Category Picture Books

Oct 15 2015

Book Review: Sofi and the Magic, Musical Mural/Sofi y el Mágico Mural Musical

 

Reviewed by Sujei Lugo

Sofi-and-the-Magic-Musical-MuralDESCRIPTION FROM THE PUBLISHER: When Sofi walks through her barrio to the local store, she always passes a huge mural with images from Puerto Rico: musicians, dancers, tropical flowers and—her least favorite—a vejigante, a character from carnival that wears a scary mask. One day on her way home from the bodega, she stops in front of the mural. Is one of the dancers inviting her to be his partner? “Okay, let’s dance,” Sofi giggles, and suddenly she’s in Old San Juan, surrounded by dancers and musicians playing bongos, tambourines and güiros. She begins to dance and sing with her new friends, but her pleasure turns to fear when the vejigante—wearing a black jumper with yellow fringe and a red, three-horned mask—spins her around and around! What does he want from her? How can she get away?

MY TWO CENTS: In this debut bilingual picture book, author Raquel M. Ortiz and illustrator Maria Dominguez capture the story of an imaginative girl and her magical and musical encounter with a neighborhood mural. Inspired by a mural located in South Bronx, New York, Ortiz and Dominguez give us a story that celebrates Puerto Rican traditions, community-based art, and city life.

Our young protagonist Sofía is lying on her bed feeling pretty bored. Her mom asks her to go to the bodega at the end of the block to get some milk and to remember that she should “not talk to ANYONE!” Sofía gets her scarf and coat, nods to her mom, and embarks on her journey to get the half-gallon of milk. Strolling along the sidewalk, she looks at the huge mural painted on a nearby building. She is stunned by its size and the colorful images of musicians, dancers, amapola flowers, and her least favorite, a vejigante. While returning from the bodega, Sofia can’t help admiring the mural once again. This is when she notices that one of the musicians, a plenero, is extending his hand to her to dance, breaking the wall between reality, art, and imagination. In a heartbeat, Sofía finds herself inside the mural, starting a whimsical experience that will bring her close to her Puerto Rican heritage.

Reading and seeing images of things that I grew up with put a smile on my face. From the plena song “Porque la plena viene de Ponce, viene de barrio de San Antón” to the carnival song “¡Toco-toco, toco-toco! ¡Vejigante come coco!”, I couldn’t help singing along with all the plenas and remembering the presence of plena songs in family gatherings, “navidad” parties, cultural “festivales”, carnivals, and even street protests. No wonder it is known as the  “periódico cantado” (sung newspapers), telling everyday stories all year long.

We also meet the famous vejigante, wearing its colorful outfit and a scary mask made from coconut shell (although some are made from papier-mâché). The vejigante is a mischievous folkloric character that resembles a buffoon or the devil, and which became a symbol of Puerto Rican cultural identity. In the story, Sofi plays and dances with the vejigante that she once saw as scary. She ends up wearing his outfit and flies around the Puerto Rican landscape going through El Yunque rainforest, and landing at the church plaza in Old San Juan. Here the author metaphorically portrays how through art, music, and traditions we can “fly” to the island of Puerto Rico, and demonstrates the deep connections that exist between the Puerto Rican diaspora and the island.

In terms of layout and illustrations, the bilingual text is located on the left side of the book with small illustrations dividing the English and Spanish texts and whole-page illustrations accompanying the text on the right side. The illustrator based her design and images on the original mural and conversations with the students that drew the images for mural. From soft colors for the city and bright and vivid colors for the mural, Dominguez’s paintings transport us from a wintry day in New York City to a sunny day in Puerto Rico.

Using The Pueblo Sings/El Pueblo Cantor mural as an inspiration for this picture book communicates the power of art, music, literature, and images to represent a community and tell its stories of resistance. The 7th- and 8th-grade students that designed the mural embraced the process of community building, public art, and history. It was created with and for the Puerto Rican community that has lived in New York City for decades. The mural’s statement is about the existence of the people and is a representation of their stories. It brings identification to the neighborhood and informs visitors about the living, breathing community located there. It is exciting to see the author centering the narrative on a young Puerto Rican girl who experiences this connection with her culture, traditions, and family, and then back to herself. In so doing, this book gives a powerful testament to how children can experience these connections and embrace them as their own.    

