Counting Kindness: Ten Ways to Welcome Refugee Children // A Contar amabilidad, Counting Kindness: Diez formas de darles la bienvenida a niños refugiados

author: Hollis Kurman

illustrator: Barroux

Charlesbridge, 2020, grades K-2

Of course, any attempt to generate increased compassion for dislocated individuals should be applauded. However, in an attempt to encourage the welcoming of immigrants from war-torn countries, Counting Kindness // A Contar amabilidad makes a few inexplicit implications. Among these are: 

(1) Trauma that forces people to leave their homelands can easily be rectified by kindness shown to them by the people of “receiving” countries.

(2) Refugees do not bring much (if anything) to contribute to their adopted countries and lifeways.

(3) The ability to relocate to foreign, yet “developed,” lands (inhabited by people of lighter skin tones) will necessarily lead the refugees to improved lives. 

(4) As long as kindness is extended to them, the refugees will easily fit into and be content to live in new lands. 

(5) These refugees do not have much (if anything) to miss from being away from home. 

Counting Kindness: Ten Ways to Welcome Refugee Children // A Contar amabilidad: Counting Kindness: Diez formas de darles la bienvenida a niños refugiados oversimplifiy relocation as a result of war. They also oversimplify the lives and cultures of the displaced populations. Perhaps it’s too much to expect from a children's storybook, but there is nothing here that addresses the roles that the lifestyles enjoyed by people in most of the developed countries plays in generating many conflicts behind the current refugee crises of the world. That having been said, if we are really to feel and demonstrate compassion for the plight of people in other lands, we must do more to reduce our consumption of products, industries and legislation pushing these situations, rather than merely being “friendly” to victims when they happen to become visible within our own sphere of existence (as long as they keep up their end of the bargain and simply melt in).

Counting Kindness: Ten Ways to Welcome Refugee Children // A Contar amabilidad: Counting Kindness: Diez formas de darles la bienvenida a niños refugiados are not recommended.

—Umm Aminah

Isabel and Her Colores Go to School

author: Alexandra Alessandri

illustrator: Courtney Dawson

Sleeping Bear Press, 2021 

preschool-up

Mexican American

Young Isabel is lost and frightened. As a Spanish-speaker—an hablante whose language is made of “pinks and yellows and purples”—she’s about to begin kindergarten, where English—“with stormy blues and blizzard whites”—is the only language spoken. Her heart “pitter-pattering like a summer’s rain,” Isabel pleads with her mother not to send her, and her mother encourages her with a hug and a dicho: “Al mal tiempo, buena cara”—“To bad times, a good face.” 

As the anxious little girl enters this foreign place, her teacher welcomes her in Spanish:—“¡Bienvenidos!”—a greeting she understands. Still, in her new, mixed classroom, she struggles with this strange-sounding language; the easy communication among the children and between the children and their teacher. While she knows that, like her own language, these foreign words mean things, she doesn’t know which words mean what things. It’s all so confusing!

Over and over, Isabel misunderstands her teacher: When the children exercise and count “one, two, three,” Isabel joyfully counts “uno, dos, tres” and then realizes that the colors in her head are “crashing against each other like planets colliding in an explosion of stars.”

And when Sarah, a Black child, offers her friendship, Isabel doesn’t understand. She responds, “no entiendo,” and the miscommunication embarrasses both of them.

But things change slowly. When the teacher announces that it’s coloring time, Isabel recognizes that the word, “coloring” sounds like “colorear,” and she draws a picture of herself and Sarah together. The first Spanish word that Sarah learns is “amigas,” and the first English word for Isabel is “friends.”

And when the teacher holds up Isabel’s drawing, of the two friends, “the stormy blues and blizzard whites softened to a brilliant aguamarina—just like home.”  

Alessandri’s conversational Spanish translations, which appear both in the English narrative and on a bright box at the top or bottom of each page, are excellent. For instance, when Isabel’s mom comforts her daughter on the night before the first day of school, the English text reads:

“It’s OK to be scared.” Mama’s voice was soft and amber like a ripened mango. She gave Isabel a squishy, squashy hug.

And the Spanish reads:

“—Es normal tener miedo—dijo mami, con su voz dulce y dorado como el mango maduro. Ella le dio a Isabel un abrazo de oso. (“It’s normal to be scared,” Mommy said, her voice sweet and golden as a ripe mango. She gave Isabel a bear hug.)

