El Cucuy Is Scared, Too!

author: Donna Barba Higuera

illustrator: Juliana Perdomo 

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2021, preschool-grade 3

In Spanish-speaking countries, everyone knows El Cucuy. He comes in many forms, all of them horrible. He kidnaps disobedient children—especially little kids who don’t stay in bed at night.

A cucuy lives with Ramón and his single mom in their new little house in the US. This cucuy shares a pot along with a cactus, and on the cover and title page, young readers will see him—black, gray and white—peeking out of the large clay pot. This cucuy is not scary—he’s scared.

As Ramón sits next to the potted cactus, his mom warns him to go to bed, or El Cucuy will come and get him. But Ramón can’t sleep—and neither can this cucuy, who jumps out of the pot and noisily knocks over Ramón’s table lamp and vase of flowers. 

Both Ramón and his new friend miss their old casita in Mexico, and, Cucuy adds, “the desert wind and the coyotes singing.” He’s especially afraid of the night noises which, Ramón tells him, are “only the new sounds of where we live now.” The place called “school” is different as well. There’s no quiet place for Ramón to read and there’s no “small, dark place” where Cucuy can hide. But Ramón is protective of his new friend, offering to ask a teacher or librarian to show them a safe place should his friend need one. As Ramón worries about not fitting in—something that worries all immigrant kids—Cucuy worries about not having any amigos, and that no one will know to be afraid of him.

When they get home, Ramón consoles his little monster-friend: “Eres fierce…and brave,” and tells him that he will have to show the other kids that he is “strong and valiente.” The two think about the times that each was afraid of the other, and how they worked out their fears in order to become fast friends. 

Perdomo’s digitally created illustrations are bright and appealing, with each double-page spread having its own background color. The dialog between boy and monster is honest and engaging as well, with touches of Spanish words and phrases seamlessly woven in (and not defined or italicized). This warm story is of two friends—one human, one monstruo, sort of—who share their immigrant experience.  

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 6/20/2021)

Pura's Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories

author: Anette Bay Pimentel

illustrator: Magaly Morales

Abrams Books for Young Readers

grades 3-up 

Puerto Rican

On the cover, a tiny green coquí sits on the floor in front of an exuberant, multiethnic group of young children. All eyes are focused on the new librarian, Pura Belpré, as she performs traditional Puerto Rican stories. They are stories she had learned as a child from her Abuela, and, since they had not been published, she transmits them as her Abuela did. In the upper corners, Perez the Mouse and Martina, the beautiful cockroach who loves him in one of Belpre’s stories—are also watching her perform. 

Before Pura Belpré arrived in Harlem, during “storytimes” in public libraries full of books for children, librarians showed the books and read the stories. But there were no storybooks for children from Puerto Rico and none in Spanish. So the young librarian traveled the city, from Harlem to the Bronx to the Lower East Side, lighting her storytelling candle and performing her stories in Spanish and English. Hers may have been the first of library “storytimes” without books.

Magaly Morales’ bright, digital full-color illustrations—including the title’s lettering—are joyous and inviting. On an interior double-page spread, an exuberant Pura practices grand gestures while she dances across the pages and sings to the animals in her stories—who join her. On another page, her characters watch from above as children surround her.

When the young librarian does not see Puerto Rican children in the library, she goes into the barrio to recruit. A double-page spread shows Pura in a park where Puerto Rican children are playing. Across the two pages, she calls out to them: “¡CUENTOS!”

That Pura’s Cuentos contains words and phrases—and some dialog—in untranslated Spanish, affirms the language and honors young Spanish-speaking readers as well. In one spread, an exhilarated young girl hands a stack of books to her mom and tells her, “¡Nos contó historias de Puerto Rico!” 

In this country, a large percentage of the population (roughly 25%) speaks Spanish and, like Pura Belpré herself, Pimentel acknowledges and affirms—and targets—her audience of Spanish-speaking readers and their cultures. Like Pura Belpré, she wants them to go to the library and read and learn more. As well, she pushes young readers who do not speak Spanish to gather the contextual cues to understand what has been said without having been told. 

On the next-to-final spread,—with a coquí on her shoulder and a crowing gallo at her side, Pura is writing the story of Perez and Martina. To her right, Perez and Martina themselves are dancing on the completed pages:

Abuela’s story… Pura’s story … the children’s story … becomes a book. Because Pura Belpré always knew that many stories worth telling aren’t in books. Not yet.

Many of Pura Belpré’s cuentos are still in print, others are anthologized, and still others are worth a search.

* Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 6/19/2021)

[Note: The Pura Belpré Award, established in 1996, is presented annually to “a Latino / Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.”]

Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote: A Migrant’s Tale

author: Duncan Tonatiuh 

illustrator: Duncan Tonatiuh

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2013 

preschool-up 

Mexican

There are far too few picture books for children that depict refugee families or families of undocumented workers in such a way that young children can see reflections of their own lives. Some of the best include Jorge Tetl Argueta and Alfonso Ruano’s Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds (Groundwood, 2016) and Jaime Buitrago and Rafael Yockteng’s Dos conejos blancos // Two White Rabbits (Groundwood, 2016)—all of which have been previously reviewed here—and one published earlier, Duncan Tonatiuh’s Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote (Abrams, 2013).

While Argueta’s and Buitrago’s stories are achingly beautiful and loaded with symbolism, Tonatiuh’s evocative fable, with familiar animals as characters, lightens the symbolic load a bit. Still, it takes young readers and listeners into an ominous world that forces undocumented migrants to leave their families and communities and risk their lives for a chance to earn enough to survive until the next harvest season, when they will have to cross again. While children of undocumented workers will easily relate to this story, it also builds empathy and invites children who may never have thought about what it is to live these lives to imagine how they might deal with the harrowing circumstances portrayed here.

