Paletero Man

author: Lucky Díaz

illustrator: Micah Player

Harper, 2021

grades 2-up

(Mexican American) 

On the cover, a young Mexican American boy is daydreaming. With the L.A. skyline behind him, his thoughts are framed by a virtual rainbow of delicious paletas (fruit ices) of differing shapes and flavors. What a struggle it is to choose!

Paleteros are street sellers of paletas and helados, Mexican-style ice and ice cream pops in a variety of gelato and sorbet flavors. They’re sold from pushcarts called paleterías. Although the words don’t have English translations, paleteros and their paleterías are a beloved cultural icon in Mexican and other Latino communities across the U.S. and in many Latin American countries as well.

Paletero Man—the song and story—honors the paleteros, much like the song, Watermelon Man (written by Herbie Hancock and recorded by Oscar Brown, Jr.) honored the Black street vendors who sold fresh watermelon slices back in the day.

It’s the hottest day of the year in L.A. and, with his pocket full of change, a young child runs off to find the neighborhood paletero. Along the way, he greets friends, relatives, and other street vendors and shop keepers; among them, Tío Ernesto, who sells tamales; Ms. Lee, who sells Korean BBQ; and Frank, who repairs bikes. 

The youngster’s first-person narrative, in A-B-C-B rhyme and code-switching, is well done and a fun read. For instance, when he finally reaches Paletero José, the child says:

But today I’d like piña

Do you have that sabor?

He smiles a big smile—

“¡Claro! Para ti, ¡el mejor!”

But as he reaches into his pocket, the child finds that all the change he had saved up—is gone! Fortunately, Tío Ernesto, Frank, and Ms. Lee had seen the coins fall to the ground, picked them up, and returned them. And Paletero José, moved by their deed, gives everyone in the neighborhood a free paleta:

Whether it’s stormy

or whether it’s sunny,

whether or not 

you have any money,

I’ll always help out

an amigo in need.

Yo te prometo—

an amigo indeed!

Selling paletas is not a great money-making gig, so it would be a rare event for a low-income neighborhood paletero to give away his entire inventory. But it could happen—and especially, as an acknowledgment of generosity to neighbors who do the right thing. Paletero Man is a celebration of Mexican life and culture in the U.S.—and it’s as sweet as a paleta. 

In Paletero Man, Díaz recognizes a common experience grounded in goodness. While small deeds are rarely rewarded, youngest readers can share with each other the different ways that a community can come together in a time of need.

Player’s bright digital illustrations are vibrant and joyous, and complement the exuberance of a young child who—with his relatives, friends, and neighbors—live, work and play together in a multicultural, multiethnic, multigenerational community. Here, complexions, clothing and hairstyles vary, several men sport tattoos, and, in the  park, there’s a hijabi with her child.  

And worth noting is that, in this story, the Spanish words and phrases are not italicized. Rather, Spanish and English—like the people in the community—are mixed.

Paletero Man is Lucky Díaz’s and Micah Player’s homage to Mexican culture—both in Mexico and in the U.S. The story is as delightful as a juicy paleta de horchata or melón. 

Warning to young readers and their adults who find the song, “El Paletero” performed by Latin Grammy-winning Lucky Díaz and his Family Jam Band on The Friday Zone on PBS (scroll down at luckydiazmusic.com): Make sure you have nothing else to do but dance all day. The song and rhythm are that catching. 

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 3/18/21)

[Note: Horchata and mélon are my favorite flavors.]

Wild Book

 

author: Margarita Engle

illustrator (cover): Yuyi Morales

Harcourt, 2012

grades 4-up 

Cuban

It is 1912, a chaotic time following Cuba’s war for independence from Spain and the subsequent US occupation of the island. It’s a time of lawlessness, including white race riots against the island’s African-Cuban population and rampaging kidnappers who carry off children for ransom. It is at this time in this place that we meet 11-year old Josefa de la Caridad Uría Peña, called “Fefa” by her family and “Fefa la fea” by her sisters when they are taunting her.

Fefa’s family, like most Cuban families here, is mixed: Her father’s “daring” ancestors were Basque, her mother’s were Indian and the “musical” Canary Islanders, and her cousin’s African parents had been enslaved. “When I ask Papá to explain,” Fefa says, he tells her, “If you don’t have blood / from one tribe, you have it / from another—El que no tiene / sangre del Congo / tiene del Carabalí.”

