MahtoREADi 2026 - FREE

MahtoREADi was established with the goal of promoting literacy, fostering community, cultivating intergenerational connections and encouraging exposure to diverse cultures.

We are excited to announce the MahtoREADi 2026 book selection: The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore. In the span of a year, Dolores Moore has become a thirty-five-year-old orphan. After the funeral of the last member of her family, Dorrie has never felt more alone. That is, except for a Greek chorus of deceased relatives whose voices follow her around giving unsolicited advice and opinions. And they won’t stop talking about the deathbed promise she made to return to her birthplace in Colombia. But with a recent break-up, losing her job, and facing a daunting inheritance of an old Victorian house and two orange tabbies, there’s no way she can leave the country. However when an old flame offers to housesit, the chorus agrees that there's no room for excuses. Armed with only a scrap of a hand drawn map, Dorrie sets off to find out where—and who—she came from.

Anika Fajardo is the author of The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore, an International Latino Book Award Gold Medal winner, winner of the Friends of American Writers Literature Award, and finalist for the 2026 Minnesota Book Award. She is also the author of Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family, the award-winning middle-grade novels What If a Fish and Meet Me Halfway, as well as the forthcoming YA novel Waiting on a Miracle: A Twisted Tale. Born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota, she currently lives with her family in Minneapolis.