Young Reading - FIESTA! Celebrate event with Hispanic books

FIESTA! Celebrate event with Hispanic books

Downtown Winston-Salem has buzzed all month with fun, family-oriented events. On Saturday, the Hispanic League will hold Fiesta! from noon until 8 p.m. This is a good chance to prepare your young readers with books that feature the Latino culture, authors and stories.

• MUU, MOO! Rimas de Animales/Animal Nursery Rhymes. HarperCollins. Ages 3-7. 48 pages. $16.99.

Cheerful, bright and full of traditional nursery rhymes from Spain to Latin America, this collection of 17 poems, presented in both Spanish and English, is a lovely and lyrical way to celebrate beautiful language.

• FLOATING ON MAMA’S SONG. Flotando en la Cancion de Mama. By Laura Lacamara. HarperCollins. Ages 4-7. $16.99.

This bilingual book from a Cuban-American author tells a fanciful tale. Anita’s mama sings because it makes her happy, an ordinary part of their lives until the day after Anita’s seventh birthday. Anyone or anything that hears Anita’s mama sing floats. Cows, pigs, and people soar when sweet notes spill from Mama’s mouth. Grandma declares all of this floating to be unsafe, so Mama promises never to sing again. But without song, Mama and everyone around her become increasingly miserable. Grandma finally realizes all of the trouble that staying silent causes and shares the story behind the family gift with Mama and Anita. Grandma, Mama and Anita decide that the side effects are worth the beautiful music; and they all sing (and float) happily together. The book’s vivid illustrations by Mexican-American illustrator Yuyi Morales complete the charmingly written story.

• BIBLIOBURRO. A True Story from Colombia. By Jeanette Winter. Simon & Schuster. Ages 4-7. $16.99.

A Colombian man named Luis had too many books. He purchased two burros, or donkeys, named Alpha and Beta. He took the burros around the foothills of Colombia, loaning out books to children from remote villages. Luis Soriana has been enriching the children and adults of distant villages with his biblioburro, or donkey library, since 2000. In those 10 years, his collection of books has grown from 70 to more than 4,800 books, thanks to donations from around the world. This inspiring story shows the difference that one man, a few books and passion can make.

• SIDE BY SIDE/LADO A LADO. The Story of Delores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. By Monica Brown. HarperCollins. Ages 4-8. $16.99.

This bilingual biography of activists Delores Hurerta and Cesar Chavez tells of their heroic efforts to ensure rights for migrant farm workers in California. Their work led to the immigration act of 1986 and helped pioneer social justice reform for millions of laborers. Simple but powerful, this book both inspires and educates.

• MY HAVANA. By Rosemary Wells with Secundino Fernandez. Candlewick. Ages 9-12. 65 pages. $17.99.

Dino Fernandez was a young boy in Havana, Cuba. His favorite pastime was drawing the Cuban architecture surrounding him. He left the city for the first time when he was 6 years old to go to Spain and take care of an uncle. In the following years, the Fernandez family was forced to move many times. When Fidel Castro came into power in 1959, Dino and his family moved to New York. His homesickness was so great that he constructed a cardboard model of his beautiful hometown. Dino had difficulty transitioning from his warm, colorful hometown to the cold and gray city, where he is now a successful architect who remembers his childhood home and homesickness. This is a heartwarming story about immigration, family and passion. My Havana inspires reminiscing in its readers.

• THE DREAMER. By Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis. Scholastic. Ages 9-14. $16.99. 370 pages.

The indigo and silver cover with a silhouette of a boy first entices readers to pick up this beautiful book. With pleasure, we discovered that the content matches the beauty of the exterior. The authors tell the story of absent-minded, dreamy Neftali Reyes. He earns harsh disapproval from his father because of his head-in-the-clouds demeanor. Neftali is entranced by all that he sees in his native Chile. His father cannot quell his desire to celebrate nature, and Neftali begins to write evocative poetry under the name of Pablo Neruda. Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Poetry in 1971. This fictional account of his childhood re-creates what inspired the Chilean poet to write the moving verses that have become lyrical classics.