Category Archives: Latin American

December 15, 2012 · 10:30 am

Count Me In! A Parade of Mexican Folk Art Numbers in English and Spanish by Cynthia Weill, illustrated with ceramics by the Aguilar Sisters: Guillermina, Josefina, Irene, and Concepción

Come one, come all: the Guelaguetza festival is about to begin. Guelaguetza means ‘to share’ in the Zapotec language, and every July, the people of Oaxaca, Mexico gather to ‘guelaguetza’ their dancing, singing, and music. One man with a balloon announces the welcoming parade has begun. Three musicians pass by playing their instruments. Four colorful, intricately decorated giants follow. Six women with baskets dance, while eight more musicians delight. The happy onlookers are thrilled to join in.

Far more than a simple counting book (bilingual, too!), Count Me In is celebration of the Oaxacan culture as captured by “Great Masters of Oaxacan Folk Art,” the Aguilar sisters – Guillermina, Josefina, Irene, and Concepcíon, ceramic artists recognized worldwide. Each number is represented by the corresponding number of unique, parading ceramic figures created by the renowned sisters – which have recently been acquired by Chicago’s Field Museum.

The literary/artistic collaboration is the result of peripatetic author and educator Cynthia Weill. Her first title, Ten Mice for Tet, co-authored with Pegi Deitz Shea, featured 16th-century traditional embroidery from Vietnam. A Fulbright Teacher Exchange for Mexico led her to discover Oaxacan crafts which inspired her to write ABeCedarios: Mexican Folk Art ABCs in Spanish & English, (2007), Opuestos: Mexican Folk Art Opposites in English and Spanish (2009), and Colores de la Vida: Mexican Folk Art Colors in Spanish and English (2011), all published by the fabulously indie Cinco Puntos Press.

Count makes a perfect bilingual quartet of Oaxacan art-infused titles, especially appropriate for the classroom. As Weill explains, each of her titles target three audiences: kiddie readers, folk art enthusiasts, and teachers. In addition to entertaining children, the indigenous arts and crafts which make the books so vibrant also provide all sorts of cultural learning opportunities. What’s not to love? Count me in, too!

Readers: Children

Published: 2012

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Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Latin American, Latino/a, Nonethnic-specific

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February 17, 2012 · 11:01 am

Migrant by Maxine Trottier, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

Here’s an immigration story that took me by total surprise: German-speaking Mennonites from Mexico who work as migrant laborers in Canada. To understand just how many levels of peripatetic displacement that involves, you have to read this fascinating (mega-award-winning!) book backwards.

“Canada and the United States were built by people who valued freedom and opportunity. That is part of the reason so many came to North America in search of a fresh beginning in spite of the challenges,” writes Maxine Trottier in the story’s afterword. Those opportunity seekers include seasonal laborers, also called migrants, who remain a controversial part of today’s North American labor force.

Among those migrants are Mennonites who left Canada in the 1920s and moved to Mexico: “There they hoped to farm, withdraw from the modern world and find religious freedom.” They kept their Canadian citizenship, which allowed them to return to Canada to work when their Mexican farms could not sustain them. That migration continues today … because “[t]heir farms in Mexico, while no longer successful enough to support them, are still their homes.”

Anna is her family’s youngest child. She “feels like a bird,” as her family travels north in the spring and back south every fall, “chasing the sun, following the warmth.” She wonders what a “stay in one place”-sort-of-life might be like, but she knows she’s more like a jack rabbit who makes homes in abandoned burrows just as her family moves into farmhouses “filled with the ghosts of last year’s workers.”

Too young for labor, she watches over her worker bee family. She sleeps curled like a kitten with her sisters, while her puppy-like brothers snooze in another room. Her large family endures the local stares, while Anna peeks through the apples in the grocery store filled with people and things she doesn’t understand. She imagines feeling the solidity of the trees around her, which stay grounded through the fall and snow, but when the geese fly away, “with them goes Anna … like a feather in the wind.”