Courtney Dawson’s vibrant illustrations perfectly reflect Isabel’s emotions as they transition from fear to confusion to understanding to confidence, and the colors in her head slowly change from the “stormy blues and blizzard whites” of English to join with the “pinks and yellows and purples of español.” 

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 8/6/2012)

21 Cousins // 21 Primos

author: Diane de Anda

illustrator: Isabel Muñoz

Star Bright Books, 2021

Mexican, Mestizo

grades: preschool-up

Against a brightly colored background of blue sky, growing greens, and festive papel picado, the 21 cousins—with 21 hair textures, styles and colors; and 21 complexion tones ranging from chocolate to café con leche—sit, stand, wave, laugh, and make funny faces for the cover shoot. 

On the frontispiece, the young narrators—grade-schoolers Alejandro and Sofia—stand on a stairwell, talking with each other. They’re about to introduce readers to each of their 21 cousins. Young readers will see that this book is, in effect, a “photo” album, with one page for each member of this diverse, loving family. 

The first spread, which contains black-and-white wedding photos—of Abuelo Pedro and Abuela María in 1953; Abuelo Juan and Abuela Marta; and tías Rosa María and Juanita as teenagers—are together a testament to the family’s mestizaje. As with all mixed families, relatives “look different in many ways.”

Alejandro and Sofía invite young readers to meet their “primos and primas.” Some of them: Cousin Enrique (“Kiki”) is a football player who has “long, strong legs.” Cousin Elena, whose nickname is “Guera” (“Whitey”) because she is light-complected, wants to teach in English and Spanish. Twins Tony (who plays soccer) and Tonia (who plays basketball) are tall. Young Teresa, who’s called “Morena” because she has “milk-chocolate skin,” likes to jump rope. Baby Miguel has no hair yet, so his nickname is “Pelón (“Baldy”). Martina (“Teenie”) is a gymnast.

Some adult readers from outside the culture may find offense at some of the nicknames the relatives give each other. Don’t. Loving teasing among close friends and relatives is indigenous to Mexican culture and to other cultures as well.

Lesser authors would have called undue attention to some of the relatives for their disabilities or differences. Diane de Anda doesn’t. Rather, she sometimes mentions a disability as one element of a child’s life, and then lets it go. For instance:

Eight-year-old Beto “goes to a special class in school. He has Down syndrome. Sometimes he needs our help to do things.” Alejandro and Sofía make sure that readers also know that Beto has fun playing games with them and sharing their favorite flavor of ice cream, dulce de leche. Another page shows Maricela, who “can spell words in Spanish and English” and “won the third-grade spelling bee.” That Maricela uses a wheelchair is shown but not even mentioned. Rather, everyone “cheered when she rolled up the ramp to get her trophy.” 

In the final spread at the end of Alejandro and Sofía’s introduction to each family member, the two pose for a family portrait—in which they welcome cousin number 22, Baby Christina. 

Using a bright spectrum of colors, soft strokes, and a lot of background detail, Isabel Muñoz created her vibrant, expressive artwork on a digitally manipulated “canvas.”  

Writing and illustrating a children’s picture book that describes the lives of 21 individuals in a family—and holds the attention and imagination of very young children—is no easy task. But Diane de Anda and Isabel Muñoz have pulled it off, seemingly effortlessly.

Diane de Anda’s outstanding writing and Isabel Muñoz’s gorgeous artwork give new meaning to the term, “We are all related.” 

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 7/27/2021)

I Love You, Baby Burrito

author: Angela Dominguez

illustrator: Angela Dominguez

publisher: Roaring Brook Press, 2021

preschool-up (Mexican American)

On the cover, a tightly-swaddled infant, fists slightly emerging, is fast asleep in an oval cradle—resembling a “baby burrito” in a basket.

Next to a birdhouse in the crook of a tree, a protective mamá and papá robin greet their newly hatched nestlings; while inside their home, a mixed couple celebrate the swaddling of their new café-con-leche infant. 

Dominguez’s artwork—using a gentle, pastel palette of watercolor paint and colored pencil combined with digital imaging—lovingly portrays the first few hours in the lives of the young couple together with their beyond adorable bebé.

Throughout, one of the dominant colors is a soft green, which readers will see on the cover and the infant’s cap and blanket, and a toy llama. While most of the English text is set in black type, each larger bolded word and phrase in Spanish, appearing together with an illustration—is highlighted in the same, gentle green, and merges with the other design elements.

