Priscilla and the Pink Planet

Priscilla and the Pink Planet
Author: Nathaniel Hobbie
Illustrator: Jocelyn Hobbie
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
ISBN-10: 0316735795
ISBN-13: 978-0316735797

Priscilla lives on a planet where everything is pink. One day she gets so fed up with the color pink that she sets off to look for some other color, any other color. The story follows Priscilla on her quest to find a color other than dreary old pink. Priscilla finally sees a beautiful multicolored butterfly. She chases it only to find that the Queen of the pink planet has caught the butterfly in her pink net because she loves only pink and all other colors are forced to live underground.

Priscilla and the Pink Planet is a thoroughly engaging story told all in Seuss style rhyme. It’s a fun book to read aloud and has a bouncy, happy feel to it. Priscilla herself is quite the character; strong, determined and smart as a whip. She makes a good role model for little girls. I love that she doesn’t let things get her down or too discouraged. She presses onward looking for the thing she knows she needs.

The illustrations are great fun and highly detailed. I loved how the pink changes gradually and each page gets brighter and brighter with more and more colors. Priscilla herself is a cute, but not too cute little girl with a bright smile and intelligent eyes. She’s very animated and quite wonderful. She’d lend herself well to an animated movie or cartoon series. I think kids, especially little girls in the 3-8 age range will just adore her.

She has an adventurous spirit and a zest for life that’s completely addicting. It’s one of my granddaughter Jasmine’s favorite books – this one she actually sleeps with.

Birdwing

Birdwing
Author: Rafe Martin
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
ISBN-10: 0439211670
ISBN-13: 978-0439211673

“It was on the last day of the six years during which she was not to speak or laugh if she hoped to free her brothers from enchantment, that her own sentence was to be carried out. Five of the six shirts were done, but the last and littlest was still missing its left sleeve. As they led her to the stake and the fire was about to be lit, she looked up and saw six swans flying through the sky. Her heart leapt with joy at the sight of them. The swans touched the ground before her and with lowered necks walked forward. Quickly she threw the shirts over each of them. At once their swans’ skins fell off and there, once again, stood her own brothers, strong and handsome. Only the youngest and the littlest lacked a left arm, and in its place there remained a swan’s wing.”
The Six Swans
The Brothers Grimm

The Six Swans was one of my favorite tales when I was a little girl but I always wondered what happened to the last and littlest prince with his swan’s wing for an arm. Now I know.

Rafe Martin has done a marvelous thing with his Birdwing. He’s told the story of Ardwin Birdwing, the littlest prince, the one with the wing. Birdwing is a fantastic and magical coming of age story.

Ardwin is home now, back in the palace with his father the king and learning to live with his wing. The thing is sometimes the wing has a mind of its own. It wants to soar, to fly through the skies again and sometimes, so does Ardwin. He alone of the brothers looks back fondly of the time when they were swans. He can also understand the language of animals and this gives him a great sensitivity.

The people of the town and palace aren’t all so comfortable having a prince around with a swan’s wing for an arm. He’s called Prince Freak by some and feels isolated. Determined not to let his disability keep him from doing princely things, Ardwin becomes skilled with weapons, bow and arrow, spear and sword. He wins friends too, loyal ones like Stephen and Skye. The story could just end there and it would still be wonderful.

However, there is unrest in the kingdom. The neighboring mad king is pushing for an alliance by marrying Ardwin off to his widowed daughter Alisoun. He sends emissaries with a mechanical golden arm and Ardwin, fearing that his father means to cut his wing off and attach the arm to him, flees with his friends. He is determined to find the swans and himself. The adventure that follows is a wild and unexpected one and one sure to enchant you.

Rafe Martin’s characters are rich and well developed and I fell in love with this book and with Ardwin. He is an amazingly complex person and so interesting that I hung on every word. I could see this book becoming a full length animated feature film and I sure hope someone options it. It’s simply amazing. I think we'll be hearing great things of Rafe Martin.

