Playing for the Devil’s Fire

author: Phillippe Diederich  

Cinco Puntos Press, 2016 

grades 7-up 

Mexican

Some 500 years ago, conquest of this hemisphere was relatively easy: foreigners arrived, planted their flags, massacred the inhabitants and stole the land. Now, conquest involves massive CIA-financed drug trafficking via international cartels, mass murder and “disappearances” to soften up and terrorize the populace, rapid economic destabilization, and finally, “regime change” from elected governments to US-friendly fascist dictatorships.

In the Americas, the conquest and never-ending colonialism create dire consequences for hundreds of thousands of terrified refugees—many of them unaccompanied children—who flee to El Norte to escape both state-sponsored terror and the murdering narcotraficantes. They flee, as a colleague told me, “into the mouth of the shark.” Even as they escape the issues in their own homelands, the conquest follows them into  lifelong struggle and trauma.

And, just this morning, the Obama administration announced a new series of raids to round up and deport families who have been seeking asylum here from violence and death threats in Central America.

As I read Playing for the Devil’s Fire, I’m thinking of all of these aspects of colonization, and, in particular, about the “disappearance” of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Teaching College in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero in September 2014. Here, the police, local politicians and everyone else in power, acting in league with the gangsters, maintained business as usual.

The title’s “devil’s fire” is two things: It’s the diablito rojo, the rare, coveted marble every Mexican teenage boy dreams of winning. And, perhaps more important, it’s a metaphor for the carnage and conflagration sweeping much of Latin America.

Libero (Boli) Flores’ harrowing story begins as the 13-year-old narrator describes the scene in Izayoc (the place of tears), his sleepy little town near Mexico City:

It was a hot Sunday morning when we discovered the severed head of Enrique Quintanilla propped up on the ledge of one of the cement planters in the plaza.

The head belonged to Boli’s teacher, who was a known activist, and a note was found in his mouth: “He talked too much.”

Boli, an average teen—whose only interests had been winning at marbles and polishing shoes to earn some cash so he and his friend, Mosca, could attend the lucha libre—begins to notice the arrival of well-dressed strangers driving late-model SUVs with black windows, spinning silver rims and California license plates. They’re moving into town and building big houses. A new four-lane highway has been built—and townspeople start to disappear, businesses start to close, and Boli’s friends start to hang out with the newcomers.

There are whispers. The townspeople know what’s going on. But when Boli’s parents ask questions of those in charge, there are no answers. The police chief knows nothing, but he’s seen in the company of the strangers. The priest knows nothing, but his church has been beautifully renovated. And then Boli’s parents, on their way to Toluca to alert the federal police, suddenly join the “disappeared.”

Boli is certain that “something bad has happened.” Nevertheless, he puts his hope in an unlikely hero, a washed-up luchador named “El Chicano Estrada.” Boli sees him as larger-than-life—like El Hijo del Santo, son of the world’s most beloved luchador; a superman who battles rudos in the ring and criminals on the outside; a crime fighter who rights wrongs and brings truth and justice to all those in need.

But the violence in the lucha libre ring and in the Santo movies is choreographed and scripted. What’s real is horrific and unpredictable. As El Chicano Estrada tries to warn Boli,

“Everyone’s giving you hope, telling you there’s a chance, that everything’s going to be okay. It’s all lies. We are a country built on lies. Listen, forget the illusion that the world is a good place. It’s not.”

Boli’s loss of innocence—as his initial belief that bad things happen to other people grows into the knowledge that there is no redemption, no miracle that will quickly disappear the violence, corruption and destruction all around—echoes the real situation in Mexico and much of Latin America. As with life in the region, there is no happy ending. After the last horrible murder, readers will see that the battle between good and evil truly exists, and the devil’s fire will continue to rage for a long time coming.

The secondary characters are real people as well: Abuela, who, in her mind, is able to return to the beauty of Veracruz; Boli’s no-nonsense sister, Gaby, who takes over the family’s panadería in their parents’ absence and whose business decisions reflect the trajectory of the town’s downfall; Jesusa, the Flores family’s maid, who knows the dual reality of soul-numbing poverty and terror; the beautiful Ximena, who, along with several other young women, throws in her cards with the gangsters; Boli’s best friend and alter-ego, Mosca, who suddenly disappears; and, of course, Father Gregorio and the police chief, Pineda, whose salaried job descriptions include pacifying the populace.

Both dialogue and narration are peppered with rough-and-tumble Mexican street-Spanish in all its permutations, and there’s a helpful glossary as well. Note to teachers: This is how boys and men in small-town Mexico—and in some cities as well—speak. Anything less would be a cultural erasure.

Make no mistake: Playing for the Devil’s Fire is not “just” about what is often referred to as the “drug wars.” Indeed, readers will not find the terms, “narcos,” “gangsters,” or “drugs” anywhere here; nor will they find “government complicity” or “colonialism,” either. Rather, what they will find is real people in a particular small town in a particular Latin American country—who have become collateral damage in a violent, murderous game of international dominoes—and for whom the message is: Sal si puede. Pack up your dreams if you have any left and get the hell out while you can. 

