Customer Reviews

Snapshots from the Wedding

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

 

 

Flower girl Maya tells the story of her cousin's wedding in vivid detail. She shares her often silly, but always observant tale of the event from a child's point of view. From the groom's broken arm to crying babies, she leaves little to the imagination.

Stephanie Garcia, illustrator of this 1998 Pura Belpre Award winner, uses a unique but effective approach by using photographs of three-dimensional picture boxes to convey the story. The boxes contain realistic clay figures and a collage of items from the wedding. The text and pictures are integrally tied, and the text often cleverly prompts the reader to look at something in the illustration.

This is such a fun book that it needs to be read several times to properly enjoy it. The writer is definitely in tune with a child's point of view.

Although this book is based on a Mexican-American wedding, the theme is universal. A child narrates the book, telling about the events that take place at a wedding. The book exquisitly portrays a family clebration through a child's eyes. It is a happy, sweet book that anyone can enjoy.

A feel-good read for those who like weddings

This story takes the reader into the wedding as it happens. It can trigger memories that the reader may have from weddings that they have attended. Maya, the narrator and main character of the story, tells the story in a way so that the reader can easily visualize what she is describing.

Great illustrations that have a real-life feel to them. True Mexican traditional wedding.

This book took me on a journey into a Mexican Wedding. Maya, the flower girl walks you through her family's wedding and the interesting things that went on that that day through her point of view. The illustrations by Stephanie Garcia are given in a clay form; I personally didn't care for them. The book has some Spanish words but you don't have to worry if you can't read it because Gary Soto did an awesome job of having their definitions in the front of the book. This is a good book to read during Hispanic Heritage month to learn Spanish words and little about the Mexican culture as well. It does make a reference to beer that did catch me off guard. I personally don't believe the reference of beer needed to be included in the book but, that is my opinion. Overall, it's an OK book that won the Pura Belpré which is an award given for books that represent Latino traditions and cultures in a positive way.

The book is an overall good portrait of a family celebration in any culture. The casual reference to beer and keg beer,however, are not acceptable for this age group. When we teach our children (in the drug awareness programs in schools) that alcohol is a drug and is bad, the message we send needs to be consistent. My daughter chose this book off of the shelf at the school library during the same week that they were promoting drug-free schools and really had trouble understanding why the people at the wedding would want to do "something bad for you". She will have plenty of time, in the years to come, to learn more about alcohol and all that it involves. She doesn't need the unsupervised exposure to it at this age.