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Searching... MCML Central Library - Conroe | Juvenile Books, circulating | E Sot | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Being a flower girl has never been so exciting.
Meet Maya, Isabel's flower girl, as she describes in vivid detail the exciting wedding day. Maya introduces us to Danny, the ring bearer; Aunt Marta, crying big tears; Uncle Trino, jump-starting a car in his tuxedo; and Rafael, the groom, with a cast on his arm. Of course, the big day also includes games, dancing, cake, and a mariachi band that plays long into an evening no one will ever forget.
Snapshots from the Wedding captures the unique moments of a special occasion--the big scenes as well as the little ones--that together form a rich family mosaic.
Notes
Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952, and raised in Fresno California. He graduated from Roosevelt High School and attended Fresno City College, graduating in 1974 with an English degree. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including The Nation, Plouqhshares, The Iowa Review, Ontario Review and Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in Poets in Person. He is one of the youngest poets to appear in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.
Soto has received the Discovery-The Nation Prize, the U.S. Award of the International Poetry Forum, The California Library Association's John and Patricia Beatty Award twice, a Recogniton of Merit from the Claremont Graduate School for Baseball in April, the Silver Medal from The Commonwealth Club of California, and the Tomás Rivera Prize, in addition to fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts twice, and the California Arts Council.
For ITVS, he produced the film The Pool Party, which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal. Soto wrote the libretto for an opera titled Nerd-landia for the The Los Angeles Opera. In 1999 he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes. He serves as Young People's Ambassador for the California Rural Legal Assistance and the United Farm Workers of America.
Soto is the author of ten poetry collections for adults, with New and Selected Poems a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His recollections Living Up the Street received a Before Columbus Foundation 1985 American Book Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5Soto's picture book provides a glimpse into an American cultural traditiona wedding with a Hispanic flair. Maya, the narrator, is a flower girl. Mariachi musicians provide the music, and for dinner the family and friends eat pollo con mole. There is a glossary for the handful of Spanish terms sprinkled throughout the text. Garcia's illustrations are wonderful. Sculpy clay figures are dressed up and carefully arranged in a wooden shadow box frame, and each page is set on a background of pastel with lace. Quirky tidbits sneak into the text and picturesTío Juan itches in his new shirt, Maya sticks black olives on her fingertipsthese details give the narration the quality of childlike observation. The language at other times is quite sophisticated. Children who have been involved in a family wedding will easily draw comparisons to this story.Sharon R. Pearce, San Antonio Public Library, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Photographs of shadowboxes filled with sculpted clay figures form the eye-catching art for Soto's "diary" of Maya, a flower girl. The text, sprinkled with Spanish words, is eloquent and funny (a bride's hands are "soft as doves"; a cousin wiggles his tongue "in the space between his baby teeth, white as Chiclets")-and it deftly captures the flavor of a Latino wedding, complete with mariachi band. Garcia's singular, deliciously creative artwork steals the show here, however. More playful than the dioramas she composed for The Old Lady and the Birds, these lifelike, three-dimensional scenes serve as an elaborate stage set. Readers will be enthralled by Garcia's use of details, from the "actors" and "actresses" decked out in wedding finery to the garlanded ribbons festooned across the shadowboxes to the objects that enhance each scene (tiny silk flowers in the bride's bouquet; potato chips on the buffet table). Using Soto's words as a springboard, Garcia tweaks the perspective, offering a legs-and-feet-only view, for instance, of a scene in which Maya describes the younger wedding guests' "shoes off" romp down the hallway (complete with authentically dusty soles of socks). Another "snapshot" shows a pair of sculpted hands holding a plate with a flower-topped slice of wedding cake. A happy marriage of talents. Ages 4-8. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved