De la Peña, << day lah PAY nyah >> Matt (1973-…), is an American author of books for children and young adults. He won the 2016 Newbery Medal for Last Stop on Market Street (2015). De la Peña was the first Hispanic American author to win the medal. The book tells the story of an African American boy who rides the city bus with his grandmother and wonders why his family doesn’t own a car. The book was illustrated by Christian Robinson. The Newbery Medal is awarded annually to an outstanding children’s book by an American.
De la Peña is known for his books that explore class and racial identity. His first book, Ball Don’t Lie (2005), tells the story of Sticky, a troubled white teenager from a foster home. He is a talented basketball player, but he feels like he is living in a world in which he doesn’t belong. The book was later made into a motion picture, also called Ball Don’t Lie (2008).
De la Peña’s other books include Mexican WhiteBoy (2008); We Were Here (2009); I Will Save You (2010); and The Living (2013) and its sequel, The Hunted (2015). De la Peña wrote the picture books A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis (illustrated by Kadir Nelson, 2011), Milo Imagines the World (illustrated by Christian Robinson, 2021), and Patchwork (illustrated by Corinna Luyken, 2022). He also wrote two volumes in the popular “Infinity Ring” series of young adult science-fiction adventure books, Curse of the Ancients (2013) and Eternity (2014). For the “DC Icons” series, he wrote Superman: Dawnbreaker (2019), about a teenage Clark Kent. Kent faces the challenges of today’s world to uncover the reason for mysterious disappearances in his hometown.
Mathew de la Peña was born on Feb. 9, 1973, in National City, California. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he attended school on a full basketball scholarship. De la Peña also received a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from San Diego State University, in California. He teaches creative writing at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
