Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems / Jitomates Risuenos y otros poemas de primavera - Hardcover

Alarcon, Francisco X.; Gonzalez, Maya Christina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0892391391 ISBN 13: 9780892391394

Publisher: Children's Book Press, 1997

Synopsis

Tomatoes laugh, chiles explode, and tortillas applaud the sun in this playful and moving collection of twenty English and Spanish poems written in honor of the wonders of life and nature.

About this title

About the Author

Francisco X. Alarcon is an award-winning poet and educator. His acclaimed first book of poetry for children, Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems, received the National Parenting Publications Gold Medal Award and a Pura Belpre Honor Award from the American Library Association. The author of eight collections of poetry, Alarcon lives and teaches in Davis, California.

Maya Christina Gonzalez is a painter and graphic artist. Her artwork for her first award-winning collaboration with Francisco X. Alarcon, Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems, has been praised by reviewers as "upbeat," "innovative," and "so bountiful it feels as if it's spilling off the pages." Gonzalez lives and frolics in San Francisco, California.

Reviews

Kindergarten-Grade 5?Coming out in the same season as Alma Flor Ada's Gathering the Sun (Lothrop, 1997), Tomatoes faces some stiff competition. Nonetheless, this collection of verses in English and Spanish, illustrated with bold, primitive paintings, carves a lighthearted niche all its own. Most of the poems are short, but even the longer ones are composed of telegraphic one- and two-syllable lines. The effect is that of quick snapshots of moments in life. The subjects?food, weather, plants, dreams?are all familiar ones. The selections scan equally well in English and in Spanish. This is an excellent teaching tool for units on poetry composition and on colorful use of language. Of special utility in bilingual classrooms, this book provides an amusing way to explore the same ideas in two languages. For more depth in both poem content and artwork, Gathering the Sun is clearly superior, but the books complement each other well. Both are good introductions to the serious and involved poetry of Lori Carlson's Cool Salsa (Holt, 1994), which is more issue oriented and challenging.?Ann Welton, Terminal Park Elementary School, Auburn, WA
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An energetic cast of characters in 20 short, freely styled poems in both English and Spanish help readers ``see everything for the first time.'' ``My Grandma's Songs'' ``would follow/the beat of/the washing machine'' and ``could turn/my grandma/into a young girl.'' The laughing tomatoes turn their ``wire- framed/bushes/into/Christmas trees/in spring,'' shown in a spread in which wedged into the smiling mouths of children and pets are, somewhat astonishingly, slices of heavily seeded tomato. With vibrantly stylized illustrations, this lively gathering carries an invitation from Alarc¢n to ``make these poems yours'' by reading them, words followed by the final short poem--``there are no endings/just new beginnings.'' An accessible, open-hearted collection. (Picture book/poetry. 4-9) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 5-8. This bilingual collection of poems by Chicano poet Alarcon celebrates spring and the fruits of family and sunshine. As with "Chile / El chile" ("sometimes / a bite is all it takes / for a supernova / to explode"), the poems are short and simple imagistic reflections exuberantly expanded by Gonzalez in colorful double-page illustrations featuring Latino children and a grandmother frolicking with playful pets beneath a smiling sun. Picture-book poetry for collections seeking Latino literature or just a burst of California sunshine. Annie Ayres

Edition details

• Publisher: Children's Book Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0892391391
• ISBN 13: 9780892391394
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 32