Imagine // Imagina

author: Juan Felipe Herrera
translator (Spanish): Georgina Lázaro

illustrator: Lauren Castillo
Candlewick Press: 
Imagine, 2018 
Imagina, 2020

preschool-grade 4 

Mexican

[Note: This review developed as a conversation between María Cárdenas and Beverly Slapin.]

María: This morning I cracked open an egg and was delighted when I discovered two yolks—in the culture of my family, a symbol of good luck and abundance. It transported me back to my childhood and my heritage—of the imagination my family encouraged in me and my siblings.

In considering my own childhood—the traumas and the joys and the things in between—I thought deeply about how important imagination is for all children, but especially for those who are struggling in their lives, who are trying to find a way for things to be better. As a long-time educator, I’ve found that imagination can have the power to redirect children in sometimes-problematic circumstances—to inspire them to see themselves positively.

Beverly: In Herrera’s series of short, evocative, free-verse poems—each of which ends with the whisper, “imagine” or “imagine what you could do”—he welcomes young children into his own life, encouraging them to enlarge their own perspectives and consider their own possibilities. As well, youngsters will learn to embrace compassion, humility and empathy.

Immigrant, migrant and refugee children who are hablantes will easily imagine young Juan Felipe’s life as a farmworker child, helping his mom feed the chickens, walking to the next town to fill a bucket of water, feeling the tadpoles swimming across his hands in a creek—and waving a sad adios to his amiguitos when his family has to move yet again. 

And there’s the incomparable beauty of an unfettered imagination that could belong to every child:

If I let the stars

at night

paint my blanket with milky light

with shapes of hungry birds

while I

slept outside,

imagine what you could do…

María: As I read, I’m also thinking about the desperate and frightened children from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and México. Educators need to be careful to remember where the children are in their lives. Of course, all children need support and love—and also the capacity to imagine themselves in positive circumstances. They need to be encouraged to see themselves outside in the rain or in the sun or in a field or going somewhere they have never been. Or reunited with their families. 

Beverly: As the young hablante enters school in the US—confronted by a language he doesn’t understand but everyone else speaks and reads—young readers born here will catch sight of his difficulties and immigrant young people will recognize them.

As he matures and immerses himself in two languages, the young student collects discarded “gooey and sticky ink pens” whose ink flows “like tiny rivers across soft paper”—and his love of creating poetry emerges:

If I grabbed a handful 

of words

I had never heard and

sprinkled them over a paragraph

so I could write

a magnificent story,

imagine

Talented translator Georgina Lázaro is the perfect partner for Herrera’s short, lyrical verses. Rather than a word-for-word translation, Lázaro’s Spanish version beautifully evokes Hererra’s rhythm and voice in the original. In her expressive and sometimes playful Spanish, Lázaro often switches metaphors, dancing between the two languages. 

Si de niño

recogí flores de manzanilla 

en los prados doblados por el viento

y les susurré a sus caritas vellosas

imagina

And, no less importantly, in translating Herrera’s repeated line, “Imagine what you could do,” Lázaro employs the familiar “tú” rather than the formal “usted.” (“Imagina lo que tú podrías hacer.”)

Lauren Castillo’s luminous artwork, in pen-and-foam monoprint, brings young readers into Herrera’s life. Heavily textured, red-earth tones with dappled light and color in backgrounds suggest the Mexican countryside of Herrera’s childhood. Other spreads contain lots of white space and detail, such as the youngster’s helping his mamá feed the chickens while laundry dries in the sun. 

María: Imagine // Imagina are deep enough—in meaning and symbolism—for older readers as well. For instance, younger readers may not immediately understand the importance of walking to the next town to fill a bucket of water for the whole family, but older readers will. And older kids in the city may not know what it feels like to have tadpoles slipping though their fingers, but younger campesino kids will.

Sometimes young people struggle to imagine good things, or even being in a place that’s not chaotic. In particular, Latinx kids who may be struggling with issues at school will see themselves supported in Herrera’s work. That said, I don’t see Imagine // Imagina as  “bootstrap” stories. Rather, they're hopeful stories that encourage young people to think about who they are and to imagine what they can do.

María and Beverly: In Imagine // Imagina Herrera (US Poet Laureate, 2015-2017) extends his hand to the many child refugees, migrants and immigrants here in the US—and encourages them to think about who they are and imagine the possibilities of their own lives. He’s created  deeply satisfying and empowering books that will help build resilient kids who can imagine a better world. 

