Customer Reviews

P is for Pinata: A Mexico Alphabet (Discover the World)

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

 

 

This is a great book! My only criticism is that the title is P Is For Pinata and when you get to P in the text you find that P is actually for Prickly Pear.

I would have thought this should be mentioned somewhere in the professional reviews, but I didn't see it.

Certainly not a reason to discard, but something that should have come up in editing.

In this unusual ABC book, we meet strange critters like the hairless dog, the Mexican emperor Maximilian, painters, Gods and learn about everything from food to skeletons (calacas.) They say that the hairless dog is very ugly and is "completely naked except for an occasional bit of head fuzz," but people love them every bit as much as we love our pets.

H is for Hairless Dog

The hairless is not bird, nor fish, nor frog.
It could be called the very first hot dog.

Among the many people in this book one of particular interest is Frida Kahlo, a very famous painter. When she was a child, she had polio and to make it even worse when she was eighteen she was run over by a streetcar and nearly killed. Her mother was very ingenious and set up an apparatus so she could paint in bed. Perhaps you can find out more about her and learn about her "amazing eyebrows."

I was not expecting a work of such depth in a picture book and was pleasantly surprised! The sidebar histories were very informative and would be very useful in any classroom or homeschool setting. This is a mini-Mexican, Hispanic history book in disguise, not just a simple ABC primer. Learning about other cultures can be fun with books like these! Can you say maravilloso?

This book made learning about a different culture fun, colorful and engaging. I recommend it highly.