As the new parents speculate on their baby’s face, fingers, and toes, Dominguez deftly conveys the meanings of the Spanish words and phrases by her illustrations—“This is your delightful carita, which I think looks a little bit like mine. And these are your precious manitas and deditos…that I could gobble up”—and there’s also a helpful Spanish-English glossary and pronunciation guide on the final pages. 

As their baby awakes and begins to signal distress, one of the parents asks:

Speaking of . . . 

Are you hungry? 

¿Tienes hambre?

I Love You, Baby Burrito is a serene and tranquil portrait of a loving family welcoming their new addition.

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 7/18/2021)

La Llorona: Retelling a Mexican Legend

author: Wim Coleman

author: Pat Perrin

illustrator: Martha Avilés

Red Chair Press (Lerner), 2015

grades 3-5

“Aztec”

REVIEW OF THE INTRODUCTION

La Llorona (The Crying Woman) is a sad and haunting tale from Mexico. Parents have told the story for hundreds of years to misbehaving children and to guard against vanity. Some say the story is about Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and a native Mexican woman who served as his translator. Her loss can be compared to the loss of native Mexican culture after the Spanish conquest.

The “native Mexican woman who served as (Cortés’) translator” was Malinalli (aka, “la Malinche”).

Long before Columbus came to the Americas, a similar legend was told by the Aztec people. Some very old European legends are also a lot like this tale. So perhaps those stories from the New World and the Old World got mixed together as they were retold.

The story of La Llorona is not an Aztec story. La Llorona (typically known as Citlali) was not an Aztec woman. She was from Xochimilco, a tributary kingdom of the Aztecs (whose inhabitants also spoke Nahuatl).

Sometimes the legend is mixed with the story of a real woman. La Malinche was an Aztec woman who helped the Spanish warrior Hernán Cortés. La Malinche and Cortés had a son together. Some stories say that La Malinche killed the child when Cortés left her for a Spanish lady. (This is probably not true.)

Malinalli (aka La Malinche, aka Malintzin) was not an Aztec woman. She was from a town near the Coatzacoalcos River, a tributary nation of the Aztecs. She was probably of mixed Popoluca and Nahua ethnicity. Malinalli did have a son with Cortés, and she did not kill him; rather, she raised him until Cortés took the boy with him to Spain. Malinalli never saw her son again.

Others say that the story of La Llorona is about Mexico’s history. They think that it is really about the bitter meeting of Aztecs and Spaniards after Europeans first came to America.

No, it’s not. It’s about a real woman who “chose” to sacrifice her children rather than to surrender them to colonialism. 

To many people, this is more than a story. Countless people claim to have heard, seen, or even met the Weeping Woman. And in Mexico, children are warned not to go out at night because La Llorona might take them away. 

“Countless people” have claimed countless things about countless occurrences. The story of La Llorona is a story rooted in the history of colonialism, and, for Mexican and Mexican American children, it has morphed into a scary, sometimes cautionary, bedtime story.

—David Bowles

(published 7/1/2021)

                                               REVIEW OF THE STORY

This project for third-graders—allegedly “Setting the Stage for Fluency”—presents as a story within a five-scene play. The “cast” consists of the narrator, Older David, a Mexican American man in his 30s; Younger David, at ten years of age; Tía Viviana, David’s aunt; José and Lilia, Tía Viviana’s servants; La Llorona, the spirit; and María (who becomes La Llorona). The settings are Tía Viviana’s home in Mexico, La Llorona’s nightmare world, and the village where María lives. The time frames are the present, the past (when David was 10 years of age), and the “more faraway past” of the “La Llorona” story.

SCENE ONE: Young readers meet “Older David,” telling of when he was “Younger David,” and his Tía Viviana, who speaks in short, italicized, Spanish words or phrases—which Older David translates on the spot or before she actually utters them—and whose pronunciation is shown at the bottom of each page. For instance, “¡Mi casa es tu casa!” becomes the incorrectly emphasized syllables, “Mee CAH-sah ehs too CAH-sah!” There are also bolded English “vocabulary” words, such as foyer and patio.

