Children’s Book ‘Yefferson, Actually’ Earns State Honor | Schools

Katherine Trejo of Historic Filipinotown was helping her nephew, Yefferson, with his schoolwork when she noticed his name misspelled on his homework folder. 

When they finished, Trejo wrote a note to Yefferson’s teachers explaining that his name is spelled with a Y, not a J, and asked for the boy’s name to be corrected.

The note worked and inspired a book. 

Trejo co-wrote “Yefferson, Actually,” an English-Spanish children’s picture book with Eagle Rock resident Scott Martin-Rowe, her former high school teacher.

The book “honors children as unique individuals and teaches children to advocate for themselves,” Trejo said.

“Yefferson, Actually” is a 2025-2026 nominee for the California Young Reader Medal. 

The story centers on a Salvadoran boy named Yefferson, who, on his first day at a new school, finds everyone mispronouncing his name as Jefferson. At dinner, he tells his family how uncomfortable it made him feel. Encouraged by his family, he returns to school and addresses the issue.

“In the book, he not only corrects his peers, he corrects adults,” Trejo said, something that not all children feel they can do. 

Yet, Yefferson does so successfully. 

“Essentially, it’s a book about being misunderstood,” Martin-Rowe said.

Trejo, who works at a nonprofit focused on educational policy, approached Martin-Rowe, a former teacher librarian at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex and now an English and journalism teacher at Eagle Rock High School, to collaborate on the book.

“I had never really imagined writing a children’s book,” Martin-Rowe said. 

Before putting pen to paper, Trejo and Martin-Rowe immersed themselves in children’s literature. Trejo read all the children’s books she could while Martin-Rowe looked at his kids’ books. 

“What are the books my kids want to read over and over?” he asked himself. “It was a really fun process.”

The book sprinkles in terms customarily used in the Salvadorian lexicon and incorporates things such as traditional foods in the illustrations. 

They worked on the book for a year and then spent another year looking for a publisher.

The book has been recognized with awards and appeared on lists of top children’s books continuously since its release in 2021, Marin-Rowe said. 

“It really has a life of its own,” he said.