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

—María Cárdenas and Beverly Slapin
(published 5/4/20)

IMAGINA. Text copyright © 2018 by Juan Felipe Herrera. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Lauren Castillo. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.

Little Doctor / El doctorcito

author: Juan J. Guerra

illustrator: Victoria Castillo 

translator: Gabriela Baeza Ventura 

Piñata Books / Arte Público Press

2017

kindergarten-grade 3 

Salvadoran American

Guerra, who is an ob-gyn physician in Oakland and co-founder of Salud en Español, a clinic for the Spanish-speaking community, conceived of and wrote this quasi-autobiographical story to encourage children who are bilingual to think about entering the medical profession. Unfortunately, The Little Doctor / El doctorcito is fractured and contrived, and does little to communicate this valuable message to young readers.

Ten-year-old Salvador has just earned an A+ on his fourth-grade science test, and rushes home to celebrate with his abuelita, who greets him with a request that he accompany her to the community clinic in order to help her “speak English” (translate for her). The child enthusiastically welcomes the chance to help his abuelita, telling her on the way that he wants to become a doctor.

At the community clinic, which has an inexplicably long line of people who are “coughing, moaning, and fussing,” several are crying and a woman is angrily shushing her screaming daughter. Salvador comforts a woman who is crying, and, when it’s finally their turn, he tells the health care worker at the desk that his grandmother is here for a checkup and asks for a doctor who speaks Spanish. There is none, and he realizes that “everything (is) now up to him.”

In the examining room, Abuelita is frightened (“Salvador, don’t leave me!”), insisting that her young grandson remain with her while she changes into a robe. And, as the door bangs open, in rushes a white, gray-haired, crazed-looking doctor, who not only appears rude, he’s downright mean. With papers flying all around, he barks at Salvador:

“Tell your grandmother her blood pressure is high. She needs to stop eating so much Mexican food and eat more fruits and vegetables. And she needs to take medicine.”

Then he storms out the door, slamming it behind him.

First, no responsible physician would instruct a young child to translate and explain a serious medical condition such as “high blood pressure” to a parent or grandparent; this is something the child might not understand and would probably not have the vocabulary to translate, not to mention explain. And second, this racist, reality-challenged doctor—who assumes that all Spanish-speaking people are Mexican, grandma doesn’t eat any fruits or vegetables but she eats too much Mexican food (all of which is unhealthful), nor does she take medicine—loudly instructs this child to disrespect his own grandmother.

Moreover, in Abuelita’s case, a doctor or nurse would be likely to find out why she has high blood pressure: Do other family members have high blood pressure? What’s her diet like? Is she taking other medications? Does she exercise? But the over-the-top behavior of this doctor is beyond the pale and confusing to young readers, especially to young Latinx readers.

While Salvador responds to the doctor’s assumption that the family is Mexican, he doesn’t question any of the other assumptions. Of course, as a young child, he wouldn’t; but again, the child reader will be confused. This failure, along with many others, is built into the story.

Depending on necessity and circumstance, people in El Salvador often see both physicians and curanderas. But readers at first learn that, whenever Abuela felt ill in El Salvador, she saw a curandera or drank herbal tea. And later, an upset Abuelita remembers, “Salvadoran doctors listen. They want to know about you and how your family is. In El Salvador, the doctors really care for their patients!” This “either-or” rather than “both” paradigm is confusing as well.

Salvador’s experience in this overcrowded clinic in which there are no Spanish-speakers is now convinced that he has found his life’s path. Abuelita’s young translator now assures her that he will never take her to see another abusive doctor like the one they’ve just encountered “ever again.” And his parents remind him that he’ll have to “work very hard” to bring his dream to reality.

And, that night, as he goes to sleep:

[He] imagined the amazing journey of becoming a doctor, wondering about mysterious and marvelous places like college and medical school.

He envisioned a world with doctors who looked like him and spoke English and Spanish.

Knowing that his magical adventure would begin the very next day, Salvador drifted off to asleep [sic].

Doctors practice all over the world, and in many places, people see both traditional healers and physicians. While years ago, medical translators were nonexistent or rare, most clinics now employ both medical professionals and translators who speak the languages of the communities. But there are some cases in which a translator may be unavailable, and this story could have been about not having enough Spanish-speaking doctors, but that’s way different than Salvador’s situation.

