Juan Bobo: Four Folktales from Puerto Rico

author: Carmen T. Bernier-Grand

translator: Carmen T. Bernier-Grand

illustrator: Ernesto Ramos Nieves

“I Can Read” / HarperTrophy, 1994

preschool-grade 3

Puerto Rican

 Oral stories often speak of the real and unreal, known and unknown, past and future, helpful animals and powerful tricksters and courageous heroes. And sometimes, oral stories impart their wisdom through characters who appear dazed and confused—who teach proper behavior by behaving improperly. Juan Bobo—as one could discern from his name—is Puerto Rico’s most beloved noodlehead. “For decades,” Bernier-Grand writes in her short author’s note, “Juan Bobo, the invention of rural storytellers of Puerto Rico, has been one of the most popular fictional characters on the island…. The oldest and best-known Juan Bobo stories authentically illustrate what life was like in poor rural areas of Puerto Rico at the beginning of the twentieth century.”  

There are literally hundreds of storybooks about Juan Bobo, some better than others. In the 1920s, Pura Belpré, the wonderful storyteller and puppeteer—and first Puerto Rican librarian hired by the New York City Public Library system—brought Juan Bobo to the mainland so that Puerto Rican and other Spanish-speaking children and their families could enjoy his antics in Spanish—and feel connected to their cultures in a hitherto English-only library system.

In telling these Juan Bobo stories, Bernier-Grand is not only a wonderful storyteller, but also someone who illustrates Puerto Rican rural traditions—from subsistence farming, to minding one’s manners as a dinner guest, to selling homemade syrup at church. Here, to the constant exasperation of his overburdened mother, Juan Bobo takes all of her instructions literally, and each task she gives him results in a comedy of errors.

For the most part oral stories leave their lessons unstated, for the listeners to figure out and enjoy. Here, Bernier-Grand has flawlessly transported the stories to print; her flow and timing are superb. Each time the ever-adventurous Juan Bobo falls into a new and different catastrophe, youngest listeners and emerging readers will scream with delight.

Here is Juan Bobo, asked to bring his mother some water, trying to make his task easier and winding up with a big mud puddle. Here is Juan Bobo, instructed to take care of the family pig instead of going to church, and dressing her up in his mother’s Sunday clothes. Here is a hungry Juan Bobo, invited to lunch, told not to sneeze or scratch or touch the food with his hands—and leaving as hungry as when he arrived. And here is Juan Bobo, told to sell their homemade syrup to the church ladies who are small and soft-spoken and “they wear shiny black dresses and carry fans”—making sure the flies get their fill.

Ramos Nieves’s acrylic paintings, on a palette that reflects the hot tropical colors of the Puerto Rican countryside, are stylized and vibrant, and complement Bernier-Grand’s charming tellings. There are Puerto Rican flags all over—including on the roof of the “Bobo” family’s tiny house and on Juan Bobo’s kite. There’s a lizard climbing up a palm tree in the front, and chickens running free. Young Juan Bobo is shirtless and wears a straw jibaro hat and pants. He has a dark complexion; his mother, who wears a headscarf when she’s working, has a slightly lighter complexion; and the gussied-up neighbor who invites them to dinner—and lives in a house with a china cabinet and lace tablecloth—is clearly of mixed ancestry.

But there is a problem: Since these Juan Bobo stories are folktales from Puerto Rico, one might think that the Spanish text would either be given prominence—or at least, placed near the English text and artwork. Rather, the Spanish text, in small print spanning only five pages, is relegated to the back of the book. So early elementary school teachers who want to read these stories to a class in Spanish, would have to flip back and forth from text to illustration—in a very small book. As well, the Spanish translation appears to be rushed and literal, not typical of the way that Bernier-Grand carefully crafts her writing. I wonder why this was the case. Treating the Spanish text as unimportant back matter is clumsy and confusing, not to mention disrespectful, to the language and the culture.

Juan Bobo: Four Folktales from Puerto Rico is currently out of print and unavailable. My hope is that a progressive multicultural publisher will see it for the treasure it is, and republish it in a large-format, bilingual storybook that children and their teachers will love. As it stands, this version of Juan Bobo stories is highly recommended for the wonderful English text and the amazing artwork; but it’s not recommended for the book size, Spanish as an afterthought, and abysmal design.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 11/17/13)

Marisol McDonald and the Clash Bash / Marisol McDonald y la fiesta sin igual

author: Monica Brown
translator: Adriana Domínguez
illustrator: Sara Palacios
Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2013
kindergarten-up
Peruvian

Her Peruvian mami gave her a brownish complexion, her Scottish dad gave her carrot-orange hair and just about all of her ancestors gave her a face full of freckles. And Marisol McDonald’s over-the-top, non-conformist sense of fashion is, well, her gift to herself. As is her adopted puppy named “Kitty,” who has one floppy ear and one pointy ear, Marisol is “unique, different, and one of a kind.” In this second book of which I hope will become a series, Marisol’s eighth birthday is approaching, and the little girl we met in Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald no combina is throwing a theme party like no other—incorporating her love of princesses, unicorns, pirates and soccer into a veritable “clash bash.”