SCENE TWO: Older David describes the scenes and characters, while Younger David appears in the story. Now he’s in bed at Tía Viviana’s home. La Llorona shows up, scratching at the door and screaming, of course: ¡Aaaiiiiii! And then she screams again, but first, Older David translates from the future: “Help me, please,’ she cried.” ¡Ayudame, por favor!

Then, Younger David (in the past) questions La Llorona, while Older David (in the present) describes her.

Younger David: Who are you?

Older David: Her thick, black hair hung down to her ankles. Her hair was tangled up with twigs and briers. Her long, white gown was badly torn and faded. Large patches of it were stained and caked with dry, brown mud. Or was it blood? A lacy white veil hung over her face.

At this point, Older David confesses: I was terrified—but my heart was full of pity. (Young readers are forgiven for not knowing what this all means.)

Younger David wants to see her face and Older David notes that she is sobbing: She lifted her hands in a pleading motion. Those dull-colored, bony hands had frightfully overgrown nails. This woman appears to be majorly in need of a meal and a manicure.

Younger David notes that La Llorona speaks English, but the ghost reassures him (in English) that she does not speak at all: You hear me only with your heart. While Older David and Younger David appear to be competing for space here, Younger David follows the ghost. 

In this chapter, young readers learn landscape and plateau.

SCENE THREE: La Llorona waxes philosophical and young readers will have to figure out what this all means (because it’s independent reading and their teachers have left the room):

All rivers are one river. It is the river that flows through all our hearts. Listen to that rumbling. It is the war in our blood.

To which Older David responds: “I grew dizzy at the sight of that rushing red-brown water.” (Yeah, young readers majorly don’t want that crap flowing through their blood.)

So, the sobs stop “exploding from her throat” and then they rise up again, “threatening to drown her words.” (Young readers may be confused or bored by all this drowning metaphor stuff, but since this is independent reading, no one will know if they skip a few pages.) 

La Llorona starts to narrate to Younger David: “I was a young woman, a peasant of pure Indian blood. Very poor. It was so long ago…” (We don’t know what “pure Indian blood” may have meant—if anything—at that time, nor do we actually know what it may mean today.)

SCENE FOUR: María is gorgeous and she knows it. According to the artwork, she hides her alleged poverty by dressing in gorgeous, expensive clothing. She demonstrates her indigeneity by wearing large gold hoop earrings and carrying a clay pot. She seems to enjoy being ogled by all the young men, two of whom have handlebar mustaches, so readers will know they’re Mexican.

One day, she says, she was walking by the cantina and sees a beautiful horse, who “bore a saddle of excellent leather, sparkling with silver decorations…” She hears someone inside playing a guitar and singing:

Yo soy como el chile verde, Llorona,

picante pero sabroso.

(Yoh soy COH-mo ehl CHEE-leh VEHR-deh, Yoh-ROH-nah, / pee-CAHN-teh PEH-roh sah-BROH-soh.)

OK, wait! Stop! The guy inside the saloon is singing a song to (about?) Llorona, who is still María (but hey, no one will notice how ridiculous this time-travel stuff is getting because it’s independent reading and no one really cares, anyway).

So María notices that the guy who’s singing is white, and therefore, a prize catch: He was blond, fair-skinned. His face was lightly sprinkled with freckles. I was sure he was of pure Spanish blood. He’s wealthy. They flirt. After a short courtship, she agrees to marry him. 

“We lived on his grand hacienda. We had two beautiful children.”

Fast-forward. Really fast. Her wealthy white husband takes a girlfriend (or another wife). He disdainfully refers to María and their children as “peasants from the village,” so María (now, the narrator) confesses (to the reader) in a soliloquy worthy of an imitation of something Shakespeare might have written had Shakespeare been a hack writer:

Why did I do what I did then? Did I hate my little ones? Did I think my husband had stopped loving me because of them? Or did I pity them because he no longer wanted them? Did I pity them so much that I’d rather they died than suffer from his neglect? Or was it simple madness? I took each child by the hand. I led them here, to this place. I pushed them off this ledge and watched them fall into the water. As the current carried them away, they called out…

“I ran and ran until my heart burst,” she continues. “I fell dead to the ground. And yet… here I am. Still trying to save my children.”

SCENE FIVE: Older David knows he is about to die. (Young readers are mystified. So is this reviewer.) “But there is one thing I wanted first,” he says, so Younger David asks La Llorona to show her face.