The book includes author and illustrator biographical notes, a glossary, and information about the mural.

TEACHING TIPS: The bilingual picture book is recommended for children ages 4 to 8. It works as a read aloud and for early independent readers. At home or at the library, librarians, parents, grandparents or other caregivers can read the story aloud in English, Spanish, or both, while teaching new words, concepts and discussing the different images. Teachers can include the discussion of Puerto Rican history, traditions, and music in their curriculum. 

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Vejigantes puppets I created for a library program. I explained to the children the meaning of vejigantes and how I grew up seeing them almost everywhere back in Puerto Rico.

 

Since the main focus of the story and its inspiration is a mural, children can create their own small-scale cardboard murals. Adults should encourage children to use elements from their community or their personal or family stories as inspiration. Moving activities to the street, adults can stroll down the neighborhood with children to view community murals, posing such questions as: Who created this mural? Who is it about? What does it represent? Does it represent the community where it is located? What type of murals should our neighborhood have? This will create a conversation about public art, public space, and community.

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Raquel M. Ortiz was born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, and has been making art and telling stories since she was little. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Salamanca and has worked at The Brooklyn Museum, the Allen Memorial Art Museum and El Museo del Barrio. Raquel is the author of El Arte de la Identidad, the documentary Memories of the Wall: Education and Enrichment through Community Murals and textbooks and educational materials for children in Puerto Rico and the United States. She lives in New York City with her family and is a professor at Boricua College.

Maria Dominguez moved from Cataño, Puerto Rico to New York City when she was five year old. She began her artistic career as a muralist with Cityarts in 1982. Over the past twenty-five years, Dominguez has created over twenty public art murals and worked with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York City, Artmaker, Inc. and Brooklyn Connect. The recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, she has also headed El Museo del Barrio’s Education Department. She currently teaches art in New York City’s Public School System.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Sofi and the Magic, Musical Mural/Sofi y el Mágico Mural Musical, check your local public library, your local bookstore or IndieBound. Also, check out Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

 

SujeiLugoSujei Lugo was born in New Jersey and raised in her parents’ rural hometown in Puerto Rico. She earned her Master’s in Library and Information Science degree from the Graduate School of Information Sciences and Technologies at the University of Puerto Rico and is a doctoral candidate in Library and Information Science at Simmons College, focusing her research on Latino librarianship and identity. She has worked as a librarian at the Puerto Rican Collection at the University of Puerto Rico, the Nilita Vientós Gastón House-Library in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the University of Puerto Rico Elementary School Library. Sujei currently works as a children’s librarian at the Boston Public Library. She is a member of REFORMA (The National Association to Promote Library Services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking), American Library Association, and Association of Library Service to Children. She is the editor of Litwin Books/Library Juice Press series on Critical Race Studies and Multiculturalism in LIS. Sujei can also be found on Twitter, Letterboxd and Goodreads.
Oct 7 2015

Guest Post by Derek Taylor Kent: My Ravenous Latino Fans

Derek's audienceBy Derek Taylor Kent

In the process of promoting my series for middle-grade kids, Scary School, I’ve discovered that at least half of my readership has turned out to be Latino kids and parents. I think Latino youth are the most voracious readers out there and yet remain under-represented in the works themselves.

I’ll start off by confessing I am not of any Latino heritage, but growing up in Los Angeles, it has always felt like a part of my culture. My mother was an art teacher at the mostly Latino San Fernando High School for over ten years, where she founded LA Mural Project and helped get hundreds of students into college on art scholarships. I studied Spanish in school and later dated a lovely Nicaraguan girl, who ended up becoming the translator for my picture book El Perro Con Sombrero.

Scary School 2The beginning of my journey takes place when the first Scary School book was released in 2011. I was eager to spread the word about it. I formed a fantastic partnership with a Barnes and Noble in Redlands, California, who hosted book fairs at almost every school in the San Bernardino region. Most of these schools were predominantly Latino or dual immersion.

