Dancing Home

author: Alma Flor Ada

author: Gabriel M. Zubizarreta

Atheneum / Simon & Schuster, 2011 

grades 3-5 

Mexican, Mexican American

Dancing Home utilizes elements of “A Margarita” (“To Margarita”), a lovely poem penned by the great Nicaraguan poet, Rubén Darío, and skillfully interpreted in English by Rosalma Zubizareta.

In alternating third-person narratives, readers learn the perspectives of fifth-graders Margie, born in Texas of Mexican parents; and Lupe, Margie’s Mexican cousin, newly arrived in the US. Margie, whose voice predominates, is proud to be “American,” does not speak Spanish, and is embarrassed by her cousin’s Mexican ways that seem to invite negative attention.  At the same time, Lupe, whose voice is clearly secondary, does not speak English, knows that her cousin is uncomfortable with her and is embarrassed at not knowing what is expected of her in this new place—“What she really wanted was to crawl under the desk, or better yet, to run all the way back to Mexico.” Meanwhile, Margie, who sees her life as becoming more difficult, is resentful of her parents’ positive relationship with their niece, with whom they communicate in “enthusiastic Spanish.”

In order to portray Lupe as sufficiently grateful that she is here with her “American” relatives, there is a long description of Mexican family life that contains just about every stereotype there is: Lupe’s school is regimented and uninteresting, her family is impoverished, her undocumented father abandons them, her depressed and emotionally distant mother neglects her, and her new stepfather is drunk and abusive.

Yet, as a secondary character, Lupe does not express any particular needs. Rather,

Lupe felt so grateful for this new home she had that she could not bear the thought of her own joy causing anyone else pain. She hoped that Margarita knew that in sharing her own parents, she was not losing anything. If need be, Lupe would find a way to help her see that.

Later, while Margie comes to enjoy speaking Spanish and learning about Mexican foods, dances and holidays, Lupe puts her own interests aside and selflessly adapts:

Having to be constantly moving forward, faster than she could take in all of the new experiences coming her way, was not a good feeling. Yet Lupe smiled. Even bad feelings got better when you understood where they were coming from. 

In case readers hadn’t realized that Margie’s voice is more important than Lupe’s, the final chapter practically shouts that the story is, indeed, all about her: “As the poem ended with the poet saying goodbye to the girl to whom he had dedicated the poem, it seemed to Margie as though the words were being addressed directly to her, as though she herself were the Margarita in the poem.”

Lupe’s father reappears towards the end of the story, describing the horrible life of an undocumented worker, “acknowledging his own errors, making a sincere effort to free her from carrying the burden of his own mistakes, and encouraging her to be fully in charge of her own life. Standing before her as a brave and fallible human being, he was doing his best to make amends.”

In one of their many digressions from the story, the authors describe the US Bracero Program in this distorted way:

The program had started when many of the old family farms were bought up by large agricultural enterprises. These new factory farms needed many seasonal workers. Since few people in the United States were willing to do this kind of low-wage work, laws were passed allowing growers to bring men from Mexico to do farmwork in the United States and then return to Mexico.

The reality was that there was no shortage of domestic seasonal workers. Rather, The Bracero Program brought in men from one poverty-stricken group (low-paid Mexican farm workers) to compete against another poverty-stricken group (low-paid domestic farm workers) for the benefit of the agricultural corporations, which greatly profited from the impoverishment and desperation of both groups.

The story lacks subtlety; its messages of acceptance and uniqueness are heavy-handed and didactic, telling young readers what to think rather than showing them how to develop critical thinking skills. Margarita’s acquisition of Spanish and respect for her cultural heritage, and Lupe’s linguistic and cultural adaptation to her new country come all too easily to engage young readers, especially young readers who may have similar issues. Dancing Home is not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

 (published 9/20/15)

Love, Amalia

author: Alma Flor Ada

author: Gabriel M. Zubizarreta  

Atheneum / Simon & Schuster, 2012

grades 3-5 

Mexican American

When sixth-grader Amalia’s best friend, Martha, announces that she and her family are moving to California, the girl is so upset she doesn’t even want to say good-bye. But she receives solace and advice from her wise and gentle abuelita. As they cook together, she takes in Abuelita’s family stories about life, about change, about loss, about grieving. 

And then, suddenly, Abuelita is gone, too. There’s not even a chance to say good-bye; and, as Amalia’s large family comes together to celebrate Abuelita’s life, the pain seems unbearable.