Back to Older David: Slowly, she lifted her veil. Her brown skin was parched and cracked. Her long, rotted teeth stuck out. Her lips were thin and dry. Her eyes were gone—dried up from weeping. Oh, the hundreds of years of suffering! It had ruined that once beautiful face! I began to cry myself. I began to pray [for her].

Older David becomes Younger David again, and Younger David (who now has some kind of a fever or something), tumbles to the ground.

SCENE SIX: Younger David wakes up. He’s lying in bed, and Tía Viviana is touching his forehead with a cool, damp cloth. José had found him by the arroyo. He tells his aunt that he met a woman, and his aunt knows who she is, because she had snatched his aunt’s little girl, who never came back. Then, when Younger David tells Tía Viviana about the things that La Llorona told him (“she spoke of a war in the blood”), his aunt responds:

Yes, it’s the war between the conquerer and the conquered. The war between the Spaniard and the Indian, the ruler and the ruled. The war between the rich and the poor, the man and the woman. Do you understand?

I don’t.

Then, they talk about the expression, “ni modo,” which Tía Viviana says a lot. “Ni modo” is a short form of “no hay ni modo” or “there is not any way (of getting something done”), and  best translated as “oh, well” or “that's too bad.”

Older David chimes in: He doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he believes in giving peace a chance: “those terrible wars that rage in the blood… I believe that there is always something to be done. And there is always something more to be said. Together, we can somehow learn to end these wars forever.”

The illustrations appear to have been executed in Photoshop. The colors are bright and the details are about what one would expect of an abysmally written, poorly executed story in a mass-produced series. 

La Llorona: Retelling a Mexican Legend is not recommended. 

—Beverly Slapin

(published 7/1/2021)

Muchísimas gracias a mi amigo y colega, David Bowles, por su paciencia y generosidad. Once again, I want to thank David for all he does to move the community forward. ¡Palante!

—BHS

¡Corre, Pequeño Chaski! Una Aventura en El Camino Inka // Run, Little Chaski! An Inka Trail Adventure

author: Mariana Llanos

translator: Mariana Llanos

illustrator: Mariana Ruiz Johnson

Barefoot Books, 2021

all grades 

(Inka)

On the cover, a llama, a vicuña, and the Inka sun (Tayta Inti) watch as a young chaski—on his first run on the Inka Trail as a messenger to the Inka royals—tightly grasps his khipu, the rope and hanging knotted threads that will communicate an important message he must deliver. On a cord around his neck hangs a pututu—a conch, the giant seashell that is used, even today, to call everyone together. In Inka times, chaskis blew on the shell to let people know they had arrived at their destination.

Born to a family of chaskis, this boy has been taught that, to become one of them, he must be strong, swift, and sharp—but most of all, he must never be late. As “Little Chaski” begins his run to carry a message from the Qoya (the Queen) to the Inka (the King), observant young readers will keep their eyes on the khipu.

First, the young chaski accidentally knocks down a chinchilla, and stops to apply first aid. Then, he rescues an allqu (a Peruvian wild dog), who has fallen into the river. As the boy resumes his run (and young readers will see the chinchilla passing the khipu to the dog), he spots a condor, trapped in a tree. Taking care not to get hurt, Little Chaski frees the condor (whom young readers will see in a tiny illustration, accepting the khipu from the dog). It’s getting later and later, and Little Chaski is getting more and more worried. Finally, “he shoots through the temple doorway just as Tayta Inti’s last rays sink behind the mountains.” 

The Inka and some of his people are there—impatiently waiting for the khipu—and the boy realizes that it’s gone! But. Just when everyone expects the worst, his three grateful friends appear—and drop the khipu into the boy’s hands! Of course, Little Chaski is relieved, and after he relates the story, the Inka honors him for his kindness and generosity. Not only is he now an official royal messenger, he also has a new name to suit him: Big-Hearted Chaski.

There is so much to enjoy about this heartwarming story, both the Spanish and English versions. (The author wrote them simultaneously, so there’s no word-for-word translation and readers can enjoy one or both interpretations.) For instance, when the boy is little more than a toddler, his male relatives advise him: “

“Be sure to be strong,” says Brave Chaski, his older brother. 

“Be sure to be swift,” says Big Chaski, his father. 

“Be sure to be sharp,” says Wise Chaski, his grandfather. 

And in the Spanish:

—Sé fuerte—le recuerda el valiente Chaski, su hermano mayor.

—Sé veloz—le recuerda el gran Chaski, su padre.

