SATA
ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: MAMÁ’S PANZA
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.isabelinpieces.com
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 348
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in CA; married Fernando Flores, 2003; children: yes.
EDUCATION:California State University, San Bernadino, B.A., M.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Orange Monkey Publishing, events coordinator; Tin Cannon literary journal, assistant editor; Sierra Nevada University, Incline Village, NV, on staff. Has also worked as an adjunct instructor in English in community colleges, a high school English teacher, and an elementary school library tech.
MEMBER:PoetrIE (Southern CA literary arts organization).
AWARDS:William C. Morris Debut Award, Amelia Bloomer listee, American Library Association (ALA), ALA/YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young-Adult Readers and Best Fiction for Young Adults selections, Patterson Prize for Books for Young People, and Tomás Rivera Book Award for Older Children, California Book Award Gold Medal, all 2015, all for Gabi, a Girl in Pieces; nonfiction award, Boston Globe/Horn Book, 2018, for Photographic.
WRITINGS
Contributor of poetry to print and online periodicals, including Acentosreview.com, Badlands, Pacific Review, and Xicanopoetrydaily.com.
SIDELIGHTS
Isabel Quintero is a writer of books for young adult and middle-grade readers. She holds both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from California State University, San Bernardino, but Quintero admitted on her personal website that she knew she wanted to be a writer since she was in elementary school. In addition to writing, Quintero has worked as an English teacher, an events coordinator, and an assistant editor of the Tin Cannon literary journal. Her books for younger readers have appeared on best reading lists and won numerous awards.
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces is Quintero’s first book. This young adult novel tells the story of the title character, a high schooler and aspiring poet. Gabi deals with her father’s drug addiction, her close friend’s pregnancy, and her own anxiety about her future. The book was well-received, winning awards, including the William C. Morris Debut Award, the Patterson Prize for Books for Young People, the Tomás Rivera Book Award for Older Children, and the California Book Award Gold Medal.
In an interview with a contributor to the School Library Journal website, Quintero stated, “I grew up watching telenovelas—they’re usually overly dramatic with situations that aren’t plausible. Gabi’s life, on the other hand, is very real. All of the drama in her life is drama that I [or my friends] experienced in high school. Adults forget what it is like to be a teen. That on their way to becoming adults, they are often faced with [terrifying] situations like rape, abortion, and drug abuse—situations they don’t know how to react or respond to.” Quintero continued, “I often hear adults say, ‘In my day young women/men didn’t behave this way or that way.’ And I have to laugh, because, yes, they did!” Providing more insight into her writing process, Quintero told Jackie Rhodes, writer on the Los Angeles Review of Book website, “When I started writing Gabi, it was during a moment of crisis—I had just failed as a high school teacher and needed to look closely at myself and who I really was. I thought about those experiences, about expectations of me as a woman, as a Chicana, as a wife, a daughter of immigrants, and a lot of it made me angry. I thought about the conversations I had had with other women my age and how they had gone through similar things and how we had felt alone, and how we weren’t alone.” Quintero added, “At the same time, I was taking a Young Adult Literature class at CSUSB, and Gabi just started talking to me. This was in 2007. The name Gabi just felt right. It didn’t mean anything extra special, except that I went through a list of names and Gabriela was the most fitting.”
Ugly Cat & Pablo is an illustrated book that tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a feline called Ugly Cat and a mouse named Pablo. In a mix of English and Spanish, the two engage in lively banter, as they rob pallets from local food carts. A writer in Kirkus Reviews remarked, “Both chapter-book and reluctant readers will go for this one like cats to paletas.” “Short chapters and the bold, unique text … will be sure to keep the attention of young readers,” predicted Selenia Paz in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly critic asserted, “Ugly Cat and Pablo have abundant chemistry.”
The two characters return in Ugly Cat & Pablo and the Missing Brother. In this volume they search for Ugly Cat’s brother, Tamarindo. A Kirkus Reviews critic asserted, “There is everything to like in this addition to the series.”
Quintero collaborated with illustrator Zeke Pena on the graphic novel Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide. The book focuses on the celebrated Mexican photographer, Iturbide. Regarding her hopes for readers of the book, Quintero told Sarah Waldorf, contributor to the Iris website, “I hope the reader feels transported into her photographs. Zeke did an amazing job of bringing her photographs to life. I think the book is really immersive and readers will feel as though they’ve gone through her life and to these places with her.”
