Her novel Blue Willow, about the experiences of Janey Larkin, the ten-year-old daughter of a migrant farm worker in 1930s California, is a Newbery Honor book and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner.

She also visited the schools erected for the children of workers displaced by the Dust Bowl, telling stories and sharing books.

[2] Budget constraints caused the library to cut back its hours, so Gates used her extra day off to begin writing.

[3] Her first published book, Sarah's Idea (1938), is about a girl who wants to buy a burro and helps with the harvest on her family's prune ranch to earn the money she needs.

"[10] The working class setting and portrayal of migrant families conditions were firsts for children's literature, and the fact that Gates made Janey's best friend a Mexican American was also groundbreaking.

Jenkins says "the publication and professional recognition accorded Blue Willow was an affirmation of the value of both imaginative and realistic literature for children.

Blue Willow was both; but the story of Janey, her father and step-mother, living in a shack in central California while working in the fields, was generally more recognized for its realism.

Julia Sauer, head children’s services librarian in Rochester, New York, was commissioned by the American Library Association to address the divisive issue.

Of our thousands of books, I can find scarcely half a dozen that merit places on this almost vacant shelf in our libraries; and of our hundreds of authors, I can name only three who are doing anything to fill this void in children's reading.

[16] According to another reviewer "Gates writes with integrity, combining strength of story line with well-developed characters, authentic settings, and themes of consequence."

The reviewer goes on to say her excellent characterization and sensitivity toward her characters make her books "a solid contribution to American children's literature".