I also worked with After-School All-Stars and performed my Scary School show for dozens of schools all over Southern California in low-income areas, where book sales were never part of the agenda. It was purely about inspiring the kids to love reading and writing and give them a chance to meet a real author.

I cannot begin to describe the enthusiasm and joy from the kids when I made these visits. Perhaps a big part of the reason they were so enthralled was because I was a children’s horror author and they were already fans of books like Goosebumps. During my shows, kids got to scream and make monster noises, as well as ask me questions.

The response of the kids in the Latino-populated schools was always the most enthusiastic and joyful. They LOVED scary stories and monsters! At other schools, just the mention of werewolves, ghosts, and vampires might send nine-year-olds scurrying out of the room in fear, but my Latino audiences challenged me to scare them every time and I had a great time doing it.

One of my most memorable experiences was when a class of students started peppering me with questions about what monsters they would find in the books. One kid named Pedro asked if there was a Cyclops in the book. When I told him there wasn’t, he put on the saddest expression I’d ever seen. He really loved Cyclopes! I assured him that I would write a Cyclops into Scary School #3 if he promised to read the series. He became so happy he screamed “YES!” and we both fulfilled our ends of the bargain.

Scary SchoolOver the last five years, I estimate that at least 50% of my readership is from the Latino audience. One of the main characters of the Scary School series is named Ramon the zombie kid. I don’t make a big deal about his background in the books or even during the shows, but I always notice smiles from the kids when, just because of the name, they know there’s a character they can relate to. (He’s the zombie on the cover of Book 1.)

In Scary School #4, which will release this fall, Ramon plays his biggest part yet, which fits with the title Scary School #4: Zillions of Zombies.

Despite the enthusiastic Latino audiences that I’ve witnessed, there are still relatively few U.S. published books that focus on the Latino experience or have Latino main characters, especially in the middle-grade and YA categories.

I want to encourage Latino writers to consider writing stories designed for 7-12 year olds and teens. While it’s easy for young kids to become excited about books, grabbing the attention of older kids is more challenging. Books centered on their experiences would go a long way toward increasing readership.

PerroParents can encourage their kids’ reading by making regular and fun-filled trips to the bookstore or library. Allowing kids to find books that excite them means they’ll be more likely to read them. For reluctant readers, setting up a reward system at home can be very beneficial, especially if this includes not only the books they read on their own, but also those that parents read with them. Reading is like exercise for the brain, and just like with sports, the more practice the brain gets, the more success kids will have in school and throughout their lives.

 

 

Derek and dogDerek Taylor Kent is also known as Derek the Ghost. He is the author of the middle-grade book series Scary School. His bilingual picture book El Perro Con Sombrero is new this year. It’s about a street dog named Pepe who happens upon a lucky sombrero that turns his life around. For more information about Derek’s books and projects, please visit DerekTaylorKent.com. At a special site for kids, ScarySchool.com, visitors can tour Scary School, read a secret chapter, and play video games.

Sep 17 2015

Book Review: Francisco’s Kites by Alicia Z. Klepeis

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Reviewed by Marianne Snow

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK (from Arte Público Press): Francisco looks out his bedroom window and thinks about his home back in El Salvador. He misses his friends and playing in the village’s park. He wants to fly a kite near his new home in the U.S., but his mother can’t afford one.

“If Mamá can’t buy me a kite, maybe I can make one,” he thinks. Picking up a bag, Francisco leaves the apartment in search of treasures that he can use for his project. He finds purple cellophane, a pile of string and a broken model airplane. In his apartment building’s recycling area, Francisco discovers other useful items that people have thrown away. He can’t wait to spread out all the goodies and start building his very own cometa!

Soon Francisco is testing his creation in Sunnydale Park. He makes it fly up and down, spin in the air, even make loops! The colorful toy catches the attention of a man who runs a recycled goods store. He wants to sell Francisco’s kites in his shop! But can Francisco really find enough material to make them? And will he be able to deliver them in time?

