Chatos Kitchen

By Gary Soto, illustrated by Susan Guevara

Set in East Los Angeles, Gary Soto’s whimsical tale follows Chato the cat’s attempt to have his new neighbors, a family of mice, for dinner. He invites them to a dinner party catered by himself and his fellow feline Novio Boy. The two cats think they have the perfect plan in place until the mice bring along an extra guest who just happens to be a dog. Susan Guevara’s illustrations bring out the aesthetics of East Los Angeles’s Mexican culture, from the animals’ outfits to the Mexican dishes that Chato and the other characters prepare. For her work, Chato’s Kitchen was the first book to win a Pura Belpré Award for Illustration
-SF