New Latino Biographies for Children

Hola La Bloga readers, take a look at these two picture book biographies about two people who love books. The first book is about Pura Belpré, the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library. The Pura Belpré Award is given in her honor. It is presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth. The second book is about Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian Nobel Prize Winner Author. My Name is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez / Me llamo Gabito: La vida de Gabriel García Márquez won the 2008 Pura Belpré Honor Book Award for Illustration.

Enjoy,
The Storyteller's Candle/ La velita de los cuentos by Lucia Gonzalez. Illustrated by Lulu Delacre.

It is the winter of 1929, and cousins Hildamar and Santiago have just moved to enormous, chilly New York from their native Puerto Rico. As Three Kings' Day approaches, Hildamar and Santiago mourn the loss of their sunny home and wonder about their future in their adopted city. But when a storyteller and librarian named Pura Belpré arrives in their classroom, the children begin to understand just what a library can mean to a community. In this fitting tribute to a remarkable woman, Lucía González and Lulu Delacre have captured the truly astounding effect that Belpré had on the city of New York.



My Name is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez / Me llamo Gabito: La vida de Gabriel García Márquez by Monica Brown. Illustrated by Raúl Colón.

Can you imagine a shipwrecked sailor living on air and seaweed for eight days? Can you imagine a trail of yellow butterflies fluttering their wings to songs of love? Once, there was a little boy named Gabito who could. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is perhaps one of the most brilliant writers of our time. He is a tremendous figure, enormously talented, and unabashedly admired. This is his story, lovingly told, for children to enjoy. Using the imagery from his novels, Monica Brown traces the novelist's life in this creative nonfiction picture book from his childhood in Colombia to today. This is an inspiring story about an inspiring life, full of imagination and beauty.