MY TWO CENTS: I love how Alicia Klepeis so deftly and unassumingly weaves together a variety of topics in this dual language book. With themes like homesickness, immigration, recycling, ingenuity, and family, Francisco’s Kites might easily become cluttered or scattered, but it’s not. Instead, it’s a simple story about a boy who creatively channels his past experiences – flying kites in his former home in El Salvador – to establish himself in windy Chicago, spend quality time with his mom, meet new people, and work on saving the earth. Readers will enjoy following the inventive Francisco, learning about kites, and maybe even picking up some information about Salvadoran food (pupusas – yum!). Meanwhile, Gary Undercuffler’s charmingly retro – but still fresh, clean, and colorful – illustrations add to the airy, buoyant tone of the book.

Another perk of this book is its message about recycling, which is delivered clearly without being heavy-handed. As they observe Francisco resourcefully collecting trash and other used objects to make kites, readers will learn about repurposing, a recycling strategy that anyone can try. These days, we know about the benefits of recycling, and no doubt children constantly hear about it at school. But many neighborhoods, towns, and even larger cities don’t have accessible, user-friendly services and resources like curbside pickup or community recycling bins. If kids don’t have access to these services at home, it’s important for them to learn about other options – like repurposing, which can provide them with fun, easy ways to help the earth and feel like they’re making a difference. When young readers pick up a book like Francisco’s Kites, who knows how they’ll be inspired?

TEACHING TIPS: Teachers who want to foster their students’ interests in recycling can use Francisco’s Kites as a platform for a hands-on, interdisciplinary learning unit. In addition to this book, teachers can share other texts about recycling of various genres and formats (non-fiction, poetry, news articles, videos), and students can discuss how repurposing used materials can not only prevent waste from piling up in landfills, but also help people save money as they reuse instead of buying new. Next comes collecting used materials – either at home or at school – and turning them into some kind of magnificent art project.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from her website): I arrived on this planet on a fall day in 1971. My mom delivered me at a big hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. She stayed home with me until I went to school. My dad was a 5th and 6th grade teacher. I spent my entire childhood in Woburn, Massachusetts on a quiet dead-end road. An only child, I was somewhat of a bookworm. I was always a bit nervous about school and spent a lot of my time doing homework until I graduated from college.

Right after I finished college, I got an internship at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. I loved that job for many reasons. The work was interesting, I got to go to great films and concerts nearly every week and… I met my husband (a fellow intern) there. We’ve been married nearly 20 years now. When my internship ended, I started graduate school to become a teacher. I taught middle school geography for several years in Massachusetts. Then I moved to upstate New York and stayed home with my three children for about ten years before becoming a writer. I now write almost full-time for kids and plan to do that for as long as possible. I love this job!

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Francisco’s Kites, check your local public library, your local bookstore or IndieBound. Also, check out Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

 

MarianneMarianne Snow is a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, where she researches Latin@ picture books, representations of Latin@ people in nonfiction children’s texts, and library services for Spanish-speaking children and families. Before moving to Georgia, she taught Pre-K and Kindergarten in her home state of Texas and got her master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at Texas A&M University. In her spare time, she enjoys obnoxiously pining for Texas, exploring Georgia, re-learning Spanish, and blogging at Critical Children’s Lit.

Sep 8 2015

Let’s Read Latin@: 73 titles released in 2015

 

We’re back!

After a short summer break, the Latin@s in Kid Lit crew is back to begin our third year online, celebrating children’s literature by/about/for Latin@s. In December 2014, we had posted a preview of 24 middle grade and young adult releases in 2015. Well, as the year rolled on, we discovered many more! Below, we have posted the covers of 71 picture books, early readers, middle grade, and young adult novels by/for/or about Latin@s that have been or will be released in 2015. If we have missed any, please let us know in the comments.

If we have already highlighted a title on the site, you will be led to that post when you click on the cover. Otherwise, you will be taken to IndieBound.org, Amazon, or GoodReads for more information. We have not read all of these titles–so we cannot vouch for each one–but we plan to read and recommend many of these in addition to 2016 releases. So, go ahead and browse the titles, add them to your to-be-read lists, or buy copies for yourself, friends, and family. With schools opening and holidays around the corner, it’s the perfect time to buy books! If we want to continue to celebrate libros Latin@s, we need to read, buy, and support libros Latin@s! Happy reading!

