Monday, April 21, 2008

Latino American Literature- Book Review One

Soto, Gary. Illustrated by Ed Martinez. Too Many Tamales. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1993.

     The story Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto is children's book about a young Mexican American child named Maria. The story starts off with Maria and her mother making tamales for Christmas dinner. When Maria's mother leaves the room for a moment Maria notices that her mother has taken off her wedding ring which was sitting on the table in front of Maria. Because of her admiration for the beautiful sparkling ring, Maria picked it up and tried it on her finger. When her mother returned Maria continued kneading the dough. Later when the tamales were cooked and her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins came over for dinner, Maria suddenly realized she was no longer wearing her mothers wedding ring. Assuming the ring was somewhere in one of the tamales, Maria and her cousins ate all 24 tamales looking for the ring. When all the tamales were gone and the ring still wasn't discovered, Maria decided to confess what happened to her mother. However, as it turns out her mother had found the ring on the table and was wearing it on her finger! Then, Maria and the rest of her family went into the kitchen and worked together to make more tamales. 
      Insider author Gary Soto does an excellent job portraying aspects of the Mexican American culture. The highly valued familial importance and closeness with extended family prevalent in this culture is portrayed in the story. Christmas dinner is spent with Maria's entire extended family and they do things to help each other out. The author also does a good job of mixing a few Spanish words into the text. The use of the word "masa" when describing the dough as well as others similar to this add a realistic and authentic element to the story. Ed Martinez, the illustrator, is also an insider into the Latin American culture. His oil paintings add an authentic visual of this culture that fits along with what the text is portraying. 
 

No comments: