Review by Ariadna Sánchez
Día de los Muertos or Day of the Death is approaching. In preparation for this amazing festivity, reading Mi Familia Calaca/ My Skeleton Family by Cynthia Weill in collaboration with Oaxacan paper mache artisan Jesús Canseco Zárate is a great way to start the celebration.
Weill’s latest bilingual book gives a glance of the vast Mexican art. Anita is a young calacagirl, who introduces each member of her skeleton family. With short and catching sentences in English and Spanish, each character reveals its beauty to the young readers. Each page shows a colorful encounter starting with Anita’s brother Miguel (el travieso/the brat), followed by her cute baby brother Juanito, then her stylish mother, next her handsome father, as well as her adorable grandparents, and last but not least her cat and dog.
The astonishing art created by Canseco Zárate pops-out automatically like jack-in-the-box. The wonderful sculptures in paper mache are a pleasure for the senses.
Mi Familia Calaca/ My Skeleton Family is a must read for the season. Reading gives you wings. Visit your local library to check out more exciting stories.
For additional information about Cynthia Weill’s books and artisan Jesús Canseco Zárate’s calacas click on the following links:
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Latino/a Rising is the first collection of U.S. Latino/a science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres.
There is a growing movement of people who are interested in the incredible U.S. Latino/a writers and artists who have turned to science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres. Latino/a Rising: An Anthology of U.S. Latino/a Speculative Fictionwill introduce the public to the work of these writers and artists.
With the exception of Edward James Olmos’ Bladerunner and Battlestar Galactica, positive U.S. Latino/a characters have been largely absent from mainstream speculative fiction novels and films. Films such as Men in Black and Alien Nation, and shows such as X-Files, express the anxiety that the mainstream has concerning Latinos/as and recent immigrants. Latino/a Rising will contest this trend, showing how Latino/a writers and artists are transforming the genres.
Please support this project
Review by Ariadna Sánchez
The southern Mexican state of Oaxaca celebrates the Guelaguetza every July. Guelaguetza means sharing. This festivity brings together the splendor of the eight regions of Oaxaca through dances, music, food, and art.
Count me in! is written by Cynthia Weill and complemented by the talented Aguilar Sisters. Count me in! is a colorful and artistic counting book with the unique and finest ceramic figurines made by the gifted Aguilar sisters.Count me in! offers an unforgettable bilingual experience while learning numbers one through ten along the músicos, pretty danzantes and joyful niñas y niños as each page shows the traditional calenda before the Guelaguetza begins. Una marmota, an enormous white balloon held by a wooden stick, leads the parade with la banda de musica playing. Dos cueteros come along to throw firecrackers into the air. Tres músicos follow the cueteros. Cuatro monos or giants puppets bring happiness to the parade. The world-known art by Guillermina, Josefina, Irene and Concepción Aguilar will show Oaxaca’s beauty as you count from one to ten. Visit the nearest library to read this amazing book. Reading gives you wings!
The Aguilar sisters are Mexico’s most beloved artisans. They learned how to make clay figurines from their mother Isaura Álcantara Diaz. These lively independent women are considered great masters of Mexican folk art and have been presented to Queen Elizabeth, Queen Sofia of Spain, various Mexican presidents and Nelson Rockefeller. Their humorous ceramics of the people of their town and state are in museum collections worldwide.
The collection of parade figures from Count Me In was acquired by the Field Museum in Chicago for its permanent collection.
*For more about Aguilar Sisters of Oaxaca, check the following links:
Cynthia Weill, illustrated with folk art by Artisans from Oaxaca,
Colores de la vida: Mexican Folk Art Colors in English and Spanish
Cinco Puntos Press, 2011.
Ages: 2+
Hypnotic. The word is hypnotic. A deep green lizard with a jolting yellow band around its neck leaps off the light green page – literally. Green / verde. Two white polar bears curve into the even whiter page, fine black lines of their fearsome claws made bold by the painter’s brush. White / blanco. From full-color spread to full-color spread, Cynthia Weill uses hypnotic photographs of folk art figures from artisans from Oaxaca to illustrate the beauty, art, and vibrancy of the Colores de la vida, colors of life, in an unforgettable book as much about the wonder of the ways we can imagine the world around us as about names of colors.
Anyone who has had the pleasure of reading ABeCedarios (2007) or Opuestos (2009) will recognize the stylized, vibrantly-painted Oaxacan figures arranged in sets of twos and threes on each spread of marbleized papers in the same hues. Like her previous two books in the highly successful “First Concepts in Mexican Folk Art” series, Author Cynthia Weill brilliantly illustrates the theme of the book – colors – using folk art from other nations and culture. Using friendships formed and connections made during her time in Mexico as a Fullbright scholar, Weill employs artisans from across Oaxaca, both aspiring and well-known, to create the ceramic, tin, wood-carved and papier-mâché figures used.
Colores de la vida supplies minimal text, placing only a single word, the color name, printed in its namesake hue in English and Spanish. This lack of explanation or words, including what the animals actually are, reinforces the irresistible draw between viewer and animal figure. What are those extraordinary winged yellow figures heralding irrepressible glee as an egg hatches a third figure near them. A dragon? Another mythical figure? Each page captures a sense of wonder, of the vibrancy of color, the imagination of the artist, the name of the hue. Colors take life in this small picture book, perfect for small hands, in an astonishing pairing of visual intimacy and artistic joy that make this one of the most distinctive recent books on color – in English or otherwise.
Sara Hudson
April 2011
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