 

Picture Books & Early Readers:

22521973   21469072   22750413   22929558      25066557   The Sock Thief   KNIT TOGETHER by Angela Dominguez (Dial) 2/15 -- Picture book   23467663   23467664   23467662   23467661      18528167   22749711   23379443            25779175      FINDING THE MUSIC / EN POS DE LA MUSICA by Jennifer Torres; illustrated by Renato Alarcão (Lee & Low) 5/15 -- Picture book  24753419

 

Middle Grade:

            24527773   22571259   23282198   24040566   23734473   22504701   22639675   22082059   18938092   23756784      22749539      23309533

 

Young Adult:

17566703         22718685   23899848   Orange Candy Slices: And Other Secret Tales   22918050   21529626   18625184   20734195   23309551   25317760   20345202   24202275   TAKING HOLD: FROM MIGRANT CHILDHOOD TO COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY by Francisco Jiménez (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) 4/15 -- YA Memoir   23013839      25077874       22392926   22609306   22295304   25256386   23395349   The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus, #4)   WhenReasonBreaks_Comp   22550839   19542841   23202520   NAKED 1600x2400   23281665

Jun 22 2015

Book Review: Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music by Margarita Engle

By Sujei Lugo

drum dream girl coverDESCRIPTION FROM THE BOOK JACKET: Girls cannot be drummers. Long ago on an island filled with music and rhythm, no one questioned that rule — until the drum dream girl. She longed to play tall congas and small bongós and silvery, moon-bright timbales. She had to practice in secret. But when at last her music was heard, everyone sang and danced and decided that boys and girls should be free to drum and dream.

Inspired by a Chinese-African-Cuban girl who broke Cuba’s traditional taboo against female drummers, Drum Dream Girl tells an inspiring true story for dreamers everywhere.

MY TWO CENTS: Inspired by the childhood of Chinese Afro Cuban drummer Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, Margarita Engle and Rafael López enchantingly encapsulate through poetic text and dreamy illustrations a girl’s dreams and her desires to play music. By focusing on our girl’s “dreaming” period and the stage when she finally achieves her dream as a child, the author and illustrator furnish a landscape where children should be free to dream, and one they can relate to and which allows them to see themselves as dreamers.

Through the first line of Engle’s poem, “On an island of music, in a city of drumbeats, the drum dream girl dreamed,” we meet our Caribbean dream girl, who dreams about congas, bongós, and moon-bright timbales on a island where everyone believes only boys should play drums. This excluding notion and the exposure to such blatant sexism at such a young age do not prevent our girl from dreaming. She plays her own imaginary music, walks around tapping her feet and plays contagious drum rhythms on tables and chairs. When her big sisters invite her to join their new all-girl dance band, the drum dream girl is excited, but her father reminds her that “only boys should play drums.” She keeps drumming and dreaming, until her father realizes that her talent deserves to be heard. With a compelling illustration of her father “pulling” her drumming and dreaming daughter from the sky to the ground, she perseveres and lands back on her island of music, making her dream a reality.

The text is really descriptive, filled with poetic repetition and acknowledgements of the natural landscape of the island. Rafael López’s trademark of colorful and vibrant illustrations enhances the musical and dreamy experience of our character, providing images where you feel you are listening to the music and the beats. Through two-page layout canvases rich with smiling moons, suns, and birds, huge instruments, and our drum dream girl with closed eyes, he captures the spirit, the breeze, and the rhythm of our little drummer. López also successfully portrays the essence of Cuban city life and its racial and ethnic demographics.

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Drum Dream Girl is the story of Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, a mixed race Cuban girl, who defied gender roles in the 1930’s music scene. The girl and her story show the importance of family, teacher, and music-education support to expose and develop our children’s musical talents. The all-girl dance band she joined was Anacaona, an orchestra founded by Cuchito Castro and her sisters. This forgotten and overshadowed group challenged the male-dominated Cuban music scene and an environment where women were seen as incapable of playing music. For more information about this group, look for the book Anacaona: The Amazing Adventures of Cuba’s First All-Girl Dance Band, written by Alicia Castro, Ingrid Kummels and Manfred Schäfer, or watch this preview of the documentary Anacaona: The Amazing Story of Cuba’s Forgotten Girl Band.

