I must say, though, that most of the books on AngeliqueEast's links are related to Hispanic US literature, not Latin American children's books as a whole. I see among the recommended books some good cartoon stripes (the "Mafalda" series, for instance), which are not really literature.
The big two children book writers in Latin America are:
José Martí, the hero of Cuban independence. His classic La Edad de Oro is a beautiful series of stories and poems.
Uruguay's Horacio Quiroga wrote what is, in my opinion and experience as a father, the best children book in Spanish: Historias de la Selva.
Martí is from the late XIX Century. Quiroga is from the early XX Century.
Edna Bondermann (Argentina), Ana Maria Machado (Brazil), Hugo Hiriart (Mexico), Julio Frenk (Mexico) with his book Triptofanito and notably Argentina's Luis Pescetti are the most reknown children literature contemporary writers.
Thanks fbaezer, I'm sure that will be very helpful to vicki, and any other person looking for childrens books.
I found one book, I hope it qualifies. It's called "El Valle De Lost Lobos" By Laura Gallego Garcia.
Here is a little about the book:
"Everyone in Dana's peasant family knows she is special, even though they do not know about her invisible friend Kai, and one day a mysterious man takes the two of them to the Valle de los Lobos, where Dana becomes the wizard's apprentice"
I found her website with her biography, and more of her books. She is from Valencia. The website is in Spanish.
http://www.lauragallego.com/
That's another issue. How many of these authors' works are available in English? I took Spanish in high school and a semester in college, but that was back in 1979...
So you want them in English. What I would do is pick the author and book I want, then I would do a search to see if they had it in English or bilingual (English & Spanish). You first search by the name of the author, and then the book tittle. You can check the websites of Barnes & Noble or Amazon's. They have a children's section.
Maybe fbaezer knows more about the one's he suggested or might give you more advice.
Good luck
thanks! I use amazon a lot; looks like I'll be giving them another workout!
