Maya’s Blanket / La Manta de Maya

author: Monica Brown

translator: Adriana Domínguez 

illustrator: David Díaz 

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2015 

kindergarten-grade 4

In the old Yiddish tale I know, a poor tailor finally saves enough to buy some cloth to cut and sew into an overcoat. As decades pass, his coat wears out, so he cuts and sews what’s left variously into a jacket, a vest, a cap, a button and finally—a story. In the song, “Epes fun gornisht,” the refrain is “Makhn vir epes fun gornisht azai,” “That’s how we make something from nothing,” and in the end, he makes a song. The unstated teaching is about poverty, thrift, repurposing, determination, and perseverance.

Although Maya’s Blanket / La Manta de Maya contains some elements of the traditional Yiddish story—involving the recreation of an item into one that becomes smaller and smaller until nothing is left—its characters, scenarios, particular rhythmic pattern and cumulative word structure are Brown’s own. Here, Abuelita sews a blanket, imbued with a touch of magic, for baby Maya. As young Maya matures, she and Abuelita cut and sew what’s left of the blanket into other creations, all with a touch of magic: a dress, then a skirt, then a shawl, then a scarf, then a hair ribbon, and finally a bookmark, which Maya eventually loses. Coming full circle, she creates a picture book called Maya’s Blanket, exactly like the one young readers hold in their hands.

In her cumulative word structure, Brown incorporates the Spanish term in italics for each creation and the English translation for the last on the list: “So with her own two hands and Abuelita’s help, Maya made her bufanda that was her rebozo that was her falda that was her vestido that was her manta into a cinta that she loved very much. Maya wore the ribbon tied around her long, brown hair…”

Domínguez’s Spanish translation is idiomatic and reads naturally. As she did with Brown’s Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald no combina, I would like to have seen the Spanish terms on the English side flipped into English on the Spanish side, like this: “Así que, con sus propias manos y la ayuda de Abuelita, Maya convertió su scarf que había sido su shawl, que había sido su skirt, que había sido su dress, que había sido su blanket, en una ribbon que quería mucho. Maya usó la cinta mágica para recogerse el largo pelo castaño…”

Young readers and listeners will enjoy the entirety of this warm little story. Maya’s Blanket / La Manta de Maya is recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

 (published 9/24/15; paragraph redacted and note added 2/15/18)

Note, 2/15/18: Multiple women have come forward with public statements that David Díaz sexually harassed them. After investigating claims against Díaz, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) removed him from its board and conference faculty, and expelled him from the organization. Several other conferences have banned him as well. We have redacted our references to his art in this review.

Picasso: I the King, Yo el rey

author: Carmen T. Bernier-Grand

illustrator: David Díaz

Amazon Children’s Publishing, 2012

grades 6-up

Spanish

As in her other poem-biographies, Bernier-Grand’s elegant free verse is crisp and clean, with every word precisely chosen. Here, in 40 carefully researched poems, she chronicles the creative and turbulent life of Pablo Picasso—profound narcissist (“yo el rey”), notorious philanderer (“ravenous for orgies”), tormented hypochondriac (death, “the mistress that never leaves you”), loving father (“let the children just be children”)—and artistic genius, perhaps one of the most important of the past century. Although Bernier-Grand frankly discusses Picasso’s many relationships and marriages and how the women in his life inspired his artistry (“As paint is to brush, women are to Picasso’s art”), she neither sensationalizes nor demeans them.

Here, Bernier-Grand writes of Picasso’s main obsession:

When Picasso has emptied himself of painting, he draws,

when he has emptied himself of print making, he sculpts,

when he has emptied himself of sculpting, he illustrates,

when he has emptied himself of illustrating, he photographs,

when he has emptied himself of photographing, he writes poems,

when he has emptied himself of writing poems, Picasso paints.

when he has emptied himself of drawing, he make ceramics,

when he has emptied himself of ceramics, he makes prints.

Extensive back matter includes a biographical essay, entitled “Pablo Picasso and the Mistress Who Never Left Him,” which fills in any and all gaps in the poetry; a chronology, a glossary of Spanish words and terms, a list of sources, and copious notes on paintings and quotes.

Interspersed throughout the book are reproductions of some of Picasso’s paintings, including an exhausted woman bent over an ironing board, portraits of Gertrude Stein and Georges Braque, and sex workers in a brothel. I was especially glad to see Picasso’s perhaps most important and definitely most famous painting, “Guernica,” which memorializes the Nazi bombing in 1937 that killed some 3,000 people, injured more than another 1,000, and destroyed the Basque town. Accompanying the painting on a two-page spread are a descriptive poem and short historical note. 

Bernier-Grand writes:

Monday—market day

Guernica

Basque city

bombed.

Peasants shot from the air.