As our exuberant young narrator looks forward to her bash, what she wants most is a visit from Abuelita, who lives in Peru. In fact, she has been saving her chore earnings for two years so that Grandma can make the trip, “even if she has to fly on a butterfly’s back!”

But that is not to be. As Marisol’s Mami explains, “it isn’t just the money… It’s hard to get papeles to come to the United States. Abuelita needs a special document called a visa to visit us, but sometimes it takes a long time for the visa to arrive.” Marisol doesn’t understand: “Why does Abuelita need papers to see her own family who miss her so much?” I don’t understand, either, and I’m glad that Monica Brown has brought up an important issue for many children—separation from family members because of government-imposed immigration rules.

The big surprise, though, is that Abuelita has used some of the money to purchase a computer and—through the magic of Skype—is able to attend “the best Clash Bash birthday ever!”

Sara Palacios’s mixed-media art, as in the first “Marisol” book, is a feast of colors, patterns and textures. With a rich palette of warm tones, Palacios paints Marisol with her arms open wide to all the joyous possibilities of her world.

Eschewing literal translation, Adriana Domínguez artfully and flawlessly interprets the English text so that both hablantes and English-speakers can enjoy the story. Beginning with the title—because “clash” is kind of iffy to translate—she interprets “the clash bash” as “la fiesta sin igual.” And here—I just love this!—

Next week I turn eight, which rhymes with “great.”

La semana que viene cumpliré ocho, que rima con bizcocho.

And—oh, yes—in the helpful glossary in the back, “pretzels” is translated as: “pretzels.”

My one concern with this story (and illustrations) is the depiction of “pirates.” In the next book, I hope Marisol will discover that pirate costumes—with their eye patches and hooks for hands—are long-held stereotypes that portray people with disabilities as villains. Maybe she’ll educate her friends about this and other stereotypes in popular culture. Now, here’s something that Marisol could totally pull off. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Besides this issue—which could be a topic of discussion in an early childhood classroom—Marisol McDonald and the Clash Bash / Marisol McDonald y la fiesta sin igual is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 11/13/13)

Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People

author: Monica Brown
illustrator: Julie Paschkis
Henry Holt, 2011
kindergarten-up
Chilean

“Once there was a little boy named Neftalí, who loved wild things wildly and quiet things quietly,” this story begins. “From the moment he could talk, Neftalí surrounded himself with words that whirled and swirled...” With spare, honest prose and luminous illustrations—and with neither polemic nor dilution—Monica Brown and Julie Paschkis have condensed the essential elements of Pablo Neruda’s life to create an amazing biography for the youngest readers and listeners, a picture book that Neruda himself would surely have loved.

Neftalí’s childhood fascination with all that surrounded him—stones, shells, trees, flowers, “beetles and birds’ eggs and tall ferns that dripped water like tears”—and, especially, written and spoken words—became part of what made Pablo Neruda a poet.

But beautiful things were not all that Neruda saw. As a young adult, he saw people struggling to survive; he saw “coal miners working dangerous jobs for little money.” As Neruda “joined those who fought for justice and wrote poems to honor all workers who struggled for freedom,” he was transformed into a “poet of the people,” whose talent and passion and courage spoke to and for poor and working people in Chile and the world.

All of this is contained in Brown’s narrative, including a mention of what became the beginnings of a fascist transformation that caused Neruda to flee his beloved country. (Neruda died soon after a US-backed military coup assassinated his close friend, Salvador Allende, replacing him with the brutal dictator, Augusto Pinochet.)

Paschkis’s exquisite watercolor paintings of Neftalí’s development—from a child daydreaming of colors, seasons and animals into an accomplished poet writing of hunger, struggle and revolution—complement Brown’s text. Although the text is not bilingual (as I would have wished), the art certainly is. Bright, vividly colored ribbons of words, in Spanish and English—and sometimes in other languages, too—depicting both beauty and struggle, whirl and swirl around each page. On a Chilean beach, ribbons of blues and greens read, “sonrisa,” “salto,” “playa,” “bailando,” “salud.” On the flags of protestors, red ribbons proclaim, “obreros,” “liberación,” “aprender,” “remember,” “defend.” In a dark coal mine, gray ribbons read, “pobreza,” “nunca,” “never,” “hungry,” “angry.” When Neruda is forced into exile, ribbons read, “patria,” “peril,” “disappear,” “peligro,” “hidden.”

In an author’s note, Brown gives more information about Neruda’s life and work; and there is a resource page for further research. Effective companion texts would be Pam Muñoz Ryan’s The Dreamer, along with Antonio Skármeta’s The Composition, about a child’s facing fascism in his country. Both titles are reviewed on this blog.

Together, Brown and Pashkis have created a stunning mosaic—in words and art—of the revolutionary genius Pablo Neruda’s life and work. Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 11/8/13)

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald no combina

author: Monica Brown
translator: Adriana Dominguez
illustrator: Sara Palacios
Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2011
preschool-up
Peruvian

How can someone tell a child that she doesn’t “match”? Only things can’t match: colors, socks, bookends, chopsticks. Not children. But this is what happens—over and over—to Marisol McDonald, a happily non-conformist, self-assured little girl.