This is what readers here, in the belly of the beast, need to see and understand. Playing for the Devil’s Fire is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 5/26/16)

Un año sin domingos: la imagen de la alfabetización en Cuba / A Year without Sundays: Images from the Literacy Campaign in Cuba

author: Catherine Murphy 

author: Carlos Torres Cairo 

Ediciónes Aurelia and The Literacy Project, 2014 

grades 7-up

Cuban

In 1959, when Fidel and Che and their victorious group of young revolutionaries came down from the Sierra Maestra and marched into Havana, they realized that part of their long, hard struggle had come to fruition. Having thrown out the hated Batista dictatorship and their Mafia cronies—at least for now—the island’s new leaders immersed themselves in thought and discussion about both the problems, and the opportunities they had to achieve the participation of everyone into a society about to be reborn.

It soon became apparent that the single most important barrier to break through was illiteracy: some 14% of Cuba’s population was unable to read or write. So as early as 1959, Fidel sent out the call for volunteers. The campaign was known simply as alfabetización, and thousands upon thousands of young people from throughout Cuba volunteered to be trained as maestras—teachers—to go out into the countryside and teach everyone how to read and write. (Although “maestras” is a feminine form, both young men and women participated in the literacy campaign. In the photographs and interviews in this book, however, most of the participants appear to be young girls and women.)

Beginning in 1960, volunteer teachers—“the literacy campaign’s pioneers”—were trained in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. Here, where much of the fighting for the revolution had taken place, the Cuban people involved themselves in a campaign to bring literacy to all of the tiny country’s people.

Alfabetización had a dual purpose: eradicating illiteracy and bringing down the social barriers between the urban population and the rural working class population. Organized into four brigades—experienced volunteer teachers, La Brigada Conrado Benítez (made up of young people and teenagers from urban areas), La Brigada Patria o Muerte (made up of workers), and active and retired teachers who worked in urban areas—the volunteers covered the countryside.

During the day, the young maestras worked with the campesinos and in the evenings, they worked together at reading and writing. Seven days a week—un año sin domingos. Their textbooks were called, “Alfabeticemos” and “¡Venceremos!”—two words that helped unite the campesinos and the maestras, the campaign with the political reality.

For the campesinos, this would be their first time holding pencils and looking at print on a page and working hard to decipher the meanings of printed words; “for some, recognizing vowels was the hardest thing they had ever done in their lives.” While the campesinos recognized that they were, indeed, becoming part of a great societal change, those who changed most were the maestras. For many of the young people, this would be their first time away from home—ever. This would be their first time sleeping in hammocks, living inside bohíos with palm-thatch roofs and dirt floors, chopping down trees, washing clothes in the river and getting covered with mud, and eating “country food.” Most of all, they learned how to be women and men who could change the world.

The lives of these young people were not without hardship and danger. Indeed, during the CIA-planned and -sponsored invasion of Playa Girón (known in the US as the “Bay of Pigs”), groups of armed counterrevolutionaries kidnapped, tortured and murdered ten of the young teachers. But the young brigadistas, rather than being moved to safety, chose instead to stay with their campesino families who had refused to leave.

Still, one after another, municipalities and provinces nationwide were declared “illiteracy-free zones,” and by the end of 1961—un año sin domingos—the campaign was pronounced a victory, Cuba was proclaimed a country free of illiteracy, and the heroic achievement of so many young people was honored. At a closing ceremony in Havana, thousands upon thousands of maestras, waving enormous pencils to symbolize the campaign, gathered together to celebrate what they had achieved.

All of this history is documented in this 128-page, beautifully designed, bilingual “family album,” Un año sin domingos / A Year Without Sundays. Between 2003-2013, Catherine Murphy, working with The Literacy Project, interviewed over 50 teachers and students who had participated in this monumental campaign. Un año sin domingos is composed of fragments of interviews from 18 of the women and men who spoke of this great experience that transformed their lives—and, indeed, transformed Cuba. Archival photographs, songs, posters and other important and beautiful material from that historical time accompany and complement the interviews.

The large photos are mostly sepia tone, and readers can see the excited expressions on the faces of both the young teachers and their adult students. Color highlights in some places, like a blue sky or a Cuban flag, make the photos even more attractive. Here, on the front cover, are uniformed young people—mostly teenage girls—proudly marching into Havana, holding large banners on which are inscribed “¡Vencímos!” (“We Won!”). Here are the maestras at a rally, honoring Conrado Benítez, the first young teacher murdered by the counterrevolutionaries. Here are two young maestras, riding horseback for the first time. Here are three campesinos at “lunch hour,” intensely studying while their cattle eat. Here is a campesina, laboriously writing her name on a chalkboard. “It was incredible,” a young maestra said, “when they learned how to write their names for the first time. It was like they were discovering themselves.” Here is a young child watching a maestra writing thoughts from José Martí on a chalkboard. A maestra later said,

I learned a lot. I went to teach them, but they taught me many things that I didn’t know. I think I learned more from them than they did from me, because I gave them the light of learning, but they taught me how to be a person.

