Gabi, a Girl in Pieces

In this groundbreaking William C. Morris Award winner for a YA debut, Gabi's life is a mess--her family, her friends, her attempts at a love life--but writing helps, especially since it turns out she's pretty good at poetry.

Gabi Hernandez chronicles her last year of high school in her diary: college applications, Cindy's pregnancy, Sebastian's coming out, the cute boys, her father's meth habit, and the food she craves. And best of all, the poetry that helps forge her identity.

July 24

My mother named me Gabriella, after my grandmother who, coincidentally, didn't want to meet me when I was born because my mother was unmarried, and therefore living in sin. My mom has told me the story many, many, MANY, times of how, when she confessed to my grandmother that she was pregnant with me, her mother beat her. BEAT HER! She was twenty-five. That story is the basis of my sexual education and has reiterated why it's important to wait until you're married to give it up. So now, every time I go out with a guy, my mom says, "Ojos abiertos, piernas cerradas." Eyes open, legs closed. That's as far as the birds and the bees talk has gone. And I don't mind it. I don't necessarily agree with that whole wait until you're married crap, though. I mean, this is America and the 21st century; not Mexico one hundred years ago. But, of course, I can't tell my mom that because she will think I'm bad. Or worse: trying to be White.

Isabel Quintero is an award-winning writer from the Inland Empire. Her works include: Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, Ugly Cat and Pablo and Ugly Cat and Pablo and the Missing Brother (both illustrated by Tom Knight), Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (illustrated by Zeke Pe?a), My Papi Has a Motorcycle (illustrated by Zeke Pe?a), several anthologies, and most recently Mam?'s Panza (illustrated by Iliana Galvez). Find out more at isabelinpieces.com.