Books Set in Colombia

A Thousand White Butterflies By Jessica Betancourt-Perez, Karen Lynn Williams, Gina Maldonado (Illustrator) Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9781580895774
Availability: On Our Shelves Now (Subject to Availability)
Published: Charlesbridge - January 19th, 2021

As if being new to the United States wasn't hard enough, Isabella's first day of school is canceled due to snow!


Waiting for the Biblioburro/Esperando el Biblioburro: (Spanish-English bilingual edition) By Monica Brown, John Parra (Illustrator), Adriana Dominguez (Translated by) Cover Image
By Monica Brown, John Parra (Illustrator), Adriana Dominguez (Translated by)
$18.99
ISBN: 9780553538793
Availability: Usually Ships from Wholesaler in 1-5 Days
Published: Tricycle Press - November 1st, 2016

A remarkable tale of books and reading, now in a bilingual Spanish-English edition.
 
On most days, teacher and librarian Luis Soriano Bohórquez packs his two burros, Alfa and Beto, with books and makes his way over mountains and through valleys to visit children in far-flung villages in rural Colombia—all for the sake of literacy and culture. Based on the work of a remarkable man and his intrepid burros, this bilingual English and Spanish edition celebrates the impact that a special mobile library—called the “biblioburro”—has had on the lives of real children.
 
About the author:
 
Monica Brown’s Peruvian American heritage has inspired in her a desire to share Latino stories with children. Her books have garnered starred reviews, the Américas Award, two Pura Belpré Author Honors, and the prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship on Chicano Cultural Literacy. Monica is currently Professor of English at Northern Arizona University, specializing in U.S. Latino and Multicultural Literature. Visit her at monicabrown.net.


My Name Is Gabito / Me Llamo Gabito: The Life of Gabriel Garcia Marquez By Monica Brown, Raul Colon (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Monica Brown, Raul Colon (Illustrator)
$15.95
ISBN: 9780873589086
Availability: Usually Ships from Wholesaler in 1-5 Days
Published: Cooper Square Pub - October 1st, 2007

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.


Juana and Lucas By Juana Medina, Juana Medina (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Juana Medina, Juana Medina (Illustrator)
$8.99
ISBN: 9781536206395
Availability: On Our Shelves Now (Subject to Availability)
Published: Candlewick - March 5th, 2019

“Refreshingly original. . . . Medina’s beautiful, vivid prose conjures the Colombian setting with tactile language. . . . The story itself is a giant hug.” — The New York Times Book Review

Fans of Judy Moody and Clarice Bean will love Juana, the spunky young Colombian girl who stars in this playful, abundantly illustrated series. Juana loves many things: drawing, living in Bogotá, Colombia, and especially her dog, Lucas, the best amigo ever. She does not love wearing her itchy school uniform, solving math problems, or learning the English. Why is it so important to learn a language that makes so little sense? Hilarious, energetic, and utterly relatable, Juana will win over los corazones (the hearts) of readers everywhere.


Digging for Words: José Alberto Gutiérrez and the Library He Built By Angela Burke Kunkel, Paola Escobar (Illustrator) Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9781984892638
Availability: Usually Ships from Wholesaler in 1-5 Days
Published: Random House Studio - September 8th, 2020


A gorgeous and inspiring picture book based on the life of José Alberto Gutiérrez, a garbage collector in Bogotá, Colombia who started a library with a single discarded book found on his route.

In the city of Bogata, in the barrio of La Nueva Gloria, there live two Joses. One is a boy who dreams of Saturdays-- that's the day he gets to visit Paradise, the library. The second Jose is a garbage collector. From dusk until dawn, he scans the sidewalks as he drives, squinting in the dim light, searching household trash for hidden treasure . . . books! Some are stacked in neat piles, as if waiting for José́. Others take a bit more digging. Ever since he found his first book, Anna Karenina, years earlier, he's been collecting books--thick ones and thin ones, worn ones and almost new ones-- to add to the collection in his home. And on Saturdays, kids like little Jose run to the steps of Paradise to discover a world filled with books and wonder.

With an evocative text by a debut author, and rich, stunning illustrations from an up-and-coming Colombian illustrator, here is a celebration of perseverance, community, and the power of books.


What If a Fish By Anika Fajardo Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781534449831
Availability: Unavailable to Order
Published: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers - August 11th, 2020

A whimsical and unflinchingly honest generational story of family and identity where hats turn into leeches, ghosts blow kisses from lemon trees, and the things you find at the end of your fishing line might not be a fish at all.

Half-Colombian Eddie Aguado has never really felt Colombian. Especially after Papa died. And since Mama keeps her memories of Papa locked up where Eddie can’t get to them, he only has Papa’s third-place fishing tournament medal to remember him by. He’ll have to figure out how to be more Colombian on his own.