Here is a letter written by campesino who had just learned to write. And this is what the campaign—and this beautiful book that memoralizes it—is all about:

Amigo Fidel. Te escribo para decirte que ya no soy analfabeto y que cada día me siento más proféro y más feliz con esta Revolucíon que nada ní nadie podra arrebatarnos. Te deseo salud y suerte. Juntos venceremos. (“Friend Fidel. I write to tell you that I'm no longer illiterate and every day I feel more articulate and happier with this revolution that nothing or nobody can take away from us. I wish you health and luck. Together, we will win.”)

And here, on several single- and double-page spreads, are the thousands of young, joyous volunteers in Havana, celebrating the end of the campaign on December 22, 1961. Some are taking photos of this historical moment. Some are wearing the flag: “Territorio Libre de Analfabetismo.” And each is holding up an enormous pencil, the symbol of literacy.

The Cuban literacy campaign is a little-known event here, but it was a year that changed the people of Cuba, campesinos and maestras alike. Catherine Murphy’s documentary, Maestra, and this book bring together living testimony of their struggles and triumphs, and beautiful archival film and photo footage. Both book and documentary are highly recommended. As the Cuban people say, “¡Vencímos!”

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

—Beverly Slapin

 (published 5/7/16)

¿Hasta Dónde Me Amas? // How Far Do You Love Me?

author: Lulu Delacre 

illustrator: Lulu Delacre 

translator /interpretor (English): Verónica Betancourt 

Lee & Low, 2013 
all grades

Stories about children or anthropomorphic young animals looking for boundaries appeal to youngsters all over the world. Sometimes these are teaching stories that give young listeners or readers a safe place in which to think about the limits of what they can and cannot do.

In Margaret Wise Brown‘s delightful Runaway Bunny, a little kid bunny verbally spars with his momma bunny, testing her unconditional love by declaring his plans to run away from home. As the momma bunny joins in the game, the little kid bunny’s imagined escapades—from becoming a fish to a flower to a rock to a bird to a tree to a sailboat to a circus performer to a little (human) boy—finally land him at home, where momma bunny reassures him that she’ll always be around to take care of him. In 1942, when much of the world was at war, momma bunny’s calm reassurance resonated with little human kids and, along with Brown’s Goodnight Moon (1947), still does.

In the years following the publication of The Runaway Bunny, there have been many picture books that focus on children’s or young animals’ testing their parents’ unconditional love for them; each one ends with the parent (usually the mother) affirming an everlasting love for the child.

In 1991, author Barbara M. Joosse and illustrator Barbara Lavallee created the first best-selling “multicultural” version of a child’s testing a parent’s unconditional love: Mama, Do You Love Me?, featuring an Inuk child and her mother. This abysmally written and –illustrated appropriation of Inuit life and culture proved to be a lucrative project, and in 2005, the Joosee-Lavallee team followed with the equally awful Papa, Do You Love Me?, which featured a Maasai child’s testing his father.[1]

An earlier, and much better written, story of the love between mother and child is On Mother’s Lap by Ann Herbert Scott and illustrated by Glo Coalson. This story, originally published in 1972 and republished in 1992, also takes place in the Arctic, but focuses on “showing” rather than “telling.” And the little-known but no less beautiful Mama’s Little One by Kristina Heath, may be difficult to obtain, but is well worth searching for.[2]

And now, multi-talented (and multiple award-winning) artist, author and poet, Lulu Delacre, has created ¿Hasta Dónde Me Amas? and How Far Do You Love Me?, two gorgeous picture books about love for youngest listeners to readers of all ages—containing neither conflict nor testing nor “runaway multiculturalism.” Rather, her lyrical verses that describe the love between adults and children—in both Spanish and English versions—are deceptively simple, yet complex in their connection with the lands and peoples; and stunningly illustrated with soft pastels, lush with intense color.

Each dazzling double-page spread tells a story of its own. From the beautiful sandy beaches of Vieques, to the top of the Grand Canyon, to a freshwater spring in Yucatán, to the unimaginable heights of Machu Picchu, to an enormous glacier in Antarctica, to where the sun and the rain produce a rainbow on the Serengeti Plain, to the crests of the desert in the Sinai, to the lavender fields of Provence, to where the river meets the sea in the Alps, to a Himalaya Mountain Range, to the bright pink water lilies floating on the Mekong River, to a gigantic eucalyptus on Kangaroo Island, to the coral reefs on the ocean floor of Queensland, and back to Vieques, are parents and their children, enjoying each other’s company and living in their worlds.

Here, at the top of a peak in the Grand Canyon area of Arizona, a father talks with his daughter who is perched on his shoulders. Here, in the windswept desert of the Sinai, a mother cradles her infant. Here, in a field of lavender in Provence, three girls pick flowers as an adult watches from a distance. Here, in the Mekong River, a joyful little girl and her parents paddle amidst the bright blossoms of water lilies. Here, on Kangeroo Island, a young boy and his father lean against an enormous eucalyptus tree that just about touches the sky.