Children and women

horses, sheep, cattle

    slaughtered.

Terrible deaths.

Picasso paints:

eyes open in horror,

mouths shrieking,

a horse screaming,

a shocked bull.

As an introductory biography of a particular artist, Picasso presents myriad opportunities for teachers of middle- and high school students: an introduction to modern art and artists, an exploration of the relationships between art and history and censorship (including point-of-view depictions of world events), a discussion of the many and varied forms of cultural expression, and a model for writing exercises of bio-poems.

In answer to those reviewers who criticized Picasso for not being a “happy” book and/or suggested that children should not be exposed to the seamy sides of Picasso’s life, I would say this: Every child who watches television, and every teenager who reads graphic novels, is exposed to sexuality, death, disease, suffering and war—in situations and circumstances that occur every day. I’d rather have children read an honest biography that discusses the issues of a person’s life than one that obfuscates them. Bernier-Grand is a brilliant storyteller who pushes boundaries and takes great care with her words. She is also ethical; I don’t believe she would ever attempt to conceal unpleasant facts about someone whose biography she decides to research and write. I applaud her choices, especially here. Picasso: I the King, Yo el rey is a remarkable achievement. It’s an illuminating and provocative work of art—poetically and visually. Highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 11/21/13; paragraph redacted and note added, 2/15/18)

Note, 2/15/18: Multiple women have come forward with public statements that David Díaz sexually harassed them. After investigating claims against Díaz, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) removed him from its board and conference faculty, and expelled him from the organization. Several other conferences have banned him as well. We have redacted our references to his art in this review.

Diego: Bigger than Life

author: Carmen T. Bernier-Grand

illustrator: David Díaz

Marshall Cavendish, 2009

grades 7-up

Mexican

Here is Diego Rivera, the revolutionary Mexican artist who sought justice for all poor and working people. Here is Diego Rivera, the woman-chaser, whose many marriages and extra-marital affairs were well known. Here is Diego Rivera, the storyteller and, some would say, master liar. The 34 poems here, in flawlessly executed free verse gathered mostly from Rivera’s own writings—and occasionally, from those of Frida Kahlo and the Mexican Communist Party—affirm the exhaustive amount of research that Bernier-Grand must have undertaken.

In the text of her work, the author chooses to leave Rivera’s perspectives virtually untouched, relegating unanswered questions and hypotheses to a helpful author’s note. In a piece entitled “The True Life of Diego Rivera,” Bernier–Grand raises the inconsistencies between Rivera’s writing and information available today—When Rivera was born, was the pale infant really thrown into a dung bucket? Was he really raised by an Indian wet nurse? Did the Mexican Communist Party really expel him, or did he expel himself? Here is where Bernier-Grand details the political and personal controversies of Rivera’s tumultuous life and work, as well as his many stormy dalliances, affairs and marriages. 

In addition to “The True Life of Diego Rivera,” there’s a short section entitled “In His Own Words.” Other back matter includes a glossary, a chronology of Rivera’s life, a list of sources, and copious notes that support Bernier-Grand’s research. This wealth of material will prove invaluable for student research and classroom projects, including, for example, a study of political mural art or that of point-of-view in published biographies and autobiographies.    

But it’s the biography itself that’s a veritable work of art. Here, Bernier-Grand, with an amazing economy of words, paints a portrait of a man who was, indeed, “bigger than life”:

As naturally as I breathe,

I painted in grand scale the colors of Mexico—

clearer, richer, more full of light than colors in Europe.

As naturally as I speak,

I painted in grand scale the music of Mexico

in markets, crowds, festivals—

Burning of the Judases, the Dance of the Deer.

As naturally as I sweat,

I painted in grand scale the workers of Mexico

in fields, mines, streets—

Indians carrying bundles of calla lilies.

A million public walls

wouldn’t be enough

to paint all the beauty of Mexico.

Diego: Bigger than Life is, indeed, an amazing mural of words. It is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 11/19/13; note added )

Note, 2/15/18: Multiple women have come forward with public statements that David Díaz sexually harassed them. After investigating claims against Díaz, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) removed him from its board and conference faculty, and expelled him from the organization. Several other conferences have banned him as well. We have redacted our references to his art in this review.

Going Home

author: Eve Bunting

illustrator: David Díaz
HarperCollins, 1996

kindergarten-grade 3

Mexican, Mexican American

Ever since the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, when “CBS Reports” aired a documentary called “Harvest of Shame,” the exploitation of migrant agricultural workers has been a national scandal. Farm workers—then and now—live at or below the poverty level and depend on their meager income to feed their families here, and often to support relatives in their home country as well.

