Latino Books

I read Crying Mountain the first edition and was curious about the second edition and read it. I like it a lot.... a lot. I enjoy the small details added to the second edition. I love the foreword by the author and I also enjoyed the pictures. Highly recommended.

Great book, I took it on a trip and just couldn't put it down.

I just finished the book. I love the story, how it is told through the eyes of a beautiful [..] girl that is so innocent, loving and caring and always happy and making people smile. It made me laugh, it made me cry. I loved how she becomes a celebrity in the village of Tiville through her writing. I like Moun the dog, he's a great hero and I loved how he gets rewarded. I loved Claire for being so sweet. I was filled with every emotion while reading this story.

I was so impressed by the way Marcum is able to keep his poems accessible and conversational, intimate and complicated, formal and engaged. This is one of the best books I've had the pleasure to read in months.

Marcum uses magic realism, gritty lies, prayer and confession to propel this book of poems. And make no mistake, this is a book--a narrative thread moves througout the work--and not just a random collection of poems.

The voice of this poet is always true, even and musical. He moves in and through Spanish and English, between borders and bodies, along highways and pool halls. I especially appreciate his constant engagement with the political acts of self and language--it is evident that Marcum knows the responsibility of the poet, he stares it down, bears witness and finds himself singing. His "I am Joaquin," "Dreaming Pancho Villa," is both vital and fresh in the American Chicano tradition of the identity poem.

A truly remarkable debut. I'm keeping my eye out for his reading tour.

Do yourself a favor and buy this book. Cue Lazarus marks the debut of a vital new poet, one who has already hit his stride. Marcum mines the richness of his mixed identity (he is the son of a Mexican woman and an Anglo man), often weaving Spanish together with English to create the basic material of his art. His poetry plunges through a network of blurred boundaries to explore fundamental human predicaments. But while Marcum explicitly roots his art in an imaginative construction of the Mexican-American experience, he slyly lays claim to a wider cultural tradition. He moves through the souls of Ezra Pound, Jay Gatsby, and Marc Antony with the same command as those of Pancho Villa, his friends, his relatives, and his many selves. William Carlos Williams famously insists that the universal exists in the particular. Carl Marcum shines intense light on particular moments of particular lives and, in the process, achieves more than a thousand volumes of presumptuous generalizations. He straddles the fault line of self-knowledge, a vantage point that offers precious insight. Cue Lazarus is a pure pleasure.

"Cue Lazarus" is a book of poetry for people who hate poetry; "Cue Lazarus" is a book of poetry for people who love poetry. It is a book filled both with stories and sensations, celebration and criticism, hope and despair. Carl Marcum tells the story of a self becoming aware of the world around him and his own power and responsibility to interpret that world.

Beginning in "a seventy-seven Pinto / [on] an eastbound freeway" in the southwest and ending in a Philadelphia train station, this book is truly a journey. In between is death, love, cigarettes, bourbon, pool, road signs, fairy tales, coffee and pie, breakfast, and angels. And yet, from this amalgam emerges a voice, strong and true, sometimes wryly amused, always passionately engaged.

These poems are subtly wrought, the often politically-charged content cleverly concealed beneath the lyricism of the language. But make no mistake, everything in this book is an act of both personal and political identity. The most obvious instance, "Cuando El Presidente visito a mi pueblo," claims this blatantly propagandist moment as an intensely personal experience. Other poems achieve the same goal by positioning the speaker on a very literal border between selves, between languages, between cultures.

"Cue Lazarus" is not just an astonishing first book of poems, it is an astonishing book. These are poems not just for the sake of poetry, but present things that can only be said as poems.

Thirteen-year-old Cesa de Haro lives and breathes the vast and beautiful Rancho del Valle de la Madrugada where she lives grandly with her father, brothers, grandmother and their many servants. Her mother has died eight years before and Cesa has since grown up as a proud, pampered and head-strong child who both chafes at the limitations imposed on women in her culture and experiences her budding sexuality for the first time.