A Gift of Gracias : The Legend of Altagracia

A Gift of Gracias : The Legend of Altagracia
Author: Julia Alvarez
Illustrator: Beatriz Vidal
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0375824251

Julia Alvarez is the author of many wonderful books including, Before We Were Free, winner of the Pura Belpre Award. In A Gift of Gracias Ms. Alvarez pulls from the legends of her Native Dominican Republic to weave a magical, meaningful and completely charming story.

A Gift of Gracias is the story of María who loves on a finca where her family are trying unsuccessfully to grow olives. One day María’s father and Quisqueya, the Taino Indian that is part of the family bring home a basket of oranges as payment for work they had done in the city. As María’s father talks of moving his family to the city where there is work, María begins to cry into her bowl of orange pits. That night, she dreams of planting oranges on the barren land and of a beautiful woman wearing a robe of stars who says that her name is Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia.

The next morning, María tells her family of the dream and they all gather the orange seeds and begin planting them, saying gracias after each individual seed is placed into the waiting earth. In just a few short months, the trees are fully grown and give a bounteous harvest of oranges. As María’s father and Quisqueya prepare to take the oranges into the city to sell them, María asks her father to bring her an image of the Señora de la Altagracia. Her father searches but no one has such an image and he and Quisqueya head back to the finca. As Quisqueya sits in the night, he sees la Señora in the sky smiling at him. Stars fall and Quisqueya catches them with his blanket.

When they arrive home, it is far too dark to pick the oranges and Quisqueya opens his blanket where miraculously an image of the Altagracia appears glowing with light enough to illuminate the orchard.

This story reminded me so much of the stories I grew up hearing from my grandmother about Juan Diego, of his tilma santa and the Virgencita de Guadalupe or Tonantzin as the Mexica called her. Ms. Alvarez writes that the Taino Indians of the Dominican Republic’s name for their land was Quisqueya which means Mother Earth and that they saw their Madre Tierra in the image of Altagracia the same way we find our Tonantzin in the brown face of our Virgen de Guadalupe.

The illustrations are gorgeous and bright. Beatriz Vidal also illustrated A Library for Juana by Pat Mora as well as several others. Her greens and oranges capture the feeling of the orange orchard and she brings that color into every page bringing the oranges and nature to the forefront even in her illustrations of the interior of the house. You can almost smell and taste the fruit. My favorite illustration in the book is the one where María is crying and her tears look just like the orange seeds in the bowl.

My grandmother would have loved this story. She grew up in the orange orchards of Piru, California and she loved sitting on her patio telling me stories of saints as she pared orange peels into long curls that fell into her apron. She had a special love for the Virgencita in all her many facets and I’m sure she would have found the Altagracia very special.

This story is beautiful and moving. It reminds us to give thanks. It teaches of another face of our powerful and generous Madre Tierra and of how much we rely on her for our sustenance. It seems to me it is also a loving tribute by the author to her native land and shows also her love of nature and the earth. Gracias to Julia Alvarez and gracias to Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia for reminding me to be grateful, for bringing to mind yet another beautiful memory of my much missed and beloved grandmother Lupe.

Napí

Title: Napí
Author:Antonio Ramírez
Illustrator: Domi
Publisher: Groundwood Books
ISBN: 0888996101

Napí is the story of a young Mazateca girl who lives in a small village near the bank of a river in Mexico. The story is ethereal and dreamlike as is the artwork. Napí likes to dream, she dreams of colors, of feelings, of herons flying through the wind. She talks of her village, of her Naa (mother in Mazateca) making tortillas and of the ancient pachota tree that is the center of her village.

Napí is poor, at least she says so. However, her story is of a girl who feels safe and secure, who loves her village, her huilpilli's in bright colors and her family. She loves the pachota tree under which her belly button cord is buried, the herons who live and nest in it and the colors of nature and her village. Color is important in this book, each page is dedicated to it and the lovely wash of watercolors in brilliant and vibrant colors enhance and compliment Napí's dreams of colors and the river.

Domi illustrated Subcommandante Marcos' The Story of Colors and I love her use of color and the way her paintings have not only a dreamlike quality but also of their indigenous look and feel. This is especially true in this book of an indigenous girl living in her Mazateca village. Domi is Mazateca herself and this book reflects her love of her people and their customs. My favorite illustration is the one where the pachota tree becomes alive at night with as the herons fill the branches like blossoms. It's simply beautiful.