Two years later, César Chávez and Dolores Huerta founded the United Farm Workers, a human rights and labor organization that successfully focused the national media’s attention on the struggles of agricultural workers for better pay, safer working conditions, and the right to organize. “Alone, the farm workers have no economic power,” Chávez said, “but with the help of the public they can develop the economic power to counter that of the growers.”

More recently, the corporate successes and excesses of NAFTA have brought nothing but impoverishment to Mexican workers, both in their country and in the US. While large transnational corporations profit hand-over-fist from free trade, slack regulation, and abundant and cheap Mexican labor, hundreds of thousands of displaced people—from cities, towns and villages—are forced to head north in order to survive. On this side, the Mexican migrant workers, many if not most undocumented, have nowhere else to go.  

Eve Bunting’s Going Home was published 35 years after “Harvest of Shame” was aired, 33 years after the United Farm Workers was founded, and two years after NAFTA was enacted into law. So one might think that Bunting would have had plenty of information about how agricultural workers and their families live—if she had looked. Apparently, she didn’t. 

In Going Home, the young narrator, Carlos, finds out that he and his farm worker family will soon be “going home” to La Perla, Mexico, for Christmas vacation. “Home is here,” his mother explains, “but it is there, too.” Well, I would bet anything that no agricultural workers in their right mind would refer to a labor camp as “home.” Turn two pages: “Papa locks the door of our house,” Carlos says. “The house really belongs to Mr. Culloden, the labor manager, but it is ours as long as we work the crops for him. It has been ours for almost five years.” On the facing page, the artwork depicts this farm worker family’s “home” as one in a row of suburban tract houses, with neatly manicured lawns—as far from a typical ramshackle labor camp domicile as Santa Barbara might be from Appalachia.   

Papa tells the children that they are “legal farm workers,” so they will have no trouble crossing the border. Well, that’s convenient—not only does Bunting neatly avoid describing the incidences of harassment, arrest, jail and deportation common at border crossings, she also does so by having Papa explain why: This family is “legal.” The world is good.

Then there is the peppering of Spanish words in the text—“sí,” “mijo” [sic], “papeles”—coming from the parents. Carlos explains to the reader that, “Papa speaks always in Spanish. He and Mama have no English. There is no need for it in the fields. But I’m always trying to teach them.” But. Since there are only a few Spanish words in the entire text, everyone appears to be speaking English. And Carlos is correcting Papa when he says a word in Spanish, which Mexican children do not do because it would be rude. Rather, children learn early on how to code-switch, an important skill in a household where the parents speak one language and the children speak two. This is all different from teaching the parents English or interpreting when interpretation is needed, a subtlety that is lost on Bunting. And I’m not sure why Bunting decided to use Spanish grammatical forms in Carlos’s English, either. This whole language thing is just a mess.

Carlos says that he and his sister know “how hard the work is. The heat in the strawberry fields. The sun pushing down between the rows of tomatoes. The little flies biting our faces. We know because we work, too, on weekends and school vacations.” In truth, children often work alongside their parents in the fields—before and after school, when they are fortunate enough to be able to attend school—as well as weekends and vacations. While federally mandated Migrant Education Programs exist, children living in rural areas often do not get to go to school. And despite the existence of child labor laws that vary from state to state, children are often forced to work under a parent’s name or under an alias. It’s a dirty business, but one that Bunting conveniently ignores. 

Why did Carlos’s family come here, then? “We are here for the opportunities,” Papa says. More likely, the children would not ask, because they would know. Toiling in the fields as migrant agricultural workers is hardly done for the “opportunities”—it’s done for survival and possibly to send some money home. 

So Mama, Papa, Carlos, Delores, and Nora arrive at La Perla, where they meet the rest of their family and have a great time. Everyone is impressed with the children’s nice clothes and English skills, and the family talks more about “opportunities”:

They laugh and clap. “Imagine, Consuelo! Your son—and all your children—speaking English. So smart!” “Yes,” Papa says. “Their school is very fine. They are getting a good education.” The woman nods. “You were wise to take them and go. Our school is good, too. But where are the opportunities for our children after?”

La Perla is a beautiful place, but there is no “opportunity” here, only in the US. That night, the children sleep in the car, and Mama and Papa come out to dance in the streets. Older sister Delores tells Carlos that Mama and Papa “plan to come back someday and live in Grandfather’s house and work his land.” Carlos thinks, “It will be after our opportunities.”

“Diaz’s fiesta-bright artwork,” a reviewer for Kirkus gushes, “ignites this joyous tale of a Mexican-American family’s sentimental journey.... The fiery colors and bold lines of Diaz's woodcut-like illustrations lend a strength and nobility to these scenes.... [H]e sets his artwork within the photographic backdrops that show gaily painted pottery, folk art figurines, Mexican Christmas decorations, festive flowers and other shiny holiday trinkets. A veritable feast for the eyes...” What the Kirkus reviewer lauds is precisely the problem. Diaz has aptly illustrated Bunting’s sanitized story of a hard working Mexican family for the edification of cultural tourists: take home all the pretty things and look away from the garbage.  Indeed, this story and art together function as an apologia for imperialism.

