Linda Illsley

This book features the food and cultural practices associated with many Mexican holidays, including family celebrations, Easter, Día de los Muertos, and Christmas. Each of these sections are organized into a different chapter, and a table of contents in the beginning of the book allows the reader to easily flip to relevant material, which in this case is the chapter on Día de los Muertos. This book uses photographs to show how the fiesta is celebrated in contemporary Mexico. It describes how the planning takes place up to months ahead of time, and how people celebrate the holiday by cleaning up the graves, and setting up personal altars at home. It then uses photographs to detail sugar skulls and salsa, and then illustrated drawings to depict how to make salsa, step-by-step. This child-friendly illustrated recipe with a list of ingredients and equipment is very helpful. The book has a glossary of Spanish words from the book, a bibliography of other related books to read, and an index. This book contrasts various Mexican holidays to others, and gives the perfect amount of information on Mexican holidays for a student in the upper grades of elementary school.… (más)