Later, when Amalia’s mother gives her Abuelita’s treasured olive-wood box—full of cards, letters, and drawings from family members over the years—Amalia sees a way to hold on to her memories, deal with Abue’s passing and, finally, say good-bye to Martha. 

Unfortunately, the cultural content in Amalia’s story is clumsily presented. Although the authors attempt to weave in some Spanish words and phrases, their efforts appear contrived and stilted. Here, for instance, Amalia discusses one of her mother’s dichos:

She wouldn’t even finish listening to the latest possible disaster before simply repeating one of her favorite sayings: No hay que morirse la víspera, which means the same as “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” but it sounded so much more graphic in Spanish: “Don’t die the day before your death.”

Actually, a more idiomatic interpretation might be, “Don’t die before your time.” The quote above implies that Amalia’s mother is using dichos—a tradition in many Latin American cultures—to instruct her daughter. It also implies that Amalia’s mother learned dichos at her own mother’s lap. Yet this is the only dicho in the story, and it’s called a “saying,” rather than a dicho. Apparently Amalia—whose attitude is dismissive and disrespectful—doesn’t recognize the value of traditional teaching, probably because her abuela, the one person whose wisdom guides her, doesn’t teach through dichos.

In addition, the authors use some code switching that is also contrived, and dialog in which English translations immediately follow the Spanish. This technique is not meaningful to English readers, it’s confusing to Spanish readers, and besides, nobody talks like this:

She heard over and over, people telling her, “¡Ay, querida! Oh, sweetheart.” Her aunt and uncles hugged her, and Tía Graciela insisted on kissing her. “Lo siento tanto. I’m so sorry.” “Lo sé. I know,” she would say to remove herself from almost any situation.

Love, Amalia also minimizes the real struggles of the most exploited, most impoverished workers both in the US and in Mexico:

… Abuelito’s father, our great-grandfather Nicolás, had arrived as a farmworker but then decided to open a store. Abuelito’s mother, María, had been working in a garment factory. But it was hard work in those sweatshops, and Abuelito felt that if they worked together in the store they could make it succeed. And they truly did.

And the story contains too much info-dumping, extraneous information that takes the reader out of the story. For instance, there’s a very long sentence that describes Martha’s “new understanding of the plight of recent immigrants, who like immigrants of the past, contributed with their hard labor to develop and support this country, but unlike them are not received by a Statue of Liberty with a flaming torch and the words she had memorized for her history class: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

In another place, after a mention of Zapata’s mustache, there’s an unnecessary explanation: “Emiliano Zapata was the leader of the Mexican Revolution whose photo Amalia had seen in a book about the history of Mexico.” And there’s an almost two-page description of the history, geography and population of Mexico City that reads like it was plucked from a travelogue.

Finally, the authors rely on platitudes that “tell” rather than “show,” such as: “It all seemed very unjust, and it filled her with anger just to think about it,” “Her eyes were still moist with tears, but there was a new warm feeling in her heart,” and “Moments like this made their friendship so special.” Love, Amalia is not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 9/16/15, revised 9/22/15)

Tía Isa Wants a Car // Tía Isa Quiere un Carro

author: Meg Medina

illustrator: Claudio Muñoz 

translator: Andrea Martinez-Wells (Spanish version) 

Candlewick Press, 2011

preschool-grade 3 

Cuban American

“Tía Isa wants a car.” That’s the refrain on almost every page uttered by our young Latina narrator, who lives with Tía Isa and her brother, Tío Andrés, in a small apartment building in the city. The car she wants is a huge 1950s gas-guzzler with no air conditioning and a bad radio. But it’s un pisicorre “the same shiny green as the ocean that lapped outside my bedroom window,” says Tía Isa. It’s un pisicorre to take them to the beach, and large enough to hold all three plus Mami and Papi when they arrive here from their island home. But Tía Isa, who has a low-paying job and sends “helping money” to the family, has little hope to purchase this “dream car.” This is a close community, however. Neighbors provide odd jobs for the child—stacking oranges in the fruit store, feeding la vieja María’s semi-feral kitties, secretly teaching the librarian some Spanish—and before long, her “secret money sock has grown into a giant money sausage,” with enough to purchase their dream car.

Our narrator, Tía Isa, Tío Andrés, and their neighbors, are familiar people with whom young readers will easily identify. Medina seamlessly incorporates Spanish words and phrases into the story, reflecting the language mix of first-generation English-learners. For instance, Tía Isa says she wants “un pisicorre…to take us to the beach.” When her young niece presents Tía with the money she has saved, Tía “leaves two pink lip marks on my forehead from her besito.” Even their new pisicorre “speaks” Spanish—when Isa revs it up, the “motor cranks with a puff of genie smoke,” and rather than hearing the sound, “vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom” the two hear, “arroz, arroz, arroz, arroz.”

