold it in. I know how much he loves his books. My books. He was giving me imagination, passion, adventure, other people’s thoughts, their dreams, their misfortunes, their desires. Now they’re mine too. (2011, ch. “Cumpleaños Número 13”)
The audience can understand how much reading means for Sebastian and Unda because they state it; they treat books as valuable and shareable.
The books El Libro de los Libros and Persona Normal promote literature for young adults in Mexico. These contrast with current governmental reading promotion strategies by prioritizing creating a connection between the audience and the books being promoted. These connections are created through the use of fiction and non-fiction literature that presents first-person narrations of main characters who are readers and recognize the importance and benefits of reading. Both authors, Taibo and Unda, combine their didactic intentions with fiction. Reader-response evidence gathered in the forms of reviews, Reddit comments, Goodreads marks, and the prologue shows that the audience enjoys the books and, in some cases, actively follows the literary recommendations these books make.
These books highlight that promoting literature in a country like Mexico should imply more than providing access to books, especially in contemporary culture, in which access to the internet provides access to most media. These books promote literature, creating a connection between the audience, the text, and the broader literary world through the presentation of other books in their main text. As Paco presents the books to Sebastian, these books present their own audience with other works of literature not as an imposition or a duty but as a possibility. By privileging connection over imposition, Taibo and Unda present a model of reading promotion that is relational, didactic, and participatory.
The books El Libro de los Libros and Persona Normal promote literature for young adults in Mexico. These contrast with current governmental reading promotion strategies by prioritizing creating a connection between the audience and the books being promoted. These connections are created through the use of fiction and non-fiction literature that presents first-person narrations of main characters who are readers and recognize the importance and benefits of reading. Both authors, Taibo and Unda, combine their didactic intentions with fiction. Reader-response evidence gathered in the forms of reviews, Reddit comments, Goodreads marks, and the prologue shows that the audience enjoys the books and, in some cases, actively follows the literary recommendations these books make.
These books highlight that promoting literature in a country like Mexico should imply more than providing access to books, especially in contemporary culture, in which access to the internet provides access to most media. These books promote literature, creating a connection between the audience, the text, and the broader literary world through the presentation of other books in their main text. As Paco presents the books to Sebastian, these books present their own audience with other works of literature not as an imposition or a duty but as a possibility. By privileging connection over imposition, Taibo and Unda present a model of reading promotion that is relational, didactic, and participatory.
FIVE TESTIMONIES OF Persona Normal WORKING AS A READING PROMOTION TOOL (FROM THE Persona Normal GOODREADS) |
Rodrigo Unda: ¿Qué puedo decir? Es Persona Normal. Un libro que si o si te hará amar más los libros, encariñarte con personajes y soltar lágrimas hasta que se te seque el cerebro. Todo bello, todo cool. Benito T. Después de 10 años sigue haciendo que los jóvenes se adentren en el bonito mundo literario. El mejor booktuber, y eso que no tiene YouTube ❤️ |
Regina: Persona Normal es un libro que demuestra que cada canción, cada sueño, cada película vista, cada libro leído te hacen una persona diferente. |
Alejandra Restrepo B: El que ya ama los libros, reafirmará sus votos hacia ellos y el que no, corre el riesgo de caer perdidamente enamorado. |
DeniFrantos: En lo personal, me agrada que se mencionen libros que ya he leído o que me gustaría leer. Gracias a este libro, mi lista de "libros por leer" creció. Mi parte favorita de el libro es la biblioteca de Sebastián. |
Sebas: He conocido muchos títulos nuevos y ha sembrado en mí la curiosidad por leer a esos autores que tanto admira. |
Appendix 1
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Footnotes
¹ Through this essay, Young Adult will refer to the genre and young adults to the age group. Nevertheless, in some references, the authors may be speaking about “children” or “children’s literature” which, for this essay, includes young adults and Young Adult literature as well.
