A fine collection.
Doubled in size from its original 1994 edition, this dual-language collection of classic folktales from the Southwestern United States will entertain and aid those studying Spanish.
An old lady tricks the thieves who would steal from her. A young girl teaches her dishonest father a lesson in manners. A wife outwits her foolish husband along with the gold robbers who would hurt him. A lawyer’s subterfuge is turned against him by an Indigenous mother. A beautiful teenager hounded by suitors scares them away and earns herself a bit of freedom. All 10 of these tales have two things in common—the Southwestern culture from which they hail and the comeuppance meted out by determined women seeking to survive and thrive in the face of adversity. At once a fun language lesson and a feminist story collection, this serves as a good introduction to folklore that celebrates the poor in the face of hardship. The stories are simple and sparse. Their settings are vague (long ago and faraway). The characters are stereotypical. Yet this is the style of folktales; the cautionary stories are meant to leave stark images and simple themes that teach a moral lesson. Author Hayes does a fine job researching the oral traditions (endnotes speak to the variations, echoes, and origins of each theme). His Spanish translations are rich, well-recorded, and easy to cross-reference, as they face English pages. Quaint black-and-white illustrations by Hill are a nice bonus at the beginning of each story.
A fine collection. (Folktales. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-947627-01-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many.
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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