Carlos and his family are going home for Christmas across the border from California to Mexico. Mama and Papa are excited, but Carlos and his sisters are not so sure. To them, California is home now, even though they were born in Mexico. But as the family drives to their hometown through festive villages and sun-kissed landscapes, Carlos and his sisters discover there’s magic in their roots and that—whether in Mexico or California—home is where the heart is: with one’s family.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume VI, Issue 4
Related: All Ages, Latin America, Mexico, Realistic Fiction
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- ISBN: 9780060262969
- Authors: Bunting, Eve; Diaz, David
- Illustrator:
Diaz, David
- Published: 1996, Joanna Cotler
- Themes: Christmas, cultures, Family, Identity, Immigrants, journeys
- Descriptors: All Ages, Latin America, Mexico, Realistic Fiction
- No. of pages: 32
Going Home is a touching story of a family who immigrated to the United States to be laborers. After five years of work, they get to go back to Mexico to visit for Christmas. The parents are very excited, but the children don’t fully understand why. Once they arrive, the children see how much happier their parents are now that they have returned to their homeland. The story was very useful to use in a classroom with no diversity and little prior knowledge. The students enjoyed the Spanish words introduced and that they could decipher what the words meant on their own. The vibrant, woodblock illustrations kept my group engaged and asking questions about the things they saw. Because the book is about going home for Christmas, it made it easier for my class to connect, even without much prior knowledge about Mexico and it’s culture.
The award winning pair, Eve Bunting and David Diaz have once again written and illustrated a moving text focusing on family and life’s journeys. With illustrations that are more realistic than Smoky Night, Going Home features colored wood cut illustrations of a similar style layered with complexity, partially due to their composition and partially because of the collage effect achieved by the prints being arranged on top of photographs. Carlos’s family is going back home to Mexico from California to celebrate Christmas after being in the United States for five years. After saying goodbye to the other families that work for the labor manager they lock up “their” home and load the car for the small village of La Perla. Expressing to their children that they moved for opportunities throughout the course of the journey Carlos and his sisters realize what their parents have given up for them, sacrificing their happiness in Mexico for their children, and that his parents want to eventually move back to Mexico to live in his grandfather’s house and work his land but only after their children have their opportunities in the United States.