Customer Reviews

Tortillas and Lullabies/Tortillas y cancioncitas (Spanish Edition)

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The author writes with ease of deeds performed by one generation after another, the text of the story written in the language of love, as each tends to the needs of the next, passing along ritual and tradition from great-grandmother to grandmother to mother to daughter. No matter what the effort, making tortillas, gathering flowers, washing dresses, or singing lullabies: "Each time it was the same, but different." Accompanied with the simple, yet profound bilingual text, the artwork is striking, memorable for its vivid color and imagination, all the images created by a group of artists, the "Corazones Valientes" ("Valiant Hearts"), six women from nineteen to forty-two who first showed their exhibit of art in a Puerto Rican farming village from 1989-1992.

Supplemented by the striking artwork, the generational concept is beautifully rendered, this oversized gem a treasure, either teaching a youngster the nature of familial love or for those adults who are never too old to appreciate the uncompromising beauty of gifted artists in support of a universal theme. An elegant, stunning picture book with bilingual text, this tale is for young and old alike. Luan Gaines/2006.

I'll admit that at first glance this seems like a nice simple story about a mother and daughter who love each other.

But after reading an article about the writing and illustrating of this book, I found it to be so much more. I now think of it as something that truly shows cultural differences.

It seems that the author had recruited some ladies from Costa Rica to do the illustrations for this book and when it came to the cooking part, she wanted them to draw a picture of a mother taking something out of the microwave. The ladies refused to do it. "But what if the mother has been working all day and is too busy to make a real meal" she said. "Then another relative would have to make the meal" they said. It seems the argument went back and forth until the ladies gave back the money they had been given to do the project and refused to have anything else to do with it until the mother was shown making fresh tortillas and not a microwaved burrito.

I love that story and the idea that it portrays that Mothers love their daughters and want the best for them. Not something fast and easy (although we all realize that that is going to happen sometimes) but something that takes a little time and effort and shows that they truly do care for them in a special way.

That is why I love this book!