The books begin and end with a mother and her young son in Vieques, the place of Delacre’s birth. In the first illustration, the two are lying on the warm sand, and the boy asks, “¿Hasta dónde me amas?” or “How far do you love me?” And on one of the final spreads, the circle is closed as Mamá asks her son, “¿Y tu? ¿Hasta dónde me amas?” or “And you? How much do you love me?” To which the child answers, “¡Yo te amo hasta la luna!” or “I love you to the moon!” and as she kisses her child goodnight, Mamá says,

Y yo, hasta más allá de las estrellas,

donde la luz déjà de verse en el espacio

más allá de universos conocidos

y se vuelve en el amor

que anida dentro,

muy adentro de ti.

And I love you farther than the stars,

to the space beyond the space we know,

where light becomes love

that nestles deep,

deep inside you.

“The inspiration for the original poem in Spanish,” Delacre told me, “was a game I used to play with my own daughters when they were little. We never played ¿Cuánto me amas...? We played ¿Hasta dónde...? It was always fun trying to travel farther and farther away by showing the length and depth of our love.” One afternoon, she said, after going for a walk and thinking about the love she felt for her daughters, she sat down to write what she had composed in her head. “I've traveled to many places in my 32 years of marriage when I wrote the poem,” she said, and “without those trips I don’t think the poem would have come to me so effortlessly. So did it take 45 minutes to write it or 32 years?” Maybe somewhere in between, I’d guess. In any event, it’s clear that Delacre did not sit down to write a marketable bedtime picture book with conflict that called for resolution. And I’m glad for that.

After writing the lyrical Spanish, Delacre gave the text over to her daughter, Verónica, who worked with her mother to craft these books into an evocative dual-language expression of love. Without polemic and without belabored notes about “multiculturalism,” what Delacre shows—rather than tells—is that, across continents, cultures, ethnicities and religions—caring adults love their children.

Some other plusses: On the next-to-last spread, Delacre has hand-lettered “the question” in 23 different languages in order to prompt children and loving adults to play in the language of their choice. There’s also a map that references the 13 locations around the world in which the poems are situated.

However, there was a missed opportunity here that I feel must be addressed, so I’ll direct these questions to the publisher: Why was this brilliant book—originally written in Spanish—published first in a small English-only hardcover, and then later, seemingly as an afterthought, in an even smaller, Spanish-only paperback? Why wasn’t this awesome work seen as important and beautiful enough to have been made into a much larger, hardcover, bilingual book, with the Spanish text predominant? Such an effort would have given more space to the art and would have made the one book accessible to both hablantes and English speakers. And, finally—wow! Why didn’t someone catch that the title on the title page of the Spanish version is missing an initial interrogation mark? (This was a major typo.)

As they stand, both ¿Hasta Dónde Me Amas? and How Far Do You Love Me? encompass a beautiful journey of endless love, without conflict, without testing; and they are highly recommended. Lulu Delacre is a kind, generous spirit—an international treasure whose art and words are a gift. Muchísimas gracias, Lulu.

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

—Beverly Slapin

(published 5/1/16)

---

[1] See my essay, “Runaway Multiculturalism,” in MultiCultural Review, vol. 15, no. 3 (Fall 2006), p. 114.

[2] See reviews of both of these titles, along with Mama, Do You Love Me?, in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin (AltaMira Press, 2005), p. 302.

Waiting for Papá / Esperando a Papá

author: René Colato Laínez 

illustrator: Anthony Accardo 

Piñata Books / Arte Público Press, 2004 

grades 2-4 

Salvadoran

In all the news media today, we see terrorized and desperate refugees—many are mothers with their young children, and many are unaccompanied children—running for their lives, fleeing El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, as well as other countries torn by war. They arrive here by the thousands, to the unknown, to what they desperately hope is the relative safety of life in the country whose governmental policies and military practices are responsible for most of the chaos and horror engulfing their worlds. Guided by coyotes—the paid smugglers of humans who couldn’t care less if their charges live or die—many refugees from El Salvador make the perilous trek to el norte; dodging robbers while crossing three countries partially by bus and mostly on foot: up and down mountains, through rivers and across deserts. And soon after the so-called “illegals” arrive here, many are caught, jailed and deported by US immigration police.

The issues of refugees and immigrants are complex; but simply defined, refugees are desperate people forced to flee countries ravaged by war and human rights abuses. They are refugios, looking for safety and shelter. There are also economic refugees, whose livelihoods were destroyed, for instance, by the economic policies of the US toward Mexico. They are, as a colleague mentioned, “leaving home to go into the jaws of the shark.” Immigrants, on the other hand, are people who, for many reasons, move permanently from one country to another. All refugees are immigrants, but only some immigrants are refugees.

Waiting for Papá / Esperando a Papá is Colato Laínez’s story of a young boy who, with his mother, flee to the US three years before the story begins:

When I was five years old, Mamá and I had to leave El Salvador. The detergent factory where Mamá and Papá worked was bombed during the war. Two days later, our house caught on fire. All my toys, all my clothes, and even Papá’s favorite boots were burned. ‘Now, we do not have work, food, or a house,’ Papá said. (emphasis mine)

Here, the author’s use of the passive tense serves to obfuscate the agents of repression and terror, so young readers (even if they themselves are refugees) won’t have a clue about why all of these bad things happened.