Della Farrell, reviewer in School Library Journal, commented, “Quintero and Pena have set a new standard in artist biographies.” Farrell called the book “a must for teen collections.” Xpress Reviews writer Sonnet Ireland said it should be “recommended to anyone interested in fine art photography.” “Young adult readers will enjoy this biography and perhaps be inspired in many different ways,” predicted Tom Malinowski in Voice of Youth Advocates.
Quintero again collaborated with Pena on the 2019 book My Papi Has a Motorcycle. In this volume a girl observes changes in her community during her nightly motorcycle rides with her dad. A Kirkus Reviews critic suggested, “Quintero’s homage to her papi and her hometown creates a vivid landscape that weaves in and out of her little-girl memory.” “The love between the girl and her father is palpable,” noted a contributor to Publishers Weekly.
(open new)Mamá’s Panza is set up around a mother’s belly representing the love for her children. A young boy narrator rubs his mother’s belly and wonders how he and the mother can love each other so much. As the mother watches her son play with her belly and bring him joy, she also claims to love her belly.
A Kirkus Reviews contributor observed that the picture book “shows readers the strength of a woman’s love for her child.” The same critic called Mamá’s Panza “a sweet, body-positive celebration of motherhood and its physical expression.” Booklist contributor Ana Menchaca commented that “the mother’s and son’s facial expressions successfully convey love and tenderness.”(close new)
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 15, 2014, Daniel Kraus, review of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces, p. 62; March 1, 2017, Selenia Paz, review of Ugly Cat & Pablo, p. 71; February 15, 2024, Ana Menchaca, review of Mamá’s Panza, p. 58.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, January 1, 2015, Alaine Martaus, review of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces, p. 274.
Horn Book, June 15, 2018, Katie Bircher, author interview; January 1, 2019, review of Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide, p. 18.
Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2014, review of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces; February 15, 2017, review of Ugly Cat & Pablo; May 15, 2018, review of Ugly Cat & Pablo and the Missing Brother; April 1, 2019, review of My Papi Has a Motorcycle; January 1, 2024, review of Mamá’s Panza.
Publishers Weekly, September 29, 2014, review of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces, p. 103; April 24, 2017, review of Ugly Cat & Pablo, p. 93; March 11, 2019, review of My Papi Has a Motorcycle, p. 50.
School Library Journal, August 1, 2014, Shelley Diaz, review of Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, p. 104; August 12, 2014, author interview; May 1, 2017, Stacy Dillon, review of Ugly Cat & Pablo, p. 75; February 1, 2018, Della Farrell, review of Photographic, p. 125.
Voice of Youth Advocates, October 1, 2014, Heather Christensen, review of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces, p. 73; February 1, 2018, Tom Malinowski, review of Photographic, p. 74.
Xpress Reviews, February 16, 2018, Sonnet Ireland, review of Photographic.
ONLINE
Author Village, https://theauthorvillage.com/ (June 2, 2024), author profile.
Cinco Puntos Press website, https://www.cincopuntos.com/ (June 11, 2019), author profile.
Iris, https://blogs.getty.edu/ (November 21, 2017), Sarah Waldorf, author interview.
Isabel Quintero website, http://laisabelquintero.com (June 2, 2024).
Las Musas, https://www.lasmusasbooks.com/ (June 2, 2024), author profile.
Los Angeles Public Library website, https://www.lapl.org/ (September 23, 2023), Salvadora Sosa Prieto, author profile.
Los Angeles Review of Books, https://lareviewofbooks.org/ (February 1, 2017), Jackie Rhodes, author interview.
Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators website, https://www.scbwi.org/ (June 2, 2024), author profile.
Isabel Quintero is an award-winning writer and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. She proudly lives and writes in the Inland Empire of Southern California. Gabi, A Girl in Pieces (Cinco Puntos Press), her first YA novel, was the recipient of multiple awards including the Tomas Rivera Award, California Book Award Gold Medal, and the Morris Award for Debut YA Novel. She is the author of the chapter books, Ugly Cat and Pablo (Scholastic, Inc.) and Ugly Cat and Pablo and the Missing Brother (Scholastic, Inc.). In 2016 Isabel was commissioned by The J. Paul Getty Museum to write a non-fiction YA graphic biography, Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (Getty Publications), which went on to be awarded the Boston Globe Horn Book Award. Most recently, My Papi Has a Motorcycle (Kokila), her most recent book, earned the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Award, Pura Belpré Illustration Honor Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, and many other recognitions. Her books have garnered many starred reviews and have been included in multiple best of lists including NPR’s yearly Book Concierge List, NYPL’s best of list, and the New York Times Best Books list.
