Product Description

Family Pictures is the story of Carmen Lomas Garza's girlhood: celebrating birthdays, making tamales, finding a hammerhead shark on the beach, picking cactus, going to a fair in Mexico, and confiding to her sister her dreams of becoming an artist. These day-to-day experiences are told through fourteen vignettes of art and a descriptive narrative, each focusing on a different aspect of traditional Mexican American culture.

The English-Spanish text and vivid illustrations reflect the author's strong sense of family and community. For Mexican Americans, Carmen Lomas Garza offers a book that reflects their lives and traditions. For others, this work offers insights into a beautifully rich community.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #243968 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-10
• Original language: Spanish
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Today, with her family's continuous support, courage and dedication, Carmen Garza's hopes for a brilliant future as an artist have become a reality. In gratitude to those who helped her achieve this goal, Mexican-American Garza has generously afforded readers a glimpse of her cherished childhood in a poor rural Hispanic community. Her daily activities and fond memories are related in paintings that celebrate birthdays, making tamales and finding a hammerhead shark on the beach. The vibrant, canvaslike illustrations, accentuated with "papel picado"--images on the text pages--evoke powerful feelings of Garza's love for family and community despite the hardships she encountered while growing up. Readers of various ethnic origins should use this exemplary bilingual book as a litmus test for exploring diversities of multicultural lifestyles; Family Pictures will shed some much-needed light on society's cultural barriers. Ages 6-12.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4-- An inspired celebration of American cultural diversity in English and Spanish. Lomas Garza presents a charming series of paintings while relating remembrances of her childhood in Kingsville, Texas, near the Mexican border. The brilliantly colored images teem with life and exude the glow of nostalgia. Lomas Garza's vignettes are similar in their primitive folk style to those of Grandma Moses. Whether it's the family eating watermelon on the porch, Grandfather taking a skinned rabbit into the kitchen for dinner, or a dead hammerhead shark on the beach, each moment is fully captured in all its freshness and immediacy. The English text is simple and reads smoothly, but it is Zubizarreta's Spanish rendition that has real verve and style. From the exquisite cut-paper images on the text pages, to the brilliant paintings, to the strong family bonds expressed in the text, Family Pictures/Cuadros de familia is a visual feast, and an aural delight. --Ann Welton, University Child Development School, Seattle
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
This is the illustrator and storyteller's bilingual memoir of growing up in Texas, fully immersed in her family's Mexican traditions. The illustrations are painted in a flat, naïve style, bringing out the details of celebrations and everyday activities from cakewalk scholarship fundraisers to visits from the curandera to eating watermelon on the porch on a hot summer evening. There is always a mix of ages and generations, emphasizing activities all members of a family enjoy in their own ways. Lomas Garza explains the paintings, supplying additional information, making this book an introduction to the artistic process as well as a family history.

Reviewed by Ina Rimpau, Parents' Choice® 2000 -- From Parents' Choice®

Customer Reviews

Cuadros de familia
This book is a must have for ALL classrooms, but especially Bilingual and Dual Language Classrooms! I use it all year long! My students LOVE it so much that I bought them each their own copy for Día del niño this year. We use it as a writing prompt, they connect text to self and compare and contrast. The illustrations are beautiful. This year we used it for our yearly diorama project. Instead of the children choosing random books to do a diorama on, they chose the cuadro that most spoke to them and their family experience, and did their diorama on that. They also did a beautiful piece of polished writing comparing a family memory with that cuadro. This is my favorite book to use in the classroom, and many adults love to receive it as a gift as well. It brings back beautiful memories to all ages. This is truly a treasure. I cannot reccomend it highly enough! It is also great to leave for a substitute because it is bilingual and you know you cannot count on all subs speaking Spanish! The students never get tired of reading it or writing about it!

A MUST BUY!

A great story about a family being together.
I like it because the illustration are great beacause the family is together. I like how she is an arthor and illustrator and I also liked that family pictures is her favorite book. I like her writing because it is clear and good and there are no mistakes. I reccommend this book to other kids.

Wonderful piece!
Family Pictures is an excellent example of an autobiographical as well as multicultural book written for children from kindergarten through fourth grade. Lomas Garza covers a short period of her own childhood and the social life and customs of Hispanic Americans. The reader's attention is held by the detailed illustrations done in a variety of materials including oil on canvas, acrylic on canvas, and gouache on arches paper. While children will be drawn by the wonderful paintings, they will be learning a great deal about the Hispanic culture.