Mamá’s father, who lives in the US, applies for and receives visas for his daughter and her son, but Papá has to stay behind. The story, though Beto’s eyes, is how the family eventually reunites.

Beto and Mamá quickly and easily obtain a visa. They arrive here by airplane, which is highly unusual for refugees from El Salvador, then or now. While in El Salvador, Beto narrates, Papá could not find work, and “going out in public was very dangerous.” But in their new home, by contrast, Mamá quickly and easily finds a job in a sewing factory and, after a year, has saved enough money to hire an immigration lawyer. It’s also assumed that they quickly and easily find an inexpensive place to live. Although the story hints that the family is seeking refuge here, through a series of unlikely events and occurrences, it belies the terror and uncertainty of the refugee experience.

Later, his teacher tells the children about Christopher Columbus. In this odd and historically inaccurate paragraph that infers that Columbus was the “first immigrant,” the author, through Miss Parrales, apparently tries to normalize immigration:

“Did you know that when Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, many people from Europe came to what we know as the United States? Since then, millions of people from other countries have come. They are called ‘immigrants.’ I am from Mexico. I am an immigrant, too.”

At this point, Beto raises his hand and excitedly reveals that he, too, is an immigrant; and that his Papá could not come, but he hopes that they will soon be reunited.  Miss Parrales’ and Beto’s dialogues are neither natural nor believable. Both exist only to convey information—as well as to conflate refugees with other immigrants.

Soon, Mr. González, who is from Nicaragua and works as a radio host for “Voice of the Immigrant,” visits Beto’s class and suggests that, since Father’s Day is soon approaching, students write letters to their fathers “to tell him why he is special.” Since it’s widely recognized that many children either don’t know or have lost their fathers, exercises asking children to write letters to fathers is bad teaching practice, even if it’s suggested by a guest who should and would know better.

So Beto writes a beautiful letter, on the back of which “I drew my Salvadoran house on fire. I also drew Mamá screaming and Papá holding me in his arms while I cried.” What’s Beto’s motivation? Children who are refugees and other immigrants don’t write home about what a bad time they had at home. Rather, they’d be more likely to say, “I miss you,” and draw a picture of where they are now to make it look attractive so their relatives would come faster and be reunited with the family in this great place.

Beto is invited to appear on Mr. González’ radio show. While they’re on the air, an immigration lawyer phones and tells Mamá that “Papá will come home soon!” A few days later, Beto and his classmates gather a huge number of aluminum cans, which, “within a couple of weeks,” they take to the recycling machine and are paid $80, with which Beto purchases a pair of boots for Papá (exactly like the ones that were destroyed in El Salvador). And. “On the very next day,” Papá arrives by plane, and joins Beto and Mamá “in a big tight hug.” And. “On the last day of school,” Miss Parrales presents Beto with “a trophy for perfect attendance and a certificate for good behavior,” both of which he gives to Papá, along with the boots the child had bought. More big hugs, and Papá promises to be with Beto “forever.” The End.

Accardo’s bright pen-and-ink and watercolor art reflects the story, so much so that each child in Beto’s multiethnic classroom appears to represent a different continent. And, although the Spanish translation (with no translator noted) appears to be grammatically accurate, it’s as unexciting as the story.

The events in Waiting for Papá / Esperando a Papá are inappropriate and unrealistic, the dialogue is trite and wooden, and the story is contrived with too many coincidences and an all-too-neat resolution. It would not be a stretch to say that all refugee and immigrant kids dream of reuniting with their families. Waiting for Papá is the author’s attempt to write this dream—it’s hopeful, but in reality the dream is almost never realized. Colato Laínez was himself a refugee from the 12-year “civil war” in El Salvador, in which the US financed and trained the right-wing military and the death squads. Waiting for Papá / Esperando a Papá was Colato Laínez’s first children’s book and, fortunately, some of his later ones are better. As it stands, this one is not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 4/29/16) 

Charmed Life / Una vida con suerte

author: Gladys E. Barbieri

illustrator: Lisa Fields 

translator: Carolina E. Alonso 

Piñata Books / Arte Público Press, 2016 

preschool-grade 3 

Latin American  

In A Charmed Life / Una vida con suerte, a young immigrant Latina accompanies her mother to work. As they get off the bus and walk the rest of the way to Mamá’s housecleaning job in a gated mansion, Felicia is told in no uncertain terms to behave herself and the child, having heard this many times before, nods her head. From the beginning, the portrayal of the relationship between parent and child is strained, culturally inappropriate and problematic: Mamá appears harsh and dismissive; Felicia appears exasperated and rebellious.

In the illustration of the two approaching Mamá’s workplace, parent and child in the foreground are dwarfed in relation to the huge mansion and forbidding black gate, which spans the width of the page. 

While Mamá sets to work, Felicia, annoyed and bored, sits at a large table “to keep out of [her] mom’s way,” and starts coloring. Her mother’s appearance also embarrasses her: “I don’t really like her headscarf,” Felicia says, “nor do I like being here.”