Medina’s vivid imagery—Tía Isa smells of lemon pies from the bakery in which she works, Tío Andrés’s work boots are “muddy like ogre shoes,” the air on Tía’s island smells of "wet palm fronds and mud,” the used car lot smells of tar—provide evocative detail that will engage young readers and listeners. Muñoz’s soft illustrations, in pencil, watercolor and ink, on a subdued palette of tinted pastels, complement the lively imagery of the story itself. I especially like the details of the car, and the expressions on everyone’s faces are priceless. No less importantly, Muñoz’s art mirrors the story rather than extending it, so that both beginning readers and hablantes, perhaps with some help, can easily follow the narrative.

Unfortunately, Medina’s adept and sometimes playful combining of Spanish and English in Tía Isa Wants a Car is not reflected in the Spanish version, Tía Isa Quiere un Carro, which seems to be flattened. Rather than following the code switching of the English version (“Un pisicorre,” she says, “to take us to the beach!”), Martinez-Wells stays exclusively with Spanish (—¡Un pisicorre! ¡Para que nos lleve a la playa!).

In one scene, Tía Isa offers a fistful of dollars to a used car salesman. Her face and body language say that she’s struggling. His arrogant posture says he doesn’t care. The English version reads:

“How much, mister? How much?” Tía Isa repeats in the few English words she knows. She shows him her envelope. “Not enough,” the man tells us again, shaking his head.

And the Spanish version reads:

—¿Cuánto sale, señor? ¿Cuánto?—repite tía Isa en el poco inglés que domina. Tía Isa entrega el sobre. — No es suficiente—dice el hombre otra vez sacudiendo su cabeza.

By using an entirely literal Spanish translation, Martinez-Wells misses the opportunity to show how Tía Isa is both struggling with, and learning, English.

Although the struggles of immigrant families to reunify often have a lot in common, the issues of various immigrant, migrant and refugee groups—depending on countries of origin, histories, politics, and social and cultural dynamics—can be vastly different from each other. Although it’s not explicitly stated, it’s clear that Tía Isa Wants a Car is situated in the Cuban-American community in Miami, and the family’s “island home” is Cuba. I think it’s important that young readers—and even very young listeners—encounter stories that have specific contexts and settings so that they can be able to deal with the complexities in their own lives, their communities and their schools. 

Nevertheless, Tía Isa Wants a Car is an engaging story of hard work and resourcefulness; but most importantly, about love of family, being part of community, and never letting go of your dreams. It’s recommended. Unfortunately, the text of the Spanish version, Tía Isa Quiere un Carro, will not be as appealing to young hablantes.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 9/11/15)

Mango, Abuela, and Me // Mango, Abuela y Yo

author: Meg Medina

translator (Spanish version): Teresa Mlawer 

illustrator: Angela Domínguez 

Candlewick Press, 2015 

grades 1-up

Young Mia has a problem—her Spanish-speaking abuela has just arrived from the countryside to live with her and her family; and Mia, who speaks English only, cannot communicate as quickly and effectively as she wants to. Which means that, although the two are developing a warm, loving relationship, the bedtime stories Mia wants to hear will just have to wait. Mia, in her exuberance, has an idea that sort of works: she attaches English labels to everything in sight—even her pet hamster’s cage—and a the two play “hear and say.” And, as they go about their daily activities, Abuela teaches her some Spanish words as well. A slow process for a little girl, with limited success.

But wait! Abuela has brought with her a red feather, dropped by a wild parrot who lived in her mango tree back home—and Mia has an idea that just might work! Convincing her mom to purchase a parrot they meet in a pet store—whom they name “Mango”—soon results in a close relationship becoming even closer and a newfound almost-bilingualism in the household.

Domínguez’s artwork, rendered in a blend of ink, gouache, and marker—“with a sprinkling of digital magic”—is perfect. The warm and vibrant colors, on a palette of mostly pinks, blues, yellows and oranges, complement the warmth of the story; and, unlike too many picture books that feature Latina/o characters, Domínguez varies the skin tones to reflect those of a real family. I especially like the illustration of a bemused Papi in the background, scratching his head, while Abuela offers a piece of banana to Mango, and the three—Abuela, Mia, and Mango—happily chatter away in Spanish, English and Squawk-ish.