TEACHING TIPS: The picture book will work great as a read-aloud and a rich addition to music-themed library programs, where children could also make their own drums. With older children, teachers can incorporate poetry writing, drawing, and visualizing music as poetry. The text, illustrations, and content make this book perfect to be adapted as a musical play.

Other classroom activities can include historical exploration of Millo Castro Zaldarriaga’s life, Cuban music, and other female musicians. Margarita Engle includes a publisher’s discussion guide on her website.

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR:

Margarita Engle is a Cuban-American author, botanist, and professor who enjoys collaborating with her husband in volunteer work for wilderness search and rescue dog training programs. Engle is the winner of numerous awards for her children’s and young adult books, including the Newbery Honor for The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom (2008), becoming the first Latina to win that children’s literature award. In addition to her work as a writer, she also contributes to various periodicals such as Atlanta Review, Bilingual Review, California Quarterly, Caribbean Writer, Hawai’i Pacific Review, and Nimrod. Margarita Engle is a member of PEN USA West, Amnesty International, Freedom House of Human Rights and Freedom to Write Committee.

Some of her titles are: The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano (2006), Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba (2009), The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba (2010), Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck (2011), The Wild Book (2012), The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist (2013), Mountain Dog (2013), Silver People: Voices From the Panama Canal (2014), Orangutanka: A Story in Poems (2015), The Sky Painter: Louis Fuertes, Bird Artist (2015), and Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings (2015).

Rafael López is a Mexican award-winning illustrator and artist, whose work is influenced by his cultural heritage, colors of Mexican street life, and Mexican surrealism. In addition to children’s books, López has illustrated posters, United States Postal Service stamps such as the Latin Music Legends series, and he has launched street art projects to revitalize urban neighborhoods, such as the Urban Art Trail Project.

He is the recipient of various Pura Belpré Honor for Illustration awards for books such as: My Name is Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz/Me Llamo Celia: La Vida de Celia Cruz (2006), Book Fiesta!: Celebrate Children’s Day/Book Day/ Celebremos El Día de los Niños/El Día de Los Libros (2010), The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred (2012) and Tito Puente: Mambo King/Rey del Mambo. He also received two Américas Awards for Children’s and Young Adult Literature for My Name is Celia (2006) and ¡Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! Americas’ Sproutings (2007).

DDG Pages 32-33 Final-revised-small

For more information about Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music (2015), visit your local library or bookstore. Also check out worldcat.org, indiebound.org, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and goodreads.com. You can also watch the book trailer below.

Jun 11 2015

Book Review: Finding the Music/En Pos de la Música by Jennifer Torres

 

finding the music coverBy Sujei Lugo

DESCRIPTION FROM THE BOOK JACKET: Above Reyna’s favorite booth in her family’s restaurant hangs the old vihuela, a small guitar-like instrument, that belonged to her abuelito when he was in a mariachi band. Reyna has never heard the vihuela played, but her mamá treasures the instrument as a reminder of abuelito and his music. One noisy day in the restaurant, Reyna accidentally damages the vihuela. Determined to get it repaired before Mamá notices, Reyna sets out to search her neighborhood for someone who can help her fix the instrument. Little does Reyna know that along the way she will find herself growing closer to abuelito and to the power of his music.

MY TWO CENTS: From the winner of the 2011 Lee & Low Books New Voices Award, here we have a bilingual story filled with charm that showcases the power of music as an intergenerational unifier.

Every weekend, Reyna hangs out at her mom’s restaurant, Cielito Lindo, reading and enjoying the cast of characters that visit the place. One day, she accidentally breaks her grandfather’s precious vihuela that hanged on one of the restaurant’s walls. Reyna never met her abuelito, but her mother’s tales about him and the way he played the vihuela are near and dear to her. Reyna knows she must embark on a journey to fix her abuelo’s beloved instrument.

