Bless Me, Ultima

I had so much to write about Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima. Really! Just take a look at my copy that is not only long overdue (eep!) but is covered in those little sticky tabs and dog-eared where I didn't have sticky tabs handy. Unfortunately, it's taken me some time to get around to writing this entry so a lot of what I wanted to say has slipped my mind. That happens to me sometimes. I'd never read this classic of Chicano literature but the fact that we are both celebrating the same birthday this year (does that make me a classic too?) and its place on the lengthy list of books that were part of the now defunct Mexican American Studies curriculum in Arizona prompted me to pick up finally pick up a copy. It did not disappoint. And again, I was left wondering why none of my honor and AP English teachers ever introduced me to this book.

Bless Me, Ultima is the coming-of-age story of Antonio Marez, a young New Mexican boy. The story is set at the end of World War II and spans about three years of the child's life beginning with the arrival of Ultima, the well-known curandera and family friend who movies in with Antonio's family. While the story is primarily Antonio's, the boy's coming-of-age is also symbolic of, in a sense, the transitions his own family and surroundings are going through. Ultima's arrival poses the potential for upheaval in the family structure, but in reality, she serves as the anchor and the last link to a past--a culture and a way of life--that is quickly changing.

The story is told from Antonio's point of view, a child between the ages of about seven to about ten, and yet the it feels like it could be a teenager or even an adult. His struggles and fears have the potential to resonate with all because they are so typically human, those enduring issues that make up life no matter what your age--faith, good versus evil, change. Antonio reminds me of what it was like to be a child so full of questions and wonder and fear. We witness the experience of being a Mexican American child, not able to speak English, in a classroom of White children.

"At noon we opened our lunches to eat. Miss Maestas left the room and a high school girl came and sat at the desk while we ate. My mother had packed a small jar of hot beans and some good, green chile wrapped in tortillas. When the other children saw my lunch they laughed and pointed again. Even the high school girl laughed. They showed me their sandwiches which were made of bread. Again I did not feel well."

And at the end of his first school day:

"The pain and sadness seemed to spread to my soul, and I felt for the first time what the grown-ups call, la tristesa de la vida. I wanted to run away, to hid, to run and never come back, never see anyone again."

But along with this sadness we also see the comfort of family and community:

"We always enjoyed our stay at El Puerto. It was a world where people were happy, working, helping each other. The ripeness of the harvest piled around the mud houses and lent life and color to the songs of the women. Green chile was roasted and dried, and red chile was tied into colorful ristras. Apples piled high, some lent their aroma to the air from where they dried in th sun on the lean-to roofs and others as they bubbled into jellies and jams. At night we sat around the fireplace and ate baked apples spiced with sugar and cinnamon and listened to the cuentos, the old stories of the people."

Bless Me, Ultima was National Endowment for the Arts Big Read selection, an honor that recognizes its deserved place in American literature. Despite being focusing on a very specific community, it tells the story of the kinds of changes people throughout the country were experiencing--the effects of war on family, the loss of old ways to new ways. Here we see these changes from the eyes of a child who is also dealing with growing up. I think about this book in the context of its subject matter and the time in which it was published, and I feel grateful that it has endured.

Chavela and the Magic Bubble

Chavela and the Magic Bubble. Written by Monica Brown; Illustrated by Magaly Morales. New York: Clarion Books, 2010.

   Who, as a child, did not at some point dream of blowing a bubble so large it might lift them away? Chavela, who never met a piece of gum she didn’t like, has a gift for blowing bubbles. She blows bubbles in the shapes of dogs and butterflies and one day, chewing an entire pack of “Magic Chicle” she buys on a trip to the market with her abuela, Chavela blows a bubble so large she is flown across the landscapes of California, Arizona and Texas to her grandmother’s childhood in the rainforest of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. In the forest, Chavela learns of the sapodilla, a tree whose sap is the base for chewing gum, and of the chicleros who slash z-shaped cuts into the trunk of the sapodilla to harvest its sap. Through her encounter with the young daughter of a chiclero, Chavela also comes to learn about her own history.  

