Picture Book

Family/Familia

Young Daniel doesn’t share his dad’s excitement over going to the family reunion. What’s the big deal? It’s just going to be a bunch of old people he doesn’t know, sitting around and telling stories about other old people he doesn’t know. Once there, though, Daniel is in for several pleasant surprises.

The Perfect Pinata/La Pinata Perfecta

Marisa’s sixth birthday was drawing near, and today her mother took her to buy a piñata. At the store, Marisa saw a beautiful butterfly piñata and knew she had to have it. “It’s perfect for my party!” she exclaimed. When they brought the piñata home, her mother wanted to put it in the closet, but Marisa begged to keep it on her dresser. That week Marisa took her butterfly everywhere, and it watched over her at night while she slept. The morning of the party, Mama filled the piñata with candy and toys. Soon the guests arrived. It was time to hit the piñata! Marisa was the first in line. But the butterfly looked down at her with its happy eyes, and Marisa started to cry. “I can’t do it!” she said as she ran into the house.

The Cat Who Came For Tacos

When Señora Rosa and Señor Tomás find a stray cat sleeping on their stoop, they welcome him into their home. “Mi casa es su casa. My home is your home,” Señora Rosa tells the cat. He introduces himself as Flynn and wanders through their house while they prepare lunch, which has a delicious fishy smell. When lunch is served, Flynn hops up on the table. But before he can dig into the tuna tacos, his new friends point out a few house rules. “In my home, everyone dresses for meals,” says Señora Rosa. So Flynn borrows a doll’s tuxedo and puts it on. When Señor Tomás says, “In my home, people must sit in chairs,” Flynn brings a pillow from the sofa and puts it on the chair so he can reach his plate. Then, after a pleasant lunch, Señor Tomás and Señora Rosa discover that Flynn has some ideas of his own about how people and cats can live happilly together.

My Feet Are Laughing

Sadie, an imaginative young Dominican American, relates her experiences growing up in her grandmother’s brownstone house in Harlem.

Snapshots from the Wedding

Maya attends a family wedding and captures it all on film, from her cousin getting rice in his eye to the cake that tasted as delicious as it looked, in a beautifully illustrated tale of a special family day.

Barrio: Jose’s Neighborhood

barrioWelcome to José’s neighborhood. In his barrio, people speak an easy mix of Spanish and English and sometimes even Chinese. The masked revelry of Halloween leads into the festive remembrances of the Day of the Dead. And murals on the walls and buildings sing out the stories of the people who live here. As familiar as any neighborhood yet as strange as a foreign country, Jose’s barrio isn’t in Mexico or Argentina–it’s in San Francisco. Award-winning author and photographer George Ancona follows José through a season in the barrio, and in the process gives readers a glimpse of a community as rich and varied as America itself.

The Rowdy, Rowdy Ranch / Alla En El Rancho Grande

On El Rancho Grande, the grandchildren are not so interested in how Grandpa bought the ranch, but in what can be done on the ranch. The children play hide and seek in cornfields, under “the canopy of green leaves, golden threads and giant ears of corn.” They feed the family horses, ride the rambunctious pigs, and take frolicking dips in the duck pond. But through all of the outdoor escapades, their family stories are circling in the air, like the “sunflower wind” blooming around them. While drinking ice-cold lemonade in the sunshine, they hear about how Grandpa’s song of sorrow won him El Rancho. They hear about chickens that have abandoned their coops to live in Abuela’s chicken tree, and they even discover a story about a boy who cried chocolate tears. In those days of running and jumping, the narrator, Tito, did not realize that he was hearing the stories that would wrap him up “like an enchanted sarape to keep me warm for the rest of [his] life.”