A young girl and her mother put on their red dresses and dance their way through the barrio, collecting friends and neighbors along the way as they go to the park to hear her father’s salsa band play. Let’s Dance!
¡a Bailar!
Caribbean
Old Dog
Perro Viejo was taken away from his mother at birth and has known no other life than that of servitude on a sugar plantation. His name, which means “Old Dog,” was given to him by the plantation master because, like the bloodhounds that chased fugitive slaves, Perro Viejo is always searching for the scent of his long lost mother. The only thing that keeps him alive is the memory of Asunción, a beautiful girl he once met while washing his master’s horses at a river. Never to see her again, he closes his heart to all forms of love. Nearing the end of his life, Perro Viejo meets Beira, an old slave who is avoided by the other slaves because they think she is a witch. She warms Perro Viejo’s heart, and together they hatch a plan to escape from slavery. Young readers join Perro Viejo as he finally learns what it is to love — and to feel free.
When I Was Puerto Rican
Esmeralda Santiago’s story begins in rural Puerto Rico, where her childhood was full of both tenderness and domestic strife, tropical sounds and sights as well as poverty. Growing up, she learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs in the mango groves at night, the taste of the delectable sausage called morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby’s soul to heaven. As she enters school we see the clash, both hilarious and fierce, of Puerto Rican and Yankee culture. When her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually take on a new identity.
Call Me Maria
Fifteen-year-old Mara leaves her mother and their Puerto Rican home to live in the barrio of New York with her father, feeling torn between the two cultures in which she has been raised.
Juan Bobo And The Pig
While his mother goes to church, Juan cares for the pig with humorous results.
Juan Bobo: Four Folktales From Puerto Rico (I Can Read Book 3)
Mama puts Juan Bobo to work whenever he is having a good time. But he always finds a way to make work fun — like using baskets instead of buckets to carry water, or sprinkling the pig with Mama’s favorite perfume.
Anansi
Two Jamaican folk tales in which Anansi the spider practices his trickery on others. Includes an audio cassette featuring narration and music.
Eight Days
In Edwidge’s story, Junior is trapped under his pancaked house for 8 whole days. After he is saved, people ask him repeatedly: “What did you do all this time? Were you scared? Did you cry?””I played,” he answers. And so with each page, we see how he played in his mind every day he was trapped–how he played marbles with his friends, won the best solo part in the choir, biked through St. Marc with his little sister, and ate the sweetest mango.Hope, love, and warmth dance across each page, reminding us that sometimes it is the simplest beauties that help us find our strength.Niki, the real boy whom this story is loosely based on, was pulled from the rubble after being trapped for 8 days. He was rescued by New York Task Force 1, a search-and-rescue team made up of New York City police- and firemen. They had to cut through three slabs of concrete and countless other pieces of debris before his mother could crawl in to coax Niki and his sister out. When he finally made it out of the wreckage, Niki did so with a beaming smile and wide-open arms–the image of hope.** The photograph taken of Niki by Mathew McDermott as they pulled him from the wreckage is being called “the iconic image” of this disaster. We are embracing its visibililty by using an illustration echoing the photograph for the cover of the book and printing the photograph in the back matter.** In addition, this project is charity driven. Both Edwidge and Alix are donating a portion of their advances to Haitian aid organizations. Scholastic and their vendors are contributing portions of their costs for the production of this book.
My Name Is María Isabel
Third grader Maria Isabel, born in Puerto Rico and now living in the U.S., wants badly to fit in at school; and the teacher’s writing assignment “My Greatest Wish” gives her that opportunity.
La Noche Buena
Nina is visiting her grandmother in Miami for Christmas. Usually she spends it in snowy New England with her mother and her family, but this year is different. She isn’t certain what to make of a hot and humid holiday, until she learns the traditions of her father’s side of the family from her Cuban grandmother. She helps prepare for the evening and takes part in all their traditions—the intricate cooking for the feast, the dancing, the music, and the gathering of relatives and neighbors. It all comes together for a Noche Buena that Nina will never forget. Antonio Sacre and Angela Dominguez have created a wonderful story that everyone who celebrates Christmas will enjoy. The book includes a glossary of Spanish words.