Marisol is a soccer-playing pirate princess who eats peanut butter-and-jelly burritos, wears green polka dots with purple stripes, and mixes cursive with print. She’s inherited a brownish complexion from her Peruvian mother and bright orange hair from her Scottish father, and everyone, she says, tells her she “doesn’t match.”

One day, young Marisol’s just had it with everyone’s negative comments, so she decides to tone it down. She dresses in clothes that “match,” eats foods that “go together,” plays soccer or pirate and writes either in cursive or print. ¡Ay, pobrecita! Marisol’s life becomes so sad and boring. When her teacher notices that Marisol’s spunk is gone, the child receives this note: “I want you to know that I like you just the way you are, because the Marisol McDonald that I know is a creative, unique, bilingual, Peruvian-Scottish-American, soccer-playing artist and simply marvelous!”

The next day, a smiling, ebullient Marisol dresses in a pink shirt, a brownish polka-dot skirt, orange-and-red tights, and her favorite hat that her abuelita brought her from Peru. ¡Ay, caramba! Marisol la fabulosa is back and loving it!

A common dilemma in bilingual picture books is how to present dialogue realistically. How would a Spanish translation, for instance, reflect that the character is speaking both English and Spanish? Here, the problem is resolved brilliantly: In the sentence or phrase in which one of the languages is dominant, the subordinate words in the other language are italicized.

Here, for instance, Marisol asks her parents if she can have a puppy. The English reads: “Can I have a puppy? A furry, sweet perrito?” I ask my parents. ¿Por favor?” And in Spanish: —¿Puedo tener un perrito? ¿Un puppy dulce y peludito?—le pido a mis padres—. Please?

This is one of the few bilingual Spanish-English picture books I know in which both languages are presented effortlessly and flawlessly, so that both English readers and hablantes can enjoy the story.

Sara Palacios’s engaging double-page illustrations—in mixed media that combine childlike crayon-and-pencil drawings with cartoons in acrylics, watercolor, pen, and newsprint collage—are perfect. I especially like the spread of young Marisol, in one of her riotously colored outfits, swinging on a tree branch. Joining her on the branch are two birds, one yellow and the other made of newsprint. Talk about diversity!

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald no combina is an absolutely amazing little story that will resonate, not only with ethnically mixed youngsters, but also with LGBT youngsters and everyone else who dares to be different. Brava, Monica, Adriana and Sara! Highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 11/7/13)

Xochitl and the Flowers / Xóchitl, la Niña de las Flores

author: Jorge Tetl Argueta

translator: Jorge Tetl Argueta

illustrator: Carl Angel

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2003

kindergarten-up

Pipíl, Salvadoran, Salvadoran American

Newly transplanted from El Salvador to San Francisco, the hard-working Flores family struggles to transition from one culture to another and to adapt to a new urban environment. As in their homeland, Xóchitl and her mother decide to sell flowers in the city; and when her father locates an apartment to rent in a building with a garbage-laden vacant lot, the family and a few neighbors clear it and build a plant nursery. But, as an unfeeling landlord demands that it be shut down, the nursery’s fate is uncertain. How everyone comes together and softens the landlord’s heart is the crux of this tender story of family and community.

Argueta, a talented poet, infuses the story with the imagery of the immigrant experience: days going by slowly as turtles, ants circling their world of dwarf lemon trees in just a few minutes and snails carrying their little homes on their backs. The Spanish text reads beautifully and is particularly expressive; it seems likely that Argueta wrote it first and then translated it into English, which was then edited.

Here, for instance, Spanish-speaking children will easily identify with Xóchitl, as she practices English:

En la escuela, ya puedo decir varias oraciones en ingles. Cuando estoy sola las practico y parezco loquita diciendo: —How are you? My name is Xochitl. Do you like flowers?

But some of the English text will confuse Spanish-speaking children. Here, Xóchitl is telling, in English, how she practices some simple sentences in English:

In school, I can already say a few sentences in English. I practice them when I’m alone; I probably seem a little crazy when I ask myself, “How are you? My name is Xochitl. Do you like flowers?”

Angel's acrylic and colored-pencil illustrations of the characters seem flat, but his background images, including photo collages, are bright and vibrant and will hold the attention of the youngest readers.

The story’s conflict is too easily resolved; I would rather have had it more closely reflect the actual community struggle—as neighbors and local organizations came together to convince the City Planning Commission that the family’s nursery was an asset—as Argueta describes it in his endnote. Still, Xochitl and the Flowers / Xóchitl, la Niña de las Flores, is an evocative story of a hard-working immigrant family from Central America, and is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 11/3/13)

Featherless / Desplumado

author: Juan Felipe Herrera

illustrator: Ernesto Cuevas Jr.