It's clear that Castillo is a talented illustrator and comic artist. In a different story, her vibrant, cartoonish art, in pen and ink and digital watercolor on a bright palette of mostly reds and oranges, would shine through and easily capture a young child's imagination. But here, they are discomfiting exaggerations of what might have been tender scenarios in which young Salvador is translating and being generally helpful. For instance, in a scene where he is helping a nurse who is assisting a patient in a wheelchair, the nurse is smiling at Salvador rather than looking where she is going, shielding her patient from the rain by holding an open umbrella under her left arm and struggling to steer the wheelchair with her left hand while also struggling to keep a heavy door open with her right hand. Salvador is opening the other heavy door for her. This kind of problem may have been typical more than 20 years ago, but today, most hospitals and clinics are equipped with wheelchair ramps and automatic doors.

There are many stories that could have been—and should be—written about real situations involving children’s translating or interpreting for family members. And there are many positive potential scenarios about children’s desires to become community physicians and how these desires might be encouraged. This could have been a story about something positive happening that convinces a child to want to become a doctor.

Finally, “doctorcito” is a Spanglish word, an endearing term for a child who may have demonstrated his skills of doctoring, such as taking care of a sick puppy or changing the dressing on a kitten’s paw, or even reminding his grandma to take her medicine on time. But here, our young protagonist is a translator, a helper—but not a “doctorcito.” 

Baeza Ventura’s excellent Spanish translation, in many cases, reads better than the English text. For instance, an English passage reads: “Salvador knew that everything was now up to him,” and Baeza Ventura’s translation reads: “Salvador sabía que todo estaba en sus manos.” But it’s not enough to save this story. Rather, The Little Doctor / El doctorcito is a stereotypic mishmash with lots of contradictions and distractions and little to recommend.

—María Cárdenas

(published 4/6/17; revised 4/10/17)

Finding the Music / En pos de la música

author: Jennifer Torres

illustrator: Renato Alarcão

translator: Alexis Romay 

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2015 

grades 1-4 

Mexican American

Mariachi has always has been a part of la música de mi familia, la música de mi gente.

When I was a little girl, my mom used to sing in the kitchen all the time. The window from the kitchen faced the front of the house, so I’d hear her as I was coming home from school. She would sing corridos and mariachi songs and all kinds of Mexican music. Sometimes she’d sing with the radio and sometimes she’d sing a cappella. I loved her songs; they always made me feel connected to my culture. We grew up listening to that music, and we have a heartfelt reaction whenever we hear it.

So when I received Finding the Music / En pos de la música to review for De Colores, I was looking forward to reading a culturally rich bilingual story about mariachi—the music itself, the people who perform, and the Raza community in whose hearts the music lives.

On the surface, the story is endearing: A pre-teen girl accidentally breaks a beloved family heirloom. She goes around town looking for some way to fix it before her mom finds out what she has done. When the girl figures out that fixing it will take a long time, she decides to fess up to her mom, who forgives her.

But the problems are in the cultural details—or rather, lack of them.

On the cover, we see young Reyna, wearing a sombrero de charro and holding a vihuela. One of her hands is on the struts and the other is on the base of the instrument. Although there are visual allusions to music emanating from her guitar, she is not playing the instrument.

Reyna’s mamá runs a popular Mexican restaurant. It’s noisy. My experience with noise in a Mexican restaurant is usually because of very loud music, and people have to talk over the music in order to have a conversation and be heard. Here, there’s no music and everyone seems to be shouting and arguing, which is what bothers Reyna. I just don’t see that in a restaurant.

Reyna sits in a booth reading, and, one day, frustrated by the noise, she throws her book in the air, knocking down her abuelito’s vihuela, which had been hanging on the wall. I can’t believe that, while everyone else sees and hears the vihuela crash to the floor “with a loud thud,” Reyna’s mother doesn’t come running out of the kitchen.

When Reyna sees her abuelito’s broken vihuela, she remembers:

Reyna had never heard Abuelito play the vihuela, but every night at bedtime Mamá described the Mexican folk songs he had performed. She said the music was like an old friend, taking your hand and pulling you onto the floor.