Antonio Ramírez is an artist who has worked in many media, including books and murals. Thisis his first book. He lives in Mexico with his wife, Domi and they are both very active working for the rights of Native people in Mexico, especially in connection with the Zapatista movement in Chiapas through the Colectivo Callejero, of which they were founding members.

I hope you will find this book as beautiful as I did and enjoy it.

Where Fireflies Dance / Ahí, donde bailan las luciérnagas

Title: Where Fireflies Dance / Ahí, donde bailan las luciérnagas
Author: Lucha Corpi
Illustrator: Mira Reisberg
Publisher: Children's Book Press
ISBN: 0892391456


Lucha Corpi's first book for children is a warm trip back to her own childhood memories of the tropical town of Jaltipán, Mexico. Where the Fireflies Dance is the story of young Lucha and her brother Victor told in the style of a Mexican grandmother telling stories by the fire. The story begins with Lucha and Victor braving a haunted house where the ghost of Juan Sebastián, once a soldier in Emiliano Zapata's army, is said to roam. The story tells of the children's love for music, of standing outside a cantina and saving their quarters just to be able to hear the music coming from the marvelous jukebox. They listen to their father sing corridos, boleros and other music every night, listen to their grandmother's stories and learn of destiny.

The story is charming and very family oriented. These are happy children secure and warm in the love of their family. It made me smile because while Lucha and Victor were very obedient, they also seemed to be just the tiniest bit traviesos. I've always had a special soft spot in my heart for traviesos. The illustrations by Mira Reisberg are colorful and bright, complimenting the story beautifully. They have a texture to them that makes me think of a collage or a brightly colored piñata.

I love books like this one, where the writing and the illustrations enhance each other so much so that you can hear the music, smell the air and feel the ghost of Juan Sebastián riding by on his horse to follow his destiny. It is evocative and heady - more of an experience than a read. ¿Qué padre, no? Read it in the warmth of the cocina with something delicious on the stove and your family all around you. Read it out loud and savor each word of the story, each color of the paintings as you would good chocolate y pan dulce.

My Diary from Here to There/Mi Diario De Aqui Hasta All

My Diary from Here to There/Mi Diario De Aqui Hasta Alla
Author: Amada Irma Perez
Illustrator:Maya Christina Gonzalez (Illustrator)

My Diary From Here to There/Mi diario De Aqui Hasta Alla was better than good, it's a great book and I fell in love with it.

The book tells the story of Amada, a young girl living in Juarez, Mexico who has just found out that her family is going to be making a big move to the United States. Her diary chronicles her feelings and fears, her hopes and dreams. She is worried to be leaving to a strange new land and leaving behind all that she loves in Mexico. The author is a third grade teacher and the book is based on her own move as a youngster. There is some mighty fine and poetic writing in this little book.

As Amada writes about the tortilla shop in her Juarez neighborhood, the line "hands blurring like hummingbirds wings" describing the women making tortillas by hand struck me to the core with it's simple beauty. This is poetry. The diary is bilingual and the language in Spanish is just, if not more poetic and lovely.

My Diary From Here to There is a thoughtful and moving account of a family making a big transition. So many of us either remember such a crossing or have family members that have done the same, taking risks to make a new life here. Amada writes of the challenges and of painful separation from her father who has gone ahead to the fields of Delano, California. She writes a brief letter home mentioning a young Cesar Chavez beginning his lifelong fight for the migrant workers.

There are observations in this book that make you stop and think. Take, for example, "two countries looking exactly the same on both sides of the border with giant saguaros pointing up at the pink-orange sky and enormous clouds." Makes you think, no? How different are we really and why is this border even an issue?

The illustrations by Maya Christina Gonzalez are gorgeous. The more I see of her artwork, the more I am struck by it's power and beauty. She has this way of capturing the very essence of the beauty that is the Mexican women - grace, strength, determination, warmth and most of all the love for familia that shines out of their eyes. Each illustration has a mural like quality and with each look, you find more and more to amaze at.

I would encourage anyone to buy this book - adults and children both will be enchanted and moved.