Tortillas and Lullabies/Tortillas Y Cancioncitas: Bilingual English-Spanish

The book is lovely. The pictures are very colorful and unique. My 5 year old daughter wants me to read this book to her daily.

The author writes with ease of deeds performed by one generation after another, the text of the story written in the language of love, as each tends to the needs of the next, passing along ritual and tradition from great-grandmother to grandmother to mother to daughter. No matter what the effort, making tortillas, gathering flowers, washing dresses, or singing lullabies: "Each time it was the same, but different." Accompanied with the simple, yet profound bilingual text, the artwork is striking, memorable for its vivid color and imagination, all the images created by a group of artists, the "Corazones Valientes" ("Valiant Hearts"), six women from nineteen to forty-two who first showed their exhibit of art in a Puerto Rican farming village from 1989-1992. Supplemented by the striking artwork, the generational concept is beautifully rendered, this oversized gem a treasure, either teaching a youngster the nature of familial love or for those adults who are never too old to appreciate the uncompromising beauty of gifted artists in support of a universal theme. An elegant, stunning picture book with bilingual text, this tale is for young and old alike. Luan Gaines/2006.