Lucia the Luchadora by Cynthia Leonor Garza

Lucia the Luchadora by Cynthia Leonor Garza
POW!

Rating: 5 stars

Lucia is a girl who can jump off the highest monkey bars at the playground and run faster than lightening. Still, the boys make fun of her for being a girl. They tease her that girls are nothing but "sugar and spice and everything nice." This makes Lucia mad.

"Spicy mad. KA-POW kind of mad."

But Lucia has a trick up her sleeve. Or, better still, an abuela on her side. Abu explains how, when she was younger, she was a luchadora. She fought in a ring with a mask over her face and a cape blowing behind her, mighty as can be. Outside the ring, she fought the good fight and helped others in need. She passes her mask on to Lucia. With the mask and cape, Lucia is transformed into Lucia the Luchadora. She's unstoppable! She inspires a bunch of other children to don masks and capes and come out to play just as hard as she does.

All is fine until one comes child out in a pink and white mask and cape. She is clearly a girl. The same boys taunt her, returning to their "sugar and spice" phrase. But Lucia comes to her rescue, pulling off her mask, letting her long hair escape.

See? Girls can be powerful players and kind-hearted souls--in one WOW moment.

I love this story of girl power and the illustrations are aaaaaa-mazing. But this book is special to me because I saw it when it was barely more than an idea. When it was a typed-up, double-spaced manuscript handed from one hopeful writer to another. The author, Cynthia Leonor Garza, and I were part of a critique group who met at a coffee shop in Fairfax, Virginia. We'd meet to exchange manuscripts, offer advice, point out problems, suggest improvements, and chat about squeezing in writing time while our children watched movies, played outside, slept.

Lucia is Cynthia's second manuscript (my fingers are still crossed that her piñata story is published soon!) at our critique group, and I can't tell you how fun it is to read the final version, complete with gorgeous, vibrant illustrations by Alyssa Bermudez.

And now LOOK at this! She's got her debut picture book accepted, produced, and published. Congratulations, Cynthia, and keep fighting the good fight, Lucia!

I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosín

I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosín, translated by E.M. O'Connor
Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Rating: 5 stars

Some years ago I was part of a writing group which encouraged us writer-participants to share what we've read. A woman a few decades older than me read a piece based on her childhood in Chile. She wrote about the hills and the sights of the sea, how her father came home from abroad and brought a woman's shawl for a woman other than her mother. There was something captivating about her story, and after she read, she explained how she and her family (had her mother forgiven her father and they left together? I've forgotten...) fled Chile during the violent Pinochet years.

I think it was this woman's story that made I Lived on Butterfly Hill to call out to me from the library shelves. I just had to read it, and I'm so glad I finally did.

The story is about and narrated by Celeste Marconi, a young girl growing up in Valparaiso, Chile, during a time of significant political turmoil. During the first few chapters, as Agosín drops hints to describe how deeply entrenched Celeste and her family are in Valparaiso, Celeste notices large ships coming into the harbor. She hears the grown-ups whisper; with the help of a wonderful dose of magical realism that is sprinkled throughout this novel, Celeste senses that some sort of darkness about will occur. Finally, it happens: the socialist President is killed, and a dictator takes over the country.

(In the book, it is fictional President Alarcon who is killed by an unnamed sunglass-wearing dictator, not real-life Allende and Pinochet.)

Celeste struggles to understand what is going on during the first week of the new dictatorship as books are burned and new rules are imposed. Many of Celeste's classmates and neighbors are "disappeared." Her parents, both doctors who work at free clinics for the poor and publicly supported Alarcon, go into hiding. Her grandmother watches over her, then decides to send Celeste to her aunt in Maine. Traveling alone and in exile from everything she's ever known to this faraway place, Celeste makes the best of it and trusts herself and has faith in her homeland while still opening herself to another way of life, and another group of people to love.