“I am glad to know / that I am part bird-person,” she says, “because birds come in all colors, / and they belong to many tribes. / Maybe I should just sing / pretty bird songs at school, / instead of struggling to read / OUT LOUD.”

Engle’s lyrical free verse, an elegant economy of words, paints a picture from the life of her maternal grandmother as a young girl living with her large extended family on a farm in the Cuban countryside in the early 20^th century. Fefa has been diagnosed with “word blindness” (dyslexia) and, every day, she struggles with her “word fear.” “Fefa will never be able / to read, or write, / or be happy / in school,” the doctor tells her mother.

But Fefa’s mother is not having any of it. She gives Fefa a book with blank pages—a “wild book”—in which to practice writing. “Think of this little book / as a garden,” she suggests to her daughter. “Throw the wildflower seeds / all over each page, she advises. / Let the words sprout / like seedlings, / then relax and watch / as your wild diary / grows.”

“When I listen as Mamá reads / OUT LOUD,” Fefa says, “I imagine / the height of my own wild hopes.” Encouraged by her mother’s love of poetry, especially the poems of the great Nicaraguan poet, Rubén Darío—and not without struggle—Fefa opens her wild book and writes one bold word: “Valentía.” Courage. “Maybe if I claim / my own share of courage / often enough, it will appear.”

All that Fefa is, goes into her wild book, and young readers will see her blossoming as do the wild flowers in her book. “My drifts of verse,” she says, “are free words, / wild and flowing. / The world is filled / with things that flow, / like water, / feelings, / daydreams, wind…”

And, months later, when her family is threatened, it is Fefa’s ability to decipher the mystery of the written word—“I tell what I know. / I fly to the truth of words”—that saves them.

On the gorgeous cover painting, by talented, multiple award-winning Yuyi Morales, is a young, happy, confident Fefa, her brown eyes smiling and arms open to the world, wild orchids in her hair and a bird superimposed on her face. On her lap is her wild book, a beautiful wild garden, with leaves and tendrils and buds growing out of it, framing the child. She is holding her pencil loosely in her left hand, allowing it to create all the beautiful words in her beautiful wild book.

And there is a wild caimán in front of Fefa’s book, looking directly at the reader and smiling its wild caimán smile, confident that it will not wind up on her family’s dinner table this day.

I’m tempted to copy the entirety of The Wild Book into this review. It’s that beautiful. Highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 4/9/13)

Harvesting Hope: The Story of César Chávez*

author: Kathleen Krull

illustrator: Yuyi Morales

Harcourt, 2003

grades 3-6 

Mexican American

On the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, “CBS Reports” aired a documentary presented by broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Called “Harvest of Shame,” it was the first such program to bring to public attention the horrible conditions of migrant agricultural workers in the US.

Five years later, thousands of impoverished men and women, led by an agricultural worker named César Chávez, walked off their jobs in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, leaving huge fields of grapes to rot. Krull’s picture book, Harvesting Hope, focuses on the National Farm Workers Association’s 340-mile march—from the grape fields of Delano to Sacramento—to gain public support for their strike against the Delano grape growers.

The result of this effort—the longest protest march and the first agricultural strike in US history—was stunning. As Krull writes, “Some of the wealthiest people in the country had been forced to recognize some of the poorest as human beings.”

In Harvesting Hope, Krull embeds the struggle of the California agricultural workers into a biography of its leader—from his idyllic boyhood with his large family in Arizona, to the drought that forced them to migrate to California, to the racism he experienced in school, to the backbreaking work and grinding poverty in the fields, to his development as an organizer, to the founding of the National Farm Workers Association and finally, to the walkout and massive march to Sacramento. Krull is a good writer, and young readers will empathize with young César and the struggle he led.

But Morales’ gorgeous mural-like paintings, in acrylics and computer-created cutouts on a lush jeweled palette of mostly earth tones, will draw them into César Chávez’s world. Here is young César in school, wearing a sign that says, “I am a clown. I speak Spanish.” His eyes are downcast in humiliation, and the other children are looking on, a mixture of fear and shame on their faces. Here are the farmworkers, stooped over the crops. The physical pain is palpable. Here are the people—women with babies, men holding tools—marching out of the fields. Here is César at the head of a line of marchers, confronting the Delano police force. And here are the jubilant workers and their supporters, celebrating their victory. 

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 4/4/13)