The young reader is not told—and there are no visual hints, either—about other family members. Is there a father? Are there grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins? Where are the family’s past and present communities? Why are they here? Why does Mamá take her daughter to work with her? Why isn’t Felicia at school? And, being stuck here with her mom, why isn’t the child helping out? A Latina child about Felicia’s age would probably know the routine: she would be more likely to come in, pick up a broom or dust rag, and get to work by her mother’s side.

Rather, Felicia gets up from her coloring and takes a furtive tour of the mansion. Walking into a lavishly designed child’s room with enormous stuffed toy animals and a canopied crib, she “can’t believe [her] eyes” at all the gorgeous stuff she sees. “Forgetting [her] mom’s list of dos and don’ts,” Felicia races out to the patio, gets on a swing and swings “so high that [she feels she] could touch the sun.” She’s way impressed at all the things she doesn’t have.

An important short digression: Felicia’s little adventure makes no sense, cultural or otherwise. For a Latina child, especially an immigrant Latina child, to sneak off by herself, roam around a mansion and walk through the rooms, go outside and use the swings on an open patio where she could be seen and caught, might—at the very least—endanger her mother’s job. The child and her mother could be accused of stealing, they could be arrested, and, depending on their immigration status, there could even be deportation proceedings. For a Latina child to be blissfully unaware of this kind of danger is unreal, even if this is “just” a picture book.

But young readers will see no danger here, just a curious Latina child and a kindly white employer. She’s Mrs. Fitzpatrick, a red-haired white woman who, rather than castigating the child, brings her a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of cookies, sits on the swing next to her, and tells Felicia that her own Irish great-grandparents had immigrated to America with dreams of a better life for their family.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick, of course, is wealthy. She is also pregnant. She knows her child will never want for anything: that her child will have a charmed life. So, with that realization, she gives Felicia a charm bracelet. For the benefit of young readers who may not immediately “get” the improbability of this scene or the concepts of paternalism and noblesse oblige, Mamá peers through the window while Mrs. Fitzpatrick tells Felicia: 

Believe that you will have a better life and don’t let anyone make you feel that you don’t deserve it, because you do. We all deserve to have a charmed life.

Here, the bringer of wisdom is not a hardworking Latina parent, but her employer, a privileged white woman. The implication is that all immigrant, migrant and refugee families are on an escalator ride from poverty and neediness to wealth and independence. Indeed, “a charmed life” is a metaphor for obtaining the American (material) Dream. If you follow the script—work hard and strive for material goods—your children will have a “charmed life.”

On the bus home, Felicia exuberantly tells her mom that she is “going to have a super charmed life,” to which her mom doesn’t respond. And when Felicia insists that they “both are” going to have this charmed life, Mamá responds, “Yes, Felicia, you will have a very charmed life.” The End.

Alonso’s Spanish translation closely follows the text, sometimes to a fault. Felicia’s description of a house that’s “so grand,” for instance, is translated as “tan grande”—so big. And Fields’ digitally produced illustrations, in bright glowing colors, parallels the text as well. Here, Felicia forefronts just about every scene: Where she is with her mother in the beginning pictures, the child is bored and unhappy. When she sees the material wealth that surrounds her and when she’s with her white benefactor, the child is joyous, as she is in the last scene, where she is trying to convince her mom that she—no, the two of them—will eventually have a charmed life.

In knowing that this “charmed life” will somehow happen to them, Felicia—unlike the majority of desperate, fearful immigrants, migrants and refugees who come here from Mexico and Central and South America—is not looking for a peaceful life, a safe life, or a life without hunger—she’s looking for a life with lots of stuff. And she knows that, because of her new charm bracelet, or maybe because her mom works hard, they will somehow have this life. The subtext and unstated assumptions here are that, if immigrant, migrant or refugee parents work hard enough, like her mother does, their children will “make it.” If their children don’t “make it,” it’s because the parent or parents didn’t work hard enough.

That Felicia is so enamored by Mrs. Fitzpatrick and her great material wealth suggests to young readers that Mamá and child live in an economically marginalized neighborhood with little of value, material or otherwise. There is no evidence of societal or class circumstances. Rather, readers see only the perspective of a Latina child who’s an outsider with no family except for her mother, no community, and no culture of any worth. There is no hint that people who are economically impoverished can still hold on to all that makes them familia, all that makes them cultura, and all that makes them human.  

While the author and illustrator have created what many children will consider an engaging and compelling picture book, the story’s message is dishonest. Coming to the US and working hard does not guarantee that anyone will achieve the American Dream—or that descendants of hard-working immigrant, migrant and refugee families will live charmed lives. Far from it. This system is rigged to benefit the 1%, and children of Felicia’s age—who may not be immigrants, migrants or refugees but who probably already know about unfairness in things large and small—need to learn about the long, hard struggles for justice as well.

There are many picture books that can move children to understand the necessity of people’s struggles for justice, and even encourage them to become participants. These include (but are not limited to):

• Ann Berlak’s Joelito’s Big Decision / La Gran Decisión de Joelito

• Carmen T. Bernier-Grand’s César: ¡Sí, Se puede! Yes, We Can! (available in English and Spanish editions)

• Diana Cohen’s ¡Sí, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! Janitor Strike in L.A.