This is an excellent, excellent book. It's a long one for middle grade readers--over 400 pages--but Agosín quickly wrapped me in an emotional story about characters about which I cared deeply, and I couldn't put it down. I loved how Celeste matured into a patriot, more certain of the future of Chile than the grown-ups who were affected and still shaky from the political turmoil. 

I loved the insights young readers could get from this book: what a difference a political leader could make, what it's like being a non-native English speaker in an American school, how it isn't only Nazi Germany that has stories of escape and heroism and defiance, how many rights we Americans have that are taken for granted, the importance of literacy for a country. This book is rich with such lessons--I highly recommend it, especially if read and discussed with your child (or students).

Gazpacho for Nacho by Tracey Kyle

Gazpacho for Nacho by Tracey Kyle, illustrated by Carolina Farías
Two Lions

Rating: 4 stars

Nacho is going through a phase. A picky phase. He refuses--albeit politely, without a single "YUCK" or "NO WAY"--to eat anything but gazpacho. His mami is the real hero of the story, I think. She takes the time and energy to cheerfully and continually introduce a healthy variety of foodstuffs to her child's stomach. But Nacho just wants gazpacho.

The heroic, endlessly patient Mami finally tries a different path to variety. She still has a smile on as she walks Nacho to the grocery store to teach Nacho how to cook his beloved gazpacho. Together, they shop for the ingredients, return home, and cook. At the end of the book, Nacho realizes how fun it is to cook and asks his mother to call him "Chef Nacho" from now on. And not only will he start to try new things, he'll make them himself!

Lastly, she drizzled a very small drop
of oil and vinegar over the top.
She blended the soup in a big batidora
and left it to chill in the fridge for one hora.

Kyle mixes a whole lot of Spanish into this book, and I'm impressed with her ability to rhyme not with just one language but two. The fact that my kids have little knowledge of Spanish left them asking "What does that mean?" at every other line. However, by the third or fourth read, their questions slowed and they knew more words. It was worth stumbling those first few times.

The illustrations by Carolina Farías are warm and inviting. All of the images of a mother and her son are really sweet--I sound like a gripey, tired mom (hmmm...am I one?) when I say that it's mighty handy that Nacho is an only child. Or maybe his siblings are on an extended playdate so that Mami and Nacho can have this uninterrupted time together? Regardless, for me the illustrations remind me how sweet the time with just one child can be, and to savor that time when it happens on the pages of my own life.

As a mom who loves to cook and read with kids, this book really touched my heart. If only my kids liked soup (and it wasn't below freezing outside--an unbelievable eleven degrees as I type this!), I'd make the recipe for gazpacho in the end of the book!

Nino Wrestles the World by Yuyi Morales

Nino Wrestles the World by Yuyi Morales

Rating: 3.5 stars

Second to the incredibly wonderful winner Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown, Nino Wrestles the World recently earned a 2014 Golden Kite Award illustration honor.  I think this award is noteworthy because peers--fellow authors and illustrators--nominate and vote for books.  Familiar with Brown's but not Morales' book, I ordered it up at the library and happily lugged it home with us in our always-heavy book bag.  My trio and I read the book together at some meal--me, standing in the kitchen with the book, pausing to refill milk and get yet another dipping sauce that makes meals tastier and them, sitting at the counter, rocking back and forth on the swivel bar stools while they chomped and listened.

Morales provides some background into lucha libre in an author's note at the end of the book.  He explains that it is "a theatrical, action-packed style of professional wrestling that is popular throughout Mexico and many other Spanish-speaking countries."  They represent mythical figures and ancient heroes and villians.  Many luchadores wear masks to hide their identity--the most famous luchador, El Santo, never revealed his true identity.

Nino makes his Puzzle Muzzle move
and Olmec's mind is blown!

The story: Nino is a lucha libre wrestler whose costume is (as you can see above) underwear and a red mask.  He fearlessly takes on frightful opponents one at a time, and dominates them with silly moves like the tickle tackle or the Popsicle Slick (in which he cleverly uses a melting popsicle to make El Chamuco slip).  Nino's last opponents are his two little sisters, awake from their afternoon nap.  Rather than competing against them, they join forces to become invincible.

