In My Family

Lomas Garza, C. (1996). In My Family. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press.

In My Family is a collection of short snippets of memories the author has of her life as a young girl. These recollections include watching her grandfather clean nopalitos, barbecues to celebrated birthdays, and how her family would prepare for a wedding. Each story is told in Enlish and translated into Spanish. 

This book would be beneficial to have in a bilingual class room. English language learners that speak Spanish can practice their English language reading fluency. In any classroom, this book would be good mentor text to discuss writing down memories, or journaling.  Students can see how  you could just start with a memory and expound upon that to write a memoir. 

I also believe this book is a good example to show another cultural present our country. Students can see how a family different from their's prepare for events like Easter and weddings. They then can compare it to how their family celebrates the same event. An awareness that our country is multicultural but still has common beliefs is important to teach in classrooms today.

The illustrations are all paintings by Carmen Lomas Garza too. There seem to be more details in the paintings than in some of her recollections. In fact some of her writings is just explaining what she put in the picture. They are not all written in narrative form.