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2004

kindergarten-grade 3

Mexican American

Tomasito, a child with spina bifida, feels out of place and frustrated at his new school where everyone asks him why he’s in a wheelchair. His father brings him a caged parrot for a pet; the bird has a “pebble foot” and no feathers. “He was born a little different, like you were,” his father says, and suggests that Tomasito call him “Desplumado.” Tomasito’s new friend, Marlena, encourages him to join the school soccer team and—although his hands become “red and sore from zigzagging (his) wheely across the hot field”—Tomasito makes a cabeza goal and scores for the team. At home, Tomasito tells Desplumado that he can be a flyer, too: “There’s more than one way to fly!”

Herrera is an amazing poet; his Spanish version reads much better than the English. For instance, as Tomasito’s father surprises him with the little bird, he says, “¡Una sorpresa, Tomasito! ¡Mira, es para ti!” But the English takes all the feeling out: “A little pet, Tomasito! For you!”

Unfortunately, Cuevas’s acrylic illustrations feature heavy black lines surrounding characters that sometimes resemble Anime cartoon figures and sometimes show lumpy, distorted bodies—and a creepy-looking bird in a too-small cage. It’s also unfortunate that the heavy-handed metaphor compares a disabled youngster who uses a wheelchair to a featherless bird who is “confined to” a cage.

Nevertheless, Desplumado is about a youngster with a disability who, with the support of family and friends, finds a way to push himself beyond his physical limitations. As such, it’s a good story to begin conversations about disability and inclusion; and about how people are generally more similar than different. Most important, a disabled child in the classroom would probably ignore the metaphor and enjoy the story. Recommended.

Note: Teachers can extend this kind of discussion with short films of wheelchair sports, such as basketball, soccer, tennis, and handcycling. 

—Beverly Slapin
(published 11/3/13)

Upside Down Boy/ El niño de cabeza

author: Juan Felipe Herrera

translator: Juan Felipe Herrera

illustrator: Elizabeth Gómez

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2000

kindergarten-up

Mexican, Mexican American

Appointed California’s poet laureate in 2012, Juan Felipe Herrera grew up as the child of migrant farm workers. His bilingual picture books exemplify the type of literature that the teachers in my district are calling for. Written in fluent, vibrant Spanish, drawing upon the lived experiences of Latina/o children and families in the United States, they are full of engaging, lively stories with illustrations that fascinate students. And themes of social justice are always at the heart of his stories.

The Upside Down Boy / El niño de cabeza is a story drawn from Herrera’s own life as a child struggling to learn English and to adapt to a new community. Juanito, the child of migrant farm workers, attends school for the first time, where he is thrust into an unfamiliar environment and lost in a new language. He feels like un niño de cabeza—an upside down boy, who worries as his tongue turns into a rock. Young readers will see Juanito’s shyness, with the help of caring adults in his life—eventually turn to confidence. While his tongue remains a rock for a while, his art expresses who he is:

We are finger-painting.

I make wild suns with my open hands.

Crazy tomato cars and cucumber sombreros—

I write my name with seven chiles.

This is an excellent story to use with English language learners because it eloquently describes the feelings that Juanito experiences as he struggles with English. It also serves to remind English-speaking students (and their teachers) of the challenges that some of their classmates face.

However, the English version of the book can be confusing, especially because it is narrated by a child who does not initially speak English and yet contains a lot of dialogue in English. And as Juanito becomes more proficient in English, the question of what language he is speaking and writing becomes even more confusing. For example, on the last page he is directing the class choir. The Spanish reads: “¿Listos para cantar sus poemas?” le pregunto a mi coro. Uno… dos… !and three!” And the English reads: “Ready to sing out your poems? I ask my choir. Uno, dos… ¡and three!” Here, it’s unclear what language Juanito is speaking to his classmates.

Gómez’s brightly colored acrylic illustrations attempt to capture the colorful, surrealistic tone of the story. Readers will see Juanito’s name spelled out in chiles, for instance, and cattle (“reses”) flying in the sky as he watches the other children play during a time called “recess.” However, the characters are mostly expressionless and, with their thin and awkwardly angled limbs, almost look like stick figures.

Yet, despite the somewhat unappealing artwork, I find it impossible not to fall in love with the story’s rich, metaphorical language and the fact that it is an authentic story from the author’s own life. Recommended.

—Grace Cornell Gonzales
(published 10/5/13)

Skippyjon Jones and the Failed Read-Aloud

I sat down in my read-aloud chair in front of my first graders, excited to read the “Skippyjon Jones” book given to me by a retired teacher who had volunteered at my school. It had come along with a beautiful floor puzzle picturing the series’ main character, which my students loved. Although I had worked as a bilingual teacher for several years, this year I was teaching in a non-bilingual school. I was excited to read a book that used Spanish terms, and hoped that my handful of Latina/o students would enjoy sharing their knowledge to help us decode them. 