When the rains do not come, Papá Rabbit, Señor Rooster, Señor Ram and some others from the rancho head out to work the “great carrot and lettuce fields” in El Norte. Several harvests later, they haven’t returned, and Pancho Rabbit, the eldest, is worried. Late at night, he fills his backpack with mole, rice and beans, “a heap of still-warm tortillas, and a jugful of fresh aguamiel” and embarks on a journey to find Papá.

Following the stars north, Pancho meets a coyote who offers to guide him—for a price, some of the food he has packed for Papá. As their dangerous trek continues—atop a moving train, across a river, through a tunnel, and into the scorching desert—the coyote demands more and more food. When it’s gone, the coyote tells Pancho that he is about to become the next meal. But just in time, Papá Rabbit, Señor Rooster, and Señor Ram, who have heard the little one’s cries, come to the rescue. Pancho learns that Papá and the others had been stranded in the desert after being attacked by a gang of crows who took all the money they had earned. And after a long embrace, Pancho guides them home to their joyous families and friends. 

Hand-drawn and then digitally collaged illustrations, which Tonatiuh has adapted from the style of the old Mixtec codices, are rendered on a warm palette of mostly flat browns and greens that beautifully frames the story. As well, by incorporating the many textures of fur and feathers, train wheels and gears, cactus spines, denim jeans, canvas backpacks, bandanas, plaid shirts, and borders of papel picado, he brings together the “past” of the codices with the “present” of the Rabbit family’s difficult life. Although the faces are represented in profile, there are expressions. Here are the Rabbit children, holding hands and sadly waving goodbye to Papá Rabbit and his compañeros. Here is Pancho, terrified after losing his balance atop a speeding train. Here are Pancho and the coyote, sweating and panting, about to collapse in the scorching hot desert. And here are Pancho and Papá, joyously hugging each other, while the coyote, his tail between his legs, flees from the fury of Señor Ram and Señor Rooster.

The animals on Pancho’s perilous journey mirror the terrible exploitation that undocumented migrants are forced to endure. The nasty, threatening coyote represents, of course, the human smugglers who extort exorbitant amounts to bring migrants to El Norte (and often take the money and run before reaching the border); the menacing, bribe-taking border guards are appropriately depicted as rattlesnakes; and a “gang of crows” (not depicted) represents the bandits who accost defenseless migrants on the road and take everything they have. 

Finally reunited (for now), the Rabbit children try to convince Papá Rabbit not to leave again. But child readers and listeners soon find out that a happy ending is not guaranteed; as in real life, Pancho’s rabbit family does not know what the future holds for them. They can only hope that there’s enough rain for the crops next year. 

:

“I don’t want to leave you,” said Papá Rabbit, “but the crows took all our money. If it doesn’t rain enough again this year, and if there is no food or work here on the rancho, what else am I to do? I will have to leave again.”

Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote had an immediate and strong impact on middle-schoolers Amelia Edosia and Maribel Linda, who recognized their own parents in the Rabbit family and themselves in the Rabbit children. This is what they  had to say:

Amelia: “My dad is a migrant. He walked all the way here from Mexico. He told me he walked by himself. Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote makes me think of dad and when he leaves and mom doesn’t know where he is and when he’ll come back. ‘Pancho’ is like my little brother—or all of us."

Maribel: “A lot of Mexican kids would understand this story because they may have parents who are farm workers who work really hard. And sometimes the parents have to go to other places to work and their kids miss them and feel sad.”

Amelia: “Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote is kind of like Two White Rabbits, where the little girl and her dad are traveling to El Norte so he can find work. There are mean-looking coyotes in both stories. Pancho is being used by the coyote: he’s bad, he’s dishonest, and after he takes everything Pancho has, he tries to kill him. It’s obvious that coyotes like to eat rabbits, but in real life, this coyote (the smuggler) would have left Pancho in the desert to die.”

Maribel: “The snakes represent the border patrol: they strike, they have fangs, they can be poisonous. It makes me think about how dangerous it is for my father and what if he didn’t come back. Not a lot of parents always come back.”

Amelia: “It’s tough for the family because you don’t know when they’ll come back or if they’ll come back.”

And the verdict: 

Beverly: “A well-deserved Pure Belpré Honor Book, Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote speaks to children of migrant workers as few children’s books do. Along with an extensive author’s note about the difficult lives of migrant workers and the dangers they face, and web-based research and resources for older readers, it’s highly recommended.”

Maribel: “Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote is highly recommended because it teaches Mexican kids what their parents could be going through when they have to leave them to go to work. Respect your parents because you don’t know if they’ll come back.”

Amelia: “Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote is highly recommended because kids who don’t have parents who are migrants will learn how dangerous the lives of migrant farm workers are, and they might learn to care more about other people. And it also helps the Mexican kids feel better.”

Maribel: “And Trump is not gonna finish his wall!”

Amelia: “Yeah!”

—Beverly Slapin, Maribel Linda, and Amelia Edosia

(published 6/22/17)

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

(Note: For more info about Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote, see this excellent review by Lila Quintero Weaver, in Latinxs in Kid Lit (https://latinosinkidlit.com/2014/03/20/libros-latinos-pancho-rabbit-and-the-coyote-a-migrants-tale-2/). It contains information about the author and a reference to his TED talk, a section about the characteristics of Mixtec art, and teaching suggestions.)