² I know about Jorge777 because of his easy-to-find reddit commereaders respond to this phenomenon by reading it, but I sense he is not an isolated phenomenon. ³ Lists were mentioned as a way to encourage recreational reading by Jullie Elliott in “Academic Libraries and Extracurricular Reading Promotion: “MacAdam lists three ways that academic libraries were attempting to encourage recreational reading: popular reading collections and browsing rooms, programming, and compilation of reading lists” (2007 pp. 379). It is also important to think of how lists for “best 100 books in history” or “best novels from this year” work to recommend the books they mention. Goodreads has a section called “Listopia” in which you can search and find specific book lists. Or, another clear example, lists of bestsellers. ⁴ All the Spanish-English translations in this essay were done by the author, Claudia Excaret Santos Campusano. ⁵ It is interesting to notice that the novel is narrated by Sebastian, but this last section is narrated by a third-person omniscient narrator that I, as a reader, would even dare connect to the author of the book himself, Benito Taibo. In this possibility, Benito Taibo, the author, would be respecting and explaining to us, readers, the intentions of Sebastian, a character: a beautiful fantasy for our imaginations. ⁶ For example, the young adult user Joel wrote in his goodreads review in 2016: “It’s really tough to change the way an adult thinks, and you’re definitely not going to do it with such a weak ‘plot’ made mostly of pretty phrases borrowed from other books. If, on the other hand, you want to change the way a child thinks—BRAVO! That’s easier, BUT DO IT WELL.” ⁷ This includes lists for books read by Rory, Lorelai, Jess Mariano, Gilmore Girls, divided by seasons, and all. ⁸ I have included Appendix 1 at the end of the essay with examples. I found this five examples in less than 10 minutes to show there are really easy to find, but due to the extension of this essay, I selected only the arbitrary number of five. ⁹ Both of the books are marketed towards young adults. Nevertheless, I do not want to imply this is the only possible audience for these books. I just want to state that young adults seem to be, from my position as a member of the audience, the intended reader for both of these books. ¹⁰ By this, I do not pretend to imply she is in any way incorrect, but to show that both books are doing something rather unexpected. ¹¹ The novel and short story are both included not only as “wings to the imagination” but as didactic because I recognize most texts are, in a way, didactic. They include either an implicit set of values or just the implicit possibility of learning that is always there. |
Bibliography
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Chambers, A. (1997). Cómo formar lectores. Paper presented at the 25th IBBY World Congress, Groningen, Netherlands (September 1996). Hojas de lectura, 45, 2–9. http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/ninos/sitio_lectura/noviembre/educadores.htm Chbosky, S. (1999). The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Pocket Books. Clark, B. L. (2021). Audience. In P. Nel, L. Paul & N. Christensen (Eds.), Keywords for Children’s Literature (2nd ed., pp. 20–23). New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479885435.003.0011 Elliott, J. (2007). Academic libraries and extracurricular reading promotion. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 46(3), 3. FIL Guadalajara. (2025). FIL information. https://www.fil.com.mx/info/info_fil.asp Free_Swordfish2306. (2025, December 10). Comment on r/booksuggestions. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/booksuggestions/comments/1l1ldi9/comment/mvnfevm/ Hinton, S. E. (1967). The Outsiders. Viking Press. Hojas de Lectura. (1997). Lecture delivered at the 25th IBBY World Congress, Groningen, Netherlands, September 1996. Hojas de lectura, 45, 2–9. http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/ninos/sitio_lectura/noviembre/educadores.htm Jardínez, R. (2025, December 2). Lectura en jóvenes repunta: estos son los géneros favoritos en la FIL Guadalajara. W Radio. https://wradio.com.mx/2025/12/02/lectura-en-jovenes-repunta-estos-son-los-generos-favorito s-en-la-fil-guadalajara/ Jorge777. (2025, December 10). Comment on r/books. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ary1s2/comment/egsu2mb/ Muñoz, A., & Urrutia, A. (2025, May 2). Hay una pérdida “incalculable” de lectores adolescentes; ‘nos hemos roto la cabeza para llegar a ellos’: Taibo. La Jornada. https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2025/05/02/cultura/hay-una-perdida-incalculable-de-lect ores-adolescentes-nos-hemos-roto-la-cabeza-para-llegar-a-ellos-taibo Ochoa, S. (2025). Obsequiar millones de libros no crea lectores. Letras Libres. https://letraslibres.com/cultura/gerardo-ochoa-sandy-fce-millones-libros-lectores/ Ramdarshan, M. (2025). Liminality and Young Adult. Lecture, Week 4 of Texts for Children and Young People, University of Glasgow. Salinger, J. D. (1951). The Catcher in the Rye. Little, Brown and Company. Taibo, B. (2011). Persona normal. Planeta. Taibo, B. (2015). Leer es resistir [YouTube video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTEz1yOmepQ Unda, R. (2023). El libro de los libros. Aguilar. Unda, R. (2025). About me. https://www.cartasdeunlector.com/acerca-de-mi |
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