Product Description

"Why don t you make some rangoli designs?" Leela suggested. Romina closed her eyes and pictured the intricate patterns and symmetrical designs she liked to draw on the sidewalk with colored chalks, or make by arranging different-colored flower petals on the front porch. Then she opened her eyes and shook her head. "No, Leela, I can t," she said. "Rangoli is from India. And half of our family is from Mexico." Romina's class is learning about immigrants, and she must make a project that represents the culture that her family comes from for the school open house next week. But Romina has a problem: her father is from India, and her mother is from Mexico. How can she come up with one project that represents both cultures? Each member of the family tries to help Romina with her dilemma by giving her information and ideas from each culture, but it is her neighbor, Mr. Gonzales, who inspires Romina to think of the perfect project. Using Mexican papel picado papercutting techniques, she creates an Indian rangoli floor design that she can bring school. The result is a beautiful and artistic blend of traditional arts that is both Indian and Mexican just like her.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1038259 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

About the Author
Malathi Michelle Iyengar is a first grade teacher working in a dual-language public school program in Southern California. She grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Malathi lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband, Ryan, and their daughter Sanjana. Jennifer Wanardi is a freelance illustrator / designer who was born and currently lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. She graduated from the Illustration department of California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2006. Ever since her early days, Jennifer has always been interested in fairy tales and children s stories. Much of her artistic inspiration comes from Japanese-style comic books (manga) and animated films (anime) and other artists as well.

Customer Reviews

A welcome addition for multicultural book collections
This is a very nicely crafted story about a young American girl, Romina, whose father is from India and whose mother is from Mexico. Romina is given a school assignment to create a project that represents her heritage, an easy task maybe for students that have a single cultural background, but since Romina is of mixed cultures she struggles with what to do for her project. No matter what she chooses she leaves out either one side of her family or the other. As she asks family members for help she begins to discover common bonds and similarities between the cultures. Finally she comes up with a project that combines a traditional Indian art form with a traditional Mexican art technique to create a project that is both a combination of cultures and a unique expression - just like the protagonist herself.

Given that in the last census almost 20% of the U.S. population identified themselves as being mixed ethnicity or mixed ancestry, this book is very timely and true to life. It is somewhat aggravating that with all of the hundreds of "multicultural" picture books being published, almost all focus on cultural or racial roots being singular (i.e. the African-American experience, the Mexican-American experience, the Japanese experience...). Romina's Rangoli is a welcome and realistic exception given how diverse a population we have -- it is a shame there are not more picture books like this that address the needs of bi-cultural or multi-cultural families.

The book lends itself well to the classroom also. I currently use it in several lesson plans about cultural similarities (which leads to lessons on tolerance), family trees, and multiculturalism. I have had many students that respond extremely well to it, they light up and get excited about the opportunity to say that they are not just of one culture or race (I have one student that just used to identify himself as African-American and now he proudly explains that he is African-American and Caribbean-American. Another student is Irish and Swedish, another Guatemalan and Native American, and many others - about half of my class actually!) which has lead to some great discussions, connections, and projects.

The book also has well written author's notes that describe the traditional Indian art form called Rangoli and the Mexican art form of papel picado that are featured in the storyline and that the main character utilizes as a starting point to create her own unique bicultural expression.

Highly recommended.

Kids in grades 4-8 will relish this story of a girl's search for cultural expression
Romina's class is learning about immigrants and she must make a project that represents the culture her family comes from - but her father is from India and her mother is from Mexico. How can just one project blend both cultures? Family members offer up ideas from each culture - but it's her neighbor who inspires Romina to think of the perfect project for both. Kids in grades 4-8 will relish this story of a girl's search for cultural expression, and will appreciate the warm drawings by Jennifer Wanardi.