My Name is Gabriela: The Life of Gabriela Mistral/Me llamo Gabriela: La vida de Gabriela Mistral.

Veronica Covington, Univ. of Texas, Austin -- Críticas, 9/15/2005

Gr 1-5–After winning the Américas Award for her picture book biography of the queen of salsa, My Name is Celia/Me llamo Celia, Brown presents a beautiful bilingual biography of Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral. In 1945, Mistral became the first Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. This book honors the poet by describing her life as a teacher and writer in lovely imagery and poetic prose. Readers will find out about Mistral’s coming of age and about her travels throughout the world sharing her stories and poems. Brown writes in first person and uses an informal tone so that readers get the impression that Mistral is speaking directly to them. Both the English and Spanish texts are excellent and easily understood. Parra’s illustrations are eye-catching, especially the one that depicts Mistral’s visit to Mexico. The book ends with a short biography. Recommended for public and elementary school libraries.