Cinco Hermanitas: Myth and Sisterhood in Guadalupe García McCall’s Summer of the Mariposas

This article examines the 2012 young adult novel, Summer of the Mariposas, by Chicana writer Guadalupe García McCall, a leading voice in Chicana and Latina children’s and young adult literature. I argue that the novel be read as a Chicana feminist text in its encouragement of strong bonds of Chicana sisterhood (“las cinco hermanitas”) specifically through a rejection and rewriting of the Mexican folkloric myth of La Llorona.