Why would Reyna’s mamá tell her about the music but doesn’t play it or sing it? If this were a real story about mariachi music, the family would feel the loss of Abuelito’s music, but it doesn’t seem like Reyna knows about the music at all. I find it hard to believe that a child who comes from a mariachi family and whose family owns a Mexican restaurant would not regularly be exposed to mariachi music. Rather, the mother seems more connected to the vihuela hanging on the wall than to the actual mariachi music and culture. And I question the lack of interaction back from Reyna to her mamá, such as: “Take me to see the mariachi,” or “let’s listen to the music.”

Reyna desperately tries to find someone who will help her fix her abuelito’s broken vihuela before her mamá finds out what she’s done.

Don Antonio, who runs a hardware store, can’t fix the vihuela, but he gives Reyna an old photo of her abuelito and his mariachi conjunto. “This was at my wedding,” Don Antonio says. “None of us had much money then, so instead of a gift, your abuelito and his mariachis played for us.”

This makes no cultural sense. Hiring a mariachi conjunto to play at a wedding would cost a lot of money. Reyna’s abuelito and his mariachi conjunto’s playing at their friend’s wedding was not instead of a gift, it was their gift.

Reyna’s school’s music teacher can’t fix the vihuela either, but she gives her what Reyna calls “an old hat”—actually, a sombrero de charro—originally, a gift from Reyna’s abuelito. Señor Marcos, at his shop called Adelita Music Shop (named for La Adelita, the Mexican revolutionary?), can fix the vihuela, but it will take some time, so he gives Reyna an old recording of her abuelito’s mariachi music. The recording is Cielito Lindo, which also happens to be the name of her mamá’s restaurant. So Reyna goes back to the restaurant, tells her mamá what happened, and shows her all the stuff she’s been given. At dinnertime, she puts on the record, and they dance, “laughing and spinning,” to Cielito Lindo, which is hardly a spinning song. The End.

All of these superficial cultural icons—vihuela, photograph, sombrero de charro, and recording—appear to be an attempt to place a thin veneer of Raza culture where there actually is none reflected in the story.

Alarcão’s acrylic illustrations are a shallow depiction of the culture as well. The restaurant is devoid of anything Mexican, except for a stereotypical collection of icons on a wall—there’s the vihuela, a Día de los Muertos skeleton mariachi, a papel picado of three skulls, a luchador near a Virgen de Guadalupe, a folklórico dancer, and two pictures of men in sombreros.

While Alarcão draws some of the characters realistically, he caricatures others, such as two rough looking guys loudly arguing, and a young Black woman with hair that looks like strips of brown construction paper have been pasted onto her head. 

In addition, the art appears to be at odds with the story. For instance, while the cover shows Reyna holding her abuelito’s vihuela, the story doesn’t even have her expressing that she’d like to learn how to play it. Also, while the story refers to the music teacher’s pulling weeds in her garden, in the illustration she’s not pulling weeds. She’s not even wearing gloves or holding a weeding tool—and her garden is postcard-perfect, with not a weed in sight.

Romay’s phrase-by-phrase Spanish translation is grammatically correct, but it doesn’t show the richness of the language. Rather, both the Spanish and English texts appear to be for the benefit of English readers, without regard to Spanish readers. The Spanish is matched to the English text, rather than translated to show the internal logic necessary to appeal to hablantes. It’s not respectful of hablantes or the Mexican American community portrayed in the story. In some of the English text, for instance, an italicized phrase in Spanish is immediately followed by its English translation. Bilingual people do not talk this way:

 “Sí,” Don Antonio said. “Yes.”

“A ver,” he said. “Let’s see.”

“Gracias,” Reyna said. “Thank you.”

“¿Qué pasó?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Sígueme,” Señor Marcos said. “Follow me.”

From the inside cover: “Finding the Music / En pos de la música is a heartwarming bilingual tale of family, community, and the music that brings them together.” But it’s not. It’s a contrived story that purports to show how the people in the community are related to the protagonist’s grandfather. But the community does not come together to solve a community problem; rather, they’re all individuals, the problem is that of an individual, and the child has to figure out the solution by herself.

“Little does Reyna know along the way she will find herself growing closer to Abuelito and to the power of his music,” the copy also reads. This, too, does not happen.

Although she comes from a mariachi family, Reyna may have never heard mariachi music, but she’s heard many descriptions of mariachi music from her mamá. And like Reyna, young readers will not learn anything about mariachi either. The story is just cultural tourism—a superficial tale that appropriates Mexican American lives without providing any depth of cultural learning.