This journey will bring her to learn, first hand, about his legacy and the importance of music and the power of community engagement. Throughout each page, and Reyna’s conversation with different community members, her abuelo’s presence can be felt. Jennifer Torres uses Reyna’s journey as a great portrayal of how meaningful everyday life is for a community. The vihuela becomes a powerful artifact that jump-starts the memory of the past, the important history of the community that tends to be invisible but is so essential to understanding the present. The broken vihuela reveals other anecdotes from the past that will help Reyna see the bigger picture of who her abuelo was and how the community remains united through their shared past. And it is through oral history and the passing of this knowledge that Reyna becomes aware of the real importance behind the vihuela and why it was hanging on the wall. The breaking of the vihuela is not a tragedy, but the catalyst for Reyna to better understand where she came from and get closer to her mother and her community.

The realistic illustrations by Renato Alarcão, enhance the warmth of the tale and allow readers to see the characters’ expressions and feelings. Each image is filled with pastel colors and a consummated care to portray the connection and relations of the characters. The illustrations really echo a phrase said by Reyna’s mother at the beginning of the story, “these are the sounds of happy lives.” The illustrations truly convey the sounds of these lives.

Torres’s first picture book, Finding the Music/En Pos de la Música, is a solid work that is very much welcomed. The importance of oral history, the unifying qualities of music and the importance of preserving the artifacts that trigger the remembrance of who we were are all important concepts to help spark the curiosity of children among their own families and communities. We are in a constant search of adequate representation and we sometimes fail to see that in our own stories lie strong narratives that empower us and unite us.

*The book includes a glossary and pronunciation guide. The backstory of the Cielito Lindo and author’s note about mariachi music and band are also apprehended. Spanish translation by Alexis Romay.

musicstore
TEACHING TIPS: This bilingual picture book is recommended for children ages 4-9, and works well for early readers and as a read aloud with musical interventions as a bonus. Librarians, parents, grandparents, and caregivers can read with the young ones in English, Spanish, or both, while practicing or learning new vocabulary, identifying the different images and community components presented through the illustrations. It’s also a perfect book for a StoryWalk, given that our main character walks around her neighborhood finding some clues and stories about her abuelo. StoryWalk allows people to visit different points (parks, local stores, buildings) around the neighborhood where pages of the books are spread, they would walk to one point to another to follow the story.

Language Arts, Social Studies, Arts, and Music educators can collaborate in the development of different activities: vocabulary and writing activities, discussions and conversations regarding community, neighborhoods and Mexican, Chicano, and Latino history; the incorporation of drawings with writing activities; and the history of Mexican folk music. The author includes helpful activities for the Language Arts classroom: Story Map and Mini-Memoir. On the publisher’s website, you can access teaching guides developed for this book and other resources.

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR:

Jennifer Torres is a freelance journalist, author, and coordinator of a community-wide literacy initiative at University of the Pacific, California. She studied journalism at Northwestern University, Illinois and at University of Westminster, London, England. Torres also worked as reporter for The Record newspaper, covering education, immigration, and other issues related to children and families. FINDING THE MUSIC/EN POS DE LA MÚSICA is her first picture book and her first middle grade novel, STEF SOTO, TACO QUEEN, will be published in Fall 2016.

Renato Alarcão is a graphic designer, illustrator and professor of visual arts. He studied in the Illustration as a Visual Essay program at the School of Visual Arts of New York and at The Center for Book Arts. In addition to his work as an illustrator, Alarcão has collaborated in different youth arts projects and has presented lectures on illustration, creativity, and artistic techniques. He has presented his work in exhibitions at the American Institute for the Graphic Arts, the American Society of Illustrators, the New York Public Library, the Skirball Cultural Center of Los Angeles, the Biennale of Illustrations in Bratislava, where he won the NOMA Prize for Illustrated Book. Some of his illustrated books: RED RIDIN’ IN THE HOOD: AND OTHER CUENTOS by Patricia Santos Marcantonio, SOCCER STAR by Mina Javaherbin, ROBERTO’S TRIP TO THE TOP by John B. Paterson & John Paterson, ELLA ENFEITIÇADA by Gail Carson Levine, Andiana Figueiredo.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT Finding the Music/En Pos de la Música visit your local library or bookstore. Also, check out WorldCat.org, IndieBound.org, Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.