Customer Reviews

It's All In The Frijoles: 100 Famous Latinos Share Real Life Stories Time Tested Dichos Favorite Folkta

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You don't have to be Hispanic to love this book. On these pages you will find insight and inspiration for everyone. It gives an Anglo like me an indepth view of a community filled with wisdom and bursting with great stories. I highly recommend it.

"Trabaja para mas valer, estudia para mas saber." Work to be worth more, study to know more. This book is a gem. It is structured so each chapter has a theme like responsabilidad, respecto, justicia. Famous latinos share a story and then the author links a set of appropriate dichos - commonly known in the english language as proverbs. This book is helpful for those of use who grew up hearing dichos from our abuelitos, but not understanding the historical context. Excellent choice!

To be honest, I expected more folktales and traditional stories from Mexico, but that's not what this is. There are about 100 contributors, each giving a personal story relating to the subject of a particular chapter. There are very few who did this for more than one chapter. This is the main component of the book. This is why I found it a hard book to read cover to cover. Since each chapter is dedicated to a particular virtue, and has a combination of "dichos," and personal stories, all of which are very short - no more than one to two pages long. While one of the reviewers found this to be a good thing, I found it distracting. Another problem is that the "dichos" are often translations of English/American sayings. While there are some sayings that seem to be universal - touch wood, for instance - I find it hard to believe that so many are.
What I was looking for was something to help me remember some of the "dichos" or stories that my mother and abuelita used, now that I have a son. I was hoping to keep some of the same sabor in our house that I grew up with. While I find this book a good additional to my library, it's not quite what I expected or hoped for and it's not better than what I expected.

This book is great! I have been reading the stories to my middle school class of ESL students. They love it. The lessons on Respect, Honor, and Values hit home. We have posted dichos all over our room. I especially like that this book shows Hispanic people who keep thier values and culture can be rich, famous, and respected. Wonderful!!

This book is great, it tells many different stories from many different latinos. It also has some spanish childrens songs that even my mom knew! My favorite part of this book is the "Dichos", they have trancended generations from mexicanos to mexican americans....

It's all In the Frijoles is a great inspirational Book Written by a great Lady Yolanda Nava. The storys and the shareing has brought many memory to many latinas and latinos from Los Angeles and to many other, thru out the South West. Love it! My dear friend choose this book from my libery, It was my gift to her.

I expected short stories or legends from Native Speakers of the Spanish language. Instead it's a few words of wisdom from selected Hispanics talking about their childhood, etc. They are mostly first, second or third generation Americans of Hispanic heritage. I expected something more authentic in order to gain more insight into the Hispanic Culture. I also thought the book was in Spanish, but it's written in English.

I'm a college instructor (UCLA Extension, Loyola Marymount University Extension, The Art Institute of California - Los Angeles, and Brooks College).

In some classes, 40% of my students are Hispanic.

I read the stories in this book to them, and they find them very inspiring.

Given the short attention span of students nowadays, the fact that Nava's stories are short and to the point makes them that much more impactful.

Should be read by everyone in the Hispanic community. It'll open everyone's eyes to the issue of assimilation, that we as a community and part of this country are in big trouble not because we are not assimilating the Americano BUT BECAUSE WE ARE!!!!!!!!!!