by Mike Sabine

Granada-native Luis Garay is a noted artist who been called the best young Latin American illustrator working today. He has won two international awards and is featured in “Under the Spell of the Moon,” a compilation book of the world’s best children’s book illustrators. Garay, age 39, has also written three books, The Kite, Pedrito’s Day and The Long Road. His stark, realistic style portrays the realities of growing up in Central America. They are tales of the everyday lives of children in Nicaragua, poignant but hopeful. Unlike much of children’s literature, his work contains no fantasy.

 “I call my style social realism. I wanted kids in North America to know what life was like here. North American kids always think they’re lacking something,” Garay said.  “What was I supposed to write about and paint? Snowmen? I went to my roots, what I know. My instincts told me what to do.” Garay gets the inspiration for his stories “by going into the streets, observing and photographing the lives of children around Nicaragua,”