The Little Read Featuring Lucky Diaz & "La Guitarrista"

From the creators of "Paletero Man"—Latin Grammy–winning musician Lucky Diaz and celebrated artist Micah Player—comes a story about a tenacious girl who achieves her wildest dreams with a little help from her community and a broken guitar.

Strum! Strum! Strum! Get ready to rock with la guitarrista!

When Canta finds a guitar in the trash, she is one step closer to becoming a rock star. Even though the guitar is broken and she doesn’t know how to play, nothing can stop Canta from going after her dreams.

Readers will rock out to this empowering tale of resilience, community, the power of music—and never giving up on your dreams.

About the Author

Lucky Diaz is a bilingual, songwriting, taco-eating, multi–Latin Grammy Award–winning, Grammy-nominated and six-time Emmy-nominated musician, children’s television personality and author. His work has been praised by NPR, Billboard, People, and the New York Times. He is a Parent’s Choice Gold Award and NAPPA Award winner.

In 2020, his album "Buenos Diaz" was named an official selection of notable works for children by the American Library Association. Lucky’s debut picture book, "Paletero Man," has been celebrated with starred reviews from "Kirkus Reviews," "School Library Journal," "Publishers Weekly" and "ALA Booklist."

About The Little Read

The Little Read program supports and encourages elementary literacy development by providing meaningful interaction with a nationally recognized children’s author during a spring residency alongside a collaboratively developed multi-disciplinary curriculum for the selected book and grade level. The interaction with the author, hands-on explorations across academic subjects, reflections through writing and art, as well as seeing the book come alive in a play make this literary experience unique and transformative.

Through the generosity of donors to The Little Read program, Lenoir-Rhyne provides free copies of the selected Little Read book to students in collaboration with Hickory City Schools, Catawba County Schools, Newton-Conover City Schools and Alexander County Schools. Additional support comes from the United Arts Council of Catawba County and the North Carolina Arts Council. For some of these elementary school students, this is the first or only book that they have owned. Students and faculty from the Lenoir-Rhyne School of Education collaborate with elementary classroom teachers to develop an engaging curriculum for the book, and the LR Playmakers script and perform a play adapted from the selected book.

Program History

The Little Read began in 2006-2007 school year as a partnership between Ron and Sandra Deal and the Lenoir-Rhyne University Visiting Writer Series to honor the life of Sara Catherine Deal Temple, a local elementary education reading specialist who loved children. That first year, The Little Read reached 4th- and 5th-grade students in the Hickory City Public School System. In the 2007-2008 school year, the Catawba County School System and Newton-Conover City Schools joined. In the 2010-2011 school year the Alexander County School System joined.