Bright Horizons Book Review: A young girl invites us to reflect on the lives of her great-grandmother, who cooked tortillas over a fire, and her grandmother, who cooked on a wood burning stove. Continuing that tradition today, this girl’s mother prepares tortillas on a modern stove while the girl cooks for her doll in her room. Simple customs are described in beautiful verse while enacted by each woman. This wonderful, gentle tale pays tribute to mothers and daughters, to age and youth, to love, and to enduring customs transcending ages and cultures. A first chapter book for preschoolers, the text is provided in both English and Spanish. Ages 3-8.

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Product Description

In English and in Spanish, Lynn Reiser presents the Central American companion book to her Cherry Pies and Lullabies. Again, four generations of mothers and daughters participate in family traditions-this time within a Costa Rican culture inwhich they share such things as tortilla making and flower gathering. Extraordinary folk-art painting by "Corazones Valientes," an organization of women artists in Costa Rica, accompany this universal and unforgettable story of family love.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #602572 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-14
• Released on: 1998-04-14
• Original language: Spanish
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 48 pages

From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 3?In this beautiful picture book, four everyday activities are depicted?making tortillas, gathering flowers, washing clothes, and singing a lullaby?as they are repeated by the women of a family over the last four generations. A little girl relates the simple text as her great-grandmother is shown making tortillas for her grandmother over an outdoor fire, her grandmother makes them for her mother in a farm kitchen with a cast-iron stove, her mother is shown cooking for her in a modern kitchen, and the child prepares paper tortillas for her doll on a toy stove. Each activity shares the refrain: "Every time it was the same, but different." The timeless quality of maternal love is evident throughout. Six Costa Rican women worked together to produce the striking acrylic folk-art paintings. With deeply saturated, glowing tones and a decidedly Central American style, the pictures enhance and extend the lyrical narrative, which is printed in English and in Spanish. The words and music of a traditional Spanish lullaby are appended. A lovely, nostalgic glimpse at Central American family life.?Denise E. Agosto, formerly at Midland County Public Library, TX
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Ages 3^-7. Three generations of women (and a doll) give and receive tortillas, dresses, flowers, and lullabies. "My great-grandmother made tortillas for my grandmother; my grandmother made tortillas for my mother; my mother made tortillas for me; and I made tortillas for my doll." Each chapter ends with the phrase "Every time it was the same, but different." The words appear in English at the top of each page and in Spanish at the bottom. This gently celebrates the small daily gifts that mothers and daughters exchange, and by making the girl in each picture about the same age, Reiser shows how traditions continue generation after generation. The illustrations, attributed to Corazones Valientes in the book's imprint, were actually done collaboratively by six women who live in Costa Rica. They are painted in a folk art style, in rich colors glowing with intensity. Pair this with Betsy Hearne's Seven Brave Women. Susan Dove Lempke

From Kirkus Reviews
PLB 0-688-14629-5 In a companion to Cherry Pies and Lullabies (see review, above) Reiser infuses the often mundane actions of daily life with a sense of tradition and great love in a vibrantly illustrated, bilingual picture book that captures the rhythms of life. Told from the perspective of a young girl, the story opens with her great-grandmother making tortillas for the girl's grandmother, then moves through each successive generation to the present day, as the child makes tortillas for her doll. Gathering flowers, washing clothes, and singing lullabies are the other commonplace occurrences exalted by the mantras, which always conclude, ``Every time it was the same, but different.'' Placing the English text at top of every page and the corresponding Spanish text at the bottom creates a unique border for the lush, colorful illustrations, created by a consortium of Costa Rican women known as the ``Valiant Hearts.'' The bright, richly detailed pictures are almost overwhelming as they draw readers' eyes into the lives portrayed. Elements within each picture identify the eraone dress is washed in a stream, another in a washing machineand provide children with something of a searching game for details that demonstrate the passing of time. In both books, simple phrases and gentle repetition convey the enduring nature of love and the reassuring continuity of life. (Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Customer Reviews

"This is a book about everyday love."


The author writes with ease of deeds performed by one generation after another, the text of the story written in the language of love, as each tends to the needs of the next, passing along ritual and tradition from great-grandmother to grandmother to mother to daughter. No matter what the effort, making tortillas, gathering flowers, washing dresses, or singing lullabies: "Each time it was the same, but different." Accompanied with the simple, yet profound bilingual text, the artwork is striking, memorable for its vivid color and imagination, all the images created by a group of artists, the "Corazones Valientes" ("Valiant Hearts"), six women from nineteen to forty-two who first showed their exhibit of art in a Puerto Rican farming village from 1989-1992.

Supplemented by the striking artwork, the generational concept is beautifully rendered, this oversized gem a treasure, either teaching a youngster the nature of familial love or for those adults who are never too old to appreciate the uncompromising beauty of gifted artists in support of a universal theme. An elegant, stunning picture book with bilingual text, this tale is for young and old alike. Luan Gaines/2006.

Love the story behind the story
I'll admit that at first glance this seems like a nice simple story about a mother and daughter who love each other.

But after reading an article about the writing and illustrating of this book, I found it to be so much more. I now think of it as something that truly shows cultural differences.

It seems that the author had recruited some ladies from Costa Rica to do the illustrations for this book and when it came to the cooking part, she wanted them to draw a picture of a mother taking something out of the microwave. The ladies refused to do it. "But what if the mother has been working all day and is too busy to make a real meal" she said. "Then another relative would have to make the meal" they said. It seems the argument went back and forth until the ladies gave back the money they had been given to do the project and refused to have anything else to do with it until the mother was shown making fresh tortillas and not a microwaved burrito.

I love that story and the idea that it portrays that Mothers love their daughters and want the best for them. Not something fast and easy (although we all realize that that is going to happen sometimes) but something that takes a little time and effort and shows that they truly do care for them in a special way.

That is why I love this book!