Athough Abuela’s little house, the seashore, palm trees and parrots hint at the Cuban countryside, Medina chose not to specify where she comes from. “For very young children,” she told me, “I like to offer them what feels familiar—a city, Abuela’s town, the pet shop, the school. I think that leaving room for the child’s imagination allows her to place herself more easily in the story.”

Mlawer’s outstanding translation (in the Spanish version) is idiomatic and warm, capturing the nuances of the story and setting, and of how this particular family speaks and feels. For instance, “She comes to us in winter, leaving behind her sunny house that rested between two snaking rivers” becomes, “Ella llega en invierno, dejando atrás su casa soleada que descansa entre dos ríos zigzagueantes.” When Papi tells Mia, “Abuela belongs with us now,” in Spanish it becomes, “Ahora el lugar de Abuela está con nosotros.”

This understated, evocative little story of patience and love, intergenerational relationships, bilingual language learning, and adapting to change, is a treasure that will resonate with the youngest listeners, who will want to hear it again and again. Mango, Abuela and Me // Mango, Abuela y Yo is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 9/3/15)

I Am Sausal Creek / Soy el Arroyo Sausal

author: Melissa Reyes

translator: Cinthya Jeannette Muñoz Ramos 

illustrator: Robert Trujillo 

Little Nomad / Nomadic Press, 2015 

grades 1-up

Sausal Creek’s own story flows with a gentle, poetic economy of words in English and Spanish, accompanied by loving, sparse artistic expression. As the creek’s story begins and ends at the same place, so does the text:

I am Sausal Creek. I have been flowing for a very, very long time. If you sit quietly upon my banks, you can hear my water rippling. If you listen carefully, you can hear my story.

Soy el Arroyo Sausal. He estado fluyendo por mucho, mucho tiempo. Si te sientas silenciosamente a mis orillas, puedes oir el ondear de mis aguas. Si escucha cuidadosamente, puedes escuchar mi historia.

As the watershed narrates, there are questions that will engage young readers and listeners: “Did you know I once flowed freely?” “Did you know that once a giant redwood forest stretched across these hills?” “Did you know there was rich, fertile soil along my banks?” “Did you know there is a place where my water empties out into a bay?”

Although Muñoz’s Spanish translation captures the written poetic musicality of the English, there are some typos (“escucha” should be “escuchas,” for instance), and some alternatives—such as “si te sientas en silencio” rather than “si te sientas silenciosamente” and “si escuchas bien” rather than “si escuchas cuidadosamente”—might make more sense to hablantes. But either way, the Spanish allows for young readers to follow in both languages.

Trujillo’s pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations, on a palette of woodsy greens, browns and blues, portray the flora and fauna, and the multi-ethnic mixes of people who have and continue to inhabit this area. I especially like how he’s chosen to show—rather than tell—the positive and negative aspects of the area’s history. Here, in full color, are the Indigenous peoples, living in balance on the land, knowing that all things are related. Here, in stark brown and white, are the “newcomers”—ranchers and their cattle, gold miners, loggers, and later the city with its concrete-filled wetlands—destroying what they have “found.” And here, as people work together, ripping up the concrete dams and digging pools to restore the balance, the color begins to return. And finally, here are two young men, looking down into the water as trout swim around their reflections. As in the beginning—of the story and the creek—all things are related.

Generally, with a picture book, there has to be a narrow focus; and I Am Sausal Creek / Soy el Arroyo Sausal focuses on the environmental destruction and rebuilding of one particular watershed. Here, I like the approach of nature’s being the witness; at the same time, I would like to have had Reyes address—in the text—the human cost as well. To their credit, Reyes and Muñoz pack six pages of historical information (three in English and three in Spanish) into the back matter, so that educators can choose to expand the story.

Young children have the ability to understand complexities, and relate historical and contemporary events such as racism, land theft and even genocide to their own lives. I recommend that educators read and digest Deborah A. Miranda’s Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir (Heyday, 2013), and visit her blog as well (badndns.blogspot.com). I also recommend, for children, Simon Ortiz’s stunning picture book, The People Shall Continue (Children’s Book Press, 1994). It’s an overview of the histories of Indian peoples in this land, and could be read together with I Am Sausal Creek / Soy el Arroyo Sausal.

With supporting materials, I Am Sausal Creek/ Soy el Arroyo Sausal is a promising debut, and is highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 8/31/15)

Thank you to Oralia Garza de Cortes and Lyn Miller-Lachmann.