• Carmen Tafolla’s That’s Not Fair! Emma Tenayuca’s struggle for justice / ¡No Es Justo! La lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la justicia

It’s possible that, in the opening pages, Mamá’s expression when she reminds Felicia to behave might be more out of fear than coldness. It’s possible that, in the illustration where an unsmiling Mamá looks out the window at Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Felicia enjoying each other’s company, that her expression might be more of concern than distance. It’s possible that when Mamá stares out the bus window rather than admiring Felicia’s charm bracelet, she’s contemplating the reality of their lives. But young children will not see any of this. What they will see—as evidenced by the story and by Mamá’s smile on the last page—is that life is what you make it and turns out well if you really want it to.

Recently, a colleague suggested that young students could be encouraged to rewrite and/or reimagine A Charmed Life / Una vida con suerte in ways that relate to their own lives. I can see the value of such an exercise, but it’s not enough to recommend this book. Our children deserve better. Our children deserve to see the truths of their lives, and to see what part they can play in helping to shape their own futures—and the futures of other children as well. They do not need yet another Cinderella story that makes no sense to them.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 4/23/16)

Lo que mi abuela me dijo / What My Grandmother Told Me: Practical Wisdom from Spanish Proverbs and Sayings

author: Maria Paz Eleizegui Weir

illustrator: Mahala Urra 

University of New Mexico Press, 2015

grades 3-5 

Spanish-Filipino

When young Cesario Estrada Chávez came home from school one day, humiliated and punished by his teacher for speaking Spanish, he received the gift of this dicho from his mother: “Quien sabe dos lenguas vale por dos”—He who knows two languages is more valuable than he who knows only one. This dicho, and the love he received from his parents and grandparents, shaped the boy who grew up to become a leader in the struggle against the oppression of migrant agricultural workers.

Everywhere that Spanish is spoken, parents and grandparents teach through dichos. Children learn these easily memorized cultural markers that—in the process of educating and instructing children about their own lives and the lives of their families, their peers, their society, and the world—indirectly communicate values, behaviors and morality. In short, dichos are signifiers: They live in, and are an integral part of, the culture.

In Lo que mi abuela me dijo / What My Grandmother Told Me: Practical Wisdom from Spanish Proverbs and Sayings are dozens of dichos, organized into six thematic units—Juventud / Childhood, Amistad / Friendship, Comportamiento / Manners, Lucha y trabajo / Work and Strife, Sabiduría /Wisdom, and Amor y destino / Love and Destiny—appearing in Spanish first, paired with an English translation or interpretation. The book, in some ways reminiscent of 1950s readers, is attractively designed, and Mahala Urra’s illustrations, in ink and flat watercolors, mostly feature the young “Maria” in a red dress and grandma in an olive dress.

In her preface (La voz de mi abuela / the Voice of My Grandmother) and afterword (Las lagrimas de mi abuela / The Tears of My Grandmother), Eleizegui Weir writes about how these dichos from her Spanish-speaking Filipino grandmother shaped her life (“En tus apures y afanes / acude a los refranes” // “When needs and difficulties arise / take refuge in the proverbs.”) 

There are some beautiful dichos and illustrations here. Here is an illustration of two girls hugging each other: “A buen amigo, / buen abrigo” // “A good friend is as comforting / as a warm coat.” (pp. 34-35). Here is a girl, comforting her sad friend with a cup of steaming cocoa: “En la necesidad / conoce la amistad” // “True friends are with you / when you need them.” (pp. 36-37). And here is a blindfolded girl, offering a gift to an appreciative child she may not know: “Haz el bien, y no mires a quien.” // “Do good without concern / for whom you do it.” (pp. 42-43).

Unfortunately, without regard for appropriateness for today’s children, many of the dichos (brought from Spain and Portugal through the Philippines) read like advice from the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. Authoritarian and basically medieval in their value systems, they perpetuate gender stereotypes, conformity and acceptance, greed and ill will, and physical child punishment.

Here are some examples of gender stereotyping:  “La gracia de la fea, / la bonita lo desea.” // “Beautiful women desire / the grace and good nature / of someone who is plain.” (pp. 52-53); and “Calladita te ves más bonita.” // “A quiet little girl / appears prettier and sweeter.” (pp. 68-69). Here, conformity and acceptance: “La mayor felicidad / es la conformidad.” // “Acceptance is a major key / to happiness.” (pp. 152-153); “A falta de pan buenas son tortas.” // “When you have no bread, / cake will do.” (pp. 148-149); and “Algunos nacen con estrella / y otros nacen estrellados.” // “Some are born under a lucky star; / others are born shattered.” (pp. 160-161). Here, greed and ill will: “No digas todo lo que sepas, / ni des todo lo que tengas.” // “Do not say everything you know, / nor give everything you have.” (pp. 48-49); and “Con su pan se lo coma.” / “Let him eat his own bread.” (pp. 114-115). And here, physical punishment of children: “Si a tu hijo no le das castigo, / seras su peor enemigo.” // “An unpunished child / can become your worst enemy.” (pp. 16-17); and “Quien bien te quiere / te hará  llorar.” // “Who loves you best / also makes you cry.” (pp. 30-31).