Finding the Music had potential. It could have explored a young Latina’s discovery of the music, embracing the music and wanting to learn to play the music. It could have explored what it is about mariachi that’s so soulful to Raza children. But Finding the Music / En pos de la música doesn’t do any of this and, as it stands, I can’t recommend it.

—María Cárdenas

(published 11/5/16)

Here are some suggestions for alternate scenarios that may have imbued a story like Finding the Music with cultural richness:

1. Mamá and Reyna are washing the dishes in the restaurant. The radio is playing mariachi music. Mamá sighs, “That’s the music of mi gente,” and Reyna responds, “Oh, Mamá, I want to learn all about mariachi music. Maybe I can learn to play Abuelito’s vihuela. Can you help me find someone to teach me?”

2. A non-Latino family moves into the neighborhood. They visit Mamá’s restaurant and fall in love with the mariachi music playing on the radio. Reyna, who comes from a mariachi family, introduces the new neighbors to her barrio, and offers to teach their daughter about mariachi music and culture.

3. Mamá and her family have had to sell their restaurant and move out of their barrio. In this neighborhood where Spanish is not typically spoken, there are no close neighbors and no corner bodegas, and mariachi music is rarely heard. Mamá and Reyna voice their loneliness for their friends, culture and language. They have a difficult decision to make.

4. Mamá and her family move to a new barrio, where Spanish is spoken and the local radio station plays mariachi music, but there are no mariachi conjuntos as there were in their old neighborhood. Lonely for the music of their gente, the family organizes to form a fledgling mariachi student group, who, with discipline, hard work and passion, will eventually bring mariachi music back to their barrio.

—M.C.

Elegy on the Death of César Chávez

author: Rudolfo A. Anaya

illustrator: Gaspar Enriquez

Cinco Puntos Press, 2000

grades 5-up 

Mexican American

And we have wept for him until our eyes are dry…

Here, brilliant novelist and seasoned Chicano activist Rudolfo Anaya pens for middle readers (and everyone else) an impassioned poem about grief, about mourning, about history and the greatness of a humble man of la gente—and ultimately, about hope for the future.

With a nod to Christianity, Shakespeare, Shelley and Whitman—and spot-on use of meter and repetition, combined with natural code-switching throughout the poem (“Across the land we heard las campanas doblando/ Ha muerto César; Ha muerto César”)—Anaya teams with Chicano artist Gaspar Enriquez to bring us a work of unparalleled clarity and beauty, a poem of honoring and love for a person whose untimely passing was a blow to the Raza community and to the world.

As an elegy for a humble leader, la gente’s hero, it moves from grief (“this earth he loves so well is dry and mourning”), to hope (“his disciples know he is not dead/ for in the dawn we see the morning star/ el lucero de Dios”), and finally, to a continuation of the struggle against oppression (“throughout Aztlán we call the young to gather: Rise, mi gente, rise”).

That Anaya’s poem and Enriquez’s artwork “lack subtlety” (as one reviewer wrote) is an understatement: there is no pretense here, no couching of either emotion or motive. This is an elegy, to be sure; it’s also a cry for action and unity, to rise against injustice and oppression.

Enriquez’s airbrushed mixed-media collage artwork, presented as a series of old snapshots, is built from existing photos, some from the United Farm Worker archives. As such, his art both communicates a feeling of familia y comunidad and complements Anaya’s poetry. Here, amid farm worker flags, the US flag, and Aztec symbols, is a weeping Virgen de Guadalupe (“you starved your body so we might know your spirit”). Here is a handcuffed farm worker, tendrils from a cluster of grapes framing his hands and the cop’s gun (“a scourge on the oppressors of the poor”). Here are agricultural workers, bent over in the backbreaking labor of harvesting onions (“this man who was a guide across fields of toil”). Here are farm worker children—superimposed over an image of a crop duster and a newspaper headline—whose lives are threatened by cancer-causing pesticides (“children uneducated in a land grown fat with greed”). Here are a group of cholos, the young people with whom Enriquez works, contemplating unity (“rise not against each other, but for each other”).

Helpful additions, especially for classroom and school libraries, include a chronology at the end of the book, which is made into a beautiful poster on the inside of the dust jacket, and a heartfelt note from Anaya about César’s life and work. At the end, Anaya implores young people:

Build the house of justice, the poem says in the end. Each one of us has a role in building that house. Each one of us must make a commitment to build a better society. Yes, we must organize. We must work together. We must fight against oppression. In this way we honor César and all the good men and women who have struggled to better our lives.