Show and Prove

author: Sofia Quintero

Alfred A. Knopf, 2015

grades 9-up 

Puerto Rican

With the increasing gentrification of New York City, it’s sometimes hard to imagine the early 1980s in the city, when public officials, both local and national, wrote off huge swaths of the city populated by people of color. News and popular media stereotyped and dehumanized the people of northern Brooklyn, northern Manhattan, and the South Bronx, and unless you were there, you didn’t know that real people with real families walked these streets and inhabited these apartment buildings.

Set in the South Bronx in the summer of 1983, Sofia Quintero’s new novel captures this time through the voices of two 17-year-old boys—old friends who see circumstances pulling them apart. Raymond King, known as Smiles, has just lost his mother, a social worker and strong force in the community, to the complications of sickle cell anemia. Smiles is going into his senior year at an upper-class prep school downtown where he has received a scholarship but, as the only African-American student, doesn’t fit in. Left behind in a rowdy public school is his best friend Guillermo “Willie” Vega, who calls himself Nike and dreams of stardom as a break-dancer. The local gang, which has already drawn several of their old friends, has set its sights on Nike, but he wants to follow the rules and stay out of trouble. Nike sees former community leaders, including an old friend of Smiles’s father, ruined by the crack that the gang sells. It bothers him that his single mother receives welfare, and he blames her as much as his father, who abandoned the family and moved back to Puerto Rico. While Nike is politically conservative and considers material goods—for instance, the latest sneakers—as a sign of success, Smiles is attracted to the radical rhetoric of the Five Percent Nation of Islam and charismatic local leader Qusay, an ex-prisoner once known as Kevin.

The girls at the summer camp where Smiles and Nike work complicate their relationship, particularly Cookie Camacho, who beats Smiles out for the senior counselor position. He accuses the Puerto Rican camp director of favoritism. Nike is attracted to new girl Sara, who introduces him to the world and its conflicts in a way that he had never imagined. Both boys have their preconceived ideas challenged, along with their confidence in themselves. Both lose their dreams and must find a way to regroup and move forward. Above all, this is a story of friendship and community, how in the most neglected places people can come together to help each other and make better lives.

Quintero incorporates Spanish words and 1980s slang seamlessly into the novel, trusting readers to understand words from their context. Food plays a major role in the characters’ lives, and Sara’s unfamiliarity with Nuyorican staples is the first sign that she may not be the person Nike assumes she is:

I say, “The A&P got everything you need. There’s a whole Goya aisle with recaito, sofrito, sazón…” She looks like I just spoke Japanese. “I’m sorry.” Damn, Nike, stop doing shit you have to apologize for. You sound like a doofus. Just chill out. “I forgot that not all Puerto Ricans grow up speaking Spanish, you know.”

The news events of the time—particularly the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps—appear at first to be backdrop for this historical novel but end up playing a major role. The war comes to the South Bronx neighborhood in an unexpected way and in the process, changes Nike’s perspective on the world. Show and Prove is highly recommended.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 8/17/15)

A shorter version of this review appeared on The Pirate Tree (www.thepiratetree.com).

Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal

author: Margarita Engle

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014 

grades 5-up 

Cuban

While many younger readers in the United States have learned of the civil rights struggle in the South, the story of the Panama Canal has been taught as a heroic conquest of humans against nature. In a powerful novel in verse narrated from multiple perspectives—including the trees and forest creatures—Margarita Engle’s Silver People challenges both parts of this story. Readers see the racial segregation—the white American engineers paid in gold, and the darker Spanish and Black Jamaicans and other islanders paid in silver—as well as the destruction of the environment and its fatal consequences.

Engle’s principal storyteller is Mateo, a Cuban boy who signs a contract to build the canal at age 14 to escape abuse from his father. Nearly ten years after the end of the Spanish-American War, Mateo’s father, a former revolutionary, is an abusive alcoholic, and many Spaniards who had fought on the losing side are stranded on the island and looking for work. Mateo pretends to be one of them, for the labor contractors are only hiring men with “pure” European blood. In Panama, Mateo discovers only broken promises—low wages, substandard living conditions, bosses who care nothing for their workers; and bunkmates, Spanish anarchists, who scapegoat the clueless adolescent to protect themselves when the bosses discover their illegal newspaper. In the poem “Color Coded,” Mateo describes his stark introduction to racism, as well as to the harsh conditions of the land where he has signed on to work:

A foreman commands us to line up

by country:

Americans, Frenchmen, Dutch.