Mexico has lost the war of 1846 to the United States and history soon overshadows Cesa's personal concerns. Her beloved California now belongs now to the crass Americanos who invade her once-secure Rancho. greedy for land, gold and contemptuous of Cesa, her people and the culture of all Californios. A strong and moving coming of age story with a defiant Californio heroine who discovers her interior power as her outer world changes forever.

What a compelling read this was! Cessa, the thirteen-year old protagonist, is a feisty, engaging character on the cusp of womanhood and resisting it mightily. The Gold Rush era and the Mexican-American War provide a thrilling backdrop to this story of change, both natural and forced. Buy this book today, and settle back for a rich, lyrical read that rewards readers of any age. And whatever you do, don't miss the scene with the Grizzly Bear!

This is a part of California history they never taught us in school. Frances Wood takes her young readers to a time, a place and a culture they might otherwise have missed completely. Cesa is the spunky daughter in an aristocratic Mexican family in what will become California, USA. She's grown up in a world of wealth and privilege, fully expecting her life to remain that way. She learns otherwise when the rude, smelly Americans show up, with golden expectations of their own. Madrugada means dawn -- and that's what this is, the dawn of a new era in California, in Mexico, and in the life of this very appealing heroine. The story will tug your heart.

Delfino's Journey begins in an Aztec village in southern Mexico. After he and his slow-witted but intuitive cousin Salvador almost drown crossing the Rio Grande and are tricked into a slave camp in Texas, they eventually escape and make their way to Houston where they find jobs, solve a murder, and help bring about the closing of the slave labor camp. Finally, Delfino is able to send money to his pregnant sister in Mexico and faces a brighter future. The author incorporates Aztec mythology with realistic situations that illegal immigrants often face into a believable story that can be read on several levels and offers much food for thought about intelligence, languages, exploitation of immigrant workers, and Aztec philosophy and mythology.

A new title about the im migrant experience, Delfino's Journey (Texas Tech University Press...) by Jo Harper, tells the contemporary story of a 14-year- old Indian boy's desperate excursion across the Rio Grande to earn money so his weak, pregnant sister in Mexico can get medical help. Delfino's impatience contributes to his becoming the victim of a slave-camp operation in Texas. Although the slavery issue seems to stretch reality, this exciting and suspenseful novel weaves Aztec legend and values with current issues of illegal entry into the United States. Young readers will love the tension.

--Barbara Samuels is co-director of the Greater Houston Area Writing Project and a consultant with the Rice School Writing Project.

I have to admit, (embarassed) that I did not read the book, but got it for two 4th grade, high ability reading circles. The students LOVED this book and were deeply moved by the theme and story. Their conversations about immigration - legal and illegal - were very thoughtful. Ten year olds cannot typically embrace the complexity of any argument, but the difficulty of resolving issues of immigration were not lost on them. On behalf of their recommendations, I also recommend this book.

This is the story of a boy growing up with little, but always yearning for more and eventually achieving his goals. In a sense a modern ethnic Horatio Alger story, but with cultural respect as the goal rather than financial success. The book was definitely a page-turner, Dionicio had quite a childhood and I always wanted to know the next anecdote that would come out. At the same time, I was shocked at how my country has treated those we consider less desirable.

Being biracial I look like a typical white American, and hence have no experiences of such discrimination. However, I have often wondered about what discrimination my father may have gone through, or especially what my father's parents went through when they were new Mexican immigrants to California. This is sure to be a topic of conversation next time I meet the grandparents.

I think is a great book that tells the struggles of Mexican American family emigrating to the United States. It is a great source of information for people like me, who would like to learn more about another culture. The struggle and the rewards, the suffering and the satisfaction that the author goes through is compelling.

Reading this book made me feel like I was sitting around the campfire, listening to my grandfather tell about the old days. It tells about the struggles of a family leaving Mexico during the revolution in search of a better life in the United States. I especially found it interesting since I live in the Los Angeles area because you learn a lot of history about the area. It is very fast, easy reading and hard to put down. It's a great story to read at any age.

My daughters love Dora. They learn so much from the TV show and books.

This is a great "Dora" story book, and it's a bit more lengthy than a lot of these books.