   In the Latin American literary tradition of magical realism, Monica Brown connects the real with the fantastical and the past with the present. Brown takes a simple childhood past time and creates a story that is in part about an endangered ecosystem and a declining way of life, but also about familial love and a child’s place in the larger world. Chavela and the Magic Bubble emphasizes the important role of grandparents as care givers and as guardians of history and memory, a theme often found in other children’s books featuring Latino protagonists. While Chavela’s journey takes her to the rainforest where the sap of the sapodilla trees is being harvested, the story does not go into great detail on the conditions of the forest and the lives of the workers. Brown simply introduces these individuals and way of life and taps into a reader’s curiosity. The author’s note provides more information about the Mexican rainforest, the harvesting of chicle, and the destruction of these ecosystems with resources for more information. Also included in the author’s note are the music and lyrics to the Latin American song "Tengo Una Muneca" ("I Have A Doll"), which is sung by the children Chavela meets on her journey.

   The story is engaging, filling the reader with wonder and excitement for what will happen when Chavela is swept away by a bubble, but the real strength of the book is its design and illustration. From the bright bubble gum pink end papers to the typeface and text, the design of the book allows the reader the opportunity to experience what is happening in Chavela’s world. Typeface changes to emphasize words. A bubble letter font, similar to the bubble letters all young children learn to draw at some point, highlights the word “bubble” throughout the text. Different colors and fonts are used for Spanish words as well as other key descriptive words of action, color, texture and direction. Text wraps around images to emphasize shape and movement as when the reader sees Chavela blowing a bubble from her “Magic Chicle.” Within the bubble the text spirals outward: “Chavela chewed and chewed and then took a deep breath and blew a great big bubble that got bigger...and bigger...and bigger until....” The font grows with each “bigger” and the reader can practically feel the anticipation of blowing a bubble that continues to grow until.... What? You must turn the page to find out! Text floats, climbs, descends and follows the waves of the hills and of Chavela’s flight to and from the rainforest giving the sense that you are following the little girl on her adventure.

   Magaly Morales’ rich, brightly colored acrylic paintings of Chavela and the children of the chicleros exude the joy and magic of childhood. The children sing, play, march and leap. Morales’ illustrations of the natural world, including the sun, the moon, plants, birds and butterflies, with their swirls and curlicues, are reminiscent of Mesoamerican art. Chavela is followed on her journey, and in each illustration, by a Resplendent Quetzal, the colorful, long-tailed bird that is found throughout the tropical cloud forests of Cental America. Each illustration engages readers by challenging them to look for the bird.

   Chavela and the Magic Bubble is as sweet as the chicle Chavela loves to chew. The illustrations, design, and story work together beautifully to make this a book that is a delight to look at and fun to read. The variety of themes, as well as the design and artwork make Chavela and the Magic Bubble a perfect candidate for a story time that focuses on any one of a number of themes including the environment, Hispanic heritage, Latin American history, or learning about the origin of common products found in our everyday lives (especially those of interest to children). While it may appeal to children of all genders and races who enjoy stories involving magic and adventure, as an addition to the canon of picture books featuring multicultural protagonists, Chavela and the Magic Bubble should also be noted for its potential appeal to Latino children looking for books that feature faces not unlike their own.

An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio

An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio by Judith Ortiz Cofer. New York: Puffin Books, 1995.

It seems fitting that the first Pura Belpre Award winner in the narrative category is by Judith Ortiz Cofer who, like Belpre, is a native of Puerto Rico. Cofer came to the United States at a young age and, like the characters in the stories that make up An Island Like You, grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. This collection of stories features Puerto Rican-American teens growing up teetering that all-too-familiar line between cultures. In addition to the cultural divide between the children and their parents, socio-economic and racial divisions, provide conflict throughout the stories. 