  

But it quickly became apparent that neither I nor my Spanish-speaking students were going to connect to the kind of “Spanglish” used in the “Skippyjon Jones” books, principally because it wasn’t Spanglish at all. When I was in middle school, some of the kids in my class would make fun of Spanish and of our Spanish teacher by just adding “o” to the end of the words. They would say things like, “I-o don’t like-o this class-o,” and then high-five each other and say, “Nice Spanish, dude.” “Skippyjon Jones” operates on the same principle, creating gems like “ding-a-lito,” “stinkitos,” and “snifferito.” Skippyjon Jones is a cat who pretends to be a Chihuahua and talks in a fake Mexican accent (“they are reely, reely beeg, dude”) and calls himself “El Skippito Friskito,” which drives me crazy because there are no k’s in Spanish. If one of my students started talking that way, we would have conversations about stereotypes and offensive behavior. Yet somehow these are popular children’s books.

A few pages into the read-aloud, I realized I had made a big mistake. I tripped over the fake Spanish words and ridiculous names (Poquito Tito? What does that even mean?). In order to have read the book well, I would have had to adopt a fake Mexican accent and essentially mock the way that Mexican people speak, even clapping along to fake mariachi songs with lyrics like, “Diggeree diggeroo diggerito (clap-clap) / We learned something new from Skippito! (clap-clap) He scares them to death/ with his old pickle breath,/ and that’s how we get fossilitos! (clap-clap).” Note: This is also false history. This is not, in fact, how the dinosaurs became extinct.

Tongue-tied and embarrassed, I put the book down. Later, still ashamed that I had subjected my students to even ten minutes of that horrific read-aloud, I tossed both the book and the floor puzzle in the trash. Even a gorgeous floor puzzle and a free book were not worth subjecting my students to toxic racial and linguistic stereotypes.

—Grace Cornell Gonzales

(published 10/5/13)

Where Fireflies Dance / Ahí, donde bailan la luciérnagas

author: Lucha Corpi

illustrator: Mira Reisberg

translator: Lucha Corpi

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 1997

grades 1-5

Mexican, Mexican American

In Where Fireflies Dance / Ahí, donde bailan las luciérnagas, Lucha Corpi shares an autobiographical story of her childhood in Jáltipan, Mexico, on the Caribbean coast. “Where Fireflies Dance,” she writes in an author’s note, “is that place where imagination and memory blend and take on new color and voice. It is my way of paying homage to my family and bestowing their legacy of culture and love on my son, Arturo, and my granddaughter, Kiara Alyssa.”

Here, Corpi weaves together disparate elements—a ghost story, a tale of a Mexican revolutionary, a childhood love affair with a jukebox, and her eventual decision to leave Mexico and immigrate to the United States—into a story that is natural and will appeal to children. The language flows well in Spanish and in English; in fact, it is difficult to tell which version Corpi wrote first.

Reisberg’s brightly colored artwork is simple, and evocative of the Caribbean area. Most of the borders look like the kind of embroidery one would find on Mexican dresses; others reflect parts of the story—the ghost story, the rainstorm, the music, and leaving Mexico for the US. Adding warmth to the artwork are family photos, combined with one of Juan Sebastián, the iconic portrait of Emiliano Zapata and the famous painting of La Virgen de Guadalupe.

Where Fireflies Dance gives us a gentle look into a different time and place, but brings out themes (fear of and fascination with ghosts, love of music, getting into trouble with parents) that will easily resonate with young children. Highly recommended.

—Grace Cornell Gonzales
(published 9/2/13)

Storyteller’s Candle / La velita de los cuentos

author: Lucía González

illustrator: Lulu Delacre

translator: Lucía González (?)

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2008

grades 1-4

Puerto Rican

Because of language and cultural barriers, people who immigrate to the US can often experience public institutions such as libraries as unwelcoming and inaccessible. In 1929, Pura Belpré became the first Puerto Rican librarian to be hired by the New York City Public Library system where, at the 115^th Street branch (and later the 110^th Street branch), she instituted bilingual story hours, purchased Spanish-language books, and implemented cultural programs. Belpré was an advocate who helped shape the public library into a community space in which the Spanish language was used and valued.

Told through the eyes of a young Puerto Rican girl who moves to New York and meets Pura Belpré, The Storyteller’s Candle / La velita de los cuentos captures the magic of the public library in a way that is unusual in children’s books. Though the story is heavy handed in delivering the message that the public library is for everyone, it’s an important message nonetheless.

Delacre’s artwork is exceptional on two levels. Beginning with sepia tones to take the story back in time, she layered oil washes and paper collage onto bristol paper that she had primed with clear gesso. The paper collage consists of pieces of an original copy of The New York Times from January 6, 1930; each piece contains information that correlates with a particular aspect of the story. And Delacre’s softly toned oil washes show the many faces of the Puerto Rican people—indeed, “Rainbow People”—with skin tone, hair, bone structure and facial features different from each other.

However, there are two major problems with the English version of this story. Usually when words are left in Spanish in the English version of a text, it is because they have important cultural connotations that would be lost in translation. Here the story seems to be randomly peppered with Spanish words that add nothing and only serve to make the English version awkward and tokenize the characters as “Spanish speakers.” For example, when the children ask if they can go into the library, their aunt answers, “The library isn’t for noisy niños like you.” Who talks like that?

It is also awkward that, in the English version, there is dialogue in English about how the characters don’t speak English. For instance, the aunt says, “We don’t speak English, and the people in there don’t speak Spanish.” It is confusing, to say the least, and the story would have been much better in the English version without dialogue.

