Falling Short

Ernesto Cisneros is the author of two middle grade novels. His first, Efrén Divided, about the challenges a boy faces after his beloved mother is deported, won the ALA’s Pura Belpré Medal, The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ Crystal Kite Award, the California Independent Booksellers Alliance’s Golden Poppy Award, and two International Latino Book Awards. Falling Short is his second novel. Like Efrén Divided, this novel focuses on family, friendships, and the struggles of young, Latino protagonists.

Cisneros works at Gonzalo Felicitas Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School, a STEAM school in Santa Ana, California, where he teaches middle school language arts. As Cisneros explains in an interview with the Voice of the OC, he grew up in Santa Ana, playing basketball in a local park and feeling as if everyone else was better at things than him. He loved basketball but was terrible at it, and he was always searching for ways to make his parents proud of him. Watching his students struggle with feelings of inadequacy inspired him to draw on his own experiences to write Falling Short; he hoped to inspire his students to see their greatness. As Cisneros says in the interview, “When everything is said and done, we all feel like we ‘fall short’” (Gonzales, Ron. “Santa Ana’s Ernesto Cisneros Pulls From Personal Experience for His Second Novel.” Voice of the OC, 25 March 2022). 

In Falling Short, Isaac and Marco attend the same school that Cisneros teaches at in real life. He used Mendez School as a setting because he grew up without seeing many positive representations of Latino people in the media, and he wants students in this predominantly Latino school to feel represented positively. On his website, Cisneros notes that his goal as a writer is to “[provide] today’s youth with an honest depiction of characters with whom they can identify” (“Author Bio.” Ernesto Cisneros).