By Colorado Kids Advisory Board member Sydney Guthrie

Title: Get Ready for Gabi! No More Spanish
Author: Marisa Montes
Illustrator: Joe Cepeda
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.
Number of pages: 112

Gabi is from Puerto Rico, but is embarrassed about speaking Spanish in front of her American friends and classmates. But when she decides not to speak Spanish anymore, there are other problems - she can't communicate with her Hispanic grandmother, and a friend is mad at her because she wants to learn Spanish from Gabi. What does Gabi do? Read Get Ready for Gabi! No More Spanish to find the happy ending.

The story focuses on Gabi, a girl who moved to the United State from Puerto Rico. She constantly mixes Spanish words into her conversations, sometimes confusing her friends and classmates. Gabi doesn't think much about this until she is at a restaurant with her family and notices a classmate's family glancing over at their table a lot. She then realizes that her family is talking with each other only in Spanish. Gabi becomes embarrassed her family is talking so loudly and not in English. She decides she will only speak English from then on.

That's when the problems begin and Gabi has to decide if she will keep her promise.

Other main characters are her grandmother, or "abuelita", and a close friend, Devin. There are also other characters from her school class, including more girlfriends and some annoying boys.

This book was easy to read, and would likely be best for 1st and 2nd grade readers. Older readers will find the story interesting, but will find the words used to tell the story fairly simple. There are lots of illustrations in the book, which makes the book go even faster. Lots of Spanish words are used, but there is a dictionary in the back of the book if you want to find out what they mean. The Spanish might be confusing to young readers until they see the words a few times.

I liked Get Ready for Gabi! No More Spanish, the story it told, the characters in it, and how she worked out her problem. Es muy bueno! (May, 2004)