This is not your typical story with full sentences and plot development.  It's best read in your best WWF announcer voice (think: "Let's get ready to rummmmmm-ble!") and you better be prepared for some wrestling action afterward, particularly if you have, like me, more than one boy-child in your house.  It is, without a doubt, a lot of fun to see a little boy defeat these huge villians in such clever and creative, kid-appealing ways.

El Chamuco

This is definitely an out-of-the-box book that will appeal to some, but not to others.  For me, it's just okay--I can appreciate it but I am not crazy about it.  I think I'm missing a cultural link that might make it more special or meaningful, or at least provide more personal context.  The pictures are really cool with out-of-this-world graphics that jump off the page, having the devil in a children's book definitely throws me off a little.  In fact, having to explain who the devil is the devil (ha ha) to Lorelei and Ben while they slurped milk and tried to get away with using their fingers was not what I expected in my evening.

That said, this book has cool appeal I can't deny.  The illustrations are completely award-worthy, the story inspiring and funny, the ending a cute twist on the rest of the book.

Oh No, Gotta Go #2 by Susan Middletown Elya

Oh No, Gotta Go #2 by Susan Middletown Elya, illustrated by Lynn Avril

Rating: 4 stars

Yup, there's a sequel to Oh No Gotta Go, the cute story of a little girl who drinks too much juice and suddenly has to go to the bathroom NOW.  When I saw there was a second book, I was curious if it was just another situation in which she'd have to pee or if, as the book hints, this one wasn't about pee but about poop.

It's about poop!

Lorelei chuckled the whole time through this book, and while there's a lot of Spanish that Lorelei, who thinks she's already fluent, liked, it was the slang and easy innuendos that I liked teaching her through this book.  We don't say "#1" and "#2" in our house, but it's definitely a good thing to know.  Bathroom cultural literacy, if you will.  Ha!  As her stomach gurgles and churns, there's a picture of a volcano(cleverly, the street that they're walking next to is turned into a lava-gurgling, about-to-erupt volcano), so it was fun to tell Lorelei that the author and illustrator are saying that her stomach is like a volcano and she needs to sit on the potty before she explodes in a less desirable place.

This might be a little too much potty talk for your family, but we really liked it.

(By the way, in case you were worried, she makes it.)

My Abuelita by Tony Johnston

My Abuelita by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Yuyi Morales

Rating: 2.5 stars

Confession: I don't really like clowns.  Or dolls.  So this book definitely freaks me out. 

I'll try and explain the story first, which is pretty good, though not stellar.  This little boy lives with his abuelita, who is an odd character to put it mildly.  Colorful is probably more polite.  But he, of course, loves her and thinks she's the best thing since sliced bread.  The book is mostly the little boy just describing her routine in the morning, as she gets ready for work.  And that's the big mystery Johnston really wants us to wonder about, because he mentions it on almost every single page, making me think to myself in my most inappropriately sarcastic voice:  OK!  WE GET IT!  WE'RE CURIOUS ABOUT HER WORK!  In the end, we find out she is a storyteller, and the little boy wants to grow up to be one, too.

And now, the illustrations.  I had to find out the background on these strange things, and I found this neat You Tube clip of Yuyi Morales describing how she made it.  The video is a wonderful illustration of how illustrations come to be--how painstakingly time consuming and detailed, and how much talent and time are both involved. 

It's pretty neat (and I'm not even a fan of the end result), but if you don't have 3 minutes and 42 seconds to watch it, here's the short version: She made the abuelita, the little boy, and the cat, then gathered together all the other stuff you see on the pages and took photographs of them, over a three year period.  For me, the illustrations in the book are a bit creepy, voo-doo-like and just not my thing.  That said, they are very different and it's great to show kids different styles so they can find one or more that they like.  That's what art is all about, right?