Despite these problems, Pura Belpré’s story is an important one. So, La velita de los cuentos (Spanish version) is highly recommended. On the other hand, The Storyteller’s Candle (English version) is way not recommended.

—Grace Cornell Gonzales
(published 9/2/13)

Angel’s Kite / La estrella de Angel

author: Alberto Blanco

translator: Dan Bellm
illustrator: Rodolfo Morales

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 1994

grades 2-5

Mexican

At first, I was excited to pick up Angel’s Kite. Alberto Blanco is a prominent Mexican poet, and I was intrigued to see a children’s book, written in fluent, gorgeous Spanish by a Mexican author, published in the US. However, I almost immediately began to have my doubts.

In this poetic, mystical story, a young kite maker’s passion and determination result in the return of the town’s missing church bell, which had disappeared for no known reason. Although there are complex implications about the loss of the bell—Was it stolen by the priest and sold to a foreign collector (which implies both dishonest clergy and colonialism)? Or, could it have been stolen by the “revolutionaries” and melted down for cannons (which implies something about the relationship between the church and the Mexican Revolution)? Or, could it have disappeared by magic?—there’s no exploration of any of them.

While the rest of the townspeople get on with their lives, Angel creates his most beautiful kite ever—holding the image of the entire town, including the missing bell. The kite escapes and is found—without the bell—which magically reappears in the church tower.

Although the Spanish rendition is beautiful, I’m just not sure whether young children would relate to a story about a young man who expresses his agency, not through confronting the corrupt clergyman or organizing his community around creating a new church bell, but through making a kite.

Bellm’s English translation is clunky and awkward. On one page, for example, the Spanish reads: “Hasta que una tarde, para sacudirse la nostalgia por la campana desaparecida, Angel decidió hacer el papalote más bonito del mundo. Lobo, Chino, y Rabito, sus tres perritos, sus inseparables compañeros, estaban a su lado.”

The literal English translation would be this: “Until one afternoon, to shake off his nostalgia for the bell that had disappeared, Angel decided to make the most beautiful kite in the world. Lobo, Chino, and Rabito, his three dogs, his inseparable companions, were at his side.”

This is Bellm’s translation: “One day, to shake himself out of missing that lost bell so much, Angel decided to make the most beautiful kite in the world. His three trusty dogs named Lobo, Chino, and Rabito were at his side. (Their names meant Wolf Dog, Curly Head and Little Tail.)”

Rodolfo Morales was an amazing artist, firmly rooted in the land, culture and mythos of Oaxaca. His collages—made of silk, lace, silver stars, found objects—are world famous. But the same collage art technique just does not make a positive impact in this children’s book. Rather, the people look like they’ve been beaten up: their noses and eyes are black, their faces are distorted and expressionless, their bodies are weirdly out of proportion. 

In Spanish, Angel’s Kite / La estrella de Angel alludes to a rich history and uses magical realism to portray a certain time and place. I believe that students in, say, a Latin American literature class, might enjoy reading and discussing it. But as a children’s story, Angel’s Kite comes off as weird and unappealing. Not recommended.

—Grace Cornell Gonzales
(published 9/2/13)

Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

author: Deborah A. Miranda

Heyday, 2012 

high school-up

Ohlone / Costanoan-Esselen, Chumash

“Story is the most powerful force in the world,” Deborah writes, “in our world, maybe in all worlds. Story is culture. Story, like culture, is constantly moving. It is a river where no gallon of water is the same gallon it was one second ago. Yet it is still the same river. It exists as a truth. As a whole. Even if the whole is in constant change. In fact, because of that constant change.”

For better or for worse, young Deborah never had to endure the daily humiliations of fourth grade in California, where children are taught the dominant discourse about the California missions. Where non-Indian children (and their parents) construct “mission” dioramas with beneficent padres instructing and supervising willing Indian neophytes as they learn how to work. Where Indian children—especially California Indian children—shrink into their seats, trying to disappear.

The real story—people massacred, children violated, land and languages stolen, cultures broken beyond recognition—is rarely told.

After asking her young son’s teacher to let him pass on the project—and being refused—an Indian parent I know allowed him to construct the required model mission. “So Nick built his mission and brought it home,” she told me. “And we built a fire and we talked about it again, how Indian people were enslaved and died building missions and living in missions. Then we put it in the fire and burned it and I promised Nick that I would always stick up for him and challenge anyone who would keep opening up these scars.”

“All my life,” Deborah writes, “I have heard only one story about California Indians: godless, dirty, stupid, primitive, ugly, passive, drunken, immoral, lazy, weak-willed people who might make good workers if properly trained and motivated. What kind of story is that to grow up with?”

Bad Indians is this story—the story of the missionization of California. In constructing Bad Indians, Deborah creates “a space where voices can speak after long and often violently imposed silence.” For Deborah, the stories seeped “out of old government documents, BIA forms, field notes, the diaries of explorers and priests, the occasional writings or testimony from Indians, family stories, photographs, newspaper articles.” Together, these disparate voices belie the dominant discourse; they are stories of tenacious survival. And they are Deborah’s “mission project.”