While twelve separate short stories, characters reappear throughout giving each distinct person an opportunity to share his or her voice. Each character is a study in adolescence with all its complexities and its ups and downs. The reviled bully of one story becomes the heartbreaking hero of another. The bad girl who draws little sympathy in one story mourns her father in another. Cofer created multidimensional characters that are more than just one thing or another. Weaving them throughout each other’s stories allows the reader to see them in different lights, to understand how they relate to one another, and to discover the sources of their pain and inner conflict, proving that there is often more than meets the eye. Cofer’s characters are diverse in personalities, interests, and appearances, breaking the stereotypes that often come with Latino, and in this case specifically Puerto Rican, characters in the media. You get the punk, the beauty, the ugly duckling, the brain, and more. Their cultural background makes them different in some ways, and yet, as teenagers they belong to a distinct culture of sorts that has nothing to do with differences in language or appearance. One of the most interesting features is the fact that many of the characters are not fluent in Spanish, perhaps one of the reasons why many of them struggle with conforming to the world in which their parents are trying to raise them, one in which they attempt to insert the culture, religion and ways of their own childhoods into a completely different time and place. One of my favorite passages that illustrates these clashing worlds is from “Home to El Building:”

Anita walks slowly past the familiar sights: shops, bodegas, and bars of the street where she’s lived all her life, feeling like she’s saying adios, and good riddance to it all. Her destination is the future. She is walking toward love. But first she has to get past her life that’s contained by this block. The barrio is like an alternate universe. That’s what they call it on Star Trek when the crew of the starship Enterprise find themselves in another world that may look like Earth, but where the natives have history turned around, and none of the usual rules apply. In these streets, on this block, people speak in Spanish, even though they’re in the middle of New Jersey; they eat fruits and vegetables that grow only in a tropical country; and they (Anita is thinking of her parents now) try to make their children behave like they were living in another century....

Having grown up in the alternate universe that was my Miami neighborhood, I know exactly what Anita is talking about, as will many other young reader growing up with similar experiences.

While there are no specific pop cultural references, some of the stories do have a somewhat dated tone. The story “White Balloons,” in which the neighborhood teens rally to help out a gay man who grew up on the barrio and returns, sick with AIDS, to fulfill a dream before he dies, feels like it comes from a very specific period in the past. I am not so deluded to think that uninformed and backward attitudes towards homosexuality and AIDS have changed drastically, but these have changed to some extent in the past couple of decades, which makes the story feel very early-to-mid-1990s. 

Not sure how often this book is assigned as high school or college reading. It was assigned in a recent class I took on books and other material for young adults. I have to wonder if this is a testament to its ability to stand the test of time or if there has been no other work of Latino-focused YA published since 1995 worthy of inclusion on the reading list of a YA literature course. Nevertheless, it is a classic of Latino youth literature. The struggle to find one's place will resonate with teens regardless of racial or cultural background.

Under the Mesquite

Garcia McCall, Guadalupe. Under the Mesquite. New York: Lee & Low Books Inc., 2011. Ages 12 and up. 9781600604294   

Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s poignant debut novel-in-verse carries readers over the course of Lupita’s high school years as her adolescence unfolds in the shadow of her mother’s cancer. Throughout the novel Lupita struggles to navigate her often conflicted sense of place, caught between the past and her future: her role as both child and adult in the family; and as an immigrant still strongly rooted in her homeland but also learning to adapt to her new home. She dreams of acting, writing and going to college, but as the oldest of eight siblings, must balance these aspirations with her familial responsibilities. Woven into the story are Lupita’s memories of her childhood in Mexico. While most of the book takes place in Lupita’s present, these memories of Mexico serve to contrast her life before and after her mother’s illness and her family’s arrival in the United States. Her memories are of a happier, more peaceful, and more colorful life.


In Under the Mesquite Garcia McCall manages to create a multidimensional protagonist many young adults, regardless of background, can identify with. Young adults who have experienced the loss of a parent to a terminal illness will find themselves in Lupita’s emotional journey through her mother’s treatments and failing health. Immigrants and children of immigrants will see themselves in Lupita as she searches for a sense of place and identity in a new country. Teens in general will identify with Lupita as she makes her way through the social pressures of high school and tries to understand what it means to grow up.

