Gaby, Lost and Found
By: Angela Cervantes
Release Date: July 2013
Age Range- 8-12
Pages- 224
The Story
(From Amazon)
Wanted: One amazing forever home for one amazing sixth grader.
Gaby loves volunteering at the local animal shelter for a class project. She takes special pride in writing adoption advertisements. Her flyers help the cats and dogs there find their forever homes.
Gaby is in need of a forever home herself. Her mother has recently been deported, and Gaby is stuck living with her inattentive dad. She’s confident that her mom will come home soon so they can adopt Gaby’s favorite shelter cat together.
But when the cat’s owners turn up at the shelter, & her dad decides to move- Gaby hope of her perfect family begins to fall apart. Gaby must try to find a way to save Feather & reunite with her mom before it is too late.
If this wasn't enough: check out this great Scholastic Book Trailer with the author
Angela Cervantes.
My Review
Okay, so I might be a sucker for animal books....
First off, let me say that I really appreciate that this is a Multi-culture book.
I love that it is sprinkled with Spanish words & it describes traditional Spanish dishes. I also liked that it addresses the deportation issue. When Gaby's mom is deported back to Honduras, I am ashamed to say that I had to look up where this country is. I knew the general area, but I did not know much about it. It is located just north of Nicaragua by the way!
I also liked how it described how hard it was for her mom to come to the U.S. & how she struggled to make a life for her and her daughter. Overall, I felt like it gave a great introduction to these issues that I think many kids and adults will learn from.
Since I felt like I learned a lot from this book, I am really excited to share it with my kids at work. The story turns out to be a little too good to be true, but I think that this is great for kids & I really felt like Angela Cervantes addresses the issue of deportation with grace for this age group. I also appreciated how the author used animals to make the book relatable for everyone. I will defiantly recommend this book to all my animal loving tweens.
Discussion Questions
The book is called “Gaby, Lost & Found.” How is Gaby lost? How is she found?
Gaby’s mom believed that we need to take care of animals. Do you think we have a responsibility to take care of animals?
For the service project, Gaby’s job was to write profiles for animals in the shelter. How did this help the animals get adopted? If you could adopt one of the animals from Gaby’s flyers, which one would you adopt and why?
Why did Gaby want to take Feather home & not any of the other animals at the shelter?
Do you think it was right that Gaby stole Feather?
Gaby is embarrassed that her & her dad have to go to Food Harvest to get food. Why is she embarrassed? Is this a bad thing?
Gaby was shaped by her heritage. How are we shaped by our heritage? What is your heritage?
Gaby noticed many people dropping off animals. Why do people do this? What could they do instead?
By the end of the book, Gaby’s mom could not return to Gaby. Do you think that her mom will ever come home? Do you think that Gaby will ever visit Honduras?
Gaby was bullied by Dolores & Jan. How did they bully her? Should Gaby have done something differently?
-Pamela
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