But Bad Indians is more than these voices; it’s Deborah’s family’s story as well. In it, I’m reminded of something that Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that has recently been channeled through Kelly Clarkson: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Actually, Nietzsche wrote it with more elegance: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

Deborah’s life’s twists and turns have brought her to this place, to find her ancestors’ stories, to tell her own family’s stories, to connect them—and to heal. Some childhood memories, some faded photographs, some snippets of stories written down word for word by an anthropologist, some paragraphs from old textbooks. A lesser author might have crafted a novel spanning the generations, a linear novel, maybe a chapter for each character. But Deborah didn’t and wouldn’t do that; it would have dishonored her ancestors. Rather, she looks at what is—the pieces, the shards of a broken mirror—and interprets, imagines, wonders. If she doesn’t know a thing, she says so. Throughout, she is in awe of the voices, drawings, photos, whatever she can find—all treasured gifts, entrusted to her by the elders and ancestors she never got to meet.

“Who we are is where we are from,” Deborah writes. “Where we are from is who we are.”

On a Saturday morning, Deborah and relatives slowly and mindfully circle the grounds of the Mission Soledad, picking up bone fragments:

Here is a finger joint, here a tooth. Here a shattered section of femur, here something unidentifiable except for the lacy pattern that means human being. Our children run to us with handfuls of ancestors they keep calling ‘fossils’ because youth and privilege don’t let the truth sink in yet.” As they gently bury the tiny pieces of bones, Xu-lin, we say to our broken ancestors: xu-lin, sprinkling sage, mugwort, and tobacco over the small grave. Xu-lin, we whisper as the earth takes back. Xu-lin, a plea and a promise: return.

Bad Indians is not easy reading. Deborah draws connections between the violence of the California missions, the violence perpetrated on the descendants of the “Mission Indians,” the violence she witnessed at home, and the rapes she endured as a child: “Imprisonment. Whippings. Betrayal. Rape.” And she doesn’t mince words: “Erasure is a bitch, isn’t it?”

At the end of Bad Indians, Deborah quotes Tom King (Cherokee), who wrote in The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (Toronto, Publishers Group Canada, 2003), “Take it. It’s yours. Do with it what you will. But don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now.”

If you’re a fourth-grade teacher who has ever taught a “mission” unit, if you’re a parent of a fourth-grader who has ever helped her child construct a “mission diorama,” if you’ve ever admired the architecture of a California mission, if you’ve ever harbored the thought that Ishi was the “last of his tribe,” you no longer have an excuse for perpetuating the horrors. Don’t say you didn’t know.

In Bad Indians, Deborah Miranda has created an achingly beautiful mosaic out of the broken shards of her people and herself, gently glued together with heartbreak and scars, memories and perseverance and hope. Her writing is crisp and clear and eminently readable, with passion in place of polemic. Deborah is a strong, brave, compassionate spirit, and I am honored to call her “friend.”

Bad Indians is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 8/3/13)

Gringolandia

(Note: This is an updated version of the review, which corrects the location of the swimming pool depicted on the cover of Gringolandia.)

author: Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Curbstone Press, 2009

grades 7-up 

Chilean, Chilean American

During the years of the US-installed and –supported Chilean military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean secret police (DINA) operated clandestine prisons in which they tortured or executed thousands of people. Villa Grimaldi—which the torturers referred to as “el Palacio de la Risa” (the “Palace of Laughter”)—was one of four of these torture centers on the outskirts of Santiago. From mid-1974 to mid-1978, the DINA killed or disappeared 236 of the 4,500 prisoners held there.

Sometime towards the end of the Pinochet regime, the torture centers were all but razed, probably as an attempt to erase from public consciousness what happened there. In 1978, Villa Grimaldi was sold to a developer and, after a public campaign was launched in the name of human rights and historical memory, the infamous torture center was transformed into the Villa Grimaldi Corporación Parque por la Paz, a memorial of the lives taken there.

Part of what is left of “El Palacio de la Risa” is a nondescript swimming pool that had been used in the tortures. Now, with discolored green tiles covering the bottom, it is fenced off for both citizens and tourists to view. A photograph of this swimming pool—with a dove flying out of it—is the cover of Lyn Miller-Lachmann’s amazing young adult novel, Gringolandia.

Having Chilean friends who were tortured in those years—as do I—Lyn told me that she started working on Gringolandia in 2004, after the revelations of the tortures committed by military police personnel of the US Army and other US agencies conducted at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Then, she said, as during the Pinochet dictatorship, people were generally shrugging off torture as an aberration or justifying it as a way of obtaining information. Meanwhile, FOX media, in its award-winning drama series “24,” helped create the kind of division and suspicion to convince people to “follow the leader” rather than protest.

Meanwhile, the stories of the Chilean people—victims, survivors, and disappeared—were not being told and, given the responsibility of our government for installing and supporting the dictatorship that tortured, murdered or disappeared some 35,000 people, Lyn told me, she set out to create a young adult novel that “was real, honest and truthful” to tell those stories.

