Path to the Stars

Reach for this book when your daughter feels the weight of 'not belonging' or when her natural curiosity for math and science is met with lukewarm encouragement. This memoir is the perfect antidote to the 'imposter syndrome' that often hits girls in middle school. It follows Sylvia Acevedo's transformation from a young girl in a traditional Mexican-American household to a rocket scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Through the lens of her experiences in the Girl Scouts, Sylvia demonstrates how small wins, like earning a badge or planning a camping trip, build the foundation for a glass-ceiling-shattering career. The narrative balances the technical excitement of engineering with the very real emotional challenges of navigating cultural expectations and systemic bias. It is an empowering, secular roadmap for any child who needs to see that their heritage and their ambitions are not in conflict, but are actually their greatest strengths.