Too Many TAMALES

Soto, G. (1993). Too Many TAMALES. N.p.: The Putnam & Grosset Group.

This book is about a girl and her family who makes tamales. While they are making tamales, Maria wears her mother's ring that she places on the table. Later on that evening when Maria's relatives come, Maria realizes the ring is missing. All the children eat all the tamales in hopes to find the ring, but they could not. Maria admits to her mom, but then realizes the mom is wearing the ring. So, all of the relatives make a new batch of Tamales together since they had eaten them all!

This book is a wonderful read. The book is free from stereotypes and gives a good representation of Mexican-American as related to the topic of tamales. For example, the book even tells you a little about how the tamales are made which could make children very interested in creating some themselves. The book's illustrations represent the Mexican culture very well- and the wording the author chooses to describe is an accurate representation.

The book is high-quality literature for many reasons. The books gives a glimpse about Mexican culture, accurately portraying a day in their lives- and the book allows us to learn several different principles.

If I were to use this in class, I would use it as a read-aloud and then have students create pictures of a time they might have had similar to Maria when she lost her mother's ring and then write about how they felt in a few sentences on their picture.

Literary Elements:

Setting: Mexican's Family House, Togetherness, Christmas Time
Character: Mischievous, Loving, Admirable, Honest, Problem-Solving
Tone: Troublesome

Lexile: 670L