For the last twenty-three years Isabel has worked in education in various capacities. She’s worked as a teacher’s aid in a school for children with special needs, as an AVID tutor, an elementary school library tech, a substitute teacher, an adjunct instructor at several community colleges, and even briefly as a high school English teacher. She’s currently on staff for Sierra Nevada University’s Creative Writing in Children’s Literature MFA. If she wasn’t writing books for children, she’d probably be working in education. She earned her B.A. in English with a concentration in literature and her M.A. in English Composition from California State University, San Bernardino. Isabel truly believes that education and literature can be used to create a more just world.
Being the daughter of Mexican immigrants has taught Isabel resiliency and perseverance. It has also taught her that there are multiple ways of experiencing and living in America. In her work, she aims to write characters and stories that reflect those varying realties that perhaps hold up a mirror to the young people who read her work. Ultimately, though, she just wants to right good stories that her readers can get lost in.
Isabel spends time with her family, her partner, her beautiful child, and her friends doing things like hiking, watching movies, laughing, and cooking.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A WRITER?
I’ve been a writer since I was in elementary school. I knew I was writing little poems in first and second grade, but the first story I remember writing was in the fifth grade. My teacher, Mrs. Laing, asked us to write a scary story during Halloween and my story was about two girls who got lost in a cemetery and were captured by some monster. There was time travel involved and it had an urban legend flair. That was the first time I finished a whole story and the first time I realized how much I loved writing.
ARE YOU GABI?
Yes and no. This is a question I get a lot. In Gabi, a Girl in Pieces, the description of Gabi and where she is from (a made up city Santa Maria de los Rosales) is based on me and where I am from, the IE. However, the book is a work of fiction. And I really have to stress that because it is not memoir. Often time writers write about what they know and this is the case here. With Gabi, I wanted to write about a young Chicana who grew up like me (nerdy daughter of Mexican immigrants, strict mother, father who used drugs) because when I was a teen I felt alone in my experiences. I didn’t think that anyone else knew what it felt like to have a parent who was a drug user, or addict. But as I got older I learned that I was far from being alone in that, along with other issues. So, I took some of my life and turned it into fiction. What does that mean? Well, that while some things are based on reality (Gabi going away to college, for example) it doesn’t mean that they really happened (I stayed home and went to a local university).
ARE YOU DAISY?
See above.
ANY TIPS FOR WRITERS?
Read a lot and write a lot. I didn’t go to school to be a writer and so I don’t have any deep or technical advice. Most of what I’ve learned is from reading stories and breaking the apart to see how they’re put together. I’ve also learned from friends with whom I was in a creative writing group with and by asking questions.
Writing is a craft and we only get better if we work at it constantly and if we let ourselves grow. That means, if you’re a writer learn to take critiques about your work in a way that is beneficial for your work. Sure, it may sting when someone tells you that your plot is confusing, however, learning that about your work will only help you write a better story in the end.
Don’t give up and don’t concern yourself (too much) with trends. Write things that interest you and are meaningful for you.
Meet Author Isabel QuinteroSalvadora Sosa Prieto, Administrative Clerk, Multilingual Collections, Saturday, September 23, 2023
Author Isabel Quintero and her novel, Photographic
Isabel Quintero is an award-winning writer from the Inland Empire of Southern California. She has authored: Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, Ugly Cat and Pablo and Ugly Cat and Pablo and the Missing Brother, Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide, and My Papi Has a Motorcycle. Forthcoming from Kokila, Martinez Paranormal Services, Golden State, and Mama’s Panza, as well as a short story in the 2023 Candlewick anthology Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories that Smash Mental Health Stereotypes. Her books have garnered many starred reviews and awards and have been included in multiple best-of lists. When she’s not writing, she enjoys hiking, laughing, and cooking with her partner and child.
Isabel’s most recent books are about going on adventures. In My Papi Has a Motorcycle, Daisy Ramona, a young girl, takes a ride with her dad on the back of his motorcycle. She loves the smell of the gas, the rumble of the engine, the freedom, and all of the things that come with a motorcycle. In Photographic, Isabel wrote about the life of a Mexican photographer, Graciela Iturbide, a woman who set out to succeed in the art world, a world that has never made it easy for women. Both books are very much about dreaming and celebration.
