Napí // Napí Goes to the Mountain // Napí funda un pueblo / Napí Makes a Village

author: Antonio Ramírez

illustrator: Domi 

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 2004 

preschool-up 

Mazateca

At home on the bank of a river in Oaxaca, Napí loves to dream. She says she is poor, but that is belied by the richness of her land, her culture, and the community of which she is a valued part. In the shade of a pachota (ceiba) tree “that is so big, it protects our whole village,” Napí sits with her family; her naa (mother) braids her hair and her grandfather tells the old stories. In Napí’s world everything is alive, everything has volition and beauty; the afternoons dress themselves in greens, oranges and violets, and at night,  “the trees on the riverbank slowly bloom with herons.” 

With her umbilical cord buried in the roots of her beloved pachota, this Mazateca child is tied to the land in a very real way, and when she sleeps, the pachota brings her dreams of becoming a heron, flying along the river. Domi’s gorgeous acrylic paintings, on a rich palette of jewel-like tones, complement this quiet little story of an Indian child secure and at home in the loving arms of her family and her world. Also available in Spanish. Highly recommended.

author: Antonio Ramírez

illustrator: Domi 

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 2006 

preschool-up 

Mazateca

One evening, Napí’s namí (father) does not come home from working in the field, and his worried friends fear he might have been taken away. A nightlong search in the mountains yields nothing, so the next morning Napí and her little brother skip school and go to search for him. Upriver and in the jungle, they find themselves transformed into deer and are guided by turtles, storks, a coral snake, a bat, a mouse, and an armadillo mama, who tells them, “The family is finally together again.” Accompanied by the animals, who are “like brothers and sisters, children of the same mother, the Earth,” the children race home to a joyful reunification. “It was so good to see him,” Napí says, “that I forgot to worry about where he had been.” Again, Domi’s amazing paintings, her bold colors this time surrounded by large areas of brown wash, are perfect.

Had Napí’s father been taken by Chicón, the Lord of the Earth, or by el patrón and his thugs? We don’t know. As in Ramirez’ and Domi’s previous story, the impoverishment and terror of being Indian in Mexico (and in much of Latin America) is only hinted at, but it’s there. For many Indigenous children in the south, the threat of having your parents “disappeared” is a daily reality, and these stories, while not solely “about” this terrible situation, certainly place it in its political and social context. Also available in Spanish, Napí va a la montaña. Highly recommended.

author: Antonio Ramírez

illustrator: Domi 

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 2010 

preschool-up 

Mazateca

This third story in the Napí series is bilingual and based on Domi’s own life. Forced out of their ancestral homeland, San Pedro Ixcatlán, by the government, some 75 Mazateca families work together to build a new home. Here, Napí witnesses the “giving birth to Nuevo Ixcatlán, and that meant we had to make sacrifices.” The little girl fully understands the teachings of her elders and why her family decides to stay in this new, inhospitable land—“For us Indians, the best thing to do is to resist, to stay alive and to stay together.”

Domi’s bright, bold paintings of the lush jungle and Napí’s dreams are complemented by the browns and grays of portions of the land that the people have had to clear-cut for farming.

Told in matter-of-fact language that will resonate with young children, Napí funda un pueblo / Napí Makes a Village, without polemic, tells the story of what Indigenous peoples all over the world continue to face at the hands of rapacious and powerful governments. Highly recommended.

Ramírez and Domi continue to work for Indigenous rights, especially with the Zapatista movement in Chiapas through their Colectivo Callejero, the “streetwise collective,” an organization they helped to found.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 10/17/15)

Alfredito Flies Home // Alfredito regresa volando a su casa

author: Jorge Tetl Argueta

illustrator: Luis Garay 
Spanish author: Jorge Tetl Argueta

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 2007 

grades 3-up 

Pipíl, Salvadoran

Alfredito and his grandma and parents are preparing to go home to El Salvador for Christmas—the first time they’ve returned since they fled as refugees and made their way to California on foot. This will be the first plane ride for them, and anticipation has little worms crawling in Alfredito’s stomach. The shopping for gifts for all the friends and relatives back home; the excitement of being on a plane “that jumps like a frog and leaves everything behind”; the joyful reunion with his sister and his aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and new puppies; the visit with his grandparents who “live in the cemetery…so full of little birds and is nice and hot so my grandparents don’t feel so cold and alone”; and the good-bye piñata that no one wants to end—too soon it is over and Alfredito must fly home again, to California.

