Old Capitol Books welcomes local journalist and author Claudia Melendez Salinas for a book signing of her young adult novel A Fighting Chance on Sunday, December 20, 3pm-5pm. A Fighting Chance, is a vivid novel for young adults about the challenges of contemporary urban life, falling in love, and dealing with the consequences of one’s actions.

In 2004, officials in Salinas decided to tackle a major budget shortfall by closing the city’s libraries, a decision that made international news. Salinas, the birthplace of beloved Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, would be the largest city west of the Mississippi without libraries. Much less publicized was the fact that the city would close its community centers, a big blow to the mostly young population in the agricultural city. Watching the adults scramble for solutions, journalist Claudia Meléndez Salinas thought: "What about the children?" A Fighting Chance, her first novel, was an attempt to bring the youth’s perspective into the picture.

Claudia is an award-winning multi-media journalist now working for the Monterey Herald. In her nearly two decades of experience covering politics, education, and immigration both in Mexico and the United States, Meléndez has always strived to have community voices take center stage in her stories.