Much of Gringolandia is narrated by Daniel Aguilar, an immigrant teenager living with his mother and younger sister in Madison, Wisconsin. Part One, entitled “Then,” is told in third person; detailing Daniel’s beating and the horrific arrest and torture of his father, Marcelo, an underground journalist and revolutionary, by the Chilean secret police.

Someone grabbed Daniel by the hair and jerked his head back. He looked up into the covered face of the tall one. The boss. The man’s eyes were black and terrifying in the shadow, and his mouth, a little round hole cut out of the mask, moved like the mouth of a robot.

“Boy, you watch this,” he snarled. “This is what happens to communists.”

The helmeted soldiers left. The tall man crouched and ground his knee into Daniel’s shoulder blades. Rough hands in his hair twisted his head back. The other three masked men pounced on Daniel’s father, aiming blows at his head and body. His glasses flew off and were crushed beneath a black boot. He fell to his knees. Blood ran down his face into his beard.

Daniel closed his eyes and tried to shut out the sound of his father coughing and choking, horrible gasps. They’re beating the life out of Papá. Someone…make them stop. When Daniel opened his eyes again, his father was on hands and knees. A soldier’s boot struck the side of his head. He flopped onto his back and lay motionless.

“Let’s get him out of here.”

Part Two, “Now,” begins almost six years later. While Papá remains imprisoned in Chile, Daniel, his mother and younger sister have fled to Madison, Wisconsin. Mamá works with the Latin America Solidarity Committee, and Daniel, now 17, has carved out his own niche: a junior in high school, he plays lead guitar in a rock band and is dating a minister’s daughter. But Daniel is also traumatized and silenced; he keeps his head low and doesn’t call attention to himself. “Here, nobody talks about it,” he says, “at least not outside social studies class. And when they do it in class, I make my mind go somewhere else.”

When he drives to the airport to pick up his newly-released father, Daniel finds Papá damaged in body and spirit: partially paralyzed, Marcelo is a self-destructive alcoholic who has nightmares, lashes out at his family and can’t stand to be touched—and is bitter at having been exiled to the place he calls “Gringolandia.” It would appear that the dictatorship has succeeded in silencing both Daniel and Marcelo.

In Parts Three and Four, we meet Daniel’s girlfriend, Courtney—“La Gringa”—a well meaning but naïve, self-centered young woman who passionately wants to be part of something she doesn’t understand—and unwittingly comes close to sabotaging the survival of both the family here and the underground movement in Chile.

Although the dictatorship succeeds in breaking up Daniel’s parents’ marriage, it doesn’t succeed in silencing Marcelo—and it leaves Daniel with an important decision to make: Should he remain in the relative safety of family and friends in Madison, or risk torture and death by joining his father in combating a brutal dictatorship in Chile? What Daniel decides will have teen readers thinking deeply and making connections between the microcosm of their own families and the macrocosm of the world outside.

In Part Five, “A Bird Named Pablo: A Metaphor,” the dictatorship has been defeated by, of all things, a plebiscite, and Marcelo, back in Chile, is healing from his wounds—physically and spiritually. Here, he has written an incomparably beautiful story about a conure (a protected species in Chile)—tortured by a torturer—whom Marcelo has rescued and rehabilitated—and who builds a family of his own. A metaphor that’s too close to home to be a metaphor.

Lyn Miller-Lachmann’s book is complex and multilayered and beautifully written. It takes twists and turns and shifting perspectives, but the overarching theme is Daniel’s struggle with guilt over his father’s arrest, and his struggle to reconnect with a person who is substantially different than the father he knew and loved. “Papa’s words race through my mind,” he says.

I want to think of him as a hero and me as the son of someone who did great things. Like investigating secret prisons and bearing witness to what went on there. But there’s a huge empty space in my chest when I think of all the time we missed together. Five years, three months, and sixteen days, to be exact. And when I walk out of the studio, my fists are again clenched, and my neck and shoulder ache, as I think of how he put us in danger, ordered us out of the country—and still wants to go back there.

The story of how one small family survives a cruel and sadistic regime is a gift to all of the survivors of dictatorships, those who have become permanent residents of the US and those who have repatriated. Without polemic, without didacticism, Lyn Miller-Lachmann has created a disturbing, thought provoking novel that succeeds in being “real, honest and truthful.” Gringolandia is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 7/15/13)

Note: A number of excellent videos exist about Salvador Allende, the 1973 coup, the Pinochet dictatorship, and the quest for justice. They include: the three-part The Battle of Chile, directed by Patricio Guzmán (1975, 1977, 1979); Chile: Obstinate Memory, directed by Patricio Guzmán (1997); The Pinochet Case, directed by Patricio Guzmán (2001); A Promise to the Dead, directed by Peter Raymont (2007); The Judge and the General, directed by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco (2008); Archeology of Memory: Villa Grimaldi, directed by Quique Cruz and Marilyn Mulford (2009); Salvador Allende, directed by Patricio Guzmán (2011); and  No!, directed by Pablo Larraín (2013).  —BHS