As if by magic, the perfect opportunity arises. Eddie—who’s never left Minnesota—is invited to spend the summer in Colombia with his older half-brother. But as his adventure unfolds, he feels more and more like a fish out of water.

Figuring out how to be a true colombiano might be more difficult than he thought.


Staff Pick Badge
Nightlights By Lorena Alvarez Cover Image
$10.99
ISBN: 9781910620571
Availability: On Our Shelves Now (Subject to Availability)
Published: Nobrow - March 5th, 2019

Every night, tiny stars appear out of the darkness in little Sandy's bedroom. She catches them and creates wonderful creatures to play with until she falls asleep, and in the morning brings them back to life in the whimsical drawings that cover her room.

One day, Morfie, a mysterious pale girl, appears at school. And she knows all about Sandy's drawings...

Nightlights is a beautiful story about fear, insecurity, and creativity, from the enchanting imagination of Lorena Alvarez.


Hicotea: A Nightlights Story By Lorena Alvarez Cover Image
$18.95
ISBN: 9781910620342
Availability: Usually Ships from Wholesaler in 1-5 Days
Published: Nobrow - March 12th, 2019

Raina Telgemeier meets Miyazaki with a Latin American twist in this mesmerizing follow-up to the best-selling children's graphic novel Nightlights. Lorena Alvarez's spunky heroine Sandy returns to explore a magical new dimension.

On a school field trip to the river, Sandy wanders away from her classmates and discovers an empty turtle shell. Peeking through the dark hole, she suddenly finds herself within a magical realm. Filled with sculptures, paintings and books, the turtle's shell is a museum of the natural world. But one painting is incomplete, and the turtle needs Sandy's help to finish it.


One Hundred Years of Solitude By Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780060883287
Availability: On Our Shelves Now (Subject to Availability)
Published: Harper Perennial Modern Classics - February 21st, 2006

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

"One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race....Mr. Garcia Marquez has done nothing less than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in life."
William Kennedy, New York Times Book Review 

“More lucidity, wit, wisdom, and poetry than is expected from 100 years of novelists, let alone one man.”
Washington Post

One of the most influential literary works of our time, One Hundred Years of Solitude remains a dazzling and original achievement by the masterful Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul—this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.


Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family By Anika Fajardo Cover Image
$22.95
ISBN: 9781517906863
Availability: Backordered
Published: Univ Of Minnesota Press - April 16th, 2019

A young woman from Minnesota searches out the Colombian father she’s never known in this powerful exploration of what family really means

 

He loved Colombia too much to leave it. The explanation from her Minnesotan mother was enough to satisfy a child’s curiosity about her missing father. But at twenty-one, Anika Fajardo wanted more. She wanted to know her father better and to know what kind of country could have such a hold on him. And so, in 1995, Fajardo boarded a plane and flew to Colombia to discover a birthplace that was foreign to her and a father who was a stranger. There she learns that sometimes, no matter how many pieces you find, fitting together a family history isn’t easy.

With her tentative entry into her father’s world, Fajardo steps on a path that will take her in surprising directions, toward unsuspected secrets about her family and herself. Set against the changing backdrops of Colombia and the American Midwest, her journey carries her back to the 1970s and the beginnings of her parents’ broken marriage, and forward to the present day, where the magic and reality of love and heartache—and her own experience as a parent—await her. The way is strewn with obstacles, physical and metaphysical—from the perils encountered on a mountain road in Colombia to the death of a loved one to the birth of her own child—but the toughest to negotiate are the shifting place of memory and truth while coming to understand her place in her family and in the world.

Vivid and heartfelt in the telling, Fajardo’s story is powerfully compelling in its bridging of time and place and in its moving depiction of self-transformation. Family, she comes to find, is where you find it and what you make of it.


Fruit of the Drunken Tree By Ingrid Rojas Contreras Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780525434313
Availability: Unavailable to Order
Published: Anchor - June 4th, 2019

“One of the most dazzling and devastating novels I’ve read in a long time...Readers of Fruit of the Drunken Tree will surely be transformed.”
--San Francisco Chronicle


“Simultaneously propulsive and poetic, reminiscent of Isabel Allende...Listen to this new author’s voice — she has something powerful to say.”
--Entertainment Weekly


Seven-year-old Chula lives a carefree life in her gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside her walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar reigns, capturing the attention of the nation.

When her mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city’s guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona’s mysterious ways. Petrona is a young woman crumbling under the burden of providing for her family as the rip tide of first love pulls her in the opposite direction. As both girls’ families scramble to maintain stability amidst the rapidly escalating conflict, Petrona and Chula find themselves entangled in a web of secrecy.

Inspired by the author's own life, Fruit of the Drunken Tree is a powerful testament to the impossible choices women are often forced to make in the face of violence and the unexpected connections that can blossom out of desperation.