Lorelei likes this book because there is Spanish sprinkled in with the text.  And she thinks she can speak Spanish, just like my cousin did when he was a preschooler (he's now in high school--oh my!).  She'll say some jibberish and then, kindly, translate it for me.  It makes me laugh everytime. 

For me, a strange book, but...it might be someone else's favorite.

Book Fiesta! by Pat Mora

Book Fiesta! by Pat Mora, illustrated by Rafael Lopez

Rating: 4 stars

The cover of this book is like an gorgeous invitation to any book-loving kid out there.  It is bright and cheerful, and shows kids romping and reading together.  It was peeking out at me in the Bilingual section of our library this afternoon as Lorelei and I sat during our "girls outing" that often happens during Ben's Saturday afternoon nap.

The book is about Children's Day, or El dia de los ninos and also Book Day, El Dia do los libros.  It is a sweet poem that originally was a song that Pat Mora wrote.  In the pages of this wonderful book he expands on the song and celebrates children and books together--because he thinks, as I sure do, that the two go hand-in-hand.  "Hooray! Today is our day. / El dia de los ninos! / Let's have fun today reading our favorite books. / We read in English and Spanish, / in Chinese and Navajo too. / We read by ourselves, / we read with a friend."

The text is fine.  But the pictures!  Oh my gosh.  Pictures of kids just reading: their noses joyfully buried in their books, sitting side by side with a pal reading together, carefully balanced on the statue outside the library reading.  They are excitedly running to the library, acting out the story their parents are reading to them.  They read in cars, and planes, and trains, in the garden, an elephant, and even in a whale's mouth!  (Lorelei found this one pretty captivating.)  I can't say enough about how much I love the illustrations.

I really wish there was more text (which is, by the way, in both English and Spanish), a little more explaining of El dia de los ninos...  At the end of the book, in an author's note, Pat Mora encourages people to have book fiestas of their own.  It's an inspiring little section of how to bring books to life, and another reason to read this great book.

Gracias / Thanks by Pat Mora

Gracias Thanks by Pat Mora, illustrated by John Parra

Rating: 4.5 stars

I'm on the hunt for a great birthday book for a wonderful little almost 5 year-old in our life, and I thought this might be It.  It's not It, but it's still a good book and worthy of a read, especially if you're bilingual.  (Some of the things for which the little boy is grateful are a bit random, or else this would be a 5.)

The premise here is pretty simple: On each page, the little boy you see on the cover of the book gives thanks for something.  I love how specific and funny in a little kid way he is.  For example: "For the sun that wakes me up so I don't sleep for years and years and grow a long, white beard, thanks." 

Or "For the bees that didn't sting me and turn me into a pincushion, thanks."  I love that he thinks about something that didn't happen and gives thanks for that.

The book isn't religious in an outright way, so it's perfect for those of us who are religious in a less-outright way.  (Though it is definitely like the Catholic Prayers of the Faithful...let me know if you agree if/when you've read this book.)  There are so many things to give thanks for--whether you do that while walking around your yard, cuddling your newborn, or singing with a congregation.  I love that there exists a very nice children's book that reminds of all the itsy-bitsy things that we--children and adults alike--should say thanks for.  How different a world we'd live in if we could all appreciate what we've got just a little bit more.

So, here's my own additional entries in my imaginary Gracias / Thanks book:

For the heat of the sun that gives us a great reason to play with buckets and sprinklers and cups and hoses, and an opportunity for some wet giggles, thanks.

For Lorelei, who hugged me again and again and again when Jonathan and I came home from our short little second honeymoon yesterday, thanks.

For Ben, who sometimes makes me laugh so hard that I might possibly snort coffee out of my nose one of these days, thanks.

For Jonathan, who challenges and comforts me, thanks.

For my friends and family and maybe, if I'm lucky, a few others who read this blog, thanks.