This book is about the memories about Carmen Lomas in Mexico with her family.
She described some activities that she did and other special festivities in her town.
This book is bilingual.

culture, family, Spanish

In My Family / En Mi Familia written by Carmen Lomas Garza is a story that shows her hometown and traditions through the use of various artworks and paintings. Carmen is Mexican American and she describes how it was growing up and the different things she did growing up with her family. What I enjoyed about this book is that this book is both in English and in Spanish, and this would help an ELL student. This book would work great as a way to show students different cultures and customs of the different families, and students who may come from the same background would feel very included when reading this. This could work great in a middle school classroom where students are asked to compare their customs where they would find any similarities or differences. I enjoyed all the artwork the story had and I would recommend it to others! ( )

Carmen Lomas Garza takes us to her hometown of Kingsville, Texas, and through vibrant paintings and personal stories, Carmen brings to life loving memories of growing up in a traditional Mexican American community: eating empanadas, witnessing the blessing on her cousin’s wedding day, and dancing to the conjunto band at the neighborhood restaurant. Each page tells a little bit about the author's family customs while incorporating bilingual text and integrating Spanish vocabulary into the English text as well. Librarians and teachers can have middle school students read this book and incorporate a lesson about compare and contrast by discussing the differences between their own cultures and the Latino culture, especially the differences in their families and their traditions. ( )

I enjoyed this book because it was very different than other books I've read in the sense that the writer was more focused on the art in the book. The language was very clear because on each page, she described each piece of artwork that she created. Each piece of artwork was clearly explained, by giving a description of the specific memory/tradition that the painting was based off of. The illustrations were extremely engaging in the book because the writing was describing why the artwork was created. The book focused mainly on the artwork. I also like that the book was multilingual. It described the artwork in English and then described it in Spanish below. The author brought her culture into the book not only through artwork, but through her language. ( )