¡El Cucuy! : A Bogeyman Cuento in English and Spanish (English and Spanish Edition) [Hardcover]

Joe Hayes (Author), Honorio Robledo (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2001

So, you’ve been mouthing off to your parents a bit lately, not listening when they tell you to put your dirty socks in the hamper? They tell you that if you don’t shape up they are going to call the bogeyman to come and get you. You laugh. There is no such thing as a bogeyman.

A sharp knock comes at the door. Nobody is around so you answer. Standing at the door is the oldest man you have ever seen—his back is hunched and one of his ears is big and red. He grabs for your arm and you know now that the bogeyman is for real.

This particular bogeyman is called el Cucuy (pronounced coo-COO-ee). He comes directly from Mexico. They say with that big red ear that he can hear everything! In this cautionary tale, master storyteller Joe Hayes tells how two girls didn’t listen to their father’s warnings—just like you—and el Cucuy snatched them up. Of course, the story has a happy ending!

Joe Hayes has become one of America’s premier storytellers, traveling around the country to schools, universities and professional conferences to tell stories from the Southwest. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America’s storytellers. Hayes lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Illustrator Honorio Robledo grew up in a small village in southwestern Mexico. His art is influenced by the Surrealists but also by the native painters of Veracruz that express through color all the riches of the region. Robledo lives in Los Angeles, California.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Respected raconteur Hayes (La Llorona, The Weeping Woman) offers a forewarning in the guise of a potentially scary story featuring a familiar figure in the folklore of the American Southwest. His easygoing, bilingual narrative first introduces el Cucuy, a gigantic bogeyman with a crooked back and a large, glowing red ear who is known to come "down from his cave in the mountains to carry bad children away." Readers then meet two lazy sisters who play all day and refuse to help their younger sibling clean house and cook for their widowed father. After warning the delinquent duo that he is going to call the bogeyman on them, the father makes good on his threat and the ominous creature snatches the girls from the dinner table and brings them into the deepest part of his spider-filled cave. Robledo's shadowy, stylized paintings with background shadings reminiscent of El Greco's works capture the terror of the wide-eyed sisters. Their captivity allows them time to reflect on the error of their ways; and when a goatherd rescues them, they discover that their father and sister were searching for them. Youngest readers may be put off by some of the book's gloomier images, despite the happy ending. But most will appreciate this chilling cautionary tale, best enjoyed during the daylight hours. Ages 9-12.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4-This bilingual retelling is a welcome addition for Spanish speakers who may recognize the bogeyman as el Cucuy. He is described as a gigantic old man with a humped back and a large, red left ear that can hear everything (on the cover el Cucuy's right ear is shown as red and huge). The legend goes that "Sometimes he comes down from his cave in the mountains to carry bad children away." A father, troubled by his two eldest daughters' disobedience and laziness, calls out toward the mountains "'aCucuy! aCucuy! Baja para llevarte a estas malcriadas.' Come and get these bad girls." The girls make fun of their father's belief in a bogeyman, and what happens next is not surprising-el Cucuy comes to get them and carries them away to his cave. In the end, the remorseful girls are reunited with their father. The vividly colored illustrations add much to the tale, especially the characters' large eyes, which give an eerie feel to the story. The note at the end is a wonderful resource on the history of this folktale.
Diane Olivo-Posner, Long Beach Public Library, CA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press; 1 edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English, Spanish
• ISBN-10: 0938317547
• ISBN-13: 978-0938317548
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,576,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joe Hayes is one of America's premier storytellers--a nationally recognized teller of tales from the Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America's storytellers. His books, CDs and tapes of Southwestern stories are popular nationwide. Born in Pennsylvania, Joe Hayes moved as a child to a small town in southern Arizona, some fifty miles from the Mexican border. From Mexican-American friends and schoolmates he began to acquire a knowledge of Spanish and an appreciation for Hispanic culture. As an adult, his experience with Spanish helped him find work doing mineral exploration in Mexico and Spain. When Joe moved to New Mexico in 1976, he first taught high school English, but his interest in the rich folklore of the region was already growing. He enjoyed sharing stories with his own children so much that he decided to shape a career for himself as a storyteller. Joe gathered traditional stories of the Southwest, added a little of his own spice and hit the road, traveling all over to share his stories. He has captured the imagination of children in schools all over the United States. In 2005, Joe received the Talking Leaves Literary Award from the National Storytelling Network, an award given to members of the storytelling community who have made considerable and influential contributions to the literature of storytelling. Joe has taught storytelling to teachers at the University of New Mexico and been a guest lecturer at many colleges and universities, delivering the commencement address for the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at U.C.L.A. He was designated a New Mexico Eminent Scholar by the New Mexico Commission on Higher Education, and in 1995 he received the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence. Joe began sharing his stories in print in 1982. His books have received many awards including the Arizona Young Readers Award, two Land of Enchantment Children's Book Awards, and an Aesop Accolade Award. Joe's books have also been on the Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List three times, and Ghost Fever--selected by Texas school children--won the Texas Bluebonnet Award for 2006-2007, the first bilingual book to achieve that distinction.