The Reading Warehouse

Pura Belpré Illustrator Award Honor
Junior Library Guild Selection

Mismatched and fabulous Marisol McDonald celebrates her Peruvian and Scottish heritage.
Bilingual English/Spanish.

Marisol McDonald has flaming red hair and nut-brown skin. Polka dots and stripes are her favorite combination. She prefers peanut butter and jelly burritos in her lunch box. To Marisol, these seemingly mismatched things make perfect sense together.

Other people wrinkle their nose in confusion at Marisol-can't she just choose one or the other? Try as she might, in a world where everyone tries to put this biracial, Peruvian-Scottish-American girl into a box, Marisol McDonald doesn't match. And that's just fine with her.

A mestiza Peruvian American of European, Jewish, and Amerindian heritage, renowned author Monica Brown wrote this lively story to bring her own experience of being mismatched to life. Her buoyant prose is perfectly matched by Sara Palacios' mixed media illustrations.

Sara Palacios was born in Mexico City. She holds degrees in Graphic Design, Illustration, and Digital Graphic Techniques, and is pursuing her MFA in Illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She divides her time between Mexico City and San Francisco, California.

Monica Brown, Ph.D. is the author of many award-winning books for children, including Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People (Henry Holt), winner of the Américas Award for Children's Literature and an Orbis Pictus Honor for Outstanding Nonfiction, and Waiting for the Biblioburro (Random House), a Christopher Award winner. Her picture book Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match/Marisol McDonald no combina (Lee & Low) is the winner of the Tejas Star Book Award, the International Latino Book Award, and a Pura Belpré Honor for Illustration. Marisol McDonald and the Clash Bash/Marisol McDonald y la fiesta sin igual, the second book in the Marisol series, was published in September 2013.

Monica's books are inspired by her Peruvian-American heritage and desire to share Latino/a stories with children. "I write from a place of deep passion, joy, and commitment to producing the highest possible quality of literature for children. In my biographies, the lives of my subjects are so interesting and transformational that I am simply giving them voice for a young audience. I don't think it is ever too early to introduce children to the concepts of magical realism, social justice, and dreaming big!" Monica is in demand as a conference keynote speaker and has appeared at ALA, TLA, NCTE, Book Expo America, and at book festivals across the country.

Monica Brown is a Professor of English at Northern Arizona University, specializing in U.S. Latino Literature and Multicultural Literature. She writes and publishes scholarly work with a Latino/a focus, including Gang Nation: Delinquent Citizenship in Puerto Rican and Chicano and Chicana Literature; and numerous articles and chapters on Latino/a literature and cultural studies. She was the recipient of the prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship on Chicano Cultural Literacies from the Center for Chicano Studies at the University of California. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Flagstaff, Arizona.