It's Friendship Day! On Friendship Day friends around the world have parties and wear special friendship bracelets. The problem is, sneaky Swiper has been swiping friendship bracelets from all over the world!

Dora's World Adventure follows Dora, Boots, Diego, and Swiper the Fox to four locations: the Eiffel Tower in France, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the Winter Palace in Russia, and the Great Wall of China.

In each country, Dora interacts with various friends, saying "hello" in the native tongue. For example, when in Tanzania, Dora meets up with her friend N'Dari; in that country, "jambo" means hello.

Dora's World Adventure is an excellent book for introducing children to world geography and world cultures. My son has been asking about the various countries, relating various cultural aspects and landmarks that he learned from the book.

In the back of the book is a perforated glow-in-the-dark bracelet that your child can wear, which is a nice added touch.

My son also also has the CD-ROM game of the same name, which is also very good.

I love these books they make reading and learning Spanish fun. My little one likes all the bright colors and the illustrations.

I loved this book! It took me through the Spanish alphabet connecting each letter to a Spanish word in a sentence dominated by English words. In the very front of the book is a glossary of Spanish words used in the book.

Although the book helps the reader learn a little Spanish as well as English, it has a little story behind it. The setting is a kid's birthday party and what happens at such an event. The text is very good and the illustrations were a joy to look at.

I would have liked the book better if the "birthday kid" had been introduced at the beginning and we had learned a few things about him (or her) by reading the book. We never do get to put a name on the birthday kid in this book. 5 stars!

I teach in a preschool classroom made up of 50% English speakers and 50% Spanish speakers. I love using this book in my classroom because it ties in the Spanish culture and both the English and Spanish language. My English speakers feel special because they are learning to say some Spanish words, and my Spanish speaking children feel comfortable hearing words that are familiar to them. All the while we are having an open dialouge about the letters of the alphabet!

The photography, a careful mixture of historical, documentary and portraiture, makes this book a pleasure for even the casual baseball fan. When this photography is combined with the story of Latino players in the major leagues, it creates a book for anyone interested in a modern story of struggle and success.

The beautiful photos and insightful text are a real tribute to the players from Latin America who have so enhanced Major League Baseball.

Incredible photographs. Precise narrative. This book will be a hit for baseball fans of all ages. I especially liked the timeline in the back.

It's an excellent book, it proves that there is great love amongst grandkids and grandparents. Something not everyone has.

The first half of this book has some humorous interactions between Diego and his sister which draw in and entertain children. The second half of the book draws in adults, causing them to feel both the sadness of missing a far-off relative and the joy of reuniting with them. Without ever saying "I love you," both Diego and his grandfather teach us in a few short words that love between family members is what really matters, and can transcend all barriers. When Little Diego finally gets to see Papa Diego, it is the best day of his life.

Even though it is long for a picture book, A Gift From Papa Diego can be read aloud by an adult in as little as 20 minutes. If your story time is shorter than that, breaking it into segments is easy. There are several logical stopping places that provide suspense for the next reading session. A wonderful story and excellent bilingual text in side-by-side format!

The book tells the story of a young boy living in El Paso,Tx who misses his beloved grandfather who lives across the border in Chihuahua,Mexico. This book touches the heart as few others do. It is both touching and funny. My students loved its message that the best gifts are those from the heart. It was great to have a story set in their own hometown! The illustrator's use of clay really awed my students and encouraged them to try it instead of drawing. They thought the 3-dimensional aspects brought the characters to life!

Having lost an older copy of this wonderfully illustrated book, I ordered the paperback, only to be disapointed by the xerox quality of the drawings. This book deserves the hardbound format because the artwork is exceptionally authentic. The poorly copied paperback is not worthy.

This little book, intended for children, shows readers of all ages how an abobe home is built, and what all the components are, including a glossary as you go along. Great little book. All children interested in world cultures should read this book.

An educational book for adults and children about the architectural aspects of Adobe construction and SW culture with correct names, pronunciations and explainations of terms such as latillas, santos, luminairas and nichos. It is a description of a real adobe dollhouse in New Mexico. It is a great educational experience.