—Sé astuto—le recuerda el sabio Chaski, su abuelo.

(In the English version, they tell him and in the Spanish, they remind him.)

Inka iconography is represented throughout. Especially notable is the Inka sun—Tayta Inti—who has his own personality. Young readers will see him—fully or in part, with varying facial expressions—on virtually every page or spread that depicts daylight. At dawn, for instance, Tayta Inti yawns—it’s time to wake up and light up the world. Next, a concerned Tayta Inti peeks through a trapezoidal window as the Qoya hands the youngster an important khipu to bring to the Inka. Tayta Inti is worried as he sees animals in trouble—and relieved when the human youngster stops to help them.

As the young chaski runs—and Tayta Inti keeps an approvingly watchful eye on him—he trips over a chinchilla and bandages his paw, rescues an allqu (a Peruvian hairless dog) stuck in the river, and (very carefully) frees a condor, trapped in a bush. When he finally arrives at the Inka’s temple, he finds to his horror—and the Inka’s rage—that the important khipu is lost. 

In a parallel story—half-hidden in the illustrations—the animals whom the young chaski had rescued find the dropped khipu and pass it to each other. The stories merge as the “three grateful friends soar from the clouds” and drop the message into the youngster’s hands. The boy is relieved and the Inka is impressed—so much so that he proclaims the child an “official Chaski of the Tawantinsuyu,” and in recognition of his kindness, the Inka names him “Big-Hearted Chaski.”

“Everyone cheers,” the story ends, “And Big-Hearted Chaski’s smile glows brighter than Tayta Inti.”

Mariana Ruiz Johnson accomplished her bold, vibrant, intensely-colored “digital collages” by first hand-painting the textures, using pencil, scanned paper, acrylics, and gouache; then scanning them and creating the illustrations using Photoshop. That her characters are stylized, yet individualized—complexions vary among the human characters, for example—is unusual and refreshing in a picture book such as this one. Observant young readers will especially notice—and call attention to—the series of rescued animals holding onto and passing the khipu to each other. 

In addition to the full-page illustrations and gorgeous iconography—such as the patterns on clothing and vases, for example—Ruiz Johnson’s beautifully decorative endpapers hold miniature versions of the animals interspersed with khipus.

Back matter includes a helpful glossary of Quechua words, a map of the Inka empire superimposed on a partial map of South America, accessible information about the Inka Empire, the Inka Trail, animals in South America, and use of the spellings, “Inka” and “khipu” as opposed to “Inca” and “quipu.” Another section poses and answers questions about the Inka and the important work of the chaskis.

“Small” details, such as the author’s use of the Quecha spellings of the people’s name,“Inka,” rather than the colonial Spanish spelling,“Inca”and “khipu” rather than “quipu”—signals that the people are reclaiming their languages, changes the narrative and, for older readers, opens up conversation about Indigenous peoples and Indigeneity.

¡Corre, Pequeño Chaski! Una Aventura en el Camino Inka and Run, Little Chaski! An Inka Trail Adventure are playful, historical fiction picture books. And they are much more. 

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 6/28/2021)

A Thousand White Butterflies

 

authors: Jessica Betancourt-Perez and Karen Lynn Williams

illustrator: Gina Maldonado Charlesbridge, 2001 

preschool-grade two (Colombian)

It is snowing outside. A young girl, wearing an orange sweater and brown braids with matching orange hair ties, rests her elbow on the windowsill. Next to her is a hot taza de café to keep her warm. She is looking out at the reader, deep in thought, imagining her first day of school in this new country. On the outside, another young girl—a red-haired white child with eyeglasses—holding a snowball and bundled up in cap, coat and boots, glances at her and walks by. 

Young readers will learn that the girl’s name is Isabella and she has immigrated here with her mom. The two are staying with Abuelita, while Papa waits in Colombia for permission to travel. Today is Isabella’s first day of school in the United States, and her excitement is palpable. Until it starts to snow—“Mariposa wings dance in the sky. It looks like a thousand white butterflies”—and school is cancelled for the day.

Isabella narrates the story in English, and speaks Spanish in dialogue with her family. Without clunky translations that often litter children’s books, both languages here are accessible to young readers, who will easily understand who’s speaking and what they’re saying.

For instance, 

“¡Levántate!” Abuelita calls.

But I am already awake.