Illustrator Isabelle Arsenault who also brought her whimsical magic to one of my favorites, Spork by Kyo Maclear, imbues Anna with innocent curiosity in her little red dress with her matching red cheeks. Moments of Anna’s imagination come vividly to life, as the geese sport various headscarves and hats just like her family, the giant jack rabbit bounds out the door with last year’s ghosts looking on, the kitty-sisters are sleepily dazzled by the moon and the stars, while the puppy-brothers lie sprawled every which way on a “blanket that barely covers them all.”

The final spread – especially touching – of the large departing family, some of them already off the page, captures Anna mid-air as she jumps from a tree swing in answer to a sister’s wave to go: Anna and her family, closely reassembled, begin their unified journey back home.

Readers: Children

Published: 2011

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Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Canadian, Latin American

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April 18, 2011 · 12:12 pm

The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

If I hadn’t had Luis Alberto Urrea himself read the majority of his novel to me via iPod, I would never have known the proper pronunciation of Parangarícutirimícuaro, not to mention a few choice insults! Good thing I also bought the book, because I wouldn’t have known how to reproduce such lyrical vocabulary!

Daughter is my fourth Urrea title, and my first novel by him. His Border Trilogy was so additive, I read them all in less than a week. This book was no different. When I didn’t have the headset on during my training runs, I made up some of the 18.5 audible hours with the actual book, especially when I was just too impatient to find out what happened next!

At the center of this magnificent tome is an Urrea relative: “TERESA URREA WAS A REAL PERSON,” writes Urrea in capitals in his “Author’s Note.” Although he grew up believing she was his aunt, he would later learn that Teresa’s father was the first cousin of Urrea’s great-grandfather. As epic as Teresa’s story is, so, too, is Urrea’s 20-year effort to recreate his legendary ancestor on the printed page.

Born Niña García Nona María Rebecca Chávez in Sinhaloa, Mexico during the last decades of the 19th century to a 14-year-old servant girl impregnated by the wealthy philandering rancher Don Tomás Urrea, Teresa renames herself after Saint Teresa, predicting that “‘I am going to be her.’” Abandoned by her mother, Teresa is raised first by her abusive maternal aunt, then saved by Huila, the revered midwife and potent healer.

As a teenager, Teresa is finally recognized by her father as his daughter, and she is duly trained in the ways of a proper young lady. When violence strikes Teresa’s young life, she reawakens with the power to heal. Her reputation grows as the “Santa de Cabora,” and as the pilgrims multiply seeking her wisdom and miracles, the nervous Mexican military accuses Teresa and Tomás of inciting seditious activities against the government.

Surrounding father and daughter at the story’s center is a sprawling cast of characters, both major and minor, from a self-immolating Indian teacher to a worm-infested stranger to a bee whisperer to a putrid half-dead young boy who arrives in the night … to a vengeful first wife, two fighting half-brothers, and a dream-travelling sweetheart.

When the novel ends after some 500 pages, Teresa is just embarking on the next major part of her life. History shows that she has more than a decade and a half of adventures left before her final departure … dare we hope that the story will continue? Six years have passed since Urrea published this installment. Let’s hope he won’t take another 14 to finish the conclusion …?

Readers: Adult

Published: 2005

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Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Audio, .Fiction, Latin American, Latino/a

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September 14, 2010 · 8:08 am

The Good Garden: How One Family Went from Hunger to Having Enough by Katie Smith Milway, illustrated by Sylvie Daigneault

María Luz’s family is in trouble. Their land in the hills of Honduras, which provides them with the corn and beans they need to live, has “lost its goodness.” In order for the family to survive, María Luz’s father must leave home and find work. He must make enough money to pay for next season’s seeds; otherwise, the family will be at the mercy of the coyote, the grain buyer who also makes exorbitant loans and then takes the land when poor farmers cannot make payments. While he is gone, Papa entrusts his daughter to “care for our land,” and plant the winter crops.