Argueta inserts Spanish terms into Alfredito’s narration and his family’s dialogue, reflecting a merger of two languages in a relaxed atmosphere. The Spanish version, Alfredito regresa volando a su casa, is idiomatic and flowing, so hablantes will enjoy the story as well.

On the cover, Alfredito is in his back yard pretending to be an airplane, while a real plane flies overhead. On the ground are the universal symbols of north and south—a football and a soccer ball—and both belong to him. Garay’s glowing, acrylic-on-canvas paintings, rich in color and detail, complement this warm story of the loving reunion of a boy and his large extended family.

Some young readers will be familiar with what it means to be so desperate to have to go with “any Señor Coyote, or run through the mountains, or hide in the trunks of cars” in order to get to el norte, where there may be the possibility of employment and the possibility of sending money home to relatives. These young readers know, as does Alfredito, that not everyone, for many reasons, gets to go back home. Alfredito Flies Home // Alfredito regresa volando a su casa bring to mind the wisdom, “¡Ningún ser humano es ilegal!”—To be human is never illegal. Both versions are highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 10/17/15)

A Visit to Cuba // Vamos a Cuba

author: Alta Schreier

Heinemann Library, 2001

grades 2-4

Cuban

A Visit to Cuba and Vamos a Cuba are part of Heinemann’s “A Visit to” series of 24 titles, simple overviews that portray the land and people, and especially children, of various countries. As with the others, each page here contains a full-color photo accompanied by a two- or three-sentence description of the land, landmarks, homes, food, clothes, work, transportation, language, school, free time, celebrations, and the arts. Appended are key facts, a glossary and index. In addition, the English version contains a section of Spanish “words you can learn.”

In 2006, a group of vociferously anti-Castro Cubans in Miami objected to the contents of A Visit to Cuba and Vamos a Cuba, complaining that they contained deceptive information and wrongfully painted an idealistic picture of Cuban life. After a politically charged struggle—and against the recommendations of two review committees, the school board’s attorney, and the school system’s Superintendent—the Miami-Dade County School District removed A Visit to Cuba and Vamos a Cuba from school libraries. The ACLU filed a lawsuit, the US Supreme Court refused to hear it, and the board’s decision was upheld. Despite the fact that A Visit to Cuba and Vamos a Cuba were the only books in the series that had received a complaint, all 24 titles were removed from Miami-Dade County’s school libraries. The litigation expenses for the Miami-Dade School District totaled more than $250,000.

It’s worth noting that the Miami Cubans do not represent all Cuban communities in the US. When, how and why families came here are attached to different historical, economic, social and political issues. Many pro-Castro Cubans fled the anti-democratic Batista regime that supported the super-wealthy, organized crime, and US corporations, while impoverishing everyone else. Those who had been allied with Batista, along with others in the middle- and upper classes, fled the new revolution. Many worried families sent their children, who became known as “Pedro Pans,” to be raised by friends and relatives here. Many came for what they believed would be a better life, and, as the revolution progressed, many returned. Some immigrants hate Fidel, others adore him—it’s complicated. But, for the most part, Cuban communities in the US find the extremism of the Miami Cubans exasperating—they appear to be frozen in a time warp.

What infuriated the Miami Cubans about A Visit to Cuba and Vamos a Cuba is not difficult to see. Alongside short, easy-to-read statements—appropriately without political commentary—are clear photos that depict Cuba’s ethnically mixed people. Here is a group of young school children mugging for the camera. Here are children and their parents enjoying an outing. Here are large groups dancing at festivals. And here is what must certainly have enraged the Miami Cubans: joyous adults and children celebrating the Cuban national holiday called “Day of the Rebellion,” the day that marks the attack on the Moncada Army Barracks by Fidel Castro and his small group of revolutionaries on July 26, 1953. The caption simply states: “Cuba’s biggest celebration is called Carnival. It is held July 26. People dance and sing at this festival.”