In a classroom or school library, Elegy can provide a multiplicity of thoughtful exercises. Pairing Elegy with Carmen Bernier-Grand’s excellent César: Sí, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! can elicit discussion of contrasts and similarities in the ways that poetry can be used to describe oppression and call for struggle, and students can try out different forms of poetic writing to express their feelings about family and community. Contrasting the art in Elegy with Yuyi Morales’ art in Kathleen Krull’s Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez and Ilan Stavans’ Cesar Chavez: A Photographic Essay can support discussion and art activities around the topic of symbolism and realism in art. Both Spanish speakers and Spanish language learners can look at the power of code-switching and idiomatic Spanish in poetry and try this technique in writing about their own lives. As well, non-Spanish speakers can use Elegy to examine the use of metaphor in poetry and discuss what kinds of writing resonates with them. And finally, all students can be asked to think deeply and describe their personal commitments (in writing or art or both) to “build the house of justice.”

Bravo, Rudolfo and Gaspar and Cinco Puntos Press! Elegy on the Death of César Chávez is an amazing work that’s highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin and María Cárdenas
(published 6/30/14)

César Chávez: A Photographic Essay

author: Ilan Stavan 

Cinco Puntos Press, 2010

grades 5-up 

Mexican American

“We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live,” César Chávez once said. “We shall endure.”

In the evocative cover photo, César and an elder agricultural worker embrace each other. As both look directly into the camera, the elder’s right arm rests on César’s right shoulder, while César’s right hand supports the elder. Reflected in the elder’s eyeglasses are the images of agricultural workers and supporters holding signs and banners of protest. In this excellent photographic essay, carefully selected black-and-white archival photos combine with honest and accessible text to present for middle readers the story of the life and struggles of a courageous person—and the people who struggled with him.

In his introduction, Stavans is clear and to the point: “Chavez needs to be re-introduced to the young,” he writes, “as a model in the larger fight against poverty and corporate abuse. It is crucial to reinstate him to the rightful place he deserves in United States history: as both a voice for and a champion of the oppressed.” Although the tactics of non-violent resistance of such leaders as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., became César’s trademark, his heroes also included Emiliano Zapata and other Mexican revolutionaries. Indeed, César was an agricultural worker, and a local, national, and international leader as well.

At the same time, he is not an icon and was far from a superhero. Rather, César was a humble person, a common man of la gente who, together with activists Dolores Huerta, Fred Ross, and other organizers—and with thousands of agricultural workers and supporters—accomplished the all but impossible: they garnered recognition of, and won human and civil rights for, some of the most impoverished and exploited workers in this country.

Most of the black-and-white photos here are from the Farm Workers Archive, many taken by agricultural workers themselves, rather than by professional photographers. These compelling photos have an intimate look that’s reminiscent of a family album.

Some of the photos are, indeed, family snapshots. Here is six-year-old Cesario with his sister on the family farm near Yuma, Arizona. Here is César’s eighth-grade graduation photo, a snapshot of the 17-year-old in the Navy, and César and Helen with six of their own children.

But it’s the agricultural workers and their struggle that are at the heart of this photographic essay. Here is César as a young organizer speaking at a small meeting in what appears to be a classroom in the early 1960s, and at a much larger open-air rally in the 1970s. Here are agricultural workers engaging in the backbreaking labor of gathering melons, harvesting onions, and thinning rows of lettuce. Here is a 1950s photo of workers using the crippling short-handled hoes, which became a symbol of their particular exploitation. And here is a family of striking farm worker parents and children picketing the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

Especially moving are the photos of César breaking his 25-day fast in 1968, during a mass attended by some 8,000 farm workers; and of his 1993 funeral procession in Delano, in which some 40,000 mourners marched.

And although the book is essentially about César Chávez, Stavans would have been remiss had he not included Dolores Huerta. Indeed, there are pages of photos and text here about Dolores, an organizer in her own right, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, who led the huge grape boycott and negotiated contracts with the large growers, who campaigned for the 1973 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, and who survived a vicious beating at the hands of the San Francisco police in 1988.