Isabel believes strongly that she is just trying to tell a good story, “and when you tell a good story, a story that is honest, whether it be fiction or nonfiction, readers gravitate to that, despite what communities they are a part of. In my work, I don't try to teach anyone what being Chicana or Latine or the daughter of immigrants. I simply write about people—the type of people I know and grew up with. And for some folks, that resonates, and for others, it doesn’t. Especially as a writer for children, I try not to moralize or teach. Rather, I want to engage and be in conversation with the folks who give my work a chance.” Furthermore, Quintero shared that having events like the Los Angeles Libros Festival makes a huge difference because It lets people know that the library is thinking about all the people it serves, not just one certain population.
Isabel is currently working on a middle-grade series, Martinez Paranormal Services, which follows a young girl whose parents are paranormal investigators. She is also developing a young adult novel titled Golden State, which centers around a young woman embarking on a road trip to meet her previously unknown brother. She also has a picture book scheduled for release next year titled Mama’s Panza, illustrated by Iliana Galvez. This book explores the relationship between a toddler and their mother, focusing on the changes in the mother’s body after childbirth. Isabel is excited for readers to experience her upcoming creations.
2024 Madrina Musa
Picture
Credit: Charles Lenida
ISABEL QUINTERO
Learn more about your mentor:
Preferred Age Category: Picture Books
Preferred Genre or Sub-Genres: I really have no preference in genre--a good story is a good story regardless of genre.
As a mentor I love working on: Finding the voice and truth in a story.
Areas of expertise/strengths as a mentor: I'm good at asking questions and talking through problems in a story.
Areas of weakness as a mentor: Answering questions about querying and getting an agent.
Picture
Picture
Picture
ABOUT ISABEL...
Isabel Quintero is an award-winning writer and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. She proudly lives and writes in the Inland Empire of Southern California. Isabel has authored: Gabi, A Girl in Pieces (Cinco Puntos Press), her first YA novel, the chapter books, Ugly Cat and Pablo (Scholastic, Inc.) and Ugly Cat and Pablo and the Missing Brother (Scholastic, Inc.), the graphic novel Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (Getty Publications), and the picture book My Papi Has a Motorcycle (Kokila). Forthcoming she has: Golden State (YA), Martinez Paranormal Services (MG trilogy), and Mama’s Panza (PB illustrated by Iliana Galvez). All books from Kokila.
Her work has been included in several anthologies including The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat and Fierce and Come On In: 15 Stories About Immigration and Finding Home. Forthcoming from Kokila: Martinez Paranormal Services (MG trilogy), Golden State (YA novel), and Mama’s Panza (Picture Book), as well as a short story in the 2023 Candlewick anthology Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories that Smash Mental Health Stereotypes. In addition to several awards, her books have garnered many starred reviews and have been included in multiple best of lists including NPR’s yearly Book Concierge List, NYPL’s best of list, and the New York Times Best Books list. When she’s not writing she enjoys hiking, laughing, and cooking with her partner and beautiful child.
https://www.isabelinpieces.com/
Isabel Quintero (she/her)
“Visiting schools is one of my favorite ways to engage with the curiosity of others! I want students to know that their questions, their experiences, and their imagination is fuel for storytelling, and that no matter how weird or how marginalized they may feel their voice and stories matter.”
Biography
Isabel Quintero is an award-winning writer and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. She proudly lives and writes in the Inland Empire of Southern California. Gabi, A Girl in Pieces (Cinco Puntos Press), her first YA novel, was the recipient of multiple awards including the Tomas Rivera Award, California Book Award Gold Medal, and the Morris Award for Debut YA Novel. She is the author of the chapter books, Ugly Cat and Pablo (Scholastic, Inc.) and Ugly Cat and Pablo and the Missing Brother (Scholastic, Inc.). In 2016 Isabel was commissioned by The J. Paul Getty Museum to write a non-fiction YA graphic biography, Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (Getty Publications), which went on to be awarded the Boston Globe Horn Book Award. Most recently, My Papi Has a Motorcycle (Kokila), her most recent book, earned the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Award, Pura Belpré Illustration Honor Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, and many other recognitions. Her books have garnered many starred reviews and have been included in multiple best of lists including NPR’s yearly Book Concierge List, NYPL’s best of list, and the New York Times Best Books list.
