Too Many Tamales- Multi Cultural

Title: Too Many Tamales

Author: Gary Soto

Illustrator: Ed Martinez

Stars: 5 out of 5

Summary: A girl named Maria helps her mom make Tamales on Christmas. Maria things she cooks her mothers wedding ring into the tamales. After eating all of the tamales and failing to find the ring, Maria confronts her mother only to find out her mother is wearing the ring.

What a beautiful holiday story. I love the way Soto brings together Mexican culture and the Christmas Holiday. He weaves in the Christmas season with talk about Christmas trees and lights and pictures of a holiday party. We also get a sense of the Spanish culture with words such as tamales, masa, and nina. I love the fact that the little girl is starting to feel grown up because she is helping her mom and wearing her mom’s apron. I can remember feeling exactly the same way when I was a little girl helping my mom cook. I can also remember how much I would stare at her ring and wish that she would let me wear it just for a little while. I guess its best that she never did because I probably would have done something very similar to Maria. I think that Soto does a great job of showing us how this family has decided to make their culture part of the holiday tradition. Throughout the story we get the sense that the tamales are a pivotal part of the tradition, especially at the end of the story after the kids have eaten all of the tamales and Rosa says that it looks like it’s time to make another batch of tamales. I love the way Soto mentions how the ring slid off Maria’s finger and into the dough however Maria doesn’t seem to notice it until she is upstairs with the other children. This is so typical of a young child to not realize what is going on until it is too late. We can really feel for Maria when she discovers what a big mistake she has made. I think this would be a great book to use in the class room to introduce a discussion on family traditions around the holiday seasons. After reading this story the teacher could have students write or talk about different things that their family does that represents their culture.