Spaniards, Greeks, Italians.

Jamaicans, Barbadians, Haitians.

Each work crew is a different shade

of light or dark,

but when the foreman orders us

to stand still while we’re measured

for our coffins,

dark and light faces

all look equally

shocked.

Used to fighting with his father, Mateo spars with a Jamaican worker, Henry, who had signed a labor contract to provide money for his younger siblings’ schooling but has discovered that his low wages (the Black workers make only half of what the Spaniards make for the same jobs) aren’t even enough to pay his own expenses. Anita, an Indigenous girl who trades him herbs for paintings, and Augusto, a Puerto Rican engineer and master painter who finds himself demoted from “gold” to “silver” after the bigoted George Goethals takes over the project, help the young Mateo as he struggles to survive. While escape into the forest may be Mateo’s only option—an option made more difficult by his bouts with malaria—the consequences of getting caught trying to escape a contract are horrific.

Engle’s free verse is vivid and eloquent. So much is said with very few words. Equally poignant are the poems from the perspectives of howler monkeys, who scream for the invaders to “GO!”; the mosquitoes, snakes, and vultures who threaten the men; and the trees that fall to the men and machines. A poem from the trees’ perspective, “If Only,” reads:

If we could move swiftly

we would run

leap

fly

but our only movement

is growth

less

and less

growth

after each sunrise

of dynamite explosions

and sharpened blades

of the ruthless

ax.

Silver People has wide appeal, from reluctant readers to serious history buffs, and it provides an essential counterpoint to the textbook narrative of the Panama Canal’s construction. At a time when Nicaragua has become the target of another canal-building project (this time initiated by a Chinese enterprise), Engle’s story-poem offers a vision of what will happen and a lesson on the importance of knowing our history. Silver People, which won the 2015 Américas Award, is highly recommended.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann
(published 8/9/15)

Joelito’s Big Decision / La Gran Decisión de Joelito

author: Ann Berlak

translator: José Antonio Galloso 

illustrator: Daniel Camacho 

Hardball Press, 2015

grades 2-5 

Mexican American

On April 15, 2015—little more than three months ago—about one million people across the country pulled off the largest demonstration of its kind in US history. The struggle, known as the “Fight for 15,” involved Walmart workers, fast-food workers, child care workers, home health workers, janitorial workers, and other underpaid workers—who, along with their many allies—demanded a minimum wage of $15 per hour and union rights for all. 

While world attention is focused on labor’s monumental “Fight for 15” struggle, Joelito’s Big Decision / La Gran Decisión de Joelito couldn’t have been published at a better time.

Through the eyes of fourth-grader Joelito Sánchez and his friends, the story shows the impact of low-wage work on the lives of two families, while pointing to the importance of allies in the struggle. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the one picture book that addresses this particular issue in a way that will resonate with youngest readers and listeners. 

Joelito, whose mother, uncles and grandparents had been farm workers, is initially unaware of the poverty in his own urban neighborhood. His parents are making ends meet and, along with his sister, the four spend every Friday evening together at their favorite fast-food restaurant. But when Joelito and his family encounter a labor action of underpaid restaurant workers—some of whom are his best friend’s family and some of his neighbors—he learns about the issues and comes to recognize the necessity of standing with them.

While the characters are fairly standard for a picture book, the text flows. In discussions between and among Joelito and his family and friends, and a conversation between a restaurant worker and a reporter, Berlak packs in a lot of information about underpaid workers exploited by arrogant and greedy zillionaire bosses (in this case, the ever-present image of “Sam McMann”), class struggle in general, and the “Fight for 15” in particular.

Camacho’s illustrations, rendered in charcoal and colored pencil on a palette of subdued tones, focus on main characters in the foreground and blend secondary characters, in gray tones, into the background. This technique, which reminds me of the classic Mexican murals, depicts large, round, clearly Indian faces (as opposed to “Sam McMann,” who is ominously pale with ghostly blue eyes). I especially like the panel that shows Joelito, somewhat confused, holding a picket sign, trying to decide between burger and protest. (See below.)

In reality, I’m not sure there would have been this kind of dilemma for a Mexican-American child whose family had been involved in the farm worker struggles and whose friends and neighbors are low-wage restaurant workers. It’s more likely that he would have grown up with his family’s stories of oppression and struggle and now, encountering a picket line walked by his friends and neighbors, would have just picked up a sign and joined them.

