From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 14:46:30 -0600

Let's discuss commended books by Latino writers by beginning with Laughing Tomatoes. A good start for the week because it's spring poetry, and spring is almost here (isn't it?).

Here's what Megan Schliesman wrote in CCBC Choices 1997:
"A poem makes us see everything for the first time." Francisco Alarcon's epigraph to his vibrant picture book collection of 20 original poems holds the promise of discovery. Young readers will not be disappointed at what they find - poems that reminisce, delight, and surprise. Some of the poems, like "Other Voices," "Strawberries," and "Chiles," are a mere handful of word, drops of water forming a small pool that reflects everyday items and occurrences in new and exciting ways. Other poems, like "My Grandmother's Songs," are a cascade of memories and observations as seen through the poet's passionate and exacting eye ("My grandmother's songs / ... consoling / the chairs placed / upside down / delighting / the family portraits / on the walls"). Some of the poems were written originally in Spanish and others in English. All are presented in both languages and paired with Maya Christina Gonzalez's colorful artwork - imaginative, interpretive paintings that will conjure up a laugh, a smile, a moment (or more) of contemplation, just as the poems do.

Who has seen this book? Who has read any of these poems with a child? with children? Want to comment on the Latino substance of these poems? on the illustrations?

Please join in... Cheers, Ginny Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison
(www.soemadison.wisc.edu/ccbc/)
Received on Mon 16 Mar 1998 02:46:30 PM CST