Stavans, who himself emigrated from Mexico, organized the photos semi-chronologically, with the sequence broken whenever necessary to provide visual consistency. The evocative black-and-white photos he chose lend themselves to discussion, not only about the movement, but also about the hard work of the people in the fields—combined, they give a sense of familia, of comunidad, something not often seen in photographic essays. 

With an all-inclusive chronology at the end, César Chávez: A Photographic Essay is a must-read for all middle schoolers—not “just” Mexican American students—and an excellent introduction to what it is to be involved in social activism. Highly recommended.

—María Cárdenas and Beverly Slapin
(published 6/28/14)

Note: For further research, students can be directed to the United Farm Workers website (http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=research&inc=history/07.html), which contains a wealth of information, including history, key campaigns, victories, photos and worker voices.

Mr. Sugar Came to Town / La visita del Sr. Azúcar

author: Harriet Rohmer

author: Cruz Gomez

translator: Rosalma Zubizarreta

illustrator: Enrique Chagoya

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 1989

kindergarten-up 

Mexican American

About 25 years ago, I taught afterschool classes for migrant children through the Santa Clara County Office of Education. During some of these classes, migrant college students visited and performed puppet plays about the importance of proper nutrition and the dangers of smoking. My children loved the puppet plays, especially because young people who could have been their older sisters and brothers performed the plays. The puppets were kind of magical for the young children, who could see that the puppets were on someone’s hands, yet they were able to suspend disbelief and pay attention to the message. These puppet plays came to mind as I read Mr. Sugar Came to Town.

Mr. Sugar Came to Town is adapted from a puppet play by Cruz Gomez, Bárbara García, Jesus Gaytan and Jeff Steinhardt and produced by the Food and Nutrition Program of the Watsonville, California Rural Health Clinic as part of its outreach program to agricultural workers and their families.

In the book, a character named “Mr. Sugar” arrives in town and quickly gets a young brother and sister addicted to junk food. They get sugar highs and lows, put on a huge amount of weight, and get in trouble in school. Grandma saves the day by pulling off Mr. Sugar’s mask and revealing the ugliness of Mr. Sugar and his junk food. Mr. Sugar disappears “in a cloud of sugar smoke” and the family celebrates: “They ate rice and beans, chiles and meat, fruits and vegetables from the garden.” And Mr. Sugar goes on to try to addict innocent little kids elsewhere.

Since they were performed in the migrant camps, these puppet plays were for whole families to enjoy together. The evil Mr. Sugar, probably cackling as he distributes his addictive substances to the unsuspecting little kids; the children stuffing their faces and blowing up like balloons; grandma’s confronting Mr. Sugar, struggling with him and pulling off his mask to reveal his ugly face—the shows were fun and there were nutrition lessons to supplement them. But reduced to a children’s book, it’s all just blah.

While the intention here is to teach young children about the dangers of eating too much sugar, it’s didactic and exaggerated and doesn’t give the message of moderation or balanced eating.

The problem with food and obesity in this country—and worldwide—is that agribusiness corporations widely advertise junk food, and aim these commercials specifically at young children. And poverty is not a small issue, either: When I was teaching preschool, I visited a parent who told me that she gave her children cookies and milk in the morning because that’s all she was able to afford.

The Spanish, which is not incorrect but is an almost exact literal translation, is blah as well. It doesn’t hold its own as a story; rather, it replicates the humdrum English version. Chagoya’s illustrations, rendered in multicolored pencil and pastel, complement the story as well.

If Mr. Sugar Came to Town / La visita del Sr. Azúcar were accompanied by a puppet show and some curriculum about nutrition education, maybe there would be some value in it. But it’s not and, as such, I cannot recommend it.

—María Cárdenas
(published 6/27/14)

My Very Own Room / Mi propio cuartito

author: Amada Irma Pérez

translator: Consuelo Hernández

illustrator: Maya Christina González

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2000

grades 2-up 

Mexican, Mexican American

When we were kids, we slept four in a bed; the girls slept in one bed and the boys in another. Living with ten people piled into a small house was just our reality. For me, there was no place to be by myself, to read, to do my homework; it was a common occurrence to see my homework stuck to the table or with milk spilled on it, and there was no such thing as quiet in our house.

For a large traditional Mexican family such as ours, it was a matter of both culture and economics: family and friends came and went, and people either shared space with relatives or lived in made-over garages. There wasn’t much room, so children usually slept together in one or two beds and sometimes on the couch or on the floor.