Galloso’s Spanish version is idiomatic and smooth flowing, and is satisfying and appealing on its own. For instance, when Joelito asks Mrs. Thomas what’s going on, the English version reads:

Mrs. Thomas said, “We’re picketing to let people know MacMann’s doesn’t pay us enough to support our families. We want fifteen dollars an hour, though even that’s not enough. We should earn enough so we can pay our bills and go on a family vacation.”

The Spanish version reads:

—Qué bueno que lo preguntas, Joelito –respondió la señora Thomas—. Hemos organizado esta protesta para que la gente sepa que MacMann’s no les paga a sus trabajadores un sueldo justo. Lo que pagan en MacMann’s no nos alcanza siquiera para mantener a nuestras familias. Queremos que nos paguen quince dólares la hora aunque ni siquiera eso es suficiente. Todo trabajador debería ganar lo suficiente como para poder pagar sus cuentas y tener unas vacaciones de vez en cuando. 

(“How good that you’re asking,” answered Mrs. Thomas. “We’ve organized this protest to let people know that MacMann’s doesn’t pay their workers a fair wage. What they pay at MacMann’s isn’t even enough for us to support our families. We want them to pay us fifteen dollars an hour although even that is not enough. All workers should earn enough to pay their bills and have some vacations from time to time.”)

Kudos to all involved in this gigantically important little book. Joelito’s Big Decision / La Gran Decisión de Joelito is recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 8/7/15)

Graciela: A Mexican-American Child Tells Her Story

author: Joe Molnar

Franklin Watts, 1972 

grades 3-up 

Mexican American

Graciela is the first of three “photo-and-tape” books by Joe Molnar, an elementary-school teacher who later decided to devote himself to photojournalism. Inspired by the civil rights movement, he created a series of books that told the lives of minority children in their own words. With portable tape recorder and camera, he traveled the country, meeting with families, shooting photos and listening to what the children had to say about their own lives.

Through a social worker in Brownsville, Texas, Molnar met Graciela and her large, hardworking Mexican-American family.* The text of the book, he writes, is based on tape recordings of conversations with Graciela. Most of the black-and-white photos, naturally lit, were not posed; and what makes this book important is that the words are clearly Graciela’s, with very little filtering by the author.

Twelve-year-old Graciela, her parents and her seven brothers and two sisters are a close-knit family who spend part of the year at home in Texas and part of the year in Michigan, working as migrant agricultural workers. Initial photos show Graciela hanging out with her family, working with her mother in the kitchen, and taking care of and playing with the baby. It’s clear that this family enjoys being together.

But Graciela’s family’s lives are difficult, sometimes harrowing. When her three-year-old brother is hit by a motorcycle, “the hospital said we owed them two hundred dollars and Abel would have to stay there until we paid. I got very upset when I heard that and thought the hospital was ignorant and mean. But later, on the telephone, the hospital said yes, we could take him home and we brought Abel home the next day.”

At the beginning of June, Graciela’s family heads north to Michigan, where they work the fields to try to earn the little that will sustain them when they return to Texas. “School isn’t over yet,” Graciela says, “but we have to go because we need the money. My little brothers will be able to finish their classes in Michigan for the month of June, but the rest of us won’t.”

When they get to Michigan, the large family has to live in a two-room house with only a two-burner stove and without an oven or even running water. Graciela matter-of-factly describes the work:

My mother and me, we go out to one field. My father, Eleazar, Irma, and María go to another field. They pick tomatoes, watermelons, beans, cucumbers, squash, and pickles. Pickles are the worst, because you have to be bending down all the time and get all wet, pickle plants have a lot of water. My mother and me, we pick cauliflower. We get a big bunch and separate them and put them in baskets.

We all start at seven in the morning and work until noon. Then we go back to the house for lunch or sometimes eat in the field. About one o’clock we start working again until four or five. We’re very tired when we finish and come home, our wrists hurt and our hands. We get paid a dollar fifty an hour.

While the townspeople in Michigan are more-or-less friendly to them, Graciela says, back in Texas her family has to contend with out-and-out racism at school, especially from teachers. And, opposite a photo of Graciela somberly looking on while her mother is talking on the phone, she describes her family’s financial worries:

Sometimes my mother and father worry a lot. They worry about sending us to school. They want very much for us to finish school and not to have to take us out just so we can work. They try their best to give us clothes and dress us up real good so we can go to school neat and proud. They worry about feeding our family too. And getting another bed so my little brother David doesn’t have to sleep on a mattress on the floor. So they worry about money a lot. Right now we have enough to pay our bills. We are paying off the house, and in two more years, it will belong to us. And we are paying off our truck, we’re almost through with that and it’s a big bill too, about ninety-five dollars a month. Our biggest worry right now is how to pay the hospital for Abel. But we’ll be okay. We’ll manage.