Three months have passed, and María Luz returns to school … and meets the new teacher. Don Pedro Morales knows quite a bit about the land, about how to “feed the soil and make it good again.” With his guidance, villagers learn  about composting to renew the soil, terracing to make flat surfaces that will keep plants from washing downhill, and planting marigolds – “the smiles of the soil” – as natural pest repellents.

By the time her father finally returns, María Luz’s garden is thriving. As her radishes grow, the coyotes come calling, offering too-low prices for her harvest. Again, Don Pedro intervenes, encouraging the villagers to go to the markets themselves to sell their bounty. Again, the families profit from their sales, but also save by buying their seeds directly from the merchants. With the help of one man’s vision, María Luz’s family and their fellow villagers break the cycle of abusive dependence on the coyotes.

Happy beginnings are that much more joyful when they turn out to be true stories. María Luz’s family is based on a real family that avoided a food crisis with the assistance of the real-life Don Pedro Morelos, a Honduran teacher named Don Elías Sanchez. For decades, Don Elías helped tens of thousands of families like María Luz’s to reclaim the land; he also taught poor farmers to invest in medicines and education for their children. Although he passed away in 2000, his legacy continues, led by Honduran agronomist Milton Flores.

Author Katie Smith Milway writes from personal experience, having coordinated community development programs in Latin American and Africa. Illustrator Sylvie Daigneault brings Milway’s vision to gorgeous life on overflowing full-page panels filled with uncertain fears, hopeful activity, and future promise.

The Good Garden is both visual testimony as well as a life-affirming story of humanity. Helping one family at a time can save a whole village and far beyond … that one action can and will multiply the bounty of the good garden again and again. And true stories like this prove that there’s hope yet for our human race …

Readers: Children, Middle Grade

Published: 2010

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Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, ..Middle Grade Readers, .Nonfiction, Latin American

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May 1, 2010 · 8:28 am

Colibrí by Ann Cameron

Even though “Uncle” calls her Rosa Garcia, Tzunun Chumil knows her real Mayan name, and that in Spanish, Tzunun is ‘colibrí,’ which means “hummingbird.” She knows somewhere that she has a mother and father that once loved her very much, that she lived a happy life filled with colorful joy.

Now at 12, Tzunun wanders from village to village, often leading “Uncle” by a stick as he pretends to be blind, misleading the unsuspecting into giving him coins. Her peripatetic existence is lonely, her relationship with “Uncle” strained and uncertain, but “Uncle” is convinced that she will lead him to a great treasure one day so he will not let her go.

Tired of waiting for riches, “Uncle” seeks a fortune teller who not only confirms that Tzunun will guide him to wealth, but more importantly, shows Tzunun a glimpse of the love and nurturing for which she has been hungering for some eight years. In search of his easy life, “Uncle” drags Tzunun to a big city where his longtime friend Raimundo has a plan … and Tzunun has no choice but to participate.

Author Ann Cameron, a longtime resident of Guatemala, clearly writes with cultural sensitivity and resonating knowledge. To hear actress Jacqueline Kim narrate the audible version of Cameron’s memorable novel proves to be a hypnotic, almost addictive experience. Her controlled cadence hauntingly reveals Cameron’s unflinching glimpses into Guatemala’s troubled history – of massacres, colonialism, the kidnapping of young children for international adoption – presented just right for younger readers.

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2005

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Filed under ..Middle Grade Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Audio, .Fiction, Latin American

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May 30, 2003 · 4:52 pm

My Pig Amarillo by Satomi Ichikawa

My Pig ArmadilloA lovingly-illustrated, bittersweet tale about a little Guatemalan boy who loses his four-legged, furry best friend.

Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, May 30, 2009

Readers: Children

Published: 2003

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Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Japanese American, Latin American

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