However, since all of the images are stock photography inexpensively reproduced from Corbis, children will see a limited picture of Cuba. For instance, the photo on the page “homes” shows people walking down the street but not any housing. The page entitled “food” is heartbreaking. Rather than depicting a family enjoying dinner together—or an open-air market that showed the many different kinds of produce—here instead is someone holding a sad little tray of starches. While the “free time” page depicts people playing baseball, Cuba’s national sport; there is no depiction or even mention of anyone playing dominoes, the national game of Cuba. Finally, somewhere in all of the Corbis collection, there must be a beach shot that highlights the amazing turquoise water surrounding the island rather than this one puny little cove.

Unlike George Ancona’s amazing photoessay, Cuban Kids (Cavendish, 2000), many of the photos here don’t do the country justice. But considering that there are few basic—and accurate—introductory picture books about Cuba for early grades, that these depict happy and healthy Cuban children, and that they were the focus of a ridiculous right-wing lawsuit, A Visit to Cuba and Vamos a Cuba are recommended.

—Lisette Silva and Beverly Slapin
(published 10/16/15)

Maya’s Blanket / La Manta de Maya

author: Monica Brown

translator: Adriana Domínguez 

illustrator: David Díaz 

Children’s Book Press / Lee & Low, 2015 

kindergarten-grade 4

In the old Yiddish tale I know, a poor tailor finally saves enough to buy some cloth to cut and sew into an overcoat. As decades pass, his coat wears out, so he cuts and sews what’s left variously into a jacket, a vest, a cap, a button and finally—a story. In the song, “Epes fun gornisht,” the refrain is “Makhn vir epes fun gornisht azai,” “That’s how we make something from nothing,” and in the end, he makes a song. The unstated teaching is about poverty, thrift, repurposing, determination, and perseverance.

Although Maya’s Blanket / La Manta de Maya contains some elements of the traditional Yiddish story—involving the recreation of an item into one that becomes smaller and smaller until nothing is left—its characters, scenarios, particular rhythmic pattern and cumulative word structure are Brown’s own. Here, Abuelita sews a blanket, imbued with a touch of magic, for baby Maya. As young Maya matures, she and Abuelita cut and sew what’s left of the blanket into other creations, all with a touch of magic: a dress, then a skirt, then a shawl, then a scarf, then a hair ribbon, and finally a bookmark, which Maya eventually loses. Coming full circle, she creates a picture book called Maya’s Blanket, exactly like the one young readers hold in their hands.

In her cumulative word structure, Brown incorporates the Spanish term in italics for each creation and the English translation for the last on the list: “So with her own two hands and Abuelita’s help, Maya made her bufanda that was her rebozo that was her falda that was her vestido that was her manta into a cinta that she loved very much. Maya wore the ribbon tied around her long, brown hair…”

Domínguez’s Spanish translation is idiomatic and reads naturally. As she did with Brown’s Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald no combina, I would like to have seen the Spanish terms on the English side flipped into English on the Spanish side, like this: “Así que, con sus propias manos y la ayuda de Abuelita, Maya convertió su scarf que había sido su shawl, que había sido su skirt, que había sido su dress, que había sido su blanket, en una ribbon que quería mucho. Maya usó la cinta mágica para recogerse el largo pelo castaño…”

Young readers and listeners will enjoy the entirety of this warm little story. Maya’s Blanket / La Manta de Maya is recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

 (published 9/24/15; paragraph redacted and note added 2/15/18)

Note, 2/15/18: Multiple women have come forward with public statements that David Díaz sexually harassed them. After investigating claims against Díaz, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) removed him from its board and conference faculty, and expelled him from the organization. Several other conferences have banned him as well. We have redacted our references to his art in this review.

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)