Maldonado’s digitally-colored illustrations, textured with crayons and acrylic paint, are excellent. Family members—Isabella, Mama, Papa and Abuelita—have varying brown complexions and hair colors and textures from curly to straight. The other children are shown as a mixture of ethnicities, both darker- and lighter-complected. And in comparison, everyone contrasts with the weather forecaster on TV—a blonde-blonde, whose skin is ghostly-pale. 

Although school has been canceled for the day, Isabella makes a new friend—a pale-faced red-haired English-speaker with eyeglasses (the girl who walked by her on the cover) who shows her how to make snow angels. “I don’t know all her words,” Isabella narrates, “but I understand enough.” 

That evening, Isabella draws a picture to send to her Papa: it shows herself and her new friend and their “snowman with its smile the colors of Abuelita’s beads.” When Papa calls her she says that she will tell him that “La nieve es hermosa.”

“Tengo una nueva amiga,” I whisper in the dark.

Tomorrow I’ll go to school. With my new friend.

The back matter contains authors’ notes, “more info” about immigrants and refugees, and a glossary of Spanish words. Sharing a page is an illustration of Isabella and her new friend at school. They are both smiling, and Isabella waves to the young readers.

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 6/26/2021)

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.”]

Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky

author: David Bowles

illustrators: Christian and Ramon Cardenas (“LxsDos”)

Cinco Puntos Press, 2018

grades 7-up (Mexican, Mesoamerican)

In the US schools, Mexican history and the cultures and belief systems of the Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica—if taught at all—are generally relegated to a paragraph or two, and fraught with egregious historical and cultural erasures. Here’s a typical example:

Quetzalcoatl was a deity-king, kind-hearted (he didn’t believe in human sacrifice) and wise (he was said to have invented the Aztec calendar, books, and writing). The people’s affection for Quetzalcoatl made the rival gods jealous. They acted together to trick him. One day the Evil One went into Quetzalcoatl’s palace holding a mirror. When Quetzalcoatl looked in it, instead of his own reflection, he saw a bearded, long-faced person. He knew that if his people saw him like that, they would be terrified. He had no choice but to leave. He went down to the seashore with his servants and made a raft of serpents. He told his servants that he would leave them, too. The servants wept, but Quetzalcoatl told them not to grieve. He promised that one day he would return and be their king again. Then he sailed away in the direction of the rising sun. (1)

Here is a deconstruction of the paragraph, above:

• His actual name was “Ce-Acatl” (first name, “One Reed”), “Topiltzin” (“our beloved prince,” what the people of Tollan and the rest of the Toltec Empire called him), “Quetzalcoatl” (his title, probably from the Toltecs). 

• Quetzalcoatl was Toltec, not Aztec; so, of course, he did not “invent” the “Aztec calendar, books, or writing.” 

• There was no rival-god-jealousy or tricking. Throughout the reign of Quetzalcoatl, his twin brother and principle rival, Tezcatlipoca, along with the other priests, had lost power and were angered by the elimination of human sacrifice.

• Calling Tezcatlipoca the “Evil One” is a cultural erasure, since Mesoamerican religions didn’t and don’t pit good versus evil. Rather, the struggle was and is between chaos and order.

• Quetzalcoatl did see his own reflection in the mirror. He had been so dedicated to worship and rule that he had not noticed that he was aging. Understanding himself to be mortal and weak, he worried that people would despise him. 

• Before he sailed away “in the direction of the rising sun,” Quetzalcoatl spent years traveling through Mesoamerica, founding new cities, and teaching people respect for the gods and to avoid human sacrifice. Then he left, promising to return.

All this is to say that these traditional stories from Mesoamerica are not simplistic. Unlike European “fairy tales,” they do not pit “good” against “evil.” Rather, they are complex. They are about the struggles between chaos and order—the struggles to find balance.

With Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky: Myths of Mexico, David Bowles, scholar, historian, linguist, storyteller, Chicano activist—and damn good writer—sets out to correct the record. And he does. All of it. As the well-used idioms go, he pulls no punches and leaves no stone unturned. 

On the stunning cover, executed by “LxsDos’” (Christian and Ramon Cardenas, “street artists from El Paso”)—together on a pen-and-ink drawn, digitally colored, textured dark-blue background representing the cosmos, the dark heart of sky—sit the Dual Gods, the complementary halves, Ometeotl. In the Nahua language, they are lovingly called “the grandparents,” each half enjoying the company of its other half. Surrounded by the feathered serpent, Ometeotl dreams “a vast world and multi-tiered sky, peopled with creatures so diverse and wonderful that the very thought of them brought joy to our grandparents’ hearts.”