Bunting’s purposeful ignoring of racism in order to maintain the status quo is palpable. Where she sees issues, they are not so bad. In the case of Going Home, there is no backbreaking labor, no inhaling of toxic pesticides, no sweat, no tears, no exhaustion, no harassment from labor bosses or La Migra. Just “opportunities.” A Publishers Weekly review of Going Home could have been about any of Bunting’s “social justice” books, which “(hint) at the depth of parental love and sacrifice while distancing children from genuine understanding.”

Scholar Joyce King has coined a term for this kind of thinking: “dysconscious racism,” which she defines as “a form of racism that tacitly accepts the dominant white norms and privileges.” [1] And scholar Dan Hade has labeled Bunting’s “social justice” books as “aestheticizing the poor, anesthetizing the reader.”[2]

One last thing: On the dedication page of Going Home, Bunting writes: “Sincere thanks to Joe Mendoza, Regional Director of Migrant Education, Region #17.” Curious to know what kind of involvement someone who works with migrant families might have had with this book, I phoned him. What he told me[3] was that he and Bunting were “like two ships passing in the night; if she walked in right now, I wouldn’t remember her. As I recall, she walked into my office and asked if she could meet a migrant family because she was writing a book. I vaguely remember introducing her to a family, more as a courtesy than anything else and that was that. I spoke with her once or twice; she never asked me to read her manuscript or anything like that.”

Bunting is not the only mediocre writer who acknowledges sources solely to create credibility for a book. When a writer acknowledges someone who is not a friend but whose name carries a particular credential, the assumption is that the person has lent some kind of oversight or has helped in significant ways. In Going Home, Bunting implies something that isn’t there; it’s disingenuous.

Bunting’s “social justice” books show a distortion of reality in order to appeal to what some want to believe. Her formula fits issues such as homelessness (Fly Away Home, 1991), immigration (One Green Apple, 2006), rebellion (Smoky Night, 1994), youth gangs (Your Move, 1998), forced relocation (So Far from the Sea, 1998). Et cetera. As with Bunting’s others, Going Home is sympathetic in a seemingly harmless way. But it’s not harmless; on the contrary, it’s cruel. It’s cruel to the children of agricultural workers and other migrant and immigrant children who must struggle for the “opportunities” that others have as their birthright. And it’s cruel to the unsuspecting children who are being anesthetized to the hard lives of others.

Going Home is not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 5/18/13)

---

[1] Joyce E. King, Ph.D, holds the Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Teaching, Learning, and Leadership in the College of Education at Georgia State University. This definition is from her paper, “Disconscious Racism: Ideology, Identity, and the Miseducation of Teachers” (Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 60, No. 2, 1991).

[2] Daniel Hade, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor in Language and Literacy at Penn State College of Education, where he looks at how poverty is constructed in children’s books and how it is used as an aesthetic. In 1995, he spoke at a children’s literature conference; the title of his talk was “Aestheticizing the Poor, Anesthetizing the Reader: the ‘Social Justice’ Books of Eve Bunting.”

[3] Joe Mendoza generously gave me permission to take notes while we were talking, and to quote him. He said, “Only liars don’t let themselves be quoted.” Thanks, Joe.

César: ¡Sí, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!

 

author: Carmen T. Bernier-Grand

illustrator: David Díaz

Marshall Cavendish, 2004

grades 2-6

Mexican American

In a powerful collection of lyrical, free verse poems rich in farm worker idiom, Bernier-Grand has reconstructed the life and work of the founder and organizer of the United Farm Workers. What makes these poems remarkable is that they not only chronicle the life of a brave and humble man, they also contain his own words. The back breaking work of thinning lettuces with a short-handled hoe, workers trying not to breathe in the deadly pesticides, people too tired to feel their hunger, and a prayer: “give me honesty and patience, so that I can work with other workers.” César: ¡Sí, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!, a Pura Belpré Honor Book, will help develop empathy in young readers, will help them understand the stuff and dreams that make heroes out of ordinary people.

The back matter includes source notes, a glossary of Spanish words, a brief biographical essay and chronology, and a selection of essential quotes. Although there is a Spanish-language version, it’s too bad that this otherwise excellent book is not bilingual. Highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 4/6/13; paragraph redacted and note added 2/15/18)

Note, 2/15/18: Multiple women have come forward with public statements that David Díaz sexually harassed them. After investigating claims against Díaz, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) removed him from its board and conference faculty, and expelled him from the organization. Several other conferences have banned him as well. We have redacted our references to his art in this review.