Author interviews reveal that Under the Mesquite is semi-autobiographical. Like Lupita, Garcia McCall also emigrated from Mexico to Eagle Pass, Texas, a border town, as a young child. Perhaps it is this especially personal tie to her protagonist that enabled Garcia McCall to convey so well the emotions, in all the joyful and heartbreaking moments, of her characters. Garcia McCall’s poetic imagery captures the sights and sounds of Lupita’s world. It is easy to visualize potato skins falling like "old maple leaves" and to hear the sighing of a plastic bag and the whispering of a pencil on paper. Equally vivid is the way in which Garcia McCall depicts Lupita's relationship with her siblings. She struggles to be independent and to move away from her family all the while being so deeply entrenched in her role within the group. There is a clear sense of the bond, at times alternating between accepting and resentful, but always loving, that keeps them together through petty sibling disagreements and through tragedy:   

The six of us sisters
were round beads knotted side by side,
like pearls on a necklace,
strung so close together
we always made one another cry. 

Much like the mesquite from the book’s title, a tree with the ability to adapt and survive in almost any type of environment, Lupita is resilient and able to maintain a sense of hope despite the pain and grief she experiences during her mother’s illness and death. This book had my heart in its grip from the very first poem, "the story of us," in which Lupita searches her mother's purse "stealing secretos / mining for knowledge." I saw an image of myself as a young person, the child of immigrants who guarded their secretos tightly too, searching my own mother's purse unsure of what I was looking for or what I might find, but knowing there were things to be discovered. Highly recommended!

The book includes a glossary of names, Spanish words and cultural references. Check out the Lee & Low Books Webpage for Under the Mesquite for some nice features including a few audio clips of Garcia McCall reading poems from the book.

Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald No Combina. Written by Monica Brown; Illustrated by Sara Palacios; Spanish Translation by Adriana Dominguez; San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press, 2011. Ages 4 - 8

Marisol McDonald doesn’t match! Her clothes don’t match. Her peanut butter and jelly burritos don’t match. And her brown skin and red hair certainly don’t match. Despite the fact that her lack of coordination is repeatedly pointed out to her, Marisol is happy with her mismatched lifestyle. That is, until, a classmate poses the ultimate challenge. Determined to prove that she can match, Marisol spends a day attempting to do so only to find herself miserable. 

In Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match, Brown and Palacios combine their talents to tell a story that is, on the surface, about a little girl coming to terms with not conforming to expectations. On a deeper level, the book sheds light on the issues of identity and belonging biracial children often struggle with. Brown, the daughter of a Peruvian mother and a North American father who describes herself as a “mestiza Peruvian American of European, Jewish, and Amerindian heritage” draws from her own experiences as a multiracial child to write Marisol’s story.

Palacios’ brightly colored mixed-media illustrations, a combination of mediums that include collage, color pencils, pencil, markers and gouache, complement Brown’s story, but also serve to capture the diversity of Marisol’s world. The signs and notes posted in Marisol’s home and community are in both English and Spanish. Her classmates are white, African-American and Asian. Marisol’s teacher Ms. Apple, who with green eyes and brown skin appears to be biracial as well, is the individual who reaffirms and encourages the little girl to be herself. Palacios, a native of Mexico City, manages to perfectly convey the blandness that can come from trying to fit in with her illustration of Marisol standing in front of her mirror before heading off to school. Dressed from head to toe in orange that matches her hair, Marisol appears washed out, easily blending into the backgrounds of the illustrations that follow her day. 

Like Marisol, the book is also bilingual. The story is written in English with a Spanish translation that equally shares space on the pages. Marisol’s devil-may-care attitude and self-confidence will empower children who do not fit into cookie cutter molds because of their multiracial backgrounds, and will also appeal to any child who is beginning to develop an awareness of societal pressures to fit in. Her combination of dots, stripes and patterned Peruvian chullo hats is only a scratch at the surface of Marisol’s colorful story. While it appears that Marisol doesn’t match she is, in fact, representative of what American society is beginning to resemble. Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match is a celebration of our increasingly colorful and less homogeneous nation.  

Kirkus Star for "books of remarkable merit"

Junior Library Guild Selection, Fall 2011