The implications in most of this collection are that what life has given you is God’s will—know your place in society and you’ll be rewarded in heaven for submissiveness on earth.

Often, the tone is softened to the point of not making any contemporary cultural sense and the literal illustrations have little or nothing to do with the particular dicho. Here, for instance, is a dicho that reads, “A Dios rogando / y con el mazo dando.” // “Praise God / but keep on hammering.” (pp. 124-125).  The illustration shows two girls, one praying and the other hammering a plank onto a picket fence. But making a fence has nothing to do with the dicho, which, in all likelihood, originated in Spain during the Inquisition. The use of the word “mazo” would link it to torturing—praising God while clubbing people with maces, the deadly weapons often used for this purpose.

The religious orientation of these dichos is not from Filipino culture so much as from Spanish colonial culture brought over in the 16^th Century. Here, the historical origins have been appropriated and, with the aid of the illustrations, placed into more benign cultural contexts. This collection—interpreted in a way that attempts to make the dichos relevant to today’s children but fails to do so while glossing over the reactionary ideology of the originals—is unappealing.

As a primary source of historical significance—an academic collection of teachings that encompass colonial Spanish Catholic mores, together with a discussion of how some of them were transmogrified into dichos for children in contemporary Spanish-speaking Filipino culture—these dichos might have been valuable. But in the attempt to transform them into a book for young audiences, the original meanings were overlooked as were their appropriateness for contemporary children. Despite several very nice pieces and lovely artwork, Lo que mi abuela me dijo / What My Grandmother Told Me: Practical Wisdom from Spanish Proverbs and Sayings is not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 4/18/16)

Mil gracias a mi colega, Oralia Garza de Cortés.

Burn Baby Burn

author: Meg Medina

Candlewick Press, 2016 

high school-up 

Cuban American

Between spring 1976 and summer 1977, the “Son of Sam” shooter David Berkowitz killed or wounded 13 New Yorkers, young couples who were sitting in their cars, in parks, or on the street. Until his arrest on August 10, 1977, no one knew who the shooter was. For more than a year, terrified New Yorkers suspected their neighbors and even members of their own families.

Meg Medina perfectly captures this climate of fear and suspicion in her new YA novel Burn Baby Burn, beginning with 17-year-old protagonist Nora López’s panicked walk home at night with her best friend, Kathleen, and their encounter with a stranger who turns out to be an undercover police officer and a friend of Kathleen’s father, a fireman. The policeman brings them home with a warning, but that’s only the beginning of Nora’s troubles. Her younger brother Hector, spoiled and excused by their single mother, has gone from truancy and disrespecting teachers to arson and domestic violence. Still, Nora and her mother refuse to tell anyone. They’re afraid of what the neighbors will think, and they search for every shred of evidence that Hector will pull his life together.

At work—a full-time job Nora juggles with school because she plans to move into her own apartment—she is attracted to the new guy, Pedro, but they have no place to go, lest they become victims of the mysterious killer whom Nora fears may be her own brother.

Compounding Nora’s isolation is the baggage her mother brings as an immigrant from Cuba. Nora’s mother was one of the first wave to leave after the revolution, and she idealizes what her life was like there in comparison with what she now faces with two teenage children, a vanishing job in a factory that makes audiotapes, and an ex-husband who is constantly behind in paying child support. 

Although Nora finds a potential mentor of sorts in her downstairs neighbor, Black activist Stiller, Nora’s mother labels Stiller a “comunista,” and tries and partially succeeds in keeping Nora away from her.

In Nora, Medina has created a strong, memorable female protagonist who wants to become a carpenter and plays a major role in holding her family together. Yet the responsibility is always more than she can handle, for she cannot be expected to “save” or protect the community singlehandedly from a dangerous sociopath who batters both her and her mother. She struggles with both fear and guilt that contribute to her being silent too long, and her dilemmas will resonate with readers who harbor difficult secrets.

Vivid writing conveys with authenticity and interest the New York City of the 1970s, when economic distress, crime, drugs, and social unraveling threatened to destroy so many working-class neighborhoods. The Son of Sam killings and the July 13-14 blackout, fires, and looting were the best known examples, but the struggles played out in hundreds of thousands of homes, schools, workplaces, and streets.

As well, Medina’s dialogue skillfully blends the Spanish and English of a family in which some members are bilingual and some are not. For instance, while a fireman probes the neighbors about a suspicious fire, Nora condenses the conversation for a shaken Mima:

“¿Qué dijo el hombre?" Mima whispers.

“They’re investigating,” I say.

Mima crosses herself.

And when Stiller offers to bring Hector, who is in a drug-induced stupor, to the hospital:

“Es una borrachera, na’mas,” Mima insists, although I don’t smell any alcohol on him at all. Then she turns to me: “Nora1” Her voice is sharp. “Tu hermano.”

An excellent author’s note places the story events in the larger historical context, explains what is fact and fiction, and offers respect to the victims of these horrific crimes. Burn Baby Burn is highly recommended.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 3/27/16)

A somewhat different version of this review appeared in The Pirate Tree (www.thepiratetree.com).