FRIDA KAHLO AND HER ANIMALITOS by Monica Brown

Several years ago, Monica Brown visited our school. The visit came as a surprise-- I got a phone call asking if we would be interested in having a bilingual children's author read aloud to our second graders. Of course we would! And that's how I became acquainted with Monica Brown, author of MARISOL MCDONALD DOESN'T MATCH/MARISOL McDONALD NO COMBINA. Monica is the author of many books, including WAITING FOR BIBLIOBURRO, TITO PUENTO: MAMBO KING, and PELE: EL REY DE FÚTBOL. I will always remember her, though, for how kind and inspiring she was with our second graders. My school's population is about 65% English Language Learners, and Brown talked about her own childhood, and about going to college, and becoming a university professor and then a children's author. At the end, she signed a book for each child. It was a magical time.

Brown's most recent picture book biography, FRIDA KAHLO AND HER ANIMALITOS was nominated for this year's CYBILS. In an author's note, Monica Brown says, "I've always been intrigued by Frida's relationships to her animal companions. Although she didn't get her most famous pets until she was an adult, I chose to write about Frida's animalitos as a way of highlighting Frida's magical creativity-- her strength, her sense of adventure, her indomitable spirit- throughout her life. What insights do her beloved animals tell us about the young Frida? It was an hour to use lo real maravilloso (the marvelous real) to imagine just that."

Kahlo owned many pets, including monkeys, dogs, turkeys, an eagle, a black cat, and a fawn, and Monica Brown uses those pets to tell Kahlo's story.

Frida had a parrot named Bonito. Like her parrot, Frida was colorful. She liked to wear bold shades that celebrated indigenous Mexico and her own heritage. She lived in a house the color of a bright blue feather- La Casa Azul- where she grew up with her mom, dad, and sisters. 

Brown's use of animals makes a really complex artist much more accessible to young children. The book could also be a mentor text for students who are interested in biography.

And you can't really talk about a picture book without mentioning the illustrator. Maybe it's enough to say that earlier this week,  ANIMALITOS won a Pura Belpre Honor award for illustrations.

RETURN TO SENDER- Julia Alvarez

Tyler Paquette is an eleven-year-old boy, growing up on his family's dairy farm in Vermont. When his father is seriously injured in a tractor accident, the family is faced with hiring extra help or losing their farm. They hire three Mexican workers, who move into a trailer on the Paquette farm. One of the men has three daughters. Mari, the oldest, is about Tyler's age and the two children soon become friends.

Although the workers are a godsend in keeping the Paquette family farm afloat, there are many questions. First, and most pressing, although the workers have papers, no one is convinced that they are in the United States legally. Will "La Migra" (Homeland Security) come and take them away?Secondly, Mari's mom left for Mexico to visit her sick mother in  a year before and never returned. Where has she gone? Is she still alive? Finally, there are issues of culture and language. Mari writes about these issues, and others surrounding her family through the genres of letters and diaries (I love that aspect of the book).

As someone who teaches many children whose families have immigrated from Mexico (some legally but many illegally), I learned a great deal from reading RETURN TO SENDER. I have always known that my students worry about their families being split up or sent back to Mexico. I know that their families have less to live on because they send a portion of their salaries to relatives back home in Mexico. I know that my students often go without medical or dental care because of their immigrant status. This book helped me understand these issues at a much deeper level. For those reasons, I'm really glad I discovered RETURN TO SENDER.

At the same time, I don't know very many elementary kids, even upper elementary kids, that would enjoy this book. It's a book I would try with my most advanced elementary readers, or maybe as an after school book club with some of our older girls. Or, I might just encourage students to read the book in middle school…