By Coral Gables Gazette staff

A Miami author with deep South Florida roots returns to Coral Gables this weekend with a new middle-grade graphic novel about a soccer team forced to reckon with more than winning.

Christina Diaz Gonzalez will appear at Books & Books in Coral Gables on Sunday, July 12, at 2 p.m. for a launch celebration of Offside, her new graphic novel illustrated by Mari Costa. The event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 1:30 p.m.; an RSVP secures general entry, though seating is not guaranteed.

When the team goes co-ed

Offside follows the Jackson Middle School soccer team in its first season fielding girls alongside boys, a change driven by one determined player, Nicky, over the objections of team captain Al, who is following his father’s lead in trying to keep the girls off the roster.

As the rivalry between Nicky and Al threatens to fracture the team, teammate Palmer starts to realize the conflict runs deeper than who gets playing time. Told in English and Spanish, the book uses the bilingual, panel-driven format Diaz Gonzalez introduced in her earlier graphic novel, Invisible.

A hometown author’s throughline

Diaz Gonzalez lives in Miami and is a University of Miami graduate. Raised in the Florida Panhandle as the Spanish-speaking child of Cuban parents, she has built a body of work that often returns to questions of identity, family, language and belonging.

Her debut novel, The Red Umbrella, drew on her parents’ journey to the United States as unaccompanied minors during the Pedro Pan exodus of the early 1960s. The book won the Nebraska Book Award and has since been used in Florida classrooms. Her later novel The Bluest Sky returned to the same fictional world a generation later, following the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

Diaz Gonzalez is an Edgar Award-winning and USA Today bestselling author. Her first graphic novel, Invisible, illustrated by Gabriela Epstein, became a USA Today and Indie bestseller and was named a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, among other honors.

Early praise for Offside

Offside has drawn strong notice ahead of its Coral Gables event. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called it “a rousing sports graphic novel” with “inventive visual storytelling.” The book has also been named a Junior Library Guild Selection and to the Kids Indie Next List for July and August.

The new book arrives as soccer attention is especially high in South Florida and across the country, with the 2026 World Cup bringing the sport even further into the national spotlight.

What to expect Sunday

The event is part book launch, part hometown appearance. Copies of Offside will be available for purchase on site, and organizers recommend arriving before doors open at 1:30 p.m. because seating is not guaranteed.

What to know

Christina Diaz Gonzalez appears at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables, on Sunday, July 12, at 2 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, with paid parking available nearby.