Lxs Dos created the interior illustrations with pen and ink on paper. They play around with imagery, and each is symbolic of the contents of a chapter and a hint of what is to follow. And they are all gorgeous. In “The Fifth Age and the Reign of Demigods,” for instance, readers will see an Indigenous woman, kneeling over a large metlatl to grind up—not corn, which is an essential life metaphor, but skeletons. Over her right shoulder flits a tiny butterfly and over her left shoulder, a hummingbird hovers. Both are signs of rebirth and life. It is the Fifth Age, remember? “The present era. Our time.” This Indigenous woman—the Divine Mother—is creating, from the old bones, a new and better race of people. 

In Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky, every story is a treasure that younger readers (and adults alike) will enjoy reading and rereading—as each reading becomes a new and exciting experience. Each story in a theme (“The First Three Ages of the World,” “The Fourth Age and the Hero Twins,” “The Fifth Age and the Reign of Demigods,” “The Toltecs and the Rise of Civilization,” “Tales of the Maya,” “Aztecs Ascendant” and finally, “Conquest and Courage”) naturally follows the one before, and each section begins with a thoughtful “convocation”—helpful for adult readers, and accessible to younger readers as well—that introduces the theme and discusses the content. The “convocations,” David Bowles told me, are what he feels thinking about his children and grandchildren down the road, whom he loves so much that he wants these stories to be part of their lives. He imagines himself sitting on a mesquite stump, he said, “sharing stories and songs and trying to be whole.”

Bowles’ renditions of these traditional stories—which he translated from the fragmented oral and written mythologies of “pre-Columbian” Mexico and seamlessly pieced together—will enable readers of today to understand and appreciate both the stories themselves, their contexts, and their places and functions in history.

For instance: In most, if not all, children’s books about “La Llorona,” she is a vain, self-centered (Indigenous) young woman who, after marrying a wealthy Spanish nobleman and bearing two children, finds out that he has been cheating on her. So, in a fit of jealousy and rage, she drowns her children, and from then on, loudly mourns them: “¡Mis hijos!” she screams for eternity, “¡Mis hijos!” And Mexican children of today listen for her at night, and are frightened. 

But according to Bowles, there is much more to the story. “Lloronas” were a common occurrence in Nauhua lore, he says. In “The Anguish of Citlalli” (pp. 256-261), the Xoxchimilca woman bravely chose the only option available to her: to surrender her beloved children to the water rather than to surrender them to the horrors of colonialism. Although the Maya held out for a century or so, there was no place for the Nauhua people to go. 

In more contemporary history, this is not a unique occurrence, either. The “Llorona” story reminds me of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, in which a family of formerly-enslaved people in Cincinnati is haunted by the ghost of Margaret Garner, who had killed her young daughter and attempted to kill her other children to spare them from being returned to slavery. (2)

Writing a complex yet accessible book such as Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky must have been a tough thing to accomplish. It involved familiarity with the historia and cuentos of what is now referred to as Mesoamerica, finding the fragments and pulling the translations together—and for each one, folding in the historical and political texture and finding the right voice. 

Perhaps most importantly, rather than focusing on the colonizers, the traditional stories here center Indigeneity. “The most we can hope for,” David Bowles told me, “is to center Indigenous lives, especially those stories of women that have not been told. We are heirs to the stories—last convocation.” 

“This is work we need to do as a community. We need to bring our history together in affirming ways. Every time there are chaos and destruction, a wave of creation follows. We cannot forget, we cannot allow it to be erased. We need to keep it alive.”

Every school in the Americas, at least, should have copies of Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky—and teach from it. It’s an invaluable resource.

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 6/8/2021)

[Note: Muchísimas gracias a mi amigo y colega, David Bowles, por su gran amabilidad y generosidad. I want to thank David Bowles for his kindness, generosity, and dedication to all the grandparents and their children.]

Footnotes:

1. Yellowhorn, Eldon, and Kathy Lowinger, What the Eagle Sees: Indigenous Stories of Rebellion and Renewal. Toronto: Annick Press (2019), p. 18.
2. Morrison, Toni, Beloved. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1987).