My Very Own Room reminded me of my impossible wish. The narrator is a nine-year-old girl who shares a room with five brothers and imagines her own space “with my own bed, table, and lamp—a place where I could read the books I loved, write in my diary, and dream.” How she transforms a storage closet into a perfect, private space shows, not only her own determination and resourcefulness, but how her family joyfully pitches in and helps out. Here’s a bed from Tío Pancho, who is returning to Mexico. Here’s a white ceramic glass lamp from the Blue Chip store, for redeemed Blue Chip stamps. Here are several paint cans, each with a little paint in it that when blended, makes a gorgeous magenta color for her walls. And here are lots and lots of books, borrowed from the library.

González’s art, in oil pastel on a rich palette of bold, warm colors, complement the story. I especially like the image of the whole family licking Blue Chip stamps, the swirls of the paint colors coming together, and finally, “the luckiest, happiest little girl in the whole world,” falling asleep under a blanket of books in her very own room.

Hernández’s idiomatic Spanish translation reads as well as the English, so both hablantes and English-speakers can enjoy this warm story of a little girl who is part of a loving family and finds a way to acquire her own space. Based on the author’s own family story, My Very Own Room / Mi propio cuartito is highly recommended.

—María Cárdenas
(published 3/27/14)

My Aunt Otilia’s Spirits / Los espíritus de mi tía Otilia

author: Richard García

translator: Jesús Guerrero Rea

illustrators: Robin Cherin, Roger I. Reyes

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 1986

grades 2-up 

Puerto Rican

My Aunt Otilia’s Spirits reminds me of the stories of spirits and ghosts told to us as children. These stories are common in Latino cultures; children have a fascination with ghosts and spirits and because of the oral tradition of telling ghost stories, some for teaching lessons, some for preventing bad behavior. As a teacher, I read this story around Halloween and el Día de los Muertos until the classroom library copy became too worn to use.

Here, Tía Otilia comes to visit. Our reality is that, when people show up and there’s limited space, you just have to move over; so Aunt Otilia sleeps in the bed with her nephew. And every night that she’s there, there’s a shaking and knocking on the walls. “It’s just my spirits,” she tells him. “Go to sleep, Demonio.” (It’s sometimes misunderstood by cultural outsiders, but we often use derogatory-sounding nicknames such as “Demonio,” “Gordo,” “Flaco,” and even “Burro” as endearments with our children.)

One night, Demonio puts gum in his ear so he won’t hear Tía Otilia’s voice and he can stay awake. He hears a rattling noise and here are Aunt Otilla’s bones coming out of her body and flying out the window—but her body remains in the bed! When he jumps out of bed, he knocks the pieces of her body to the floor and she flies out the window.

In Latino cultures, there are always spirits hanging around; there’s always a family member who hears voices or talks about spirits or has some kind of otherworldly gifts. So it’s not unusual for unusual things to happen. As Garcia writes, “[M]y Aunt Otilia was accompanied by bed shakings and wall knockings wherever she went. However, this was not regarded as unusual in my family, or a cause for much concern. The supernatural had a natural place in our life.”

Rea’s idiomatic Spanish translation reads as well as the English, so the story will resonate for Spanish-speakers and English-speakers alike. For instance, “I really caught a spanking for chasing my Aunt Otila away” becomes “me dieron unas buenas nalgaras por asustar a mi tía Otila,” which is a more visual statement.

Cherin’s and Reyes’ artwork is executed in acrylics and ink on a bright palette using lots of primary colors, and the bold handwritten text incorporated into the design adds to the book’s attractiveness. I especially love the picture of Aunt Otilia’s skeleton, carrying a handbag, flying out the window, while her suitcases have a spirit of their own; and I can just imagine Demonio’s anxiety as he tries to put his aunt back together after knocking her body parts off the bed. Kids break things, but not usually their relatives.

But all’s well that ends well: “[A] month later,” Demonio tells us, “we got a postcard from Puerto Rico. Aunt Otilia said she enjoyed her visit and was fine, although she felt a little mixed up.”

My Aunt Otilia’s Spirits / Los espíritus de mi tía Otilia provides the space to talk about children’s fears and nightmares, as well as ghost stories that children have heard in their families. For teachers, it’s an opportunity for class discussions about people’s beliefs about spirits in a positive way. It’s highly recommended.

—María Cárdenas
(published 3/27/14)