For the last twenty-three years Isabel has worked in education in various capacities. She’s worked as a teacher’s aid in a school for children with special needs, as an AVID tutor, an elementary school library tech, a substitute teacher, an adjunct instructor at several community colleges, and even briefly as a high school English teacher. She’s currently on staff for Sierra Nevada University’s Creative Writing in Children’s Literature MFA. If she wasn’t writing books for children, she’d probably be working in education. She earned her B.A. in English with a concentration in literature and her M.A. in English Composition from California State University, San Bernardino. Isabel truly believes that education and literature can be used to create a more just world.
Being the daughter of Mexican immigrants has taught Isabel resiliency and perseverance. It has also taught her that there are multiple ways of experiencing and living in America. In her work, she aims to write characters and stories that reflect those varying realties that perhaps hold up a mirror to the young people who read her work. Ultimately, though, she just wants to right good stories that her readers can get lost in.
Isabel spends time with her family, her partner, her beautiful child, and her friends doing things like hiking, watching movies, laughing, and cooking.
About
Isabel Quintero is an award-winning writer and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. She proudly lives and writes in the Inland Empire of Southern California. Isabel has authored: Gabi, A Girl in Pieces (Cinco Puntos Press), her first YA novel, the chapter books, Ugly Cat and Pablo (Scholastic, Inc.) and Ugly Cat and Pablo and the Missing Brother (Scholastic, Inc.), the graphic novel Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (Getty Publications), and the picture book My Papi Has a Motorcycle (Kokila). Her work has been included in several anthologies including The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat and Fierce and Come On In: 15 Stories About Immigration and Finding Home. Forthcoming from Kokila, Martinez Paranormal Services (MG trilogy), Golden State (YA novel), and Mama’s Panza (Picture Book), as well as a short story in the 2023 Candlewick anthology Ab(solutely) Normal: Short Stories that Smash Mental Health Stereotypes. In addition to several awards, her books have garnered many starred reviews and have been included in multiple best of lists including NPR’s yearly Book Concierge List, NYPL’s best of list, and the New York Times Best Books list. When she’s not writing she enjoys hiking, laughing, and cooking with her partner and beautiful child.
Mama's Panza. By Isabel Quintero. Illus. by lliana Galvez. Mar. 2024. 32p. Penguin/Kokila, $18.99 (9780593616420). PreS-Gr. 2.
"Panza is another word for belly" explains this warm book, in which a boy ponders the love he and his mother share and how her panza plays a prominent role in that love. This body-positive book celebrates the wonder, love, and strength our bodies allow us to express. Scanned colored pencils with digital paint brushes result in bright illustrations, adding to the celebration. Radiant flowers, hearts, and little berries throughout the book add whimsy and convey happy playfulness. The precocious boy notices that his mom's panza is a soft place to land while wrestling, a hiding space when he's feeling shy, and a snuggly pillow as they share a bedtime story. Mama explains to her son that his first home, his first cradle, was her panza, adding to her reasons for loving her panza. The mother's and son's facial expressions successfully convey love and tenderness. Mother and son present as Latinx; they have different hair and skin colors. Sporadic Spanish words emphasize the bicultural elements of the book.--Ana Menchaca
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Menchaca, Ana. "Mama's Panza." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 12, 15 Feb. 2024, p. 58. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A783436487/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8768983e. Accessed 30 Mar. 2024.
Quintero, Isabel MAMÁ'S PANZA Kokila (Children's None) $18.99 3, 26 ISBN: 9780593616420
Everyone has a panza!
A precocious child declares that "panza is another word for belly." Mamá's panza is soft and ample, and it's the little one's favorite panza of them all. The young narrator interacts with Mamá's body in various ways: playfully using it as a drum, snuggling up to Mamá's panza while she reads a story, and hiding behind Mamá's body during moments of shyness. Gleeful smiles and tender embraces make it clear that the child loves Mamá dearly. Mamá explains that she loves her panza, too: "Our bodies are miracles for what they can do My panza kept you alive and keeps me alive as well. How could I not love it?" She shares that her panza was the child's first home, and it stretched as the little one grew. Inviting illustrations depict a warm, sturdy mother using the strength and size of her curvy body to grow and raise a child. Her brown skin and black hair glow with health and affection. The child has short, curly brown hair and lighter brown skin; both are cued Latine. This affirming ode to bellies shows readers the strength of a woman's love for her child and the wonderful things a body can do. Publishes simultaneously in Spanish.
A sweet, body-positive celebration of motherhood and its physical expression. (Picture book. 3-6)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Quintero, Isabel: MAMA'S PANZA." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777736633/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ff4afe39. Accessed 30 Mar. 2024.