Maya's Children: The Story of La Llorona

Rudolfo A. Anaya's wonderful re-telling of the familiar folktale is just in time for the begining of Hisapanic Awareness Month, and is a perfect prelude to the Halloween season.I used this book as a "read-aloud" book for my 7th graders and they were mesmerized by the story and the beautiful illustrations. This book helped my students understand perspective, mood, setting and other literary terms. There was some discussion about the different men that helped Maya, the title character, create her children, but the fact that she was the immortal daughter of the sun god, and had her children over a span of time made Maya, "La Llorona" more plausible to them. This book provided the impetus for genuine discussion among my students, and left them yearning to read more of Mr. Anaya's work.

I read this book when I was pregnant with my daughter, and was, in fact, considering naming her Maya before I read this book. The story offers a very mystical and beautiful stance to the legend of La Llorona, and, although somewhat haunting, the pictures really emphasized the message that the story was trying to convey.