The photos and text in the rest of the book show Graciela and her sisters and brothers playing “chase and hide-and-seek and a lot of games that we think up ourselves,” dancing, and going to a carnival in Brownsville, a big town just across the border from Mexico. And on the last page, a smiling, almost laughing, Graciela is literally framed by her parents. “Sometimes I wish I was already in high school or I wish I was already a nurse and working,” she says. “Then maybe I could have a piano. I would study and learn how to play it real good. I would play happy music. Music like it would make me feel everything is okay, everything is going to be all right.”

For young readers who are agricultural workers, Graciela is a treasure. For young readers who cannot imagine what material poverty is like or how their food arrives at the supermarket, Graciela can be an education in itself. In any event, I’d like to see Graciela together with other excellent picture books about the struggles of agricultural workers, such as Carmen Bernier-Grand’s César: ¡Sí, Se puede! Yes, We Can!, Kathleen Krull’s Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, and Sarah Warren’s Dolores Huerta: A Hero to Migrant Workers.

Although Graciela is an older out-of-print book, it is available and highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 7/25/15)

*Joe Molnar, telephone interview with Julia L. Mickenberg, May 29, 2006. In Julia L. Mickenberg and Philip Nel, Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature. NYU Press, 2008.

When Reason Breaks

author: Cindy L. Rodriguez

Bloomsbury, 2015 

grades 7-up 

Puerto Rican

When Reason Breaks is the debut novel of Cindy L. Rodriguez, an important new voice in young adult literature. Set in the present, this story is about two girls and their English teacher, all of whose names have the initials E.D., and all of whom grapple with suicide and the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

Emily Delgado is the compliant daughter of a conservative Latino politician and a member of a close-knit circle of friends. While the family’s place of origin is not specified, the setting of the novel somewhere in Connecticut and the food and drink hint that they are Puerto Rican. Emily and her brother, Austin, speak with their parents in Spanish as well as English and the code switching is seamless—no awkward translations in narrative or dialogue and no need for a glossary.

“Mami, are you going to say anything?”

“Que quieres que te diga?” she asked.

“I don’t know, something, anything to help me out here.”

“You’re old enough to fight your own battles,” said Mamá.

Emily’s Anglo counterpart, Elizabeth Davis, is a defiant Goth whose anger and previous suicide attempts have led her to become isolated and labeled. In many ways, she is the opposite of Emily, but assigned to work together on an English project, the two forge a fragile connection.

At the beginning of the novel, one of the girls attempts suicide and the other one along with Ms. Emilia Diaz tries to save her. But we don’t know which teenager sought to take her life on that Saturday morning in March. Rodriguez keeps us guessing until the very end, and in doing so, she explores the pressures the girls face and how depression works independently of how the girls may be treated by others. The smoothly executed dual narrative—in close third person alternating between Emily and Elizabeth’s perspectives, interspersed with letters written to Ms. Diaz—serves this story line well.  Readers observe the journey both Emily and Elizabeth take over the course of eight months, a journey that leads each of them to the breaking point. In truth, either one of them could have been the one to take her life.

Within this thoughtful and compelling story are a full cast of secondary characters, among them Emily’s boyfriend, Kevin, whose parents are two dads. Kevin’s parents are not an “issue” of this novel but rather part of the community just like everyone else.

Secondary characters have played an important role in many young adult novels that explore suicide, as they are the ones left behind to ask “why?” A number of novels, most notably Jay Asher’s best-selling Thirteen Reasons Why, place at least some blame on those secondary characters. And while bullying and other forms of abuse and cruelty can contribute to a young person’s decision to commit suicide, many people who commit suicide are loved and treated well, but they suffer from depression. Teens and the adults in their lives must learn to recognize the signs of depression and know how they can help their family member or friend.

When Reason Breaks builds awareness by creating characters—both main and secondary—about whom the reader cares. And through her complex, realistic, and sympathetic characters, Rodriguez addresses another prejudice that needs to be overcome—that of mental illness, so people young and old who experience depression can come forward and be assured of the understanding and support of family, friends, and neighbors. When Reason Breaks is highly recommended.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann
(published 7/24/15)

